Blamo!! from Mariezell und Wien

I'm in Vienna!!!!! and it is awesome!!

So I left tuesday the 18th at 6:40pm from Detroit and landed in London Heathrow airport at 7:30am on the 19th. This is where my journey became a little complicated. I had to transfer from Northwest to British Airways and I had to sit with my bags for 3 hours in London because they wouldn't take my luggage until 2 hours before my flight which was at 2:40pm. This is my luggage cart in London. Then my flight to Vienna was delayed by an hour, so we got into Vienna late and then I took a taxi to the center, which I found out was not open and no one was there, so I had to go to the hostel, with my cello. I also spent all the money I had on these taxi trips and everyone was speaking german, which I don't know, so I kind of freaked out. Tears were abundent.

I stayed overnight in a very nice hostel and then on the 20th took my cello to the IES center and then went to meet everyone at the Westbanhof train station. We left that day for our orientation weekend in Mariezell, a cute town in the Alps!!! I met a lot of people, and had problems remembering everyone's name. We had lots of lectures about rules and such and we got a tour of Mariezell, which has a beautiful church! We saw and learned some traditional Austrian dances and just hung out.

DDowntown Mariezell Our view from the hostel in Mariezell

The church in Mariezell, a huge pilgramage site for Catholics.

Me with my new glasses

When we got back from the orientation on Sunday the 23rd we moved into our apartments. I live with 3 other girls, Erica (viola), Sarah (soprano), and Laura (history/soprano) on Leichtensteinstrasse in the 9th district. Vienna is comprised of 23 districts that spiral out from the center. The IES center is located right in the center of district 1, so basically the center of Vienna. Each day I take a street tram for 20 minutes and walk a little bit to the center. We see the most awesome things on out way!! We see the parliament building, the Hofberg theater and palace, the Museum quarter, the Rathause, and we get off at the Opera House! It's totally epic!

Last night my roommate/friend Erica and our friend Jodi did some errands downtown and got some dinner. Vienna is a really safe city, safer than any college campus in America, so I never really feel that uneasy, even at night.

The Stephansdome church, super old and super awesome!

Jodi, Me, and Erica

The Opera house! Staatsoper!

Every day for 3 weeks I have intensive german, so I have 3 hours of german every day! Ich lerne gern Deutsch! I like learning German! It's a little confusing, but pretty cool overall. Tomorrow and the next 3 days are auditions for music people. I'm not doing the performance workshop, but I'm the only cellist so I am auditiong so I can be placed in a chamber music ensemble. More updates on class schedule after my advising appointment next monday.