Berlin Trip!

Hello Everyone,

Happy Valentines Day! I hope that you all have/had a wonderful day. Mine is getting a rather early start. I am up and going at 8 AM on a Saturday morning. Crazy… I know, but it is worth it. Aaron is coming to visit me in SIX DAYS!!! And there is much to do before he gets here. So when I finish writing this, I’ll be tackling a lot of reading and other work so that I don’t have to worry about it the week that he is here.

Having just started classes this week, this is the first chance that I’ve had to write about my trip to Germany last week. I will try to remember everything that I can, but forgive me if my memory is a bit spotty. I had an itinerary from the trip, but I seem to have misplaced it. If I realize that I forgot something, I’ll make sure to add it later (Mom, Dad and Aaron- feel free to remind me of anything I left out)

Okay, so… after getting over a brief stomach bug, I loaded my slightly feverish self onto a coach bus at 7:30 Saturday morning. My self, 3 staff and 45 other students from IES rode for an hour or so and then stopped at a rest stop. Now, I know what your thinking “she’s writing about the rest stop? What’s special about a rest stop? This is going to be a looooong blog.” (which it is) but this was not just any rest stop.  This was a medieval rest stop (as seen in the picture) complete with dragons, Merlin, and majestic music blairing as we stepped off the bus. I saw it and immediately thought of Cara J

After driving a little while longer, we stopped for lunch in Prague. We weren’t there long, but the city center was beautiful and I certainly hope to go back one weekend while I’m here. Eventually we arrived in Dresden where we stayed for 2 nights. That night, Christa (who was getting over the same bug) Angie and I had a chill night, but we found an amazing café with wonderful chocolate confections. Angie’s hot chocolate was the consistency of pudding, and had pepper in it!

The next day we took a bus tour around Dresden, looking at the different architecture. I think one of my favorite parts about going to several cities was seeing how each city rebuilt itself after the war. I think Dresden was the most beautiful, personally. But what was really exciting about Dresden was going to the Zwinger art museum, where I got to see Rafael’s Sistine Madonna! If you don’t know what this is, just google it, you’ll know it immediately. I’m no art aficionado, but it was pretty in credible to be standing in the presence of something so great. But my favorite painting was Correggio's Die Heilige Nacht (pictured)

That night was the super bowl and the staff had made reservations for us at a local American Bar. I didn’t stay for the whole game, because it didn’t start until after midnight over here, but I saw through half time. Almost everyone on the trip was there so it was very fun. I got a hamburger… it had horse radish sauce on it. In a word: Brilliant! You should all try it.

On Monday, we drove about an hour to Leipzig where we took another bus tour. So what is important about Leipzig? J.S. Bach of course! And we got to see his tomb. Now, I don’t exactly hide the fact that I would not willingly play a Bach Cantata on my iTunes just for fun. However, it was pretty incredible to realize that while standing in St. Thomas Church, I was standing in the presence of greatness. That night we had dinner at the restaurant that inspired Goethe’s Faust. There are images from the legend painted on the walls, and the food was amazing!

After a bit of free time, we loaded back onto the bus and drove another hour to Berlin. On Tuesday, we took yet another bus tour, which I am ashamed to say that I fell asleep on the later part of. In my defense, we had a really busy schedule, and the tour guide’s voice was very soothing. However, one thing I certainly did not miss was The Berlin Wall. When we got there, we all had a chance to get out of the bus and take pictures.

I feel the need to tell one particular story about this. After most of the wall was torn down, the parts that were left up were auctioned off to artists who painted various murals. Many have graffiti over them, but are still recognizable and the graffiti consists of inspiring messages of peace and love. After stopping at a random point on the wall, I asked Angie to take a picture of me with it. After taking it she said, “oh that’s really cool, since you love doves so much!” I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I turned to see that the mural I stopped in front of, was a mural of two doves, and I had no idea. It nearly brought me to tears, because as many of you know, since my Confirmation, I love everything that dove’s stand for: peace, purity, love, forgiveness, gentleness, the Holy Spirit. Further more, they always seem to show up in my life in unexpected places (on a side walk in Boston…) My experience at the wall was certainly a gift from God.

