Today we visited a good friend of our music teacher who is an antique piano restorer! We got to look at all these old pianos (like from the 1800s!!) and hear how different they all sounded. It's pretty amazing how much variation there used to be - now a days, he explained to us, pianos are all built pretty much the same and have little character.
I can't remember what is name was but he was in the process of building a piano, a version more similar to a harpsichord, that would be played in the main music hall of The Musikverein! Pretty cool stuff. Today was my favorite "school trip" so far. I kept thinking, "Oooh, Mom would be so jealous!" Aaron even said today that maybe she should have just come along because I've been saying that a lot! By the way, that is Aaron in the upper right.
We also has a school trip to a Jewish Temple that was the only one left standing in Vienna after WWII. The temple had been "camouflaged" in a way because the city of Vienna allowed them to construct it as long as it didn't look like a Jewish Temple. So instead of a massive stand-alone building, the temple was actually inside a normal Viennese-style building. This is the main reason the temple was spared in the war because not many people knew it was there.
A few thoughts on being an American in Austria: In the beginning I just wanted to blend in and "be a local" and I would get frustrated because most of the time it was still obvious to many people that I wasn't from around here. Guys selling stuff in the U-Bahn stations would say, "Hello, it is nice to meet you!" and, "Hi, how are you?!" without any of us even uttering a word! Now that I've had some time to think about it, I think it's pretty neat that the American style and culture is so apparent overseas. I like that our bright ski jackets and backpacks have become a symbol of the American youth and I'm proud to walk the streets flaunting my unique, American style.
I'm also still on the hunt for dill weed and an Asian grocery store...
Prague tomorrow morning, I'd better start packing! I'll send some postcards!
