AuStRiA DaY TwO

Tuesday, September 9th

My plan this morning was to call the bus company first, and if that didn’t work, the take the plan of action, and thank God, they finally gave me some actual information. They told me that the driver, Rupert, would be arriving by lunch time and that they for sure had my bags. I think they were annoyed with me for calling again, but I don’t really care.

I talked to Diane to give her the update, and actually burst out into tears because the overwhelming factors of the past few days finally kicked in. I borrowed her credit card to go downstairs and call home to tell them the update because the collect calls wouldn’t go through anymore for some reason. Those phones were the biggest pain ever…

After talking to my mom for a little bit, I went with Shannon, Deb, and Diane’s family to a few museums. The first museum was rather boring honestly, but there was some interesting exhibits that examined sound and musical creation.

Next we went to a modern art exhibit. It was all rather interesting, themed to the 7 deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. It was here that I also saw my first Rembrandt, not part of the exhibit. It was a tiny painting, but still incredible.

After dinner we went to a concert in the fortress. We paused by the edge of the rail to take pictures of the sunset over the city before heading in to get our seats. I sat with Shawn and Cody, the other music students on the trip.

The performance was composed of W.A. Motzart, L. Motzart, and Hyden. A string quartet played in a cozy stone room in the top of the castle. They accompanied a horn player on two songs, one of which he played one of the huge, long, traditional horns that they play on top of the alps… I forget the name and feel rather silly for it. It was kinda funny because he changed into lederhosen for that song as well. It was a really nice performance.

After the show, we went down the lift which had a window open to the entire city. It was beautiful seeing it lit up at night. We also got to chat a bit with a few of the musicians who caught the same elevator as us.