After the tour, my friends and I were extremely American and got dinner at the Hard Rock Café… We took a picture with Elvis (unfortunately not on my camera though). Wednesday, we had a free day and the girls and I used it to go to the Berlin Zoo. We walked in, saw a baby elephant and immediately turned into 4 year olds. I kid you not, it was one of the most exciting parts of the trip. I can’t remember the last time I went to the Zoo, and seeing lions, giraffes, monkeys and pandas is just as exciting as it was 10 years ago.

One of the reasons we went was to see Knut, a polar bear who was born in captivity but rejected by his mother. His caretakers wanted him to live but had reservations about him being raised by various humans. They found a solution when one man offered to spend every moment raising Knut, being his mother. The two were best friends, but the gentleman passed away in September. It is a really beautiful story, which made it really exciting to see the 2 year old polar bear.

I had an exciting night too. Christa was thrilled because one of her favorite sopranos, Elizabeth Futral was singing the role of Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata at the Berlin Opera House.  We got there about a half hour before the show to get student rush tickets. For 13.50 euros, students are given whatever seats are still remaining in the house… and we got FIFTH ROW! We could see them spit when they sang, it was incredible. The production was beautiful (far better than the one that came to UNH last year) and sitting so close made it that much better.

Thursday was a day of Museums. We first went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which commemorated the people who fought against the injustice of the wall and the American soldiers who turned a blind eye, allowing east German citizens to cross over into the west. My favorite part if this exhibit was the last room that displayed stories of non-violent peace activists from countries all over the world and their accomplishments. (If anyone from the farm is reading this, I was thinking of you all, Brian in particular. He really would have loved it)

In the afternoon we went to the Jewish museum, which displayed the complete history of the Jewish people. What I liked about it was that they were deliberate about not making it a Holocaust museum, because there is far more to the Jewish people than just the Holocaust.

On Friday, we went to Potsdam for a day and got to see Castles! First we saw Sans Soussi, (I think I’m spelling that right, I don’t have it in front of me) This was the summer home of Frederick the Great. Unlike other castles that had been turned into art museums, this one was decorated as it was when Frederick lived there. Both the rooms and the gardens were stunning. Later we went to the Cecelienhof (spelling again… sorry) Palace. This is where the Potsdam conference was held, and Churchill, Truman and Stalin determined how to divide up Europe at the end of WWII. While standing in the conference room, it was almost surreal to think about who stood in that room before us. However, we all agreed that the most haunting room to stand in was by far Stalin’s study.

We had a free day on Saturday again, so we did a bit more sight seeing and had a bit more fun. In the morning, Christa, Angie and I went to see the Berlin Cathedral and got to climb up to the top of the dome and walk around it. The view was stunning. Then we went to see the book-burning memorial. This memorial that represents the thousands of books burned at Bebelplatz by the Nazi party, is not visible during the day from the street. It is a plate glass window in the ground and when one looks down into it, they see a room full of empty bookshelves. At night, the room is illuminated to simulate a fire. Again, I thought of my sister.

That afternoon, a few of the girls went shopping. I got a Berlin shirt and a couple of other items that I had been looking for. Nothing terribly notable. And in the afternoon, the program paid for one more dinner for us. After dinner, several of the students, myself included, decided to check out the Berlin film festival taking place that week. For 3 Euro, we got to watch 5 short films from all over the world and there was a question and answer session with the directors and producers after each. It was very cool. My favorite was from Indonesia. With their permission, the filmmaker documented a day in the life of a homeless couple. It is hard to describe beyond that, but it hit close to home for me.

Then on Sunday we loaded back on the bus and came home. I enjoyed Berlin, but we were all very glad to come back to a place called home in Vienna at the end.

