Those legendary pines

Maybe it's because I saw this performed at the Musikverein last night, maybe not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH4csOibl18&feature=related
I implore you to watch it. You'll be laughing, crying and grinning all the way through. For extra credit, watch the three movements prior (1/4, 2/4, 3/4).

Take care ya'll

I'm about due for a post

Yes, yes, it's been awhile...but I haven't been twiddling my thumbs in my room. I've been, as some like to call it, busy. Other than the IES-related events, schoolwork and happenings, my comrades and I have been living the Austrian life. I guess I don't have many Viennese stories of events that took place in the past week but I sure do have some others.

We had a nice and new Thanksgiving experience on Thursday. IES brought us all out to the outskirts of Vienna to Baden where we ate lots of pretty Americanish Thanksgiving food.

Now, the next day...Friday...we had planned to head to Salzburg for a day or two. We reserved a hostel in Salzburg for that Friday night but had not purchased any train tickets. Right before we left for Thanksgiving, the boys and I began talk of hitchhiking to the western city of Austria. Maybe I should leave out that "I" because it was really the boys who were considering it. Since there were five of us, they realized we'd have to split up into two groups; thus, the hitchhike turned into a hitchhiking race. Ordinarily, I'd be up for something this ridiculous but I was hesitant for a few legitimate reasons. The first was that the forecast was snow/rain in Vienna and Salzburg all weekend. The second was that we were going to attempt to find Gustav Mahler's summer house in the middle-of-nowhere-Austrian-countryside on Saturday. The third, well, for those of you who don't know, Salzburg is about 310 kilometers away from Vienna. Despite my doubts and little desire to hitchhike, the others were as excited as little schoolboys on a snow day.

Thursday night and early Friday morning were devoted to making "Salzburg" signs. Chris and I, the unmotivated group, took no part in making signs. About 7 hours later, we were up and about leaving 28 Liebhartsgasse. The others, Schweppe, Stones and Adam, were left in the apartment scrambling to get their stuff together. As we neared Wien Westbahnof, our plan was to take the fast train all the way to Salzburg. We didn't realize it until about half past 9, but we ran to buy tickets and we raaan to the train that....oooooh....was just pulling away. After a moment or two of despair, we started to think about the others, the troopers who were dead-set on hitchhiking across the country. We then went outside the train station and took a stab at hitchhikin'. After about a half hour of no success, I lost steam, but Chris did not. He kept at it until a blue Volkswagon pulled up. In it was an elderly couple. Seconds later, we were in their car heading toward Salzburg. How bout that? Unfortunately, I don't have much time at the moment I must start speeding this story up.

The couple was an Austrian/Italian one. Stefan was an Austrian economist and Maria was a shoemaker from Bari, Italy. They were lovely folks and it was a smooth and snowy ride.

Upon arrival in Salzburg, Chris and I sped walk to the hostel hoping the dudes didn't beat us there. They sure didn't. In fact, they were not even halfway there. Before Chris and I left to see the town, I ran out to purchase a few Ices to welcome our pals into the room. At around 6 or 7pm, they had arrived. They weren't too happy with the Ices but they were happy that we had all made the 300 km trek. That night was an early one after having a few snowball and pillow fights prior to our Italian dinner.

The next morning, we saw the city once more except this time it was as picturesque as can be. At around noon, we embarked on our journey to Mahler's summer house in the middle of the Austrian countryside. Perhaps it was my pessimistic ways, but I did not believe we were going to make it there with ease. I was dead wrong. It took just about two hours, one of which I spent listening to the music Mr. Mahler composed while at the very house we were soon to be standing outside of. The bus that we took dropped us off about 10 meters away from Mahler's front door. 

Icing has recently become a theme of our daily life. Adam is our prime target. We got him as he slept on the bus, but thought it'd make for a nice picture with the Alpine mountains the background.

Behind his house, oddly enough, is a bunch of trailer homes; but, among those trailer homes was Mahler's legendary composing hut:

Those footsteps? Yeah...they belong to the dudes and I. Inside that little hut is a baby grand piano. That's about all Gustav needed to compose his epic Second and Third Symphonies.

