I am not doing anything tonight.  Rachel and I tried to go see a play, Alice im Wunderland, but there were no more tickets left, and neither of us really had the energy left to actually do anything.  So I've been relaxing in my room for awhile, passively listening to my roommate and her friends speak some German, every once in awhile concentrating on it enough to understand something.

I have been to all of my possible classes by now.  This weekend was the Musik Seminar, ending with a Konzert on Monday evening.  It is taught by a man who looks somewhat like I imagine any number of the famous old Viennese composers to have looked when they were young and alive.  Yesterday we did Arnold Schönberg, and went to the Arnold Schönberg museum, which has lots of old musical manuscripts of his and some of his artwork.  Today was Beethoven, Motzart, Haydn, and Debussy.  We listened to some of their string quartets.  The professor handed out music and we followed along, while I realized how much I´ve missed being musically involved somehow.  One of my program directors mentioned she found a place I could take voice lessons, I will have to remind her.  On Monday we are going to see a concert, and then there will be no more of Herr Crazyhair for me.

At the Uni, I went to two different classes, and already know which one I will be keeping.  Epische Lieder (Epic Songs) was by far easier for me to follow than Liebe, Ehe, und Ehebruch in mittelaltlischer Literatur - that professor spoke incredibly fast, and there were also hundreds of people in the classroom, making it extremely difficult to concentrate.  I was able to understand about half of what the Epische Lieder Professorin said, and I think the more times I go the easier it will become.  We looked at a section of Beowulf, which I luckily remember well.  However, a translation of Old English into Modern German was one of the more confusing things I have ever read.

The way classes work here is interesting.  They are in gigantic lecture halls, people can come and go when they please, and no one is really expected to be quiet or pay attention the entire time.  This is difficult for me, because if I don´t pay complete attention then I will get completely lost and not understand anything.  I am also finding some cultural differences a little strange - such as the fact that here it is acceptable to blow one´s nose loudly in public, or when giving a lecture, zum Beispiel.  But the personal space thing is weirder for me.  It is smaller here.  I guess I didn´t really notice in Schwäbisch Hall because there were not enough people for it to matter, but here people will get really close to you.

The Central classes are all fine.  I think I´m dropping the Theatre one, because I will just have way too much to do otherwise.  I still have Deutsche Grammatik und Stylistik (necessary for me to somehow keep learning grammar, I still don´t understand passive or subjunctive at all), the required Austria in Context class, and German Literature from Realism to the end of the 20th Century, taught by Austrian Alan Alda.  

I also saw both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood recently.  No Country had German subtitles, and I enjoyed finally being able to pick out how subtitles differ from what people are actually saying.  Anyway, No Country was clearly better, in my opinion.  There Will Be Blood was a little too much on the crazy for me, and I´m glad all the Austrians in the theatre were also laughing nervously at inappropriate times.  Call it, friendo.

Schönbrunn palace was one of the prettier places I have ever seen.  We ventured there a few days ago, and didn´t actually go in the palace.  Wondering the grounds took long enough, and we can always go back...we do have four months.  It, and several other places in Vienna, do not actually look real.  Vienna might just be a fake place, out of someone´s bizarre dream where all the buildings look absolutely unbelievable.  Schönbrunn had an old gate of some sort, where we sat and looked out on all of Vienna for awhile, as seen in the photo.  

I also had an adventure to Zentralfriedhof by myself.  One of the first things I wanted to see in Wien was the graves of musicians, so I took some U-Bahn for awhile followed by some Strassenbahn for awhile (but hey, I understand the public transportation system a lot better now) and ended up at the giant graveyard.  I wandered around for awhile, found the circle of Austrian presidents, and various other extravagant graves, before locating the Musiker.  All the oldest and most famous ones are buried in a circle together, where I just stood and got weirdly emotional for awhile.  People had put flowers all over their graves, and unfortunately the best I could manage was picking up a flower off the ground where it blew away and putting it back on Strauss´s grave.  Somewhat pathetic, I wish I´d had my own.  I then spent awhile trying to find the old Jewish section, but the cemetery is approximately one billion kilometers in every direction, so I never made it.  Besides that, it was very cold.  But I love graveyards, for some strange reason.  I don´t get scared in them, just calm.