The Disco Fox

These events occurred during the week of February 14 - 20  2011, Sorry for the delay.

Not a whole heck of a lot going on this week.  Things are going more smoothly with the girls which is nice.  They don't fight me on everything any more, just a few things.  We've had some nice outings.  On Friday I picked the girls up from kindergarten.  We have one of those little bike trailers for the kiddies.  I brought them a snack and then we went to the library and picked out a couple of movies and some books, then we went to the bakery to have a pretzel.  We then took the long way home, because while the girls are riding in the wagon they are happy, they are not fighting and they are occupied and these are all good things, it's even worth being out in the cold a little longer.  Also it's great exercise to bike with an extra 50 or 60 pounds and 2 more wheels worth of friction.

This weekend there was a Young Single Adults conference.  Friday night was a dance with a "Hollywood" theme.  The decorations were movie posters (including one of the 12 foot nylon types the theaters have of TRON Legacy) and sillouhettes that my group made.  Also gold stars with our names on them down the hall ways.  There were groups from all over Austria and parts of Germany there.  My star said "Betty" on it because my institute teacher can't pronounce my name (the "th" sound doesn't exist in german and it's very difficult for german speakers to imitate) and I certainly don't discourage it, in fact I really like the name Betty and so I decided to start introducing myself as such.  The strange, or rather different thing about dances here is that the people actually dance.  And I don't mean the Mormon sway and they don't just pair dance to slow songs.  The step they do is called the Disco Fox...  I Disco Foxed to Red Hot Chili Peppers...

Yes, Hannah really is that short

...Part of me wishes I was joking about the name.  It's a 3 step in 4 time so Left Right Left Pause Left Right Left Pause.  And there are spins and turns and dips and it's very intimidating looking.  I decided I would avoid pair dancing if I possibly could and have someone that I know teach me later for any future dances.  But my talking buddies (Hannah and Rahel) are very lovely and charming ladies that know everyone in this group and therefore were asked to dance frequently.  But when one of them would leave, someone else would show up, sometimes it would be someone from my institute class in Linz or sometimes it would e someone that is much braver than I am when it comes to introducing themselves to strangers in a foreign language.  One such brave soul was Arnulf.  He was the first person to whom I introduced myself as Betty (I really hope the name sticks)  I had a head cold last weekend that settled into my chest this weekend.  So I of course sounded like a 50 year smoker, those of you that have heard me speak when I've lost my voice can attest to this.  Trying to speak and be heard above the music proved to be very difficult and I can only hope that I didn't cause any permanent damage to my chords.  I did end up dancing with a couple of guys, one (dressed as Han Solo *swoon*) was named Dagobert.  He is a very attractive young man.  Not only was he dressed like Han Solo (which is attractive to me) but he actually resembles young Harrison Ford (who is attractive to everyone)  H asked me to dance, I told him I was terrible he said he doubted it but would teach me.  He taught me the basic steps, was patient when I got off step or stepped on my own feet, or didn't follow well (I'm a bad follower) he also carried on a conversation.  He's from Berlin and is studying architecture at Universität Wien, he served his mission in Bulgaria and his English is very good.  A little later I danced with Michael from my institute group, he was also very patient with me.  But now, I am a disco fox ;)

Overall it was a pretty good party with great food.  Dances aren't generally my thing but I survived.

My institute group was in charge of cleanup so we didn't leave until nearly 2:00 a.m.   I got to bed around 3 and had to be back at the church in Linz by 9:00 to help with the opening meeting conducting the hymns, which meant I had to be up at 7:30.  So I got about four and a half hours of sleep.  It's been a very long time since I went a night with only 4 1/2 hours of sleep.  I think it was the night I before I flew here.  So a couple of months.  I've been getting 6-8 hours since I've been here which is nice.

