Bratislava.....

Hello everyone,

This is going to be a long entry because there is a lot to talk about hahaha. First off before I talk about Bratislava I will talk about some other things. Yesterday I had German and then my German class went to a cafe called Palmhauscafe which is right by the Hofburg Palace and by the Schmetterling exhibit (butterfly exhibit). I had a heiße Schokolade and a Schokomussetorte meaning a Hot Choclate and Chocolate Moose Cake. The cake was out of this world. The hot chocolate here is very different it is much more bitter. Here is a picture of the cafe

My Cake

My Hot CoCo

After this I had to go to my voice teachers apartment in 17th district. It is the district right next to me and I though oh it won't be that far. WRONG! From school it took me an hour to get to her apartment. I had to walk straight uphill for about 1/2 a mile ughhhhhh. I was basically warmed up by the time I got to her apartment. My voice teachers name is Elizabeth Bice and she is absolutely amazing. I'm so excited to work with her. She has worked with some amazing people and one of my idols Dmitri Hvorostovky. Unbelievable. I can't wait to work with her more. I'm going to learn so much. After my lesson I crashed and then work up in the morning at 6:30 to go to Bratislava, Slovakia. We were planning to make the 8:25 train but when we are buying tickets someone said everyone have their passports and I go....NO. I left it in my apartment. NO SMART. I was thinking everyone is going to leave and I had to go back to my apartment. I was not going to let this happen I was determined. So what did I do. I RAN. I ran fast and hard. I was two train stops away and 7 long blocks away from my apartment. I ran to my apartment and was out of breath then I ran back to the train station and got on the train for two stops meet everyone else and got on another train, and then another and then we got to the train stop. Mind you I left to get my passport at 7:50 I was back on the first train at 8:12. I ran hardcore, but it turns I didn't have to run because even if I had my passport we wouldn't have made the 8:25 train because we had to go a little ways to get to the train station. So we waited about 45 minutes before the next train. We got some breakfast. I was trying to still calm down and not sweat from running forever. I didn't fall asleep on train I played a lot of cards and then before we knew it we were in Bratislava. When we got off we had no clue where we were going. We had no map. NOTHING. We asked a lady what bus to get on to find a map and she said the city center and the bus number. We get on the right bus but the train map is in slovakian and we don't know where the city center is. All of the stops looked really weird and we had no clue so what do we do. We took the bus to the end of the line then looked around and then get back on the bus to go back to where we started. We were lost. I went into survival mode and was nervous, but there was 10 of us. We finally find someone who speaks english. Slovakians really don't speak a lot of English and this guy told us where to find the center. We finally were saved. We then met a lot of IES people but we eventually went our separate ways. I wanted to eat first and so we looked around for a restaurant. We found restaurant and then it was to expensive so we were walking up the stairs to leave and I hit my head on the cement ceiling! OUCH!!! It really hurt. After I could start walking again my small group split even smaller and it was left with 3 guys. Myself, Kyle B., and Ben M. We went to an all you can eat salad and tapas buffet. It was so good. they had apple, green bean, carrot, spanish bean, and pasta salads. I filled my belly and then we headed to the Bratislava castle. We could figure out where the entrance was so we walked around the outer wall for awhile. We went way uphill but then had to go all the way back down the hill to get to the entrance of the castle. The castle was not that great. It was boring and there is construction going on around the whole thing. We then met up again with some girls and we started a snowball fight. Later on we got in a snowball fight with some Slovakians. It was so much fun. We then head to this puppet place and they sold hand carved puppets from Prague. They were amazing. I'm going to buy one when I head to prague at the end of next week. I can't wait!! Prague is going to be a blast. Anyway after that we went to a chocolate cafe and I had the best Hot chocolate ever. It had carmel in it too. It was so good!!!! After that we decided it was time to go back to Wien (Vienna.) We then got on the train and played war and before we knew it we were home. The day was so much fun but there is really not a lot to do in Slovakia. I don't highly recommend it unless you go with a lot of people then it can be fun. Well that is my amazing day. My body is sore and hurts. I will leave you with some pictures.

the sweet puppets

the amazing hot chocolate for 2 euro so so good

Ben, Myself and Kyle

The Bratislava Castle

A sweet church

The castle at night

They have statues all over and this is known as the man at work. It is one of the most famous ones.

The castle under stupid construction

Some advertisement that I feel in love with!!!!!

Sleepy Time

Okay, well actually is sleepy time for me now. I have a lot to do tomorrow. I have to practice and do some German homework. It is time for me to fall asleep. Love you all.

