The past few days have just been work preparation for tomorrow's recital. I'm 10 days away from being home, and have so much to do between now and July 4!!

Today was field trip day. We went to the Natural History museum, considered one of the finest in the world. Im coming to find that the Austrians say that almost everything in Vienna is "Among the best in the world" so I wonder if its actually true...Based on the "best" things i've seen, I sort of dont doubt it... the Phil is incredible, the ecclesiastical treasury is extremely impressive, and I haven't gone to the Art history museum yet, but apparently it too is a must-see. I guess when you look at the history of Austria pre 1850, and even to some extent up to WWI and the assasination of Hapsburg Franz Ferdinand. you begin to see why so much impressive stuff is here from all aspects of life. The Hapsburgs were interested in everything!!! They were collectors of rocks and minerals so they started natural history museum collections, they loved music so they patronized the arts, they were catholic, so you have the treasury. Not to mention, they ruled 3/4 of modern Europe for a couple centuries, and attained their power not through destructive wars, but through manipulative marriages. Sweet.

Anyway, our German teacher's husband is a geologist at the Natural History Museum so we got a behind the scenes look at. First he took us to see the rocks, of course. There were 5 or 6 huge rooms dedicated just to rocks: salt, quartz, and a few others that he (usefully) provided the chemical formula...NaCl is salt, and I still can't tell you anything more, but whatever it was this cute old man who loved rocks and spoke pretty good, yet accented and very quiet, English. Some of the rocks were really pretty: rubies, diamonds, topaz, sapphire, amethyst, opal, dark opal, amber, gold, silver, bronze both in their natural states and in their polished gem form that we see them, there must have been over 150 different gemstone types and their origins...very cool.

An important part of geology is the earth and how it moves, so he took us to an exhibit called the Time Machine and when he turned the wheel we could see what the earth looked like 500 million years ago and then as we turned it more, we could see it change, and they even went so far as to show their predictions for the next 500 million years, or something (sorry!). He showed us some other cool things in the museum, but wouldn't even talk about the dinosaurs...he said that ours were better haha. We came to a door that was not open for exhibition, and stopped in a hallway that was all closets. He told us to follow him, but did not tell us that as soon as we turned the corner, we would see a wall of skulls behind glass. Imagine a case 30 feet long, 15 feet high with rows and rows of skulls. Thats nice to find when you walk around a corner! Anyway, it was actually really neat to see them and go behind the scenes, but the cooler part was going to the roof of the museum. From it, we could see all of Vienna and it was absolutely gorgeous. We had a clear view of Stephansdom, The Parliament, the Rathaus, Burgtheater, Museumsquarter, Kunsthistoriches museum, Hofburg, Votivekirche, the Vienna Fanzone, and so many other beautiful buildings in the area. What a treat!! It was gorgeous and sunny, and the breeze brought some cool, fresh air...fortunately...the museum must have been 85 degrees. That was definitely a highlight of the trip so far. Amazing. I love Vienna!

When the geologist curator of 40 years was done talking to us, he told us that we could roam the museum (for free!) so we went to the animals section. That was pretty fun... it was kind of like going to the zoo, and I haven't done that in ages! Except all the animals were still haha. Their collection was rediculous...especially their birds. They had 4 rooms the size of the first floor of our house of birds. Awesome. So we just kinda wandered around and took pictures with the animals and hung out :)

As if that wasn't enough (very hot!) field tripping for one day, yesterday was our Beethoven field trip with my history class! First we went the one of his houses, the Pasqualatihaus, where he wrote his 3,4,5, symphonies, Fidelio, Fur Elise, and who knows what else. It was on the 5th floor of this old apartment building, and it was HOT! Its been in the low 90s every day this week, and it feels so much warmer because the sun here is really intense... I got a bad burn on my shoulders waiting for a train :( Anyway, the field trip would not have been meaningful without our professor Dr. Solvik. He really really knows his stuff about pretty much everything Vienna music. His life is ( i think) devoted to Gustav Mahler, as he spends a lot of time at the place Mahler did, and is filming a documentary in a few weeks on Mahler. He is really well published, as well. Anyway, he gave us a lecture for about an hour about Beethoven's personal life in this apartment. It was finally the lecture I was looking for/expecting from this course. Until yesterday, it had been mostly score analysis and examining the styles of the composers. My awesome skills at theory, and lack of background in music history made this pretty difficult, but at least now when I go learn the history I wil have an idea of what is going on before we get there!

From Beethoven's house, we hopped over to the Secession, again (I went last Friday). But this time, we had our secret weapon, Dr. Solvik, to help us figure out what Gustav Klimt was trying to show in his absolutely fantastic Beethoven Fries. This work of art completely transcends your normal expectation of art. It puts Beethoven in a god-like status, as many artists of his time did, and the work is not only beautiful, but so meaningful. It is a celebration of life on three walls. Originally it was put up to be taken down after it framed a statue of Beethoven at an exhibition at the Secession. There was such a strong reaction to it, however, that it stayed around, almost deteriorated completely, and then was revived in the 1970's to be placed in Klimt and friends' home in Vienna, the Secession. This building is a place where modern art is exhibited. It is a place where art-nouveau broke away from the classical styles of Vienna. They aren't a style as much as they are a blank slate where an artist can post anything with any message. Pretty revolutionary for the Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. The Fries is really striking...people are not sugar coated, or painted to be pretty. The creature that dominates the painting is an ape-monster. The finale, however is the part of the fries called "the kiss" and it is a reference to Beethoven's "kiss for all the world" quoted in his 9th (choral) symphony. The entire fries is a representation of the text of Friedrich Schiller's poem "An die Freunde" which are the words to the finale of Beethoven's symphony. This work is life and art and music and love and paradise on a walll :) everyone should see it, listen to Beethoven, and then thank God for sending these geniuses to Earth.