As I go up to conduct the opening hymn, I tried to raise the music stand and the shelf lifted right off a few people laughed I panicked for half a second, put the shelf on the piano (don't worry it had a cover on it so I wasn't scratching the piano) chuckled a bit and composed myself by the time the introduction was finished.  Then the workshoppers introduced themselves and gave brief overviews of their workshops.  Hannah, Rahel and I stuck together.  The first workshop we attended was about problem solving.  It was taught but one of the professors at the university in Linz.  He taught us a method of abstracting our problems.  He had a stack multi colored squares of paper.  He told us to focus on one of our problems and then come pick up some squares that we felt represented our problem.  We could have as many as we felt we needed any colors that we felt comfortable with.  Then he had us arrange the slips on the floor in a representation of our problem, rearranging them as we searched for a solution.  It was really interesting and it's as helpful as you make it.  But it was definitely different from any other church type lecture I'd ever attended.  It wasn't an object lesson, there wasn't any gospel tie in at the end it was just exactly what it appeared to be.  The next workshop was about being single...

... not about getting married or how great marriage is or how everything we do should be somehow guiding us toward our eternal companion.  But it was about enjoying being single.  Seriously refreshing, like Sprite refreshing.

A married couple talked to us about ways to enjoy our time being single, mainly focusing on traveling and meeting tons of people.  They weren't encouraging us to avoid marriage or to block it from our minds, but they were definitely telling us to not have it be our main focus, while it is a necessary step it doesn't have to be the next step.  The church here rocks.  That's all there is to it. After a lovely lunch spaghetti, bread sticks, salad and Krapfen (Berliners [jelly doughnuts]) we broke into small groups to do skits.  w had about 2 hours to plan and rehearse. In my group were Michael and Antwi and then a bunch of people I didn't know.  Each group was given a costume and a list of fairy tales, movie quotes, and songs from soundtracks.  We had to combine one thing from each category into our skit.  We ended up with Rotkapchen (Little Red Riding-hood) a young american girl alone by mistake in the mysterious land of Linz.  Playing the Ugly American shouting slowly in English, I found Antwi, Schwartzkapchen, who rescued me and we set off in search of a party.  The big bad wolf was a rapper that Antwi and I met in the woods and brought with us to Oma's disco.  Then our narrator got in an argument with the bouncer (Michael) it was all pretty funny.  After the whole shindig wrapped up a few of us went to the Schmidl's (they have a son, Perry, who is about 25 studying in Vienna, he came into Linz for the festivities of the weekend) to watch a movie.  Antwi fell asleep on my shoulder.  The movie was called Wo ist Fred?  I didn't particularly care for it, I understood what was going on, and most of the dialogue, however, having worked closely with the mentally handicapped for the last two years of my life, I find it difficult to laugh at a character who pretends to be mentally and physically disabled for personal gain.  At any rate, after the movie all of us but Perry jammed into Michael's car.  It's only a tiny bit bigger than a smartcar if a smartcar had 4 doors. So there were 5 of us, our bags and some sound equipment in this tiny little car.  Christian, Antwi and Rahel fell asleep in the back seat and Michael and I had a conversation about music and movies, Utah Mormons and the Honor Code.  He and I seem to be on the same page as far as those things are concerned. 

So all in all a pretty cool weekend.  I don't hate institute, or YSA or other single Mormon's.  I love this place.

Oxygen is my favorite (specifically O2)

Elevation Murray Utah : 4396 ft.
Elevation Marchtrenk Austria : 961 ft.