On Monday, we started our regular classes. I am continuing with German and taking The Lied, Performance Workshop, Austrian Art and Architecture, and Coexistence and Conflict: A History of European Jews. All of them will be a lot of work, mostly reading, but very interesting. If you don’t mind, I will write a bit about them a little later, seeing as I need to work on some of their assignments.

My main challenge for the coming week will be staying focused, seeing as every day brings me closer to seeing Aaron. We are both unbelievably excited to see each other and have various things planned for the week. I’ll be sure to tell you about it all next week.  I am so fortunate to have a boyfriend who loves me enough to buy a ticket to come see me as my Christmas present.  Please keep him in your prayers Thursday night as he travels.

I’ll post again soon.

Love,

Caitlin

(I'm going to try posting pictures with this blog, I'm not sure where they will end up falling with the text. Let me know if you want to know more about anything I mentioned or the pictures)

Okay, so I"m not sure what order these photos are going to show up in once I publish the blog but the ones at the top are from the ball! We got all dressed up and danced in the Hofberg Palace. It was beautiful and there were a ton of people there. The picture of 5 people outside was taken at the top of Leopoldsberg, we went back on a clear day to see the view which is stunning. And the last one is the curtain call of the Magic Flute at die Volksoper. More to come soon. (Sorry this is rushed)

I'm going to have to work on titles for these...

Hello All,

I’m back and doing well. I suppose this week wasn’t quite as eventful as the last, but still wonderful nonetheless. We continued with our German classes and I got myself into a good routine. My German class isn’t until 12:30, but I’ve been going in to the IES Center around 9 with Brian and Danielle for their early morning class to get work done. It has turned out to be very productive because I work really well in the morning and there is no distraction. Then when I get home after class I can just chill and hang out with my roommates before talking to Aaron and then go to bed.

My roommates and I are all coming to accept the fact that there is a ghost in our apartment. Tyler had an encounter with her in a dream and informed us that her name is Lynda, she is blonde and 22. I suggested that he ask her out in the next dream and see if she will stop making so many noises at night.

On Tuesday, a bunch of us got together to watch the inauguration at the IES Center, which was pretty incredible. They streamed it through a projector so it was nice and big. I remember thinking to myself “When I think back on this moment years from now, I will remember sitting in a castle, eating a Kabob and drinking a Fanta” That morning it was also exciting to get off of the train and see that the headline of the news paper read “Die Welt Hofft auf Obama”--- “The World Hopes for Obama.” Pretty exciting, eh?

On Wednesday, we found out our ensemble assignments for the Performance Workshop. I was assigned the role of Susanna in the opening duet “Cinque… dieci…” from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. I’m excited to sing with Nate, who I’ve been paired with and I am already familiar with the opera and role from other arias that I’ve sung. I’ve also been assigned a piece from Lester Trimble’s setting of The Canterbury Tales. This should be challenging both rhythmically and phonetically since it is in middle English, but I’m sure it will be fun. For this set, there are 3 other vocalists, an oboe, flute and piano.

It was a pretty eventful weekend. On Saturday, my roommates and I went to the Fleemarket. This happens every Saturday and is basically a giant garage sale. It is located at the end of the Naschmarkt, an open-air market where you can find all kinds of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese and meat for really good prices. I got a pretty green scarf.

That night, Angie, Christa and I made a valiant attempt at making cookies without vanilla extract, or measuring mechanisms… they turned out pretty well actually. We then accidentally fell asleep at 9:30 at night and proceeded to sleep for the next 12 hours! It was fabulous.

But the most exciting parts of the weekend, going to my first Viennese operas!  On Friday,  we went to see (for you UNHers reading) The Magic Flute at the Volksoper. This is an opera house where every opera that shows is in German, we paid 1.50 Euro for standing room tickets and then were able to take the empty seats after the overture. The show was very well done. And there were lots of little kids in the audience who laughed at all the German jokes, which was adorable (because the opera was written for children).

