Jet Lag-tastic

This morning I woke up to the sunlight and the birds at the leisurely hour of 6:15am. Oh well!

Our full group (now numbering 58!) was served a lovely breakfast – rolls with jam and cuts of meat, eggs, fruit, cheese, cereal and more. I had a cup of black tea too, which made me more cheerful.

We had a long meeting this morning, where Doc gave us a crash course in some basic German phrases and we filled our our registration forms. We also got to hear about the housing process and got instructions about living with host families. After lunch, we came back to receive our cell phones. We also met the other three professors, who were all wonderful. The history professor thew us all for a loop when he spoke in broken in English until he told us he got his masters in the United States, at which point he switched to a perfect American accent! Dr. O, the “Art and Architecture” professor, told us she had been teaching American students in Vienna for 44 years! She has a lot of interesting things to tell us about the city and its history. Dr. Reisinger gave us a very sweet welcome; I'm excited to see what he's like as a professor.

We had a break, then we came back for our first sessions of class. “Vienna's Musical Traditions” seems like it's going to be interesting and fun. Dr. Reisinger asked each of us about our musical experience before discussing the rest of the syllabus. We talked about Haydn for the majority of the class after that. I'm really excited about Dr. Reisinger – he seems like he has high standards for us, which is great. I think he's going to have us work very hard, and we'll learn a ton about music and about Vienna. He's clearly very smart and very talented, and knows the music world intimately.

After class, the whole group loaded into a train trolley, which took us to the boat, the Drescher line. On the boat, we took pictures of the skyline and of each other. We had dinner on the boat – beef, sausage and horseradish – and I shared a bottle of wine with Allison, Meredith, Abigail and Audrey (which was lovely). We enjoyed the rest of the boat ride being serenaded by an accordion player.

When we returned to the hotel, a couple small groups explored Mörbisch a bit more and found another place to get gelato. Then we walked back and relaxed in the lobby playing cards and checking internet-y things.