Air Quality Murray Utah : Red
Air Quality Marchtrenk Austria : they don't have a system because it's never less than perfect

Running in Murray Utah : Normal (I'm acclimated there)
Running in Marchtrenk Austria : Head rush, so much oxygen (yeah I know the atmosphere isn't even mostly oxygen)

I went running Monday night for the first time since my arrival, and it's actually been a long time since I've really run, I've been doing a lot of cycling (indoor stationary type) and other aerobic exercise (Zumba, Wii Fit)  But my running muscles are a bit out of practice as are my joints (I have the knees of a 97 year old woman, thanks mom for that bit of genetic code) but it felt glorious.  I got a good stretch in before I took off and I kicked my old standby running tunes: Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory.  There's something about the intro to Papercut, it's the perfect length to finish your stretching, then when it takes off it makes you feel like it's you against the world, I find myself boxing a little as I'm running.  Listen to the album straight through from the beginning, the album is short enough that you can be finishing your cool down as the final track is ending.  Be warned however, track 11 A Cure For The Itch may cause involuntary Pop 'n Locking, so I would recommend trying to be back in the privacy of your own back steps by this point.  For me it's like running to Eye of the Tiger or the The Final Countdown.  A soundtrack is so important for effective exercise with me.

Here's a picture of the girls finally, Melina on the left and Emily on the right.  These "cages" were in the coat room at the House of Nature in Salzburg, the girls climbed in and pretended to be monkeys.

Turns out the Institute class that I'll be attending is the "Preparing for Eternal Marriage" course.  Thank goodness I don't understand German that well.
Good thing about Institute outside of Utah: #1  The people that are there actually want to be there, and have to make a certain level of sacrifice to get there (€3,80 for the train each week at the very least)
The people are all pretty cool, I'm the youngest person in the group there's one other guy that's 22 but he's older than me.  Most everyone is 25-29.  I like hanging out with older people, which is good because I don't have many other options.  Most people my age are still at away at University.  There is a University in Linz ( the capitol of OberÖsterreich and the 3rd largest city in Austria) but a lot of people go away to school in Graz or Salzburg or Vienna.
From what I could tell the lesson was about the Natural Man, I caught bits and pieces and was able to contribute in very broken 8th grade German.  Afterward we made pita pockets and mingled.  After double checking the train schedule we noticed that our second to last train was leaving in 13 minutes, so we piled into one of the instructors' car (I lay across the laps of 3 of the other girls in the back seat and I tried to not be visible from the outside.  Everyone here drives like crazy people, they don't decelerate around turns or roundabouts, and they drive so quickly.  When we got to the train station we all piled out, ran to the ticket machine and sprinted to the platform, as we reached the top of the stairs our train started away.  It was kind of frustrating because there were people on the platform that could clearly tell we were rushing to catch that train and they didn't hit the door open button.  I'm not angry or anything because that would be stupid, but I would have held the door if I could have.  At any rate we missed the train.  The next train that would stop in Marchtrenk didn't leave for another 40 minutes.  Everyone else was taking a train to Wels in 20 minutes.  Hannah offered to drive me to Marchtrenk from Wels.  I didn't want to buy another ticket so I said I'd wait until 10 for my train.  And now kids I have to admit that I caved to peer pressure.  I took the train that I did not have a ticket for.  Before this moment I had only ever had my ticket actually checked once.  I was somewhat paranoid to say the least, then from the end of the car I see a ticket checker (conductor? are they still called conductors?) and he's making the rounds.    I start to panic and ask my friends what I'm supposed to do.  My german is really not good enough to explain the situation (and by explain the situation I mean talk my self out of a citation it's €65 if you get caught) luckily Rahel and Antwi were able to help me out and the conductor spoke enough english that he could tell I'm very new to the country and he let me go and suggested that I purchase a discount card for future ticket purchases, he was very nice.

Thursday passed with little event but Friday Maria e-mailed of friend of hers that's in a cover band here called Vitamin BSC who's looking for a keyboardist.  She told him (Sigfried) that I play keyboards... and well he invited me to come play with them next Thursday to see if I like it.  They have keys for me to use and everything so I guess we'll see.  They play gigs around the region at festivals and bars, they make a few Euro.  It should be fun.  More on that front in next weeks episode.