After taking in the Mahlerian history surrounding us, our stomachs grumbled. The only problem was that we were truly in the middle of the Austrian countryside in the early winter when nothing is open. We asked a townswoman if anything was open. She let out a chuckle, but she also told us of the only place open - a restaurant that was 4 kilometers into the base of the Austrian Alps. We had almost four hours until our bus back so we started our walk. Early on in the walk, we met a woodsman - yes a woodsman. He was a man with lots of wood and an electronic saw. He asked (in German) if we'd like to help. As you can tell, our group is all about fun stories so we agreed instantly. His advice was to go eat and drink lots of wine, then come back and help him because we'd be much stronger. That sounded a-okay to us. The walk was just about as gorgeous as one can imagine. Just as we began regretting the decision to walk, we stumble upon the restaurant. I don't believe there were any pictures taken of it, but it was actually at the very base of the menacing snowy mountains. The food was delicious and the Glühwein was piping hot.

The snowy walk back was a little colder and much darker but still incredible. Somehow, we made the correct bus back to some Austrian town. There, we got on another bus filled with some Austrian countryside ghetto high schoolers, and this took us all the way back to another Austrian town where we hopped on the train to Vienna. Everything had worked perrrfectly. Aside from a few crazies on the train, our ride home was delightful and as music-nerdy as possible. If you'd like me to expand on the crazies, let me know.  Nah...I'll expand on them right now:
 
The five of us got on the crowded train and were forced to search for five seats together. We soon gave up on that so Drew and Chris found two seats together. That left Adam, Stones, and I to find a few others. We found a compartment with a few empty seats, but Stones was pretty set on finding a completely free room. After a minute or two of settling into my semi-comfy seat, he called us into the compartment next door. In it, was one man. This one man smelled like fifty homeless people eating sardines and gorgonzola cheese in a sauna. But hey, it was too late to back out now. I sat one seat away from him hoping he wouldn't breathe on me too much. In his hand, he had a cheep Austrian beer can which he proceeded to chug. Within a few seconds, he was off talking (crazy crazy German) to Adam and I. Adam was a tired little boy at this point, so that left me to pay attention to this insane fellow. Even after he realized I had no idea what he was saying, he continued to babble on. I tried desperately to pick up any words I knew out of the cacophonous, incessant mishmash of sounds and noises that came out of his decaying mouth. When Stones returned from scoping out any free seats, he unfortunately had to sit right next to this crazy, crazy man. Luckily (unluckily), Stones has the most German out of all of us so he made a nice effort to figure out what this man was saying. All we could understand was that he was trying to tell us there was another man sitting in our compartment who was "crazy." This nutso man was telling us some other guy was crazy. That other man ended up coming in for a little bit - he did talk to himself a little bit, but that's fine compared to this gross, black-nailed Austrian. Stones took out a book to read, but our new friend continued his blathering. After ten or fifteen minutes of this, the ridiculous man and his less-ridiculous pal got there stuff together and left the train. Thank the Lord.

Back to the trip as a whole, listening to Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony could some our 36-hour adventure up...to an extent. For the real thing, just ask one of us. It was incredible.

Wien, Wein und Käse (Vienna, Wine and Cheese)

Eyoaa,

With just under a month left in this fair city, it is certainly time to start savoring my time here. I think I did the past two days.

After a half-full German class on Friday morning, I took a trip to the National Library of Vienna where I turned into a little musicologist.

It was nice, I guess.

For the evening, my apartment folks and I had planned and wine and cheese party. What a smashing success. At the peak of the party, I'd say there were about 20-25 bottles of wine ranging in color from white to yellow to orange to rose to red - I kid you not. The next morning, maybe 5 were left.

