Salzburg, München und Sophie

My first experience studying abroad was in Karlsruhe, Germany.  Although it’s been four years, I still manage to keep in contact with a handful of my closest friends.  One of these is a francophone Swiss girl by the name of Sophie Nuara.  She and I were friends from the very first day of orientation back in September of 2008 where a throng of international students met on the steps to University.  Stubborn as always, she insisted on speaking German and would never let me resort to English whenever we tried to communicate (this was either because she wanted to learn German or because her English wasn’t so good).  She’s also the one who dragged me out of my shell to join in learning Capoeira that winter.  She’s a simple girl, opting to wear the most practical clothing and more often than not without makeup, choosing to play sport and ride roller coasters.  You might say she’s a bit of tom boy.  When I told her I’d be coming back to Europe she didn’t skip a beat in suggesting we should meet somewhere.  We decided on Munich and set a date.  Because she was bringing along her boyfriend and since I don’t like to play third wheel, I asked a friend of mine from Graz (John Huber of Arkansas) to tag along.

The train to Munich passed through Salzburg which made a short stop all too tempting.  The city of Mozart has so many shades of interesting that one could stay for a week and not experience the entirety of it.  The cathedrals, the history, the music, the culture, and the landscape...forgive me but all I could think of was the Sound of Music.  The exorbitant amount of tourists flooding the city were really the only detraction during our 3 hour stay.  I couldn’t imagine living in a place where every day I was asked to take a picture of/with a group of Japanese tourists on my way to work.

We got to Munich late, rail weary and despite this nothing could have prepared me for that sense of joy you get from seeing a long lost friend after many years.  I was sitting in the lobby of the hostel futilely trying to connect to the internet while John occupied himself with ideas for dinner... and suddenly, there she was, giving me that “I found you” grin.  We immediately ran toward each other and hugged for a good 10 seconds.  It’s good to know and be known.  She’d matured a little and it made me think about how I must have appeared to her.  Her usual spunk was there but it had calmed and she seemed more patient. After a round of swift observance of customary niceties, we were off.  The whole 20 minute walk to the restaurant was primarily the two of us blabbering about good old times.  The ease with which we both slipped back into that Karlsruhe state of mind was astonishing.  It’s as if we were starting in the middle of a long lost sentence with a full grasp of everything that had come before

At dinner that night I ordered Tyrolean cow tongue.  I have to admit, it was awful!  There was a point when I realized that I was chewing on the tip of a dead cow’s tongue, feeling and tasting it with my tongue.  It’s never good when the tips touch.

For the next 2 days it was nothing but “do you remember?” and “what’s this person up to?” and “what are you doing now?”  I think we bored Sophie’s boyfriend and John from Arkansas to tears with our endless chatter.  The passage of time touches everything but over these two days in Munich I had the genuine feeling that I was once again an eager 21 year old student full of life.  It makes me wonder, could I have that experience all over again at age 81 if I met Sophie (or anyone from Karlsruhe) again?  I should like to think so.

Salzburg

Munich

John from Arkansas, Me, Sophie, Sophie's Friend

Sophie and I

Weihnachtsfeier

Before getting into the thick of this post, an apology is in order.  I am sorry for not having posted in almost two months’ time!  Yours truly is a procrastinator but then again, you already knew that didn’t you.

Austria celebrates Christmas in a similar fashion as the Americans with a few finite differences.  For example, the Christmas trees are typically smaller than we’re used to.  The average height I found for sale on the street was about three to four feet.  These cozy “shrubberies” fit well into apartments and small homes where they’re placed atop a small table or stool and decorated with small wooden figurines.  It actually makes me question why we need such large tress in the first place.  Are we trying to match our huge homes with an appropriately sized piece of seasonal decoration?  Perhaps we’re all looking to recreate the ginormous Rockefeller Center tree with its thousands of lights and ornaments.  Anyway, I’ve come to realize our trees are HUGE (and while we’re at it, why a tree in the first place?).  They also celebrate the holiday on the 24^th instead of the 25^th, which is truly a minor discrepancy.

