Day of the Dead

Today has been full of dead people. Well, not really, but we did go see the graves of some great composers this morning. Before I start on today I'd like to go back to yesterday before the concert- yesterday was a very eventful day! First we went to a really awesome music museum. The museum had everything from Mahler's hat to Haydn's parrot and fun interactive exhibits like conducting the Vienna Phil and composing a waltz by rolling a pair of dice. There was also a room where you could experience what it sounds like when a baby first develops hearing in the womb, which was really cool. 

Haydn's parrot

Mahler's hat

Lots of batons!

After this museum we all went back to St. Stephansplatz to meet our tour guide. His name was Herbert and he was fantastic! He took us through the cathedral and around Vienna through alleys and courtyards to the Hofburg Palace and the Sisi Museum. He knew something about almost every building we passed and he was very funny. The Hofburg Palace was interesting and it featured Sisi, or Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She had what seemed like a fairy tale life in the beginning until it all went downhill with family problems and such. I found this museum very interesting since I had some prior knowledge on Sisi from books I'd read when I was younger. It was a nice surprise to see the palace where she lived. Dr. Powell even said that I look a little like her! My hair isn't nearly as long as hers was (thank goodness), it took an hour every day to fix and I can't imagine how heavy it would be.

Crazy hair!

After that was the concert that I wrote about last night! So now, back to today: first we went to the cemetery where Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss, Gluck, and others are buried! The cemetery is definitely the largest one I've ever seen and as we walked down the road to the composers' section we were passed by a funeral party. It was sobering and I definitely felt a bit like an awkward tourist as the hearse passed us. After walking down a few more pathways we made it to Mozart's monument, surrounded by the graves of other great composers.

We also wandered into the church on the site of the cemetery and explored a bit, which was cool but sobering, since there was clearly a funeral in there this morning. 

After the cemetary we all had lunch- I had original Wiener schnitzel in Wien!- and then we went to the Albertina! I really liked their exhibits. They had a chiaroscuro woodcuts exhibit with lots of Dürer, an impressionist and cubist exhibition with Monet, Picasso, Signac, Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and others, and half a room full of Michelangelo sketches on the third floor! There was also a cool modern art museum with an artist who liked to paint things upside-down and an artist who drew the "the end" scenes of movies and eyes. I really liked the eye part of her exhibition. 

One of her pieces

Tonight we're going to see some angsty Russian opera! Stay tuned!