At around 3pm that day, I realized I should probably leave the apartment before it got dark outside. So I grabbed a jacket and headed to the Musikverein where I heard Beethoven's glorious Fifth Symphony. Uh huh, I heard the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Christian Thielemann perform possibly the most famous eight notes in classical music: in case one of you readers doesn't know what piece I'm referring to - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SExR2h20HlQ&feature=related. Oh right. I arrived at the Musikverein a few minutes before the intermission...for a reason - to sneak in and hear the Fifth. Now...I'm one who gets the shiver down the back about once every concert. This concert, I may have gotten the most chilling, shivery whoosh up and down my back at this crucial moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrEzvGQeHTg&feature=related. Not bad for 0 Euros, 0 Dollars.

I then left the Musikverein to find some friends to gallop through the Christmas Markets with. I ate some delicious baked potato and ham and cheese and stuff there. At 6:30ish we had to jet through the markets to the Konzerthaus for a Brad Mehldau/Joshua Redman concert. Of course...we didn't really have tickets - we were hoping to get some seats that the rich folks donated back to the box office. As I stood at the front of the line, a man came up and handed me a ticket and said "I guess you guys are waiting to buy tickets. Take this one - I got one too many. Enjoy the concert." Must've been my English-speaking charm...whatever it was, it got me a perfect seat in the Konzerthaus and I watched Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman jam out for a good two hours.

Two unbelievable concerts, no money spent.

Howdy Hi HO

Ey ey ey. I cut my first class in Vienna last week. It was a class about Beethoven's Eroica. I believe the professor focused on Napoleon so I decided to relax at home and get other work done. I also didn't really feel like going because I had gone to the gym earlier that day. You might know me as the scrawny little boy who can't lift more than 150 pounds...not anymore. I am as brolic and buff as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOlJixJAhPM&feature=related (that guy). No, no...I went with the Schweppe and Adam because they have memberships at a gym. It had been quite some time since I last worked my legs on the leg press. It felt oh so good.

Moving right on, last night was incredible. I didn't expect it to be much when I was cooking me some Penne a la Rutkowski. But when I brought my fork down in a stabbing motion, I heard someone cry out "Daniel, stop cooking." It was Señor Chris. *Going back to the fancy IES 60th anniversary party on Friday for a quick second...while mingling at the reception, my friends made friends with an elderly couple. Apparently they hit it off so well that they planned a dinner date sometime this week. In fact, it was to be last night. Now because Adam was already busy last night, lucky me got to go in his stead. So Chris bundled up and I bundled down (as you folks well know) and we set off. I could not wait to have dinner with a mysterious old couple that I never met. 

I was very curious as to what we were going to talk about for the duration of dinner. By the end of the night, though, all I wanted to do was talk to these two folks four five more hours. Their names were Jane and Walter. Jane's an American who came to Vienna through IES in 1951. While here, she met Walter (I believe a Slovenian or German or Austrian man). We went to a rather famous Heuriger (wine cellar/restaurant) named Esterhazykeller. One of the many fascinating stories told by Walter was a tale that took place at one of those tables where a once anti-semitic friend of his stood on a table and apologized to everyone in the restaurant for the doings of the Nazis. Another Nazi-related story he told his captivated audience made up of Schweppe, Chris and I was about how at the age of 10 or so, he touched once touched Adolf Hitler. I could be real mean and and leave that as ambiguous as possible, but I'd never do that. He was with his father who was a member of the Nazi party and at some event where Hitler drove past wee little Walter who had the foresight to touch the arm of The Mass Murderer. Pretty wild eh? We spent about three hours in that Heuriger sipping on delicious white wine, eating tasty Viennese meat and vegetables, and discussing our lives and aspirations. It was magical. They were so interested in a couple of American music-loving 20 year olds and we were so interested in their intriguing stories, lives, and environmental work. Yeah, that's right...they're a couple of environmentalists who live in Mariazell (in the countryside where I spent my first weekend abroad) and Vienna. I hope...we all hope to see them again.

Prost! Cheers!

Daniel

Party Hearty

Welly, yesterday was a day filled with parties or to be more precise, social gatherings.

It was IES's, my study abroad program, 60th anniversary. So the day began with a little shindig at our home Palais Corbelli. I ate lots a little hors d'oeuvres and drank lots of Orangensaft. I also chatted it up with some professors. Several hours later, there was another IES party, only it was a bit more upscale.