Love,

B

WoW it was AMAZING!!!!!

So I woke up a little bit ago and I have been just getting stuff together. Right now I'm eating Choco Flakes which are crunchy wheat chocolate flavored shapes. haha It is not good. haha, but surprising it is pretty healthy. It has a lot of B vitamin. Enough about my breakfast let me talk about the ball. I'm still trying to get over this cold that I have. I can feel it getting better....I think haha. I decided to leave early from the ball. I was there for about 4 hours. It was unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it and I never will again. It was amazing. It was in the imperial palace. They did some fun dances like the cha cha, rumba, waltz, viennese waltz, tango, the twist, and some slow dancing. The ball was packed. There were 3 dancing rooms with 3 different bands. I danced a lot. A lot of the people from IES that went were girls and they didn't have anyone to dance with so I literally went down the row and danced with as many girls as I could from IES for about 15 songs that were 4 to 5 minute songs. My legs are killing me this morning. I just wanted everyone to experience dancing and having fun at a ball instead of sitting on some stairs in front of the ballroom. Here are some pictures

This is the imperial palace. This is where the ball was.

This is part of the opening ceremony. I got it on my camcorder and I'm trying to upload it but I will have to try later.

This is one of the ballrooms it was small. This is where they taught people to dance.

This is where the more popular "American" music was played. They did a lot of slow dancing and tango in here.

This is the ballroom from the back and they were doing some austrian line dance and I didn't know how to do it so I just watched. It was very interesting.

The ball was amazing. It ended at 5 a.m. They apparently started serving breakfast at 3 a.m. It is a night that I know I will never ever forget. It truly was a fairy tale. Well I have to get going. I have to practice. I have my first voice lesson today. I will update you all later.

Love,

B

Interesting Life....

Today is the first real day that I have sorta felt homesick. Today is a very nasty day here in Wien. It has been snowing and it is really muddy outside too. By the school there is construction going on to build another building. The building is going to look very antique though. There are two main parts of Wien. There is old Wien and new Wien. Old Wien is most of the city and is where I am. New Wien is the part across the Danube Canal and that is where all the skyscrapers are and even the UN building. I can't really tell what they are building though right by the school. Today has been a boring day haha. I know life should not be boring. IM IN VIENNA. WHAT CAN BE BORING ABOUT THAT? Nothing is. It is just one of those days for me. I have an alexander technique lesson at 5:30 my time. The Alexander Technique is a weird thing that helps you position your body to ease pain and also help with posture. It helps performers with breath support and body position. It is pretty cool. I will only have a few lessons of that but one of the best teachers is in Vienna and he charges students hardly anything compared to his real clients and it is a one on one appointment. After that I will be coming back to school to take some dances lessons for the TU ball on Thursday. Apparently the ball is not a bump and grind kind of dance. hahaha some people were a little upset about that, but it is going to be a fairy tale. I will waltz, salsa, and tango I think. I just need to have a crash course in the next two days. After that I'm going to a bar/cafe with a new friend, Alyson. We call each other soulmates because there are so many things that we have in common. It is sorta scary. I mean the main difference is that she is small and short and I'm big and tall haha. After that I'm going in for the night. Tomorrow I will probably go walk up and down Maria Hilfer Strasse which is the main cheap shopping area. I will put more pictures up soon. I need to figure out my camera for some reason when I take pictures they get a little blurry but someone is going to help me with that. It is weird to think that I left 2 weeks ago today. It is cool that I know that I can basically survive on my own. I haven't had to go into survival mode for awhile. On Thursday I will have to because the ball starts at 9 but doesn't end until 5 a.m. I will want to stay the whole time but I don't know if I can because my first voice lesson will be the next day and I want to give a good impression. I have to figure out what I will be doing in two weeks for my break. I don't just want to stay in Vienna but I don't want to go to London yet.....My parents don't want me to go anywhere alone but most of my friends are going on the Germany trip offered by IES but there is a waiting list so I can't go :( It is fine. I just want to explore on my own sort of though. We will see where I will go, but now I'm off to go look around a little bit. Love to all!

