We stopped at one point on the tour to get out and see this:

This is the Hundertwasserhaus. Hundertwasser wanted to make a building that you couldn’t tell existed if you looked down upon it. So, it’s covered with greenery, has uneven walls and floors, and even trees growing through some apartmens. It’s quite fascinating. Still apartments and private space inside though, so we can only glance at the exterior of this unique building. I love it.

We also stopped at the Belvedere Palace:

It’s currently a museum – it has a large collection of paintings by Klimt including “The Kiss.” We didn’t get a chance to go in as a group, but we could explore the grounds a little, including the garden and the view down to the Lower Belvedere. The garden was quite flat – apparently the Viennese were fond of this type of garden – from the Upper Belvedere it would appear as a large, colorful carpet, certainly not high enough to obstruct the view of the Lower Belvedere.

After our tour, we ate lunch at the Rathauskellar – the cellar of the town hall. I was excited about this, since Madison had it’s own version in the union – the Rathskellar. Good times. We had our first Wiener Schnitzel here, as well as the famous chocolate cake – the Sacher Torte. Delicious.

After lunch we had our first rehearsal for the Requiem. It was good to finally practice with men and the rest of the chorus, and to get to know the conductor. On the other hand, we’d had a busy morning, and most of us were still pretty jet-lagged. The conductor could tell, and let us go a little bit earlier than planned; the scheduled 3 hour rehearsal would’ve been a bit much. After the rehearsal, our tour guide showed us a little more of the city, including a stop to see the famous Lippizaner horses of the Spanish Riding School grazing and playing:

These colts will grow up to be white, and will be part of the famous dancing horse team.

Our days were packed in Austria. After such a busy day, we were treated to one of the festival concerts at the Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic.

There was a lot of music on the program, but the one group that really blew me away was the Atlanta Boy Choir. I can’t find my program at the moment, but there were some absolutely gorgeous pieces, and it was a beautiful setting, too.

Shortly thereafter, we all headed to bed to prepare for the next day.

On my last morning in New York, my friend and I headed out to the site of the World Trade Center. It was a little surreal; it was a construction site, and although it was quite a large area to be flat in the middle of skyscrapers, it wasn’t unlike any other major construction site. I’m not sure what I expected, but a seemingly ordinary construction site wasn’t it. Afterwards, I grabbed my luggage and hopped on the subway to catch my plane. A mariachi band got on just before the Queens tunnel and played for us. I was amused, but not all of the captive audience was.

It was a long, relatively uneventful series of flights to Vienna, and though I got snippets of sleep, there was little substantive rest, and I arrived in Vienna mid-morning already quite sleepy. I had to try and last through the afternoon though, in hopes of getting over the jet lag quickly. Once we made it to the hotel, I ran into a couple of other Glee girls who had come the day before, and we headed out to explore the city a little bit. We wandered through the Rathaus (the old town hall), where they were set up for a film festival of sorts.

After a light lunch, we found our way to the Albertina, one of Vienna’s many museums. I probably wasn’t in quite the right state of mind for a museum after so little sleep, but I did see some things I recognized – some Monet, Picasso, Lichtenstein, and some creepy mouse paintings by Helnwein. After exhausting the museum and the staterooms, we wandered around the city and made it back to the hotel, where they eventually sorted out the rooming situation and we could get settled. And, by that time, many more glee club girls had arrived, so it was exciting. While we were quite tired, we did go out one more time to find our first Viennese dinner. I ordered what the English menu called gnocchi, complete with cheese and fried onion bits on top. It wasn’t gnocchi as I expected it, but it was a glorified comfort-food mac and cheese, and therefore quite tasty after a long day (or two!)

I meant to include more, but it’ll just have to be a series of posts – otherwise they’ll never get done. So. Sorry for the delay, and my relative quiet recently, but it’s been busy, and there will be more later.

So, after an amazing week in Vienna (albeit without cheap internet), I thought I’d give y’all a quick update. I’m home safely, after being up for 24 hours with only marginal airplane sleep, and I’m more or less settled back home. I haven’t gone through and edited/dealt with a lot of photos yet, but here are a few to whet your appetite.