Day 26

Ok. Well the last time I left you I was about to do some laundry. That took forever!! I was up until after 1:30am. And I had a 6:30am wake up call. Needless to say, today I was very tired. I started the morning with a nice video chat with my family. It was much needed. I'm really glad I had the chance to do that, and I've even scheduled another one for Tuesday! After my morning chat, I went back to my dorm and got ready for Sunday mass at the Hofburgkapelle, where I would also see the Vienna Boys Choir. We got there nice and early only to find out that we had assigned seats. Oh well. We were seated in the "listening only" section which meant that we wouldn't actually see the choir, but we could hear them and there was a TV screen broadcasting the whole thing to us. I thought that it was a pretty good deal for a 5 euro ticket. Once we settled in, mass started which was a very interesting experience. I've been to several masses before, but none like this. There were so many priests and deacons and people wearing white gowns and there was even a tin thing of incense that they brought out onto the alter. The whole thing was in German so I had a hard time understanding, but it didn't matter. As soon as the choir started singing it was amazing. For such small kids they have incredible voices. It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I'm glad that I got to experience it in Vienna. After Mass, we left to go grab some lunch before our Matinee. Our options were limited and our time was short. We had to make do with...Subway. I know, I said I wouldn't, but it was either that or don't eat. So I had a nice tuna sandwich. After our pit stop, we walked over to the Vienna Opera House where we thought we were seeing a Matinee showing of Cardillac. We had even scored box seats for only 10 euros. That should have been our first tip off. Apparently matinee in Austria does not mean the same thing that it does in America. By matinee they mean a nice sit down chat with different people, including the writer/producer and several of the singers. And it's all in German. It was pretty boring. But at least one of the singers was kind enough to sing a few songs for the audience. So I can at least say now that I head opera singing in the Vienna Opera House. We left after only an hour, but by that time I was falling asleep in my chair. We made a quick stop at the hostel so that I could change and take a quick nap before we finished the rest of our day. After my nap (which was not nearly long enough) we headed back out into the city and stopped by the Hofburg Palace again. We spent some time in the square and even went inside the Austrian National Library. It was closed, so we only caught a glimpse of the inside. We walked around for a bit and eventually found ourselves at Karlskirche. It was under construction however, so that was a bummer. They are restoring the paintings on the dome inside so there was scaffoolding everywhere. But lucky for us, since they have all of the scaffolding, they have a lift installed so that visitors can ascend to the top of the dome for a nice panoramic view. It didn't look too high, but as soon as we started going up in the glass elevator, I became a little nervous. After we exited the lift, we continued to climb about 10 sets of stairs before reaching the top. It was incredible. You could almost touch the paintings. And they were beautiful. We took the lift back down and exited the church. We took the U-Bahn (subway) over to the Mozart house. Even though he only lived there for 2 1/2 years, it was Mozart's longest residence in one place. In this house he composed the famous operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. It was really amazing seeing all of this information and being in the same place as one of the most famous composers. I was actually in his study where he composed some of his most famous works. It was also interesting to learn about his life and hear his music. There were original scores from some of his compositions. We left the Mozarthaus and walked over to Stadtpark. We took a few pictures, and then headed back towards our hostel for some dinner. But first, we stopped for some ice cream. Only 90 cents for a single scoop! After our ice cream break, we went back to our Chinese restaurant for some good fried rice. I was full after about half, but I saved the rest for a midnight snack, if I'm even up that late. After dinner we came back to the hostel for some relaxation time, which involved me going to sleep for an hour. And now I'm downstairs writing my blog and uploading pictures. I also saw that the Colts won!! Woo!