In the round of polite questioning that follows the Christmas holidays, the most important question on everyone’s mind is “how was your holiday.”  As soon as they find out I didn’t go home, they all ask, straight-away “weren’t you homesick being away.”  The short answer is no, not really.  I know that sounds horrible, as if I loathe my family.  It’s just that this Christmas was utterly wonderful and managed to fill any homesickness pains.  You might be wondering, what circumstances could possibly fill the void left by the absence of those who love you unconditionally while in the comfortable surroundings of your upbringing?  Simply put, a FEAST!

Iris Snijders Blok (Netherlands) and I realized sometime in late November that we were going to be in Graz for Christmas.  It was eventually agreed that there would be no better way to celebrate than to pull together a dinner.  There would be food, drinks, gifts, and games.  She graciously agreed to host the event as my apartment fits me and about 2.5 (Chinese) people if we all stood on each other’s toes while holding our breath after having been flattened by a pizza roller wearing corsets.  Everyone was asked to bring food and gifts while Iris and I took care of the drinks.  The final point of contention, what day to celebrate together, the 24^th or 25^th?  The democratic process resulted in the 25^th (and by democratic process I mean I just made a decision when no one seemed to care very much). Once the Facebook invitations were all sent out, we had confirmations for 17 people.  I planned to make the following dishes:

1 huge bowl of mashed potatoes

1 whole roasted chicken

1 ginormous (like that word?) bowl of macaroni and cheese

1 small bowl of vanilla raspberry pudding

In addition, I went out and bought some gifts just in case people forgot to bring one of their own.

1 pair of candles

2 boxes of fancy teas (plural?)

1 box of chocolate cookies

1 box of pralines

1 box of about hundred pocket tissues, for the winter

1 packet of Ikea kitchen sponges, definitely my best gift idea ever

Peter Woods, a fellow Fulbright scholar, decided to join in the fun, which is a good thing because he made the most amazing sweet potato casserole ever.  I have to say, I was a great host, offering him the comfort of a thin blanket to soften the distance between him and the hard floor while he slept (seriously Peter I’m sorry).  On the day of the cooking frenzy began with the two of us rummaging through my tiny kitchen nonstop from 8 in the morning 4 in the afternoon.  It was exhausting yet rewarding work made easier by good company.

By 5 o’clock things at Iris’s place were in full swing.  Everyone had arrived and begun eating their varied dishes.  We had students from Greece, Turkey, Finnland, Egypt (it was her first Christmas), Japan, US, Ireland, Bosnia, Spain, and France; each with their own amazing food.  In fact, we had too much food and foolishly stuffed ourselves before realizing we had a round of dessert to get through (don’t worry we got around to it).  The best part was the lively, heartfelt chatter that went around the table.  Everyone was away from home, in a foreign country and as a result extremely open.  Smiles, laughter, stories, and earnest friendliness were thick in the air.  There was a moment when I just silently stood back and took it all in, letting it wash over me.  It truly made me happy.

It turns out we had just enough presents for everyone.  How lucky is that?  The only thing we lacked was a way to randomly give them out.  Through the use of the democratic process I suggested we play charades whereas the winner would get to pick his/her present.  You know Charades, that game where people have to act out a word/phrase given to them by an opposing team.  A fun, uncompetitive game of laughs and brotherly love, right? WRONG!  Dear readers, please tell me how I could have acted out the movie title “Stranger than Fiction?” uhhhhhh...it’s hard enough to do that around native English speakers!  The other team kept giving us RIDICULOUS words that no one knew how to act out!  Or maybe I’m just a sore loser...;-)  Either way, it’s always a good time watching your friends flap their arms around making crazy faces while people scream out the same answer ten times as if the actor hadn’t heard the first time (it’s a jackal,...a jackal?,  it’s a Jackal, JACKAL!, is it a jackal?).

