That Ol' Tristan Chord

I was standing in the midst of 150 or so sweaty, cheap Austrians and mainly (pardon my racist French) [Asian] tourists who have a knack for leaving the standing-room in between movements but mein Gott, it was surely worth it. The fateful chord pierced through the many heads and the big pillar in front of my eyes and ears ultimately landing in my beating heart. It then resolved...for a second or two. Then, it went on its merry Wagnerian way. Ah, it was simply wonderful. I said it before and I'll say it again: the Tristan Chord in the Musikverein with the Vienna Philharmonic. Perhaps if Mahler or even Wagner were the man on the podium waving a baton through the air instead of Maestro Franz-Welser Möst - the man who replaced Mahler's Ninth Symphony with Bruckner's Ninth Symphony (the other little diddy on the evening's program) although there is documentation of Möst talking about his love for that very Mahler No. 9. You perplex me, Mr. Möst. You, your Austrian accent, your funny little glasses, your curly gray hair.

Allow me to rewind just a bit: on my way to the above concert, I had a joyous itty-bitty encounter. Before I continue, I should note that whenever I'm out and about in this city I try my best to look like just another Viennese 20-year-old dude, as in I pretend I know the entire city, the expansive language, and the metric system like the back of my right hand. With that in mind, this is what happened, more or less:

YOUNG LADY

Entschuldigung.

[Excuse me.]

DANIEL

Ja...bitte?

[Yeah?]

YOUNG LADY

(impossible to understand German...) 

blah blah blah blah blah blah ich möchte naskjdhkaf kasd ja nein sdsnfbashfjklad ---

DANIEL

Uh, es tut mir leid. Ich spreche...kein Deutsch. 

[Uh, I'm sorry. I don't speak German.]

YOUNG LADY

Ah, uh okay...danke schön sowieso.....aber weißt Sie wenn dieser Zug fährt zum Museumsquartier? 

 [Ah thanks anyway.....but do you know if this train goes to Museumsquartier?]

DANIEL 

(All I heard was something about Museumsquartier which is a stop on the train that I knew of)

Ah, ja. Uh....ja, ja. Sie....kann die....U-zwei nehmen. Das...ist richtig.

[Ah, yeah....you can take the U2. This is right.]

YOUNG LADY

Ah, danke schön! 

DANIEL

Ja...(5 seconds later) bitte.

The point of that little dialogue? Well, I somehow gave a German speaker directions with my teeny weeny grasp of the language. 

Also of interest, I have successfully moved to the Ottakring apartment with all the boys. It's quite nice.

Toodle-ooo folks!