We can finally live here

There are so many things that inhibit you from truly feeling at home in a foreign country. The language, the culture shock, being so far away from family are just a few of the obstacles you face. In Europe, we have found the biggest one to be…no Mexican food. I can’t tell you how many times I have cried myself to sleep at night, snuggling up to a pair of rolled socks, wishing it was the big fat chicken burrito I craved. It has been an awful journey to the realization I may never have that thing which I desired again, but I held fast to my favorite bible verse:

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalms 37:4

Well, the answer came in the form of Fresco Grill. I read about this relatively new restaurant in town on a Vienna expat website, and it was getting some good reviews. This was weird because NONE of the few Mexican restaurants in Vienna ever received good reviews. So, today Jer and I packed up and headed over there to see what the fuss was about. IT…WAS…AWESOME. As tears ran down my cheeks (partly from joy, partly from the peppers), I looked up at my husband and said, “we can live here now, honey…we can finally live here.” And live we shall…

Who needs a residence permit, when you can have burritos?

Back into the swing of things

Upon returning to Vienna from an absolutely perfect two-week Christmas vacation to America, we were unsure what feelings we would have about being back here.   Would we be more homesick than ever?  Would we find it difficult to go back to life in a foreign country?    But, much to our surprise, God blessed us both with a peace about coming back to Vienna.   Going home for Christmas put things into perspective, and we now view our daily lives here with a fresh outlook. Consequently, we've been much happier, more at ease, and we feel much more at home here than when we left in December.

Since we've been back, we've had some great stuff happening.   My brother Jacob came to visit for a week, and it was really good to hang out with him for more than just a day at a time.  We spent most of the time relaxing, watching The Office, and eating, which was fine with me!   We did go skiing with him for a couple days, and it went much better for me than the last time we went (see post below).  It was Jacob's first time, and he learned very quickly, mostly because we started on the slopes you're supposed to start on, but also because of the legendary dexterity, cognitive skills, and athletic prowess that are commonly associated with the Wilson name.  :)

You can check out a few pictures here.

This month, I also had my first experience with the longest of the Wagner operas, Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg.   It is a landmark piece in the opera repertoire, and despite its dubious honor of being the favorite opera of the Nazi regime (for its 'hurray for German heritage' content), it is a truly wonderful work.    The Vienna State Opera's production of it is spectacular to say the least, and they bring out big-name singers and one of the biggest-name conductors in the world right now, Christian Thielemann.    Tonight is the last of 5 performances in this run, and to my surprise I have ENJOYED sitting and playing this immense 5-hour opera! 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've also enjoyed playing 3 calls of Mozart's Don Giovanni on alto trombone.  The thing about this opera is that Mozart chose to reserve the trombones until the VERY end, literally about the last 10 minutes of the whole opera.   This means that we don't even show up to the opera house until 2 1/2 hours after the opera has started.  We sneak into the pit right around the 3 hour mark, play our bit, and the opera is soon over.  Not a bad contrast to Wagner!

One of the coolest, if not THE coolest thing I've done since I got here happened two nights ago at the Vienna Philharmonic Ball.   Ball season is kinda like Vienna's alternative to Carnival or Mardi Gras as the party season just before Lent.   It's really interesting to read all about it in this New York Times article or on the WPh website.   Anyway, the cool thing is that Richard Strauss (you might've heard of him) wrote a fanfare for the opening ceremonies of the Vienna Philharmonic ball which has been performed every year since 1924.   This is the fanfare that many brass players will recognize as Fanfare for the Vienna Philharmonic.  On Thursday night, I was privileged to perform this fanfare for the 2007 WPh Ball, and it was unbelievable! 

 I've never in my life seen such pomp and ceremony.  They transform the whole Musikverein in this unbelievable ballroom, with flowers and velvet covering every wall, and they remove all the seats on the main floor to create a gigantic dance floor.    The thing about playing this fanfare with the real Vienna Philharmonic is that they love to play it LOUDLY!  I mean, REALLY LOUDLY!   They had us in the balcony, just to the left of the big organ in the main hall, and there were times I couldn't tell what note I was playing.   It felt right, so I hope it sounded right!   