Win or lose we all passed around the gifts, careful not to end up with anything we brought with us.  This was the part where the Egyptian girl’s face lit up.  She had never gotten a Christmas present before and was staring at the packing of her gift with an expression of wonder and childish excitement.  We decided to count to 5 and open them all at the same time.  It was somewhere between 3 and 4 that I realized the gift she was holding was none other than the package of sea foam colored Ikea kitchen sponges I had hastily bought three days before.  Bless her heart, the poor girl’s expression went from eagerness to confusion in seconds as she clearly did not expect something as mundane as sponges for her first Christmas present.  Everyone was confused (except for Peter and I who found the whole thing hilarious) and wanted to know whether or not she was really holding sponges in her hand.  Holding in my guilt ridden laughter, I took the opportunity to hand her my unopened gift which turned out to be a decorated mug, much more fitting.  All was saved.

Games, food, and conversation carried us through the rest of the night.  By the time I got back to my apartment it was 4 in the morning.  I went to sleep that night remembering their smiles and laughter.  But most of all, I remember that poor Egyptian girl’s face, classic.

Wiener Ball

Vienna is famous for its ballroom dancing. The great show that is a Viennese ball is a living monument to a time when the city was the center of an enormous and illustrious empire. In the 1800s, the privilege of dancing in full regalia would have been reserved for the wealthy and "Adel" of Austria.  Today, however, a simpleton like myself can slide my souls upon the painstakingly carved parquet floors of the Hofburg, however ungracefully.  The Fulbright commission provided the opportunity for the ball of a lifetime and no amount of chorophobia was going to keep me away.

We were a group of about 12 20-somethings braving the snow soiled streets in spite of our tuxedos and gowns to reach the Hofburg. I of course will not tell you which one I had on.  There came a moment about 50 yards from the Hofburg where we all stopped our nervous chatter and gazed in expectant awe at the golden-lit façade of the half moon shaped palace.  Thrilling, regal, intimidating. We were stepping into a different time, cue the goosebumps. It's the kind of feeling that makes you raise your eyebrows about two inches.

Inside, it was everything you might have dreamt a ball would be like.  A sea of people waltzing to the music of Johann Strauss provided by a real life orchestra. No canned music here.  The dance floor blooms all at once every time the pattern calls for a twirl of dresses that likely cost more than I've ever made in my life.  Faces are reserved, trance-like, sighing an effortless "look how easy this is for us."  And then there was us...  None of us knew how to waltz and even with a crash course the week before (all expenses paid) we were stiff and clumsy at best.  Despite this, it was enormous fun. The guys willing to dance were outnumbered by eager females so the three of us (Peter from Tennessee, Aaron from Michigan, and myself) got passed around quite a bit.  It's probably the most fun I've ever had dancing and that's without any liquid courage.
I'm remember walking back to the hotel sometime around 5 in the morning with extremely sore feet and the widest of smiles.  It was a truly a night to be remembered for the rest of one's life. Aaron and I came out of our shells, Peter fell in love with a girl, and an imperial tradition was infiltrated by a troupe of Americans of no particular Royal lineage or wealth.  I'm thankful for the times I live in.

L'enfant et les sortilèges

The Opera was a great success.  There were at least a hundred talented people involved in the entire production. I honestly never considered all of the necessary roles to pull of such medium sized production as ours.  I'm speaking of course about the sound crew, stage designers, vocal trainers, costume organizers, and directors all of which made up a quarter of the manpower.

After almost two months of rehearsals, the final show on the 17th of December was sad for all of us.  We had all grown accustomed to seeing on another on an almost daily basis.  Now it was simply goodbye, good luck, I hope to see you again in the future.  It's hard to know, my assured time here is limited.  I remember walking out of the theater and thinking about how suddenly the end had come, anti-climacticly.

Makeup

The entire Opera choir

David

Backstage set

Orchestra before the start

Daniel, Joachim, and I

I forgot their names

A few of the guys taking a picture while the girls are onstage singing.