Saturday I went to Salzburg with the Reisingers.  It's about a one hour car ride from Marchtrenk.  An interesting thing about traveling by car in Europe is, where we go over mountains through passes or around them, the Europeans just tunnel through them.  There are multiple tunnels through the Alps. THE Alps!  Salzburg however is on the Alps.  It's kind of like driving to Park City as far as the countryside is concerned, except there are all of these beautiful natural lakes with little tiny picturesque towns all around them.  It's just fantastically lovely, one of the biggest lakes is the Attersee it's hundreds of feet deep.  And every lake is drinking quality.  How crazy is that, you can just walk up to a lake or a stream and just dip your hands in and drink it! (providing of course that your hands are clean).  

I did not take this picture, but it's lovely.

I think the most impressive thing about the Alps is not just their sheer height, but how quickly the rise out of the valleys, there aren't really foothills and they're so craggy!  Instead of a few very tall peaks surrounded by a giant mass of mountain, there are a lot of individual tall peaks standing alone.  It's beautiful... cliffs and peaks. It's fantastic!

Salzburg is really a truly spectacular city, there are buildings that are over 600 years old.   The old city wall is partially a giant cliff, and some of the buildings are actually built into that cliff.  There's actually a parking garage in a cave in the cliff.  The city itself isn't actually very big, only about 100,000 people live there (about the size of Orem or Provo) you have to drive through the modern part of the city (most of the houses built in the 60's and 70's just like in the states) to get to the Altstadt which is in the center of town.  We wend to der Haus Nautur (a natural history museum) they had a spectacular aquarium area with a very entertaining octopus, I've never actually seen an octopus this active before, it was very cool.

It's a pretty cool museum and very interactive, there's a science center attached to it that had a really excellent music/sound station, it had a sound booth that measured how loudly you could yell, a pitch matching software that you'd sing into and the would measure how close you were to the provided pitch.  There was a sound modification area, at which you could record a clip then add echo, reverb, distortion and pitch modulation.  They had some organ pipes with a giant billow pedal attached to show that air makes sound.  There was a dome with a bell in it that you could evacuate the air out of to show that there is no sound in a vacuum.  Oh and it had one of those drums with a hole in the bottom head that you could aim at at large board with plastic discs on it to show how that air is displaced when the head is hit. But the best part was a display called Feel Mozart (they brag about Mozart every chance they get) it's a room with a screen and a few very comfortable wingback chairs with a speaker on each side and woofer in the seat.  Then you would watch and listen to music.  It basically sounded and felt like sitting on stage in the middle of an orchestra.  It was very cool.


After the museum we went to a traditional Austrian restaurant for lunch, we had schnitzel and bratwurst and potatoes and knödeln (dumplings) and saurkraut, which apparently is not to be eaten on top of schnitzel as it make the schnitzel soggy, and no on likes soggy schnitzel.  It was all very delicious.  Oh and we also had a great chestnut and cinnamon soup and a fantastic cheesy dessert.  I really have no problem with the food here.   Which is too bad, I could stand to lose a couple of inches, which would be easier if I didn't like the food.  We then walked down to the famous Getreidegasse an old cobble stone street that is now a walking shopping district.  Everything is in the Late Gothic/Early Baroque style, cobble stone, beautiful signs for each of the companies, even the McDonalds sign is ridiculously ornate.  It's actually a requirement for having a business front on this street.

This is the street that Mozart's birth home is on! Moztart Geburtshaus! It's a museum now, we didn't want to take the girls into another museum, they would have gone crazy.  I'll go back another time and tour the house.  The house is like 500 years old or something.  Very cool, everything here is just old.  Not ruins, but highly functional well kept, recently rennovated, beautiful buildings. 

