The German Class

There's not a lot to say about the German class I'm taking. It's a great class, meets every day for 3 hours, and is really just what my German needed to get to the next level. The teacher is good and the class is taught all in German. Oh, and most of the class, in which I am honing my German skills, yes most of the class is from Japan! They're a wonder bunch of folks in the class. Actually the class makeup is: 1 French, 1 Indian, 5 Japanese, and 2 Chinese, 1 Croatian, 1 American (moi), all women. And hey, I'm not complaining, because the German of the women in the class is very good! We also learn about Austrian culture in the class, which is nice, but best of all, we learn about JAPANESE culture! We had a little tea party the other day with proper tea and everything. It was super fun and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

The Rotary Club Story

OK, I'm going to catchup on a couple of topics that really need narrative. The first thing that comes to mind is the Rotary meeting story. So, Nancy Hargrove and I decided that before she left us to go back to Mississippi (the professors stay one semester, not the whole year) that we were going to go to a Rotary meeting or two. She is a Rotarian, and had brought 2 banners with her to exchange with clubs here, and I, well, I am not a Rotarian. I like Rotarians, some of my best friends are Rotarians, but the truth is that I am merely an anhanger to this circle. I had thrice tried to get a Rotary scholarship and was twice named runner up. My father and uncle are in Rotary and I have maintained a close relationship with the club who had sponsored me in Dallas, so I brought a banner (and my dad promised to send me one from his club, too). So Nancy and I went online and found out where and when the Rotary clubs meet. There are like 20 of them in Vienna! So, on January 11th we went to this hotel where we thought the meetings was supposed to be. Despite Nancy's best efforts, she could not actually reach anyone by phone to confirm the meeting location. So, we get to the Hotel Intercontinental and we asked about the Rotary meeting. It's not there. We saw that another club met at the same time at the Hotel de France next door, so we went there and were in luck - the meeting was there. Fine. So, we walk in, we order dinner at the door, we sign in, and the first thing that Nancy asks our host is, "are there women in this club?" Which is actually a valid question since Rotary did not start permitting women in the clubs until about 15 years ago. The answer was no! There were no women in this club or in most of the other Vienna clubs! They explained that about 2 clubs in Vienna have women in them (and they didn't seem thrilled about that either). When she asked them when they thought women would be allowed in their club as members, they said, "never." Despite that, they were quite welcoming to us and we sat with some lovely gentlemen at dinner and had very nice conversations. They all spoke English, though I did get to impress them with my stunning German just a little. So it came for the time when they would have the program - each meeting has a program where you get to learn something about something. Tonight we were in luck... oh we were in something.... The topic was............ Male Menopause! OMG, I could definitely understand what the man was talking about and Nancy could actually understand some of it, too. It was all we could do not to burst out laughing. Not because male menopause is anything to laugh at, because believe me, it isn't. But it was just so apro po that the one night they have women at their club they have a lecture on this topic. Nancy even mentioned it to the men at our table afterwards and they definitely saw the humor in it. It really topped off the evening. We got to take a picture with the nice gentlemen at our table and said goodbye to our new friends at the Rotary Club Wien-Donau (Vienna-Danube).

In case you're keeping track, this week I have been very sick with a case of the flu. I was in Munich for the weekend at a Schenker workshop with Allen Cadwallader (which was great), and Saturday night my temperature rose very high - to 103. I knew I needed to get back, so I took the earliest direct train at 9:30am Sunday. Unfortunately I did not have aspirin or tylenol with me and pharmacies (but NOT restaurants) are closed on Sundays - even the ones at the train station - and there's no such thing as those small convenience packages sold at other little kiosks, so basically I was out of luck. Took the train back (4 hours) and I had to explain in German to the people who wanted to share the riding chamber with me that they were welcome to, but risked contacting the illness I had. I had the chamber to myself... The temperature rose to 104.1. Got back to Vienna and got home and went to bed. Will spare the details of the illness, but basically I have not been able to get out of bed except to go to the bathroom or even sit up in bed. The one interesting/positive thing is that that I can report that if you're sick, your doctor will come to your house and treat you there. They call it a "house call" boys and girls. My roommate, who studies medicine took care of me a lot. Wrapped me in cool towels to get my temp down, gave me aspirin, helped me back to bed when I almost passed out, a real treasure. Well, she was amazed that we don't have that in the states. In fact, it doesn't even cost any more than a regular visit, which is nothing. So, now it is Wednesday and I can sit up for short periods of time and my temperature is down, but I still have bad muscle cramps and bad stomach pains. Had to miss German class and researching, and worst of all Guy and Nancy's party Sunday :( but hopefully I'll be able to see everyone at the ball tomorrow. May not be able to put my waltz lesson into use, but it would be nice to make an appearance and also say goodbye to Guy and Nancy. Thanks to everyone who called with well wishes.

A Night at the Opera

It’s been a long time since my last post. I have been dutifully working in the archive, getting lots of work done on research… fun, fun. Thursday I was there and Danny’s friend Yanna happened also to be there doing some research, so we went out for coffee after it closed at 1pm. We decided to go to Starbucks and I learned something very important – there’s no smoking at Starbucks – yay! So, that’s my new favorite Vienna Kaffeehaus. Haha. Unfortunately I hurt my back this week somehow, and I was concerned about it, so I had my first experience going to the doctor. It wasn’t so bad. I had to wait, but the doctor was nice and gave me some medicine and exercises.

Friday was a Catholic holiday, so therefore all stores, offices, everything was closed. The only places that stay open on holidays or Sundays are restaurants. I met Nancy and Guy Hargrove for Indian food at our favotite Indian restaurant.

Saturday Danny, Nancy, Joe (Yanna’s boyfriend) and I planned to stand in line for Stehplatz (standing) tickets for the first opera of Wagner’s tetrology (that means there’s 4) Der Ring des Niebelungen. The first opera is called, Das Rheingold, and it basically sets the scene for what happens in the later operas. There’re snakes, giants, gods, damsels in distress, the whole nine yards.

Since it is especially popular the operas will only be performed once each this season, they sold out as soon as the tickets went on sale a month ago – it’s like a Christina Aguilera concert or something! So, we decided to start waiting for the tickets three hours ahead of time (normally we wait starting an hour and a half before). There were a lot of people there already when we showed up at 4pm and we waited in line and got standing tickets (for only 2 Euros!). Nancy met a 20-year-old guy from Iceland while waiting in line. He was kind of strange, but she talked to him for an hour and a half – hehe. Sorry, Nancy!

We ran and marked our spots with scarves and went to eat and came back. Since it was a special evening we dined at a lovely little eating establishment known here as "Burger King." Oh, wait, I think we weren't supposed to tell Yanna... sorry, Joe! This opera was a mild 2.5 hours, while the other three top 5 hours each. There was no intermission, so that was fun. I sure hope the others have intermissions. So, we enjoyed the singing very much, but decided collectively that we did not care for the sets or the costumes. I have definitely seen sets that I have disliked more than this, but I didn’t think it was particulary thoughtful or introspective – rather it just looked kind of blah. Oh well. All in all it was a great night.