Eisenstadt

Eisenstadt is where the composer Franz Joseph Haydn worked as a court composer for the Esterhazy Family and he is also buried in a church there.

 Andrea the Esterhazy Palace

 Inside the Haydn Museum. I don't know what they were thinking when they installed this carpet.

 There was a lot of interesting modern decor in the museum. This wall paper however is not as modern as we thought. It was designed in the 1800s.

 This is the Esterhazy family tree which is awesome. There are a bunch of little silver coin looking pendants that have each family members name on it.

 The hall is called the Haydn Hall. He would play concerts here and they would also hold large fancy Balls.

 The ceiling in the Haydn hall was awesome, there were paintings covering the ceiling and on each pillar a portrait of an Esterhazy.

 In the palace they also had on display the Esterhazy silver collection which is one of the largest collections in the world. A long time ago someone in the Esterhazy family had all of their silver melted down and made into a dinnerware set full of candle holders, bowls, plates, etc.

 A temple in the Palace garden. You can't really tell here because it all looks like snow but in front of those rocks under the temple is a pond, well, frozen pond. I bet it looks beautiful in summer.

 The church where Haydn is buried.

Ceiling inside the Chapel 

Andrea in front of the Altar

Organ where Haydn himself has performed his masses.

Final resting grounds of the Master himself.

Baby It's Cold Outside

The weather in Vienna, up until a couple of days ago, has been FREEZING! The best description I heard was that it's like being hit in the face with liquid ice from a fire hose.

 On our way home from grocery shopping. The street behind Andrea is the street we live on.

Snowfall overnight. About 6 in.

Vienna Philharmonic

We went to a benefit concert by the Vienna Philharmonic yesterday afternoon and it was amazing. They played Sibelius Symphony No. 7, 5, & 1. I don't think I have ever heard a better orchestra in my life and the concert hall they play in is gorgeous.

This is the Musikverein (Concert House) where the Vienna Philharmonic performs.

 I found this picture online because I forgot to take one yesterday.

This Picture was taken by my buddy Zach who is in the study abroad group.

Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera)

On Friday evening we went to the Vienna State Opera House to see Faust. It was incredible. I have never seen Faust live before and the singers blew me away.

The Opera House was gorgeous and enormous. This specific opera house is one of the busiest in the world. They produce 50-60 operas per year with around 200 performances plus many musicals and ballets.

 A view from above. Admiring beautiful interior at the intermission.

 A little peek into the Opera House. Looking at this picture we would be standing in the section just above the 3 rows of box seats. There are approximately 1700 seats in the opera house, each with a little translation screen where you can choose the language you wish to read the opera in.

 Andrea and I at our Stehplatz (standing room). For those of us who can't afford a seat they have many standing room areas throughout the opera house which are between €3-€5 which is great for the price but not for the knees. Most operas last about 3 hours, which is a long time to stand. Also, at the Staatsoper, you can't buy standing room tickets ahead of time, so for popular operas such as this one you have to get in line early for a ticket. We got in line at 5:30 and the opera started at 7:00. The line was already out the door so we had to wait in the cold for a while. So in total we stood for 1 1/2 hours to the stand for 3 1/2 hours, but it was worth it! Sorry knees!

Violin Shop

Here are some pictures of the violin shop. The violin maker's name is Henriette and she is a member of the church. Click Here to see her profile video on mormon.org.

New Home, New School, New Sights

     Well our first 2 weeks in Vienna are almost gone. We have already seen some amazing sights and have LOVED almost every minuet of being here. When we first arrived here in Vienna we spent the first 6 hours in the airport waiting for the flights of the other students to arrive. That was a long 6 hours of waiting in the airport after traveling for 14 hours to get to the airport. We then took a bus to the Austrian American Institute where we are attending our classes. Went though a few items of orientation and then waited for our host families to arrive. Our host Frau Alfons was the first to arrive so we left with her and got a taxi back to her home. She has a car but european cars are so small our luggage wouldn't have fit in her car. We made it back to her home and found out that we are living in the home with her. We were originally told that we will have an apartment to ourselves and this was just the lady that owned it. We have discovered that a language barrier can cause a lot of misunderstandings. So we are living here with her in more of an apartment style bedroom because of the attached small kitchen. We have a stove and an oven (we had to ask her to fix the oven) and a mini fridge. The bathroom is across the hall (and is FREEZING!!.... but hey better than a hole in the ground outside) and we go upstairs for the shower. The first few days were a slight bummer because we thought we had our own place but we have become comfortable here and are no longer grumpy about the unexpected change. She provides breakfast every morning which consists of 4 pieces of bread (usually different types each day) and 2 pieces of fruit. She leaves it in a basket outside our door. She provides our butter and jam and we get 1 L of juice and 1 L of milk a week. We also got a jar of nutella and I was super happy about that, I love nutella! She was surprised that we made our beds and told me I was such a good house wife. She is used to single students living with her and she always came in a made their beds and tidied up and did their dishes. I told her she doesn't need to do that for us. Frau Alfons also provides 1 dinner a week and so we go have that meal up stairs with her. The first meal was pretty good until I found a long hair stuck to one of the dumplings. I was trying to get it off so I could finish my meal but it wouldn't come off so I left 2 dumplings on my plate. Hopefully that will be a one time find. :)

      So far we have done a lot of walking around looking a different buildings and trying to find our way around. I am fairly comfortable with the train system now and can get from home to school and back. It takes us about 40 minuets to get to our school and we take 1 bus and 2 different subways to get there. We are taking a german class, a fine arts class where we study european art, and a Music Civilization class where we are studying different composers and different musical eras and music. Jarom is still attempting to find a large ensemble group here to play with so he can get the credits he needs for that. 

     We have done a little more than just walking around since we have been here and one place we have gone to was the Folks Opera. We went and saw the Magic Flute by Motzart performed at the opera on Motzarts birthday. It was fun to experience my first opera. The opera house was so beautiful with chandlers and red velvet seats. We how ever didn't get to experience the red velvet seats. We bought standing room tickets for 2 euros a piece so we stood for a 3 hour opera. It got hard to stand the whole time so we sat down for a small portion of it. Next time we go we will probably pay the 6 euro a piece for the seats in the far back just so we can sit. We also have gone to a violin makers shop and the lady explained the process of how to make a violin. It was very interesting and she had some beautiful instruments. You have to have wood that is at least 7 years old and it takes around 200 hours to make one and the price tag on the finished instrument is around 12,000 euros! We have been to the St. Stevens Cathedral several times and it is an amazing sight. We have also been to other beautiful catholic churches in the area. We have been the Wien Museum which was cool and my favorite museum so far is the (can't remember the name) museum where we got to see small portions of whats left of the Roman ruins. It was so interesting to see that people from 2000 years ago lived right where we were standing. Learning about history is so much more interesting when i'm walking right where the people we are learning about lived. We also went to the Motzart house and walked around the home where Motzart lived and composed many pieces of music and operas ect. It was amazing just knowing that he lived there and I was there walking in his home a reading history about him. 

     All in all the first 2 weeks being in Europe have been so amazing and we love it here. We will post again soon! 

                                                  -Andrea             

Huge monument in the pedestrian shopping street

Awesome Roman ruins! They had furnaces which would
pump out heat through those pillars, heating the floor above.

This just reminded me of watch tower on
COD Modern Warfare 2, great sniping spot (in the game of course)

Vienna

As many of you know, Andrea and I are currently studying in Vienna, Austria, the music capital of Europe, and if not, the World! We arrived a couple of weeks ago on Jan. 19 and will be here until mid April. We will keep you posted on all of the exciting things Vienna has to offer.