Thanksgiving!
Groceries: €10
Carmex: €3
Stehplatz for Messiah and Vienna Phil next month: €8
Stehplatz for Weihnachtsoratorium: €6
Seat for EOS-Quartet: €11
Return of the little expenditure prologue: Fantastic!
After German was the normal studying for Classical Symphony, and the class itself went pretty well. We talked about this piece by Beethoven called Wellington's Victory.....he pretended to be all surprised no one had heard of it, since it was exceedingly popular in Beethoven's day....it was a "battle piece" which apparently was a style which was in vogue at the time, and this particular one celebrated Adm. (?) Wellington's victory over Napoleon. We listened to it.....it's a rather ridiculous piece, to say the least.....it's classic Beethoven, but in addition there are cannons, muskets, separate military bands and trumpeters for both the French and British sides, and a half-musical, half-literal-sonic depiction of the forces meeting and fighting, and eventually of the French limping off to defeat and the English rejoicing in their victory with a fugue on a melodic cell taken from "God Save the King" which was utter hilarity. The whole thing was laugh-lout-loud funny, actually, and one of these days I'll have to buy a score and get a recording of the thing...it was so funny.
After class I hung around and did stuff....went home briefly and then met Mike back at the center to go to the Thanksgiving dinner. I have no idea where the place was, but IES rented buses to take us there. It was somewhere in the Wienerwald (Vienna woods) but I really couldn't tell you exactly where....it was a nice little restaurant off in the woods, decidedly Germanic in it's decor and....well, rustic doesn't come close to describing it.....when we first got there we all had mugs of Glühwein around the bonfire, and when we went inside there were little eastern-european salads awaited us. Mike and I wound up sitting at the grown-up table with Dr. Solvik, Ulrika, Olga (the Robert Morris chaperone) and her daughter and son-in-law, and John(?), one of the Robert Morris professors. It was just a bit like one's traditional Thanksgiving with a huge family.....except we wound up sitting with the far-flung relatives and had sort of strange semi-awkward conversation....anyway, the meal was really quite good: turkey and quasi-stuffing, peas, mashed potatoes, pickled beets (strange, but good) and Apfelstrudel with delicious vanilla ice cream for dessert. The only glaring omissions for me were sweet potatoes, real stuffing, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Other than that, it was echt Thanksgiving! I had the nice post-gorge sleep on the bus, which was glorious, and after calling my family I went to bed.
Carmex: €3
Stehplatz for Messiah and Vienna Phil next month: €8
Stehplatz for Weihnachtsoratorium: €6
Seat for EOS-Quartet: €11
Return of the little expenditure prologue: Fantastic!
After German was the normal studying for Classical Symphony, and the class itself went pretty well. We talked about this piece by Beethoven called Wellington's Victory.....he pretended to be all surprised no one had heard of it, since it was exceedingly popular in Beethoven's day....it was a "battle piece" which apparently was a style which was in vogue at the time, and this particular one celebrated Adm. (?) Wellington's victory over Napoleon. We listened to it.....it's a rather ridiculous piece, to say the least.....it's classic Beethoven, but in addition there are cannons, muskets, separate military bands and trumpeters for both the French and British sides, and a half-musical, half-literal-sonic depiction of the forces meeting and fighting, and eventually of the French limping off to defeat and the English rejoicing in their victory with a fugue on a melodic cell taken from "God Save the King" which was utter hilarity. The whole thing was laugh-lout-loud funny, actually, and one of these days I'll have to buy a score and get a recording of the thing...it was so funny.
After class I hung around and did stuff....went home briefly and then met Mike back at the center to go to the Thanksgiving dinner. I have no idea where the place was, but IES rented buses to take us there. It was somewhere in the Wienerwald (Vienna woods) but I really couldn't tell you exactly where....it was a nice little restaurant off in the woods, decidedly Germanic in it's decor and....well, rustic doesn't come close to describing it.....when we first got there we all had mugs of Glühwein around the bonfire, and when we went inside there were little eastern-european salads awaited us. Mike and I wound up sitting at the grown-up table with Dr. Solvik, Ulrika, Olga (the Robert Morris chaperone) and her daughter and son-in-law, and John(?), one of the Robert Morris professors. It was just a bit like one's traditional Thanksgiving with a huge family.....except we wound up sitting with the far-flung relatives and had sort of strange semi-awkward conversation....anyway, the meal was really quite good: turkey and quasi-stuffing, peas, mashed potatoes, pickled beets (strange, but good) and Apfelstrudel with delicious vanilla ice cream for dessert. The only glaring omissions for me were sweet potatoes, real stuffing, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Other than that, it was echt Thanksgiving! I had the nice post-gorge sleep on the bus, which was glorious, and after calling my family I went to bed.
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