Despite the abnormally high volume, the brass section really sounds very, very good.   The guys take great pride in this fanfare (which they simply refer to as Strauss Fanfare in E-flat) and it

 shows when they play.   I had goose bumps that didn't go down for hours.   For those who know the fanfare, you know there's a really great horn lick at the end that ends on a high E-flat.  Let's just say that I almost had to stop playing to compose myself when our great horn section played it.   Oh, and I almost forgot... when we get to the end, we take a repeat to the top and do it AGAIN to give the dignitaries more time to file in.   I hope I get lots more opportunities to play the fanfare in future years, but I will always remember the first time.   

Coming up next: 5 days in Salzburg for the Mozartwoche festival.

Repertoire:  Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra, Schubert - Mass in E-flat

WOW! God is good.

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A visit from the Harveys!

OK…I’m really going to catch up with my blogs now. This is beyond a New Year’s resolution…this is real commitment…let’s hope I stick with it.

Last month our long-time friends Kevin and Lara Harvey visited us. Yes, the same Harveys from the popular mozamblog.org. For those who don’t know, Kevin and Lara are living and working in Mozambique for a total of 9 months, doing great work involving tuberculosis research and testing, computer aided medical training, and medical database systems. In other words, they’re doing work to help people and make the world better. They were able to get a few weeks off to go home for Christmas, and we were so honored and excited they decided to make a side trip to Austria on their way to the US.

They stayed for a week, and we had a BLAST! They definitely took advantage of everything Vienna had to offer. In between telling us unbelievable stories of their work and experiences in Africa, we did just about everything that’s cool in the whole city! It was so fun experiencing quintessential Vienna with them, especially during the Christmas season. It would be impossible to chronicle everything we did in those few days, so I’ll just focus on a couple things.

Skiing in the Alps was the first thing Kevin said he wanted to do when he mentioned visiting us back in October or November. So, naturally, we wanted to make that happen. The only teensy-weensy problem for me was that I had NEVER been skiing. I tried to organize a couple short skiing trips in the months leading up to the Harveys’ visit, but they never panned out. I thought, “It’s no big deal. I’ll just learn the first day we go with them. How hard could it BE?!” Answer: harder than ANYTHING… EVER. Of course, those of you who know how to ski are thinking “No it’s not! It’s easy once you get your legs under you on the beginner slopes.” To which I retort, “Nuh-uhh!”

My problems were caused by the fact that I didn’t examine the resort’s map closely enough. I didn’t notice the slopes labeled “Minilift” and “Familienlift”, so we instead took a huge 10 minute chairlift to the TOP of the mountain (Semmering – altitude: 3100 feet). I exited the chairlift, slid forward about 40 feet, and fell. Falling was to be the theme of the day, but I didn’t yet know that, so I bravely approached my first ski slope! (insert trumpet fanfare interrupted by shrill girl-like scream when I see how unbelievably steep it is) Within 5 minutes, I was crawling…like a baby…across the slope to a relatively flat place where Kristi and Lara were calling to me. “C’mon, honey! You can make it! Don’t cry! You’re almost here! Seriously, don’t cry…” You get the point. This was NOT the way to learn. After falling about 40 to 50 times (not exaggerating), I had finally made it halfway down the mountain to a rest area with a restaurant and the safety of flat ground. So what did I do? I went back up and did it again! To my surprise, I started to catch on a bit, and only fell 3 or 4 times on the second time down. After grabbing some lunch, we decided to continue on down the mountain to the base. I was feeling pretty confident, but that confidence was shattered when I started skiing and realized that not only had my body forgotten how to ski, but the soreness had really started to kick in during lunch (you know…from all the falling). I took me a full 2 hours to make it down the rest of the mountain, and I swore I would never go skiing again…until the next day.