Then, on Sunday, we went to go see Massenet’s Manon at the Statsoper, which was amazing! The staging was brilliant, the musicians were flawless, the opera house was gorgeous and I was drooling over the French, just because I love the language so much. It was fantastic and I’m looking forward to going again.

I think that is all for now. This is our last week of intensive German, then I’ll go with other IES students on a tour of Berlin. The next week we will start our regular classes. I’ve contacted my recommended voice teacher and will hopefully meet with her before the end of the week, and on Thursday, we are going to a ball! I’ll be sure to post more pictures soon. Thanks as always for reading.  I’m sending my love your way.

Until next time,

Caitlin

Some Pictures

From the Top Down:

1. The View from my Hotel Room

2. A picture of our apartment from the living room, looking through the entryway, into the kitchen then into the shower room that awkwardly includes our washer and refrigerator. (It is hard to get the entire scope of the apt. in one picture. And I'll post a picture of my room when it is a bit cleaner...)

3. My roommates Danielle and Brian on the bus tour.

4. Hundertwassarhaus Apartments that I wish I lived in. 

5. The Upper Belvedere Palace... that's the guest house!

The First Week

Hello Everyone,

I’m so sorry for not writing sooner. Needless to say, it has been a pretty crazy week. Crazy, but wonderful.

I have to say that I think I held myself together pretty well when saying good-bye to my family and Aaron at the airport. We got to the airport early and got to sit and talk over coffee for a while before I left which was really fun. I started to cry as I walked towards security, but the TSA guy at the gate, joked with me that I wasn’t allowed to so I promptly sucked it up.

I had a nice surprise after going through security, a friend of mine from high school, Daryl, was working there! It was such a gift to see a familiar smiling face after feeling like I would never see another one again. After getting past security, the confidence kicked in and I realized, “Okay, I can do this.” I didn’t really have a choice, there was no one there to hold my hand, it was all on me.

Both of my flights went smoothly. On my way to Zurich, I was seated next to a girl about my age who was going to Berlin to visit her boyfriend. She had studied abroad the year before and told me about some of her experiences. Fortunately, I was able to sleep through most of the flight, which was great. I also found a very nice card that my sister had hid in my bag for me, which made me smile inside and out.

During my layover in Zurich, I met Colleen, another IES student who is very nice. I really enjoyed talking to her and she is now in my German class. Then! When I got on the plane, I was seated next to another IES student, Angie. She is another music student, soprano. We related on a lot of levels and ended up talking for almost the entire 2-hour plane ride. She is now one of my best friends here.

After landing, Angie and I met up with a few other students who were arriving around the same time. We were all staying in the same area and took the bus there together, and then met up for dinner later that night. After dinner I went back to my hotel room and spent some time trying to figure out how my phone worked, but it was eventually somewhat successful.

The next day, I walked to the Westbahnhof to meet up with the rest of the people in my program. Then we loaded onto our busses and rode to our orientation in the Alps. That is where I met Danielle and Brian, who would eventually become two of my roommates.

Orientation was fun, we had meetings in the morning, free time/activities in the afternoon and then more meetings/ activities in the evening. I got to see my first castle, it was a little disappointing, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of them. I learned how to waltz, witnessed lumberjack polka-dancing, and found out that after one glass of wine on an empty stomach the room starts spinning… good to know!

At orientation we took care of housing and it all worked out extremely well. I’m living in a four person apt. with Danielle and Brian, who are dating, and Tyler who is from New Market, NH! It is only about a 30 minute commute from school which is pretty great and the stop for the street car that we take is directly outside of our apt. Additionally, there are 4 other apartments in our building of IES students. Our friends Angie, Christa and Lindsay are right upstairs. Our apt. is beautiful, and huge and super 80’s in decorations, it is awesome!

