Sunday, February 5, 2012

It's a bit chilly outside!













So this is all backwards from what I've done, but here are all the pictures I have. There is a little river thing that runs


by the U-Bahn by our house and it is so cold that it isalmost completely frozen. It's so cold outside that the second you walk out your ears turn into popsicles and your hands hurt so bad and are insanely swollen. It's not a pretty sight and hopefully it warms up a bit, especially since I cannot for the life of me find my red knit hat I had just bought for this purpose before I left.

There's also a picture of the Vienna Boys Choir that I went to this fine Sunday morning. Stehplatz or standing room was free and after it was about to start they let us all sit down in the back seats. They were amazing and during the mass you couldn't see them, because they were up in the balcony above you and then afterwards they came down and sang. The Vienna Boys Choir is like a boarding school and I heard they have six or seven choirs of boys and they are always traveling and have mass prepared every Sunday. I also went to the Kunsthistorches museum that had mummies which was pretty cool and we went on a walking tour which was the coldest thing I have ever endured and that is saying a lot since I have been inside the Oregon coast ocean head to toe in the middle of winter. We found a memorial for all the Jews and it is a big building thing with books that are put in with their pages outwards which signifies all the lost souls that are like books that we cannot read. We also found a cool church that I took a couple pictures of.
We also took a tour of the Staatsoper or the national opera house I guess. It was waaaay cool. apparently part of it was bombed, so not all of it is legit old, but it is way pretty and the pictures of the inside are the part that is from before. I was told that if you ever find a building in Vienna that is not the old pretty buildings that cover this place, than that is a "bomb filler" or a building that they made after the building that was there before was bombed. Pretty cool, but the buildings are way ugly compared to the others. I got a picture of the chandelier, a hallway and some of the box seats. Once a year the opera puts on a ball and if you want a box it costs 18,ooo Euro and each person has to have a ticket that is 250 Euro. It's crazy expensive, but totally cool, because they take all the seats out of the auditoreum and everything out of back stage which is apparently even bigger than the auditoreum and they put in flooring and have a ball.
The Staatsoper never has the same show in a row and they only take 4 days off in the year, so they are always doing a different show and changing sets and stuff.

Also this week I went and saw My Fair Lady which was entirely in German, but totally cool and I only had to pay 2 Euro for standing room and they let us take an empty sit after it was about to start. It was really cute and I know the story line pretty well, so I understand pretty much everything that was happening. I also got some pizza from an Italian place before it and it was not as good as I thought it was going to be. It was lacking a bit on sauce and had like too much cheese, but the cheese was like ricotta cheese and not mozarella. It was odd.

The best meal I had this week was a package of dehydrated chinese lo mein stuff. I was a little iffy about it after I opened it up and was boiling it all, but it actually was pretty good. So I was an American in Europe eating Chinese food. I also had dinner with my host family on Thursday and we had goat cheese on bread and then leg of a pork (as our host said) and knodel (a dumpling) and sauerkraut. For dessert we had this cheese cake like cheese in a bowl with berry sauce on it and homemade biscotti. It was delicious! I've learned that the Austrians aren't big into the powdered drinks, but syrups. So you won't find powdered chocolate milk in the store, but syrup. They have nesquik syrup, but I haven't gotten to buying it yet. So to drink they all had beer and we had this berry currant syrup stuff that we added water too and it was delicious!

Tonight we wandered up, because we needed to practice the music and he offered us some cakes so we tried this poppyseed cake that was very poppyseed like, but very good and some walnut raisin cake.

Every Monday they have FHE and dinner and Wednesday they have dinner and institute and Fast Sunday they have a singles ward where you go to sacrament meeting that is entirely in german and then we have dinner. Dinner is 1.50 Euro, but it's pretty much all you can stuff in your mouth so it like covers multiple meals and is delicious. Sacrament meeting was interesting, singing in german is difficult, but fun and I am learning how to pronunciate like crazy doing that. It also was interesting hearing the sacrament prayers given in german, because I think everyone pretty much has them memorized, so I could translate it in my head.

Yesterday (Saturday) there was a talent show and a dance and for the talent show me and my roommate performed some pop songs. We started out by psyching everyone out and playing each others instruments pretty badly and it was hilarious, because all the BYU kids were cracking up and freaking out and the rest of the audience was just confused and wondered why we decided to major in them. At the dance they do like swing kind of and for ALL the songs the guys ask girls to dance and they don't normally dance in groups, but we kind of taught them how that is done...it was pretty fun.

On the way home from that we were waiting at the bus stop and a bus came along and it was the 80A, but we needed the 4A, but a couple girls got on and were saying oh it'll take us to an U-Bahn eventually and another girl was about to get on when the doors just slammed in our faces and it took off and one of the girls on the bus left her violin and shoes with another girl that happened to be standing outside the bus when it left. It was so hilarious and finally one of the girls that got on the bus called and said they got of at the next stop and were running back and then the 4A bus showed up and we very slowly got on and we could see the fur hood of the girl bobbing up and down as she was running trying to make it and thankfully they did. It was hilarious.

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