I think this picture says it all

The next day went much better, mostly because we discovered the beginner slopes. Go figure. Kristi had a bad experience just after noon that day, when she fell so hard that her ski BROKE on the steeper part of the mountain. She had to walk down a good portion of the mountain to find someone who could repair it, and once she got to the bottom, she was finished for the day. I had a similar experience, in that I fell so badly that a ski-team of 9-year-old boys came over to see if I needed help…or maybe just thought they would get to see a compound fracture. I stayed on the ground for about 10 minutes, and then was able to get down the rest of the way very slowly. Kristi and I crashed in the car while Kevin and Lara skied a couple more hours. All in all, I had a great time, and it was a cool experience…once I was able to walk correctly again. I’ll definitely go back.

Kristi having a little more luck staying up

Another really awesome thing we got to experience with Kevin and Lara was the Rathaus Christmas Market, which is the largest and most spectacular market in Vienna. The backdrop is the beautiful City Hall, and there are probably 100 or more booths set up selling handmade ornaments, jewelry, and countless other crafts, most of which are Christmas-y in nature. The best thing, though, is the FOOD! From the varied sausages to the fried potato cakes to the chocolate-filled pastries, there is nothing there that doesn’t taste amazing, and there is definitely nothing there that won’t clog your arteries. It’s the best!! Other than the things I already mentioned, we had gingerbread, roasted chestnuts, hot punch, a weird fried piece of flatbread, and Lara had a candied apple she munched on the whole night. Kevin’s goal was to ‘eat until just this side of being sick’. I think we all accomplished that…but WOW, what a fun time hanging out with those guys. We hope they come back soon!

To see more photos from the Harvey trip click here!

Christmas Markets & Traditions

I know it has come and gone, but I thought it would be neat to write a post on the Austrian Christmas traditions.  One of the most wonderful things about Vienna is their world famous Christmas markets.  They are magical little places that are a sure fire way to get you into the Christmas spirit! People come from all over the world to experience the markets set up throughout the city. Some are obviously better than others, but they all offer unique goods made by the people of Austria.  You can get everything from candy to high dollar blown glass.  I bought a majority of my presents there this year including some goodies for myself! 

 Another wonderful aspect of these markets is the food.  Food, glorious, food.  It’s like Viennese fair food!  Everything is dipped in batter and deep fried…and injected with chocolate.  When the Harvey’s (from mozamblog.org) were visiting, they also enjoyed several cups of the hot punch.  I, however, thought that it tasted like heated Nyquil, so I stuck with the heisse schokolade (hot chocolate)!

The two biggest markets are the ones at the Rathaus (city hall) and Schonbrunn Palace (right next to our apartment).  The one at the Rathaus is a little more commercialized than Schonbrunn but has way more pretty lights!  

However, Schonbrunn has daily musical performances and mini advent plays.  You will also see what appears to be a blond haired, child like, angel wondering around.  However, this is not an angel, it is the Christkind (Christ Child).  According to Rick Steves:

“Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther -- the church reformer who hailed from these parts -- wanted to shift the focus from St. Nicholas back to the Christ child. But as Germans had a hard time getting their mind around baby Jesus giving gifts, the Christmas gift-giver gradually morphed into a sweet girl who was still called the Christ child (or Christkind).”

Children write to the Christkind by putting little notes into their advent calendar.  The Christkind visits on Christmas Eve like our Santa bringing the “real presents.”  You still see Santa Claus in these parts, but even that is different.  St. Nicholas visits the children on December 6 bringing small gifts such as candy, and he is actually a bishop of the church.  (This is the saint who the Santa as we know actually derived from)  So, he is dressed in the traditional bishop garb instead of red and white with fur.  He is also accompanied by Krampus, a furry, devil-like creature. The Krampus is supposed to use his switch on the bad children or take them away in the sack on his back.  It’s kind of creepy!  It took Jeremy and I a while to understand why we kept seeing what we thought were the Pope and the devil side by side in all the Christmas décor!

I really enjoyed spending a part of Christmas here.  Christmas in Vienna is truly idyllic.  There is snow and lights everywhere…a perfect setting for what you imagine Christmas to be like!  Apparently, I’m still enjoying it too because our Christmas tree has yet to come down!  :o)