Well it seems that I am getting worse and worse about keeping this blog updated, mostly because things have started to really get busy around here. 2 Weeks ago, we had a week off before the semester of regular classes began here. Many people traveled around Europe a ton (My roommates went to Brussels, Paris, and Amsterdam. Another roommate went to Prague, Krakow, and Budapest), but I actually stayed here in Vienna, hoping to see a lot of the city that I wouldn't normally see and also to get some major work done on learning and recording my music.

Unfortunately, the recording process ended up taking a lot more of my time than I thought it would. It's pretty tough to make recordings, as there is the possibility of playing perfectly. The whole process soon turned into a preoccupation with not making any mistakes. The process was made much longer by the fact that they tuned the piano when I was halfway done with my recordings, and I couldn't have one half of the recording on a tuned piano and another on an untuned piano, so I had to start from scratch. I was able to get recordings that I am pretty happy with though, so that's a bit of a relief.

That week, I was able to see a few really great things around Vienna. For one, I saw the new exhibit on Van Gogh at the Albertina museum. This exhibit is supposed to be one of the most important art exhibits to come here in a long time (they had over 100 van Gogh's) and I really enjoyed the works a ton. I also got to see Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (one of my favorite pieces) performed in Stephansdom (the biggest cathedral in vienna, located right in the center of the city). The performance was pretty good, but since the church is so unbelievably huge, the sound was not clear at all. I'm still glad I got to see it though. I also went to the Cafe Hawelka, which is one of the more famous cafe's in vienna - apparently writers and artists would often meet there. It was very bohemian and smokey, and the coffee was great.

At the end of last week, I went to the Red Bull Flugtag (check out the pictures in my last album uploaded), which was really fun. I think that these events happen all over the world. Basically, people design these things that are supposed to fly (or in some cases, obviously supposed to not fly at all! Look at the picture of the flying Schnitzel). Each team would do a little presentation on the theme of their fake flying machine, and then run it off a giant runway that went into the Donau. Most didn't fly at all.

This last week was the first week of real classes. Here's what I am taking:

German - Same teacher as the one I had for the intensive German course a few weeks ago. I like her a lot and the class is pretty easy and somewhat enjoyable.

Mahler and the Turn of the Century Vienna - This will be a great class. The teacher is so knowledgeable and lectures really well. The readings that we have done so far were also very interesting.

The Music Performance workshop

History of the Hapbsburg Empire - I can't quite tell how this will be yet. It's taught by a teacher form the University of Vienna, so I'm anticipating a much different style of class and evaluation methods. We'll see

Music theory - I just decided to drop this class. It is too easy and, although the teacher is nice, he's a little crazy and said some things that were absolutely not true about the Golden Ratio - a funny story that I don't have patience to type out right now.

Anyway, it's saturday and my parents just got here to visit! I'm really excited to have them here, get to spend some time with them, and show them around my city. I'm sure my dad will post all of the pictures when they get home next week, so I'll be sure to make a link over to those.

Anyway, that's all for now. The weather is starting to get nice here again - it's been cold and rainy for about 2 weeks and now it's getting warmer and clearing up. That's good news for plans with my parents - I've got big plans for tomorrow.

I'm really hoping to update a little more frequently, but as rehearsals, coachings and classes get into the swing of things, it might be harder than it sounds.