Busy Busy Busy

Right now I'm on my 15 minute break from German. We are being challenged really hard right now. I got an A- on my first German Test. Thats good I guess. I'm not really good at it but for some reason I'm really intrigued by the language and I sorta want to become fluent but that will never happen. I had my audition for the music program on Wednesday and I found out that I got in. My voice teacher is Ms. Elizabeth Bice and I have my first lesson on Friday. When i talked to her she seemed like a very nice and funny lady. I hope the chemistry between us works. I also at the end of the semester I will have to do a recital. I'm really excited for it. It will be about 30 to 45 minutes. I will videotape it and hopefully perform it at home this summer to raise money to do another music program next summer in Italy. Everything is great here. I saw two operas this weekend. Both were Mozart - Don Giovanni and Marriage of Figaro. They were both great. I'm not a fan on how Mozart drags the plot out but none the less it was amazing. Life is very interesting right now. It seems sorta like a fairy tale. On Thursday I will be going to a ball at the Hofburg (the imperial palace). I will be waltzing and prancing around like a Prince. It is sorta unbelievable. I really haven't eaten here a lot. I went to the Naschmarkt which is the flea and farmers market. It is HUGE! I bought 7 apples and 4 oranges for 5 euros. It was really cheap. I haven't eaten a lot and I think I have lost weight but I'm not sure. There is a weigher by a tram stop that I could weigh myself in kilos for .20 euros. I will do it when no is watching of course haha. I have basically just survived on the off brand of Nutella. It is weird that I have almost been here for 2 weeks and it is weird to think that I have 18 more weeks here. It really feels like I have been here forever. I still haven't gone out to a club ( Mom and Dad, be proud.) I will go out sometime. I went to my first bar, 1516 and had leitungswasser, tap water. hahaha it was free. Everything here is just so expensive, but I'm managing my money very well. I still have a lot from when I got here. I will update maybe later today. I have to go back to German for another hour. Here we go!!!! Auf Wiedersehen

PICTURES!!!!!!!

This is the Imperial Palace. The Hofburg

This is the Me and the Staatsoper (The Opera House)

The study room in school (sorry you have to turn your head)

This is the top of the ceiling in the recital hall and my classroom

Going down the stairs

This is the decorations we had at a little get together.

The bathroom that cost .6 euros. IT WAS NOT WORTH IT!

The view in the back of the Belvedere

The Belevdere. It means Beautiful view

This is downtown on the main strip. Its beautiful!!! More Pictures will come soon. Life is amazing here. I will update soon!

When in Vienna....

Well today was yet another eventful day in the life of Ben Wright. I have tried to update as much as I can and I'm going to try and force myself to do this everyday or every other day. It is going to be hard but I can do it. Okay so this experience has been a very very eventful one. I will start off with the second hostel that I stayed at. It was more like a hotel but it was considered a hostel. Everything was great until we had to leave and go to our apartments. I realized that my roommates had left me hahaha. So Helmut (student housing man) took me to my apartment so I wouldn't have to pay for a taxi by myself and I had to wait for another hour until everyone had left. It was fine and it worked out. I got to my apartment and saw everyone and saw the amazing apartment and then literally I feel asleep. I didn't have time to go to the grocery store because they had already closed by the time that I wanted to get food and i couldn't get anything until the next day (Saturday.) Saturday we went to the school Palais Corbelli. It was built in the 1680s and everything is pretty much the same. Red marble and marble staircases. Everything is absolutely beautiful. After that I had a housing interview to see if there were any complaints with the landlady about the apartment. After that I went grocery shopping with some girls over by there apartment at Durragasse. It was a 20 minute walk and I left everything at there place because I didn't have time to get back to my apartment and be back for the bus tour in Vienna. We then walked back to the IES Center and had a meeting about the history of Vienna. It was very nice but too much information. The lady focused a lot on the years of everything. After that we went on a 3 hour bus tour around Wien and we all took pictures. Some people feel asleep o the bus because we all got really tired really quickly. After that we then went to a small restaurant called a Heuriger. It is this really nice wine place that sells their own wine and grape juice. The grape juice was amazing and some of the best I have ever had. Some people got really hammered off of the wine which was funny because locals really don't get drunk here. After that I went back to my friend's apartment to get my food and then i went into survival mode to get back to my apartment and I did it. I was so proud of myself because I never thought I could do it. hahaha I am now at my school waiting for a few hours to go on a walking tour downtown in district 1. It will be a lot of fun. AFter that I will be going back to my apartment to practice and then go to bed. I love you all. I PROMISE PICTURES VERY SOON!

Squeezing da Juice!!!