That's where it took place. It was half boring/half incredible. Many many IES alumni folks were there and spoke about how great studying abroad is. In the end, it made me appreciate this place all the more. After the ceremony-type thing and musical performances, we were all treated to lots of champagne, wine, and even fancier schmancier hors d'oeuvres. I should mention, myself and a few other friends went to this event without being officially invited. But my, am I glad we did.

After the lush, Baroque reception we scampered home to take a stab at making whiskey sours and entertain some Australians. They weren't bad at all. At around 11, 11:30, I have no idea, we set off on a journey to some IES gal's house in the 198028342309841902th district. I think it was actually the 19th but I cannot be sure. At this gal's house there was a nice big party. A party that reminded me of the good ol' high school days. Speaking of high school, at this mansion I ran into a girl there from my high school. Pretttay prettay pretttay pretty crazy eh? At some point, we decided to cab it home as we had no idea where we were. At another point maybe fifteen minutes later, we arrived back in our 16th district where we made a late night omelette and burnt potatoes. How bout that for a day of partying in Vienna...

Short an' Sweet

In between my Mahler class and Theory class, I went a nice brisk walk to the Belvedere.

Take care now, bye bye then.

Mein Gott

About a half hour ago, I was waiting for the 46 tram. I noticed a pigeon and crow get into a bit of a squabble. Before I knew it, the crow was on top of the pigeon pecking away. I was unaware that crows eat other birds...shows what I know. I watched in horror for a few minutes until the tram arrived. I realized I had an important decision to make - get off the tram and stick around for the end credits or stay on the tram and miss a whole bunch of the plot. I stayed on the tram just because I thought people would think less of me when I told them that I got off a tram just to watch an gruesome death. I regret my decision now. It was bizarre. Whenever the crow got a little distracted, the pigeon tried to get up but the crow was quick to place an even firmer grip on the weaker bird and said "Nein, you ain't never getting up buddy." I also noticed there was another crow nearby. I assume he/she was the lookout in case any other pigeons were lurking. You'd think I might have seen something like this in the past as I've lived in Stuyvesant Town my whole life. There you find pigeons and squirrels of every kind. I don't believe I've ever come across a dead anything...maybe a mouse or two, but that's all.

*******I'm adding this a few hours after writing the above story******

Only now at 7:15pm am I realizing that I could have and should have at least attempted to save the pigeon's life by running over and scaring away the bloodthirsty crows. But who knows, maybe the crows would've pecked me to death just like in some well-known film from 1963 that took place in the San Francisco Bay area...that's right, Bodega Bay. I may go live in Bodega Bay just for its name. Bodega Bay. Bodega Bay. Bodega Bay. Say it out loud right now. Bodega Bay.

**************

Now, I'm going to take this time to reminisce on a few days ago. I had just dropped my computer off at an Apple place and didn't have anywhere to be for an hour or two. I wandered around the Inner Stadt of Wien until I found a park by the Rathaus. That hour or so in the park was about as picturesque and reflective as can be. I sat with a pen and moleskin and stared into space. I watched some dogs fight over whatever, some birds fight over crumbs of bread, a little girl who did not stop jumping in a huge pile of leaves. The extraordinary peak did not occur though until a powerful gust of wind came blowing hundreds and hundreds of orange, yellow, green and red leaves off the branches and onto me they landed. How bout that, eh? So my computer's hard drive died...at least nature doesn't have any beef with me.


Somebody's got lots of work to do tonight and it may not be you.
IT's ME.


Yours ever so truly,
D-Man Vienna Lover

Mmmm mmmusic

I'd say Vienna's pretty great. Prettaaay pretttay prettay pretty great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8jx85_RyA8&feature=related.


I don't know what it was but about a week or two ago, my mood has changed considerably. There's so much to do...but not enough time. 


