Classes started today! We had an excursion to an 18th century piano shop. The owner built and collected pianos. What a neat and eye opening experience! It's amazing how the piano changed so much in 75 years from the turn of the century 1800 to 1872, when the modern piano became the standard. I wonder why...either way, it makes it difficult for those of us who really enjoy playing classical music to think of it in the same way! The pianos back then were brilliant ...

Not much to report here today...its going to be a hot week...high 80s! Yesterday i forgot to add that i had a Kaiserkraut...mmmm its a sausage with cheese in it...idk how they make it, but its realllly good. I could get used to this food :) but i'd never stay skinny! Today we went to the state office and were registered to be living in Wien!! How exciting! We also had our performances for the workshop. Everyone was so good! I think it will be fun working with...

Well its been a long weekend in Vienna... Friday we moved into our beautiful new apartment. we are on Durergasse in the 6th district, and its about a 15-20 minute walk to the IES center. My roommates are Allie, Kay, Jess, Betsy and I share a room with Alicia! When we are in the apartment, we spend our time hanging out in the living room with three couches just talking, reading, listening to music or using our computers. Finally we are recovered from jet lag an...

Hello from Austria! I'm sitting in the IES Study lounge waiting for the program orientation to start. I got here at about 9 this morning because I forgot my cell phone at home and Ryan Fed-Exed it while i was en-route to the airport to the center (Thanks, Ryan!). I needed to catch the duty fees before the office got stuck with (or worse, rejected) them. I'm pretty jet-lagged, so when another student, Paul, came in i took a nap ...apparantly there are a bunch of s...