Sunday, February 11, 2007
It’s been confirmed – I am 100% my father’s daughter! Today, what started out to be an innocent outing to mass at Karlskirche ended up being my absolute worse nightmare. The mass was fine enough – although all I understood of the whole proceeding was “Alle ist gut” – easily translated to all is good, and “amen” – turns out that’s the same in any language... After mass we stuck around for a bit and soon discovered that because the church is currently undergoing renovations, you can take an elevator up to the scaffolding to get a closer look at the paintings on the ceiling and then climb the stairs to the tip/steeple for a view of the city… May sound innocent enough, even cool perhaps, but when you are deathly afraid of heights like I am, its torture. The scaffolding shook, the wooden boards creaked and with each step you could see the church floor 60 meters below. As I hugged the railing and edged my way along, Johanna and Marketa couldn’t stop laughing at me… I’m glad my panicking amused someone! I was so afraid the whole time that I didn’t even notice the paintings or view… Thankfully Marketa had to use my camera to take pictures since her batteries died – I can enjoy the paintings now! I have never been so happy to be on solid ground again!
We spent the afternoon (following my near death experience as I affectionately call it) at a park near the church. The equipment was much more fun that anything I’ve ever played on in Canada. We were followed around the play ground by some 2 year old Austrian kid who decided he wanted to go on everything we did because we obviously made everything seem so fun. We’re pretty excited that this is right next to where one of our classes will take place starting in May. You know where we will be after class this spring!
Monday, February 12, 2007
I am the waltz master. That’s right. Today we had an orientation at the university and they taught us the obligatory Viennese waltz. It turns out that all students in Austria have to take dance lessons – it’s a very strong tradition in this country. The university is going to offer us free lessons so we will be ready for the ball season next year. Today, I was partnered with a guy from Denmark named Jesper. We took second place in the dance category of all the international students – an impressive feat if I do say so myself!
We also learnt some Austrian vocabulary, like Baba (bye)… I will be fluent in no time!
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Woah Woah Woah! When's Ball season? Think i could learn how to dance in a week if I showed up. Pretty dresses, pretty boys, pretty ballroom. Its a princess's dream! When's this "ball season"?
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