I now know one can go to a concert at the Musikverein at intermission then sneak into the standing room fo free.
I took part into two friends' choir rehearsals today. I'd say they were more than successful.
I also spent some time today with lotsa Austrians. My landlord here is an old Austrian man who loves jazz. I found this out a week or two ago when I was playing the trumpet in our living room. Herbert, the landlord, came into the apartment entranced by my awful playing. He was impressed and surprised that I played the trumpet...eh, he was probably more confused because I hadn't been living in the apartment since the beginning of the semester. Anyway, ever since that day Herbert stops by occasionally to say hello and talk jazz. About a week ago he invited me to sit in with his friend's band at a restaurant. 


Today was the day. As I approached the restaurant with my ol' trumpet gig bag slunk over my shoulder, I heard the band. I was more than blown away. I was expecting a dark and dingy bar type establishment with a decent piano player playing an out of tune upright piano, a trumpet player barely getting through tunes, a bass player who complained of callouses, and a drummer who couldn't keep time. What I got was a pretty killin' professional jazz quintet. The pianist was the youngest of the group and he may have been the most impressive. The bassist was great, the drummer was great, the leader of the group, the trumpet player who sported a Dizzy Gillespie-style trumpet as seen here, was also great.

The saxophonist was really great but not the friendliest of gentlemen. 
Back to the story, I stood in awe as I watched the band through the window for a few minutes. I considered forgetting the whole thing and running home to my mommy and daddy (Drew and Adam) but I gathered up the courage and waltzed into the restaurant. A wall of beautiful, hip jazz hit me as I entered - it was at that point when I knew I had made the right decision. I clutched my trumpet tightly as I anxiously waited my turn. The jazzmen swung and they swung hard. After a few songs, they took a break. I got a chance to talk to the bandleader for a bit and then badabam - the leader introduced a "Daniel from New York City" (that's about all I got from his fast-paced German. I then timidly counted off the tune whoosh - I was playing with some incredible Viennese jazz musicians in a smoky, cozy restaurant packed with head-bobbing, feet-tapping locals. I'd say that's some gooood juice squeezing. I don't know if it was my not very special trumpet playing, my little-boyish looks, or my New York affiliation but I believe the crowd liked me. 


That's all folks. Nighty night.

Ahoy there maties

I sincerely apologize for leaving you without a single blog post in a week or so.

I don't know what else to say other than, I've been bakiinnggg (waking ned devine reference)...no, no I haven't been baking. I've been real busy.

• One night, I ate dinner at a pay-what-you-wish Indian Restaurant. It was darn good.

• Another night was a Halloween to remember/forget/remember. Throughout that night, myself and the boys managed to make a pit stop at one particular kebab/pizza stand three times. That's three times in the course of five or six hours. 
• Ah, the cough that I had is still around but slowly going away. At an amazing rendition of Verdi's Requiem, I was forced to hold in another cough that almost brought me to tears. The Musikverein can't get to me though. I didn't let it out.
• Earlier that Requiem day, I was on the U-Bahn listening to the Requiem on my way to the big Friedhof (cemetery). On that train was a crying, possibly newborn baby. I don't know what it was but I didn't mind that balling baby. In a way it was sort of beautiful. It must've been a combination of the Requiem, the cemetery that I was going to, and my jolly mood. It was at that moment when I realized I sure do love this city.
• A few days ago, my computer's 4 and a half year old hard drive died. I guess it was about time. But hey, now I've got a hard drive with 10 times as many gigabytes as my old one. Never have I seen all of my 40,000 songs in iTunes. Soon, that will change.
• AH, last night I noticed some Christmas shopping stands. I don't know...it seems just a weeeeeee bit early. That is not to say I don't feel like a little giddy boy around holiday shopping stuff. 
• Tomorrow, I believe I'm going to stop by a cafe with a live little jazz band. I may sit in on a tune or two with them. I may not. We shall see.

We're about to hear these dudes and ladies play (the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) some ol' Tchaikovsky Number 5 and Sibelius Violin Conchertoe. I'm very curious to see if people from that part of the world know how to play classical music. I'll let ya'll know.

Toodlez Bardians, Friends, and Family

All my very best,
Dannykins