Life is Grand

Hello Everyone,

It has been awhile. So much has happened since I last updated. I will try and fill you in as much as I can. So after the Wachau trip I had a lot of school work and I still have a lot of school work. German is progressively getting harder and harder. No one really did well on the last test that we took. I told the teacher that I didn't feel that we covered the material adequately and she took it as I didn't study enough and I didn't prepare. We have learn so many things and it is to hard to process everything. Life is grand though. I'm working really hard on my recital and I have a lot to look forward to. I feel that my voice has changed a lot since I have been here and it is going to keep on changing. I'm sad I won't be working with my Amazing Voice Teacher and my Amazing Coach! They are really happy about the progress that I have made this semester. This weekend I plan on going to Budapest, Hungary and I want to go to the spas to relax, the opera house, and explore more of Europe. I hear it is absolutely beautiful. I will take a ton of pictures as I usually do and put them online for all of you to see.

I have gone to the Opera a lot recently. I went and saw la sonnambula with Jaun Diego Florez and Natalie Dessay! They are unbelievable. I got to meet them after the performance as well. I also went to Rigoletto with Dmitri Hvorstovsky - one of my idols! He was great. I would have never seen him in the states and if I wanted to tickets would have been so expensive. The opera is something that just calms me down and is so relaxing. Tonight I'm going to I Puritani by Bellini. It should be really great.

Next weekend I will be going to Salzburg and I will get to see all things related to the Sound of Music and also Mozart. I still haven't bought a gift for myself since I have been here. I want something that will remind me of Vienna, Europe, or Austria all the time but I still can't think of anything. Who knows I have another month to find something that will remind me of all the AMAZING times that I have had here. I know this is a short entry but I have to go study for a big German test tomorrow. Wish me Luck!!!!!

Tschüß Ba Ba,

Ben

Wachau Trip

This trip was so much fun. I just got to kick back a little and enjoy the scenery. In the morning we left around 8 o'clock and got to the first destination called Melk around 9:30. Melk is in a valley right by the Danube. They are known for their Monastery. This place was HUGE! They use to have 100 monks living there now they only have 30 and they have a school of 900 students there too. We got to be on a tour and see some really old stuff dating back to the year 800. We stayed there til round 11 and then we went to our next destination called Dürnstein. This is mostly where Wachau is. We walked through the town a little bit and then we were told we could climb this mountain to go see the castle ruins at the top. None of us knew how far it was up but lets just say it took a 20 minute walk to get up there. ughhhhh my legs were burning but it was well worth it. The view was gorgeous. I have never really seen anything like it. We got to climb up to the watch tower of the castle and see everything. We were really high up. I have never seen anything like it before. After being at Dürnstein and enjoying the view for a few hours we head to this place called Krems. It is known as a medieval town, but all I have to say is the place is not worth it unless you like looking at a lot of Frescos. We took a tour and it sorta seemed like the tour was just made up and not real. We walked into a room and they told us what was in it before but it didn't like it could be what they were saying and they are trying to restore it. They also showed up a medieval kitchen but the kitchen was completely black and you couldn't see anything. I wasn't a fan. We then headed to a Wine Tasting Place. It was really cool. I took some Benedryl before hand and had less then half a glass of wine. I became a little blotchy but I was fine. We tried for different wines. I didn't really care for the white wines and I had a taste for the red wine. I also didn't know how to drink it so I just smelled it like I was told to and gulped it all at one. The white wines I gave to someone if I didn't like it. We were should how wine was made and we then headed upstairs to their big dining room and had a really nice meal. Everything was great! It was such a great day and I got to meet some people I hadn't met yet. Which was really nice.

The View from the Wine Tasting

Us eating

The Wine Cellar

This huge Wine Keg

The View from Dürnstein

OH NO!!!!

Another View

This was only part way up

The Castle Ruins

The town of Melk

The Melk Abbey

The Abbey

I have a lot of crazy things coming up because I have to gear down for school. I will be in Vienna all week and then the week after I think I will be going to Rome. I will know within the next few days. I would be there saturday and sunday and I would get to go to Vatican City and see all the cool monuments. EXCITING! After that I think the next weekend I plan on going to Salzburg and the weekend after maybe Cinque Terra or Prague. Ughhhh So much to do in such little time. Well I need to go get ready for school. I miss you all.

Love,

Ben

Life Update

Hello Everyone,

So Mom has really gotten on my case to update this. I have just been super swamped. This week was not really fun at all. I had to make up all of my midterms but I don't know how I did on any of them, but they are over and I'm glad they are. It was nice to get them out of the way, now I have to focus on my recital and focus on my music. Also if I will be traveling or not. I have a little over a month to memorize about 10 songs for my recital. All of them are in a different language which will be interesting to try and remember all of them. On Thursday I wen to an opera. It was amazing. It is called La Bohéme. It started Anna Netrebko. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VOICE EVER!!!! The worst part was the man that was standing behind me in the standing room he was leaning on the bar behind me and leaned forward putting his face right by my and I moved and stood up straight and his wife told my friend that I was taking up the room of two people, because I was standing up straight. They wouldn't talk to me and then said I was rude for not leaning over. It really made me mad because they were ruining my experience of this amazing opera but I still really enjoyed it. On Friday I had a Voice Lesson and it was great! I'm so glad everything is going really well with my lessons. Tonight I will be going to Karlskirche, which is a church and go listen to the Mozart's Requiem. Its going to be great. There really isn't much going on with me until next week. Tomorrow I will be going to a place called Wachau which is a valley at the end of the Alps. It will be a lot of fun. I will take a lot of pictures. I can't wait. They are well known for their wine and apricots. I just want to go somewhere again. Well I need to go practice.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Life is general

So it has been over a week since I have posed another blog. This entry is not going to be long because I have a lot that I need to be doing and I'm taking a break right now. I have to make up my midterms that I was suppose to take before my Spring Break but I was sick. I already made up my German midterm today and tomorrow is Music History and the day after is The Lied. I have a listening quiz tomorrow for Music History that I need to make up also. That is going to be a lot of fun....NOT! Anyway life is interesting here. From this Thursday I only have 7 more weeks. It feels like I have been here for a very short amount of time. I have a lot that I need to do in these 7 weeks. I have a recital to plan, traveling, and going to Operas of course. On Thursday I will be going to La Boheme. It was on last night and I know some people that went and I heard it was absolutely beautiful and breath-taking. I will update you about spring break later this week. My mom came and we had a blast. No one was around my apartment at all during break so we basically had it to ourselves which was very nice. She also brought me some american food like peanut butter, brownie mix etc. I was so happy. She also brought me some other clothes from home. its nice to finally wear something different. Well I just wanted to inform you all that I'm alive and well and now I must go study more for my tests.

Tschüß Ba Ba,

Ben