So today is the day that I finally moved into my apartment. After two days of dragging 100 pounds of luggage around Vienna, I finally have a place that I can put stuff in a closet and it can stay there for 4 1/2 months. My apartment is actually pretty nice and pretty big. It has 4 bedrooms. 3 doubles and 1 single for our RA. 2 bathrooms, living room/dining room, kitchen, 2 practice rooms in the basement, and thats pretty much it. The practice rooms are AMAZING!!!! So much better than the ones at Butler. They are so warm and the pianos look brand new. The only thing that could be better about the room is the length of my bed. My feet and ankles fall off the end of the bed. It is sorta funny. Hopefully my feet don't get cold. Today was survival day haha I had to learn survival German. Like Hello and Where is...and my name is...... The main stuff. Also can I see the Menu? After this survival thing I realized I SUCK AT GERMAN!!!! I will never be good. I also had an amazing schnitzel today. Yum!!!! Anyway I will update later. Time for bed.

I'm in Vienna

Well everyone I have finally made it to my last destination. I have been here about 12 or so hours and literally this is the longest day of my life. I have horrible jet lag. I slept on the plane from Indy to D.C. but not only like 30 minutes on the plane to Vienna. The plane was huge but I had no room and I felt very uncomfortable. On the plane to D.C. I had 2 seats to myself so I could stretch out a lot. There was one person doing IES on that plane. She is from Indiana also. Her name is Tia. Then we met up with 7 other people for the plane to Vienna. They played some movies like 27 dresses, Fame, Jungle Book and fun stuff like that. At first I was sitting alone by this lady I was trying to be friendly to and she was not having it, but then someone I met named Kaitlin was sitting by a man that was Austrian and he was willing to switch for me a Kaitlin to sit next to each other. He wasn't nice about but its fine haha. Kaitlin and I just talked the whole time and then another guy named Ben can up to talk to us for awhile. The whole plane experience was really weird. Some people were very friendly and some people looked like they wanted to kill you. Most spoke English but some didn't. After we got off the plane with got luggage and that took forever. Then the thing that took the LONGEST was getting from the airport to the train station by our hostel. The Westbahnhoff, it is pretty much the main train station. We all were cheap people and didn't want to spend 8 euro to save 15 minutes. We bought train tickets. Of course I bought the wrong one but we all figured it out. We thought at first that we would have to do the ticker process like in New York or Chicago where you swipe your ticket. That is not the case what so ever. It turns out if an official asks you for a ticker you need to show it to him if you don't have it then you are heavily fined. No one asked for our ticket on both trains, but we bought tickets anyway. It took us a good 40 minutes to an hour to get to our hostel and that is carrying 100 pounds of luggage up and down stairs and such. It was very tiring. We then were starving and ate at this local restaurant that took forever to get the bill. I feel asleep in the restaurant, but was woken up to get my food. It was really good. It was a wrap with steak, lettuce, pepper, and some really good dressing. It was cheap too. I then came back and fell asleep. It has been rough today haha. I will be going to bed soon again. It is after 10 o'clock here, and my clock is really really off. I will put pictures up later!!! Hope all is well with everyone. See you all soon!

My Apartment...

So these are the two places I will be the most at in Vienna. B on the map is my apartment and A on the map is my school. For me to walk to school it will take about an hour and for me to do public transit it would take 30 or so minutes. That is going to be a huge pain. The location of my apartment seems nice. It turns out that I'm located in the small red-light district of Vienna. I didn't even think there was a red-light district there until I looked up my address. Oh Boy!! hahaha. I only have a week left and I'm ready to go. My mind changes daily though. Some days I feel I am ready to get the heck out of here, and other days I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I have to pack a little bit more and say my goodbyes and then I'm outta here. I'm so glad I don't have to go back to Butler and that I can escape the "Butler Bubble" for a little while. I went there a few days ago to drop a friend off and it felt so awkward and different. I had already said goodbye to Butler and it was weird going back even just for a little while.

I will have skype so look me up. I think my username is theWrightway2go. or just look up Ben Wright and you will see Zionsville or Vienna as location.

I finally got a list of everyone that is going to be in the program. There are only about 100 of us. It will be really nice. Not many in the music program. I am signing up for all music classes of course. Hopefully I can get in all of them. They are going to be pretty hard courses. They are all 300 to 400 level classes with 100 level German. I pre-registered for Music History 3, The Lied (german music like schumann, schubert, wolf, mahler) German 1, Music Workshop (Choir, Lyric Theatre), and Individual Lessons. That is a total of 16 credit hours. I hope that i can handle it. Looking at the outlines of the class it looks like a lot. I don't know when my German class is but all the other classes have times and if I take these classes. I won't start any day earlier than 11:30 hahahaha that is a first and will be the only time that will ever happen.

Well anyway I'm off to a doctors appointment. Goodbye All!!!

Ben