Hey everyone! I'm still at orientation in Murau. It's such a beautiful city, very cold though. I just went through the housing interview...one of my roommates from orientation here invited me to live with him and a bunch of other musicians, so I jumped at the opportunity. (especially since his number was way better than mine.) We are living at Dürergasse 18-9 1060 Wien, which is one subway stop (or a nice walk) away from the institute and another subway stop (in the other direction) from practice rooms we can use. Tomorrow we leave Murau and go back to move into our apartments in Vienna. It's so amayingly beautiful here. My friend Kate and I spent all day yesterday walking around town and taking pictures...as soon as I get to the institute I will upload them all so you can see. Yesterday evening we were entertained with a show of traditional Styrian dancing. (Styria is the province Murau is in) It was interesting....7 dancing guys and one playing the accordian, and all in liederhosen....also one of the dancing guys occasionally played the clarinet, but it was tuned about 45 cents lower then the accordian, so the overall effect was rather frustrating.

I#ve met a bunch of great people here....I'm really excited about starting the semester. For the first three weeks after we return to Vienna, we have half-day intensive German classes and the rest is free time. I have o stop now since I'm running out of time on this dinky computer, but I will update my blog soon with the journal entries I've been writing here in Murau.