Saturday was also part the Faschings festival.  Faschings season is like Carnival, Mardigras, but it starts in the middle of January and goes until Fat Tuesday.  So there was a huge parade with marching bands in costumes, it's kind of like Halloween here.  Faschings is traditionally the midwinter festival here people dress up like monsters called Percht that are supposed to chase away the winter and welcome the spring.  They are mischievous and some are actually quite scary.  Each village has their own representation  of the Percht.  There are Schönpercht (beautiful Percht) and Schiachpercht (ugly Percht). A group of them were taking people out of the crowd and taping their legs together.  It was pretty fun.  The girls loved it.  Some of the marching bands played traditional marches but a lot played stadium rock, pep band type stuff, including some RHCP (Red Hot Chili Peppers for those of you that aren't on the level.)

A Percht and me, he dumped confetti on my head right before this picture was taken and I'm still finding it 2 days later.

Salzburg is easily the most beautiful place I've seen in Europe so far.  I will most definitely be going back in the fairly near future, possibly next weekend for the Mozart Festival, it's his birthday on the 27th and the party goes until the 31st.

This whole row of buildings was built in 1408, It's now apartments and shops and clubs and bars.

The dates on the top are the years of the original construction and the renovation.

On the right is a huge and famous Cathedral, I'm not sure what the other building is stay tuned to find out.

Remember how I said that Salzburg is a little arrogant about the whole "Mozart was born here" thing?  Well there's a chocolate named after Mozart.  You can buy it pretty much anywhere in Austria (and at Siegfried's German Delicatessen and Market in Salt Lake City) but here there's a whole shop dedicated to this brand.  Well it's a total tourist trap, they sell it for a third of the price at the Spar in Marchtrenk.  But the greatest thing happened! Maria said "but you won't get trapped, you're not a tourist, you live here."  yay! I live here! They like me! I'm not a tourist! I hate being a tourist! I love that I have enough time to really experience Europe the way it should be experienced!

Me, Melina and Wolfy

Sunday I mas going to be on time for my train, I was going to get to church by myself.  I left with enough time, I tried to take a small short cut... but I missed it... and I watched my train leave as I was purchasing my ticket.  The next train didn't leave for an hour, meaning not until after church started.  But I was determined to get there by myself, so I waited on the freezing cold platform (there isn't an actual building at the Marchtrenk train station)  And because of the outfit I had chosen... I wasn't wearing tights or boots... just my dress and my coat and my red Chucks, socks with souls.  Mom pay attention here, I have finally come to learn that you should not choose fashion over function especially when it's only 18 degrees outside.  I should have worn tights.  There, my first real life lesson.  Never again will I leave the house in a dress without tights if I'm going to be taking a train that I could very possibly miss and end up having to wait for an hour and then walk another 15 minutes to my church.  I got there for the closing song in Relief Society (which is first) which I ended up playing because the regular pianist was helping in the Primary as they were going to sing in Sacrament meeting, which is last.  It went alright, I played the top hand and the bass note occasionally.  I really need to learn people's last names by the way.  But a couple sat next to me in Sunday School, they had also been at the Schmidl's for dinner that first Sunday.  They're very nice.  In Sacrament meeting, Rahel asked me if I wanted her to translate for me, I declined because I need to just get used to hearing German.  After ward, Sister Schmidl invited Rahel, Antwi and myself to dinner with her family.  One of her other sons (Robin) had just moved to the Wels area from Graz with his family.  His wife is named Tara she was born in Provo, raised (bilingually) in San Diego and moved to Austria when she was 12.  So she has a nice American accent and speak Hoch Deutsch.  So I was able to understand her a bit better than some of the others.  After dinner and ice we all sat around talking, the kids were running around and Brigitte asked me how well I played the piano. I  told her that with opportunity to practice I'm decent.  She asked me if I'd be willing to accompany her and a few others when they sing in church (date TBD).  I clumsily read through the piece and told her that with ample time to prepare I'd be more than willing.  So Rahel offered her piano to me, so on Monday and Tuesday nights I'm going to go to her house and practice the piano.

Well that's pretty much it, it really is great here, I'm having a great time.  I love you all!