Well, Vienna is starting to feel more like home. It's kind of nice. German is becoming slightly more decipherable and with that, my attempts at evesdropping on public transportation are a little more fruitful. The weather is getting colder, though not too cold. It's kind of funny. People get completely bundled up almost to the point where you'd excpect them to be yelling "I can't put my arms down!" and then you go outside and realise that it's about 50 degrees. I'm anticipating a milder winter than I've been used to in the past and I'm GLAD for it.
I've got a couple things I'd like to cover with this post, so I'll get to it.
First of all, the schnitzels and the gelato and the bratwurst and the nutella and everything else in between is starting to take a toll on my girlish figure. Not that I care, but I really can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe while I'm here, seeing as the dollar is losing a bit of it's clout these days, what with the stock market's kursplat and the euro's ever exploding muscle in this world. H&M is cheap, but it ain't that cheap. And InterSpar isn't exactly WalMart. Soo.....seeing as I can't fit into half of my pants (and I only brought 4 pairs) I decided to start taking walks around my neighborhood in hopes of maintaining an acceptable weight. I should post pictures of my neighborhood. If you read Laura's blog and her descriptions about the area, you'd understand. It's not European looking at all. We're in the 21st district and I believe all of the American's I've come in contact with have described it as Vienna's Ghetto. It's fairly accurate. Just imagine a bunch of apartment buildings smeared with that gross concrete siding, scattered kebab stands on the corners, electronic stores, erotic spas (complete with darkened windows with the website in the window, www.relaxxx.at), and so on. Very few trees, very few patches of grass, just birds and bugs crawling over old black chewing gum stuck to the sidewalks. Not very picturesque. But even so, I needed to get out and walk around. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to exit my apartment building, hang a left, walk down the street a bit and find five minutes later that it dead ended into....THE DONAU RIVER???? Shut up! I was so excited! Look! Water! Ducks! Grass, trees, flowers, people! I walked all the way to the Ubahn station, about 35 minutes away. And since then, I've been walking down there almost every day. I walk to school now, instead of taking the Strassenbahn, so that I can get in a morning walk and then hop on the Ubahn the rest of the way. I walk down there to read, to pray, to sit, to watch the sunset. It's amazing. It's almost better than the Metroparks. Granted, not as much variety, but I haven't finished exploring yet : )
Second thing. I'm a little sad that both Laura and I have failed to mention the new force of nature in our lives that is our voice teacher, Althea-Maria Papoulia. What a woman. Everyone needs to know about Althea-Maria Papoulia. Before I expound upon all of the amazing things she's done for me in the five lessons I've had with her, I'd like to give a quick biography of her. She was born to Greek parents in Canada, grew up in Boston, studied voice in Canada, London, worked in Germany, and probably several other places in between. Her resume is about eight pages long. She has sung everywhere and played almost every major role that I can think of. She speaks Greek and English at the native level, German and Italian fluently, and French and Spanish at an intermediate level. She married her husband, an Austrian man named Alexander Steinburger who also happens to the Vice Principal violinist for the Vienna Philharmonic, at the age of 36. She has an amazing little girl named Ariadne who is five years old, can speak German and Greek, play the violin and has an eye for art. You would too if your mother bought you the marker set with more than 12 colors when you were three so that you "could learn to distinguish the subtle differences between oranges and reds and yellows." She's eccentric, but a whole lot of fun. She's a diva, but man, does she know what she's talking about.
I don't have enough room here to talk about how much trouble I've had with my vocal chords in the past four years, but understand this: I still can't really sing without having any pain. I've never learned how. I come into my first voice lesson and she explains, after I tell her this, that she understands my dilemma because she has been injured before too. And the best part is that she likes a good challenge. And she's positive she can help me. She's patient with me and extremely encouraging. She doesn't push. She tells me that when I start hurting, stop. She tells me to start slowly and softly. She doesn't get discouraged with me at all. And by my third lesson the wobble that I have ben trying to get rid of for the past two years was gone, I was floating B flats and a pianissimo, and I had gotten up to a high G without any pain. She was surprised and proud. Oooo, and guess what?? I know how to sing with my diaphragm now! Throughout my voice training since I was 10 I've been told to breathe with a belt around my middle, lying down on the floor with a telephone book on my abdomen, and to "inflate my inner inner-tube." I've tried standing on my head in practice rooms. I've even been told NOT to use my diaphragm, that breath for singing should just come naturally. That hasn't worked out for me so well thus far. And after working with her and her telling me to practice, I was walking home the other day from school panting and kicking my belly in with quick breaths and popping out consonants at the top of my lungs (I'm sure every person around me thought I was INSANE) and I FINALLY GOT IT!!!! After ten years of trying to figure this crap out. I love this woman!
And we have really fun conversations, about Austrian politics and American politics and how crazy it is to watch her daughter develop as quickly as she does. She talks about how she found out her husband had cancer a month after they married and how they overcame it. She talks about all of her roles, how she loved playing Tosca because she got to throw herself off of a building onto a big foamy mat at the end of every performance. She also gives me instructions about life, like how you should try to learn any new language in a foreign country the first six months you live there or else it becomes really difficult and which herbal teas are the best for the digestive tract. At our last lesson, I saw a Sweet Kissing Icon (Orthodox depiction of Virgin and Christ child) on her fireplace and asked if she was a practicing Orthodox. She said yes and was surprised to know that I was too. I think I'm actually going to try and find her church tomorrow to celebrate the Liturgy. She's been everywhere, knows a whole lot, and everything she says is genuine. Laura and I are very blessed to get to work with her for a few months. I wish it could be longer, but I'm enjoying it while I can and hoping that I can carry everything that she's teaching me back home. She's trying to convince us to come back in the future and study with her again. Hey, after I graduate and finish paying off college debt, who knows??
That's all for now. More later.
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