On Monday we started our intensive German class. It was incredibly intimidating the first couple of days because I didn’t remember anything from when I took it freshman year.  But I talked to my professor about it and she helped me to feel confident that it would eventually come back. So in addition to my regular homework assignments, I’ve been reviewing my old text book a bit each night. I love my professor and the class is very small, only 12 people so there is a lot of opportunity for speaking and questions.

On Monday, my roommate Brian and I got a rather rude introduction to Vienna’s public transportation system as we spent 2 hours going in all the wrong directions before eventually ending up back at our apt.  It was surely an adventure to remember and a bonding experience, if nothing else.

On Wednesday, I had my audition for the Performance Workshop, to which I’ve been accepted! I felt like the audition went well. I sang Mozart’s Vedrai Carino and Bellini’s O Quante Volte. I think I’ve sung both better before because I was more nervous than I anticipated, but I got really positive feedback from all of my peers and felt as though I showcased my capabilities well. We have a meeting this coming Wednesday where we will find out who our private teachers are and what ensembles we’ve been assigned to. My roommate, Brian, is a piano major and we are both hoping we’ll be placed in the same ensemble, but we’ll see.

Yesterday, Saturday, IES hosted a bus tour of the city that was about 3 hours long and we passed by/ stopped at some of the major historical places in the city. I’ve included a couple of pictures.

It took a bit of time, but I feel like I’m settling in well. While I’m still getting used to having so much travel time between home and school, it is really nice to be able to come home to such a great apt at the end of the day. I’ve been having to remind myself to let go of some of my American tendencies, mainly related to feeling the need to be on the go all the time. I love that everything here closes at 7 on the weekdays and closes all together on Sundays, it kind of forces me to slow down during those times.

There have certainly been times that I’ve missed the comfort of familiarity, but I know that that will come here with time. There were also rough moments to the past week and a half, but I really do love it here and I can’t wait to see where the next four months take me.

I’m sorry that this post was so long, I’ll try to update more regularly so that they are not all quite this lengthy. As always, feel free to email me or send snail mail because that is always exciting. Also, I have skype capabilities; this is a free phone-like service via internet that I use to talk to Aaron and my parents. It is very easy to set up, let me know if you have any questions about it. Thank you so much for reading. You are all in my thoughts daily which is a beautiful gift of home that I always keep with me.

Love,

Caitlin

P.S. I'm very sorry that there are no pictures with this post. I tried to upload them in the internet cafe across the street from my apt. but it would not work. I will try again tomorrow from the IES Center and hopefully I'll have better luck.

I'm Here

Hey Everybody,

This is going to be a quick one because the one hour of internet time I paid for at the hotel is almost up. But I just wanted to let you all know that I have arrived in Vienna safe and sound. My flights were smooth and easy and I ended up meeting 5 kids from my program already in my travels! They are all very cool. What I've seen of the city is beautiful and I'm sure it only gets better from here. I'll be sure to update again once I'm in my housing and such. Thank you to all of you who had been praying for my voyage, they worked :-)

Love,

Caitlin

My First Blog

Okay, so I guess this is my first blog. It is really more of a test run to figure out how all of this works. If anyone legitimately reads this, it just occurred to me that in 48 hours, I'll be sitting in Logan airport waiting for my plane to arrive, or maybe I'll be boarding by that point. My suitcases are packed, my plans are in order, my room is not yet cleaned but will be shortly, and my emotions are running high, while my mind is running a marathon. On Tuesday, I will make my way to the airport along with my parents, my sister and my boyfriend-Aaron (That's him in the picture :-D). My next blog will most likely be in about a week, after I have gone to my orientation and settled into housing. Of course, I hope that you are all able to check the blog, but if not, I understand that everyone is busy. I'm just glad I have so many people interested in how I'm doing while I'm gone. Feel free to comment or send me emails. I'll look forward to hearing from each one of you.

Love always,

Caitlin