We Olive Vienna- Anika

    With each new city, I'm continuously blown away by how beautiful the architecture of the buildings are. I swear this must be the most beautiful city I've ever seen, and then we head to another one that somehow seems even more intricate and glorious, even cast in the dreary January weather. Vienna was no exception. St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Belvedere Museum, Schoenbrunn Palace, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and the Golden Hall of the Vienna Philharmonic redefined what I consider to be beautiful in architecture and interior decor. 

    The privilege of seeing so many famous paintings in person at the museums gave me a great appreciation for art history that I haven't explored in much depth since my 8th grade art class. I've always admired the greatest art works, but I don't usually connect to art history as much as music. However, seeing these works up close and being able to see the individual brushstrokes with my own eyes was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. The visual arts are simply another medium to express thoughts and emotions that words are incapable of describing. 

    So one day Caroline and I were going to go grab lunch at the market across from our hostel, and we met up with Henry. He had already been to the market and had his bags of food, but was waiting for us so we could eat together. So we go and get some falafel, and we're sitting down when Henry asks if I like olives. I'm like, "Sure Henry, I like olives." He's like "Do you like Parmesan?" I was like, "Yeah?" And he proceeds to pull out a grocery bag about halfway full of literal olives with Parmesan chunks inside. This is like a solid two pounds worth of olives, just in the bag without any packaging. Caroline and I completely lose it, and we realize that poor Henry got haggled into buying 24 euro worth of olives from a very aggressive street vendor. Thanks to Henry, the group was pretty much set in any charcuterie or martini-related emergencies for the rest of our time in Vienna.

    My favorite performance we saw in Vienna has to be the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. I never thought an Italian orchestra performing in a Viennese venue would be one of the most memorable performances of my life, but the level of emotion communicated by the orchestra and piano soloist taught me what true musical expression really is. The entire orchestra communicated not only with each other, but with the audience in a way that felt as though they were sharing an incredibly important secret with us. They were saying something, and we heard it. There was scarcely a dry eye in the audience as the piano soloist finished his second encore. 

    I don't think I'll ever get over the differences in the appreciation for fine arts culture in these European countries. I know that classical music is woven throughout their culture and history, but there's something about watching tears fall from the eyes of all the strangers around me that gives a whole new level of meaning to the practice of performance. There's never any doubt that all the strangers around me are being moved and enriched by the music in the same way I am. That's something that I will greatly miss back in the US, but it's also an open door as a music teacher. American educators have the ability to garner appreciation for these artistic practices in our country, and that's why I so badly want to form my own class like this as a future educator. Even the non-musicians in our group have been touched and enriched by the beauty and magnificent complexity that classical music has to offer. These experiences have only reaffirmed my belief in the power of music to connect us to ourselves, to each other, to our history, and to what it means to be human.