Hey ho! It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks, so I should probably tell you about it all before I forget.
Bullet points are easier. And perhaps (!) it won't be too long that way either :P
Montag 3rd
My BGW class and I went to the World Photography Exhibition in Congress house. For some reason it didn't elave such a huge impact on me as previous years, but it was still really good.
Dienstag 4th
Had school till 12.30 and then skipped Physiks and French to go to a first violin sctional (we're playing at the school ball in January). Then went grocery shopping with him and then I went to the Konservatorium where I had a rehearsal with Göesta and the two recorder players on the Bach Brandenburg concerto no.4, which I was to perform on Sunday. Grabbed some food in my half hour break and went to help out in the big Symphonie Orchester, which isn't very good. But mreh.
Mittwoch 5th
School till 1.30. Andrea, Hanni and I went to Völls, which is a smaller village 10 mins away by carm where Andrea, Saw Win Maw, Gudrun and I practised a Hayden for Gudrun's piano student-concert thing, and then went straight to Salon Orchestra, which finished at around 10.30
Donnerstag 6thHad school and Borg Orchestra (school orchestra). At 8pm the orchestra which I played the Brandenburg with on Sunday had a rehearsal. I wasn't too happy with it, and I was really tired, and it went till 11pm! I got home at midnight.
Freitag 7thHad school till 1.30 and got home at two, where Andrea was just leaving the house to get to the venue of Hanni's birthday party. Grabbed my violin and off we ewnt. Kolping Haus is kinda in a cafe/bar, which also has a big hall for various functions and meetings. I swear there were a good two or three hundred people! Andrea played her Hayden Piano Quartet with us, and then Gudrun, Saw Win Maw, Göesta and Isightread some waltzes, which went down well.
And there was food! Lots of soups and Wiener Schnitzel and lots and lots of bread and cheese and cakes. The party started at 3pm and the last guests went home at about midnight. Afterwards, we had to take everything back home, which was a huge task. Kolping Haus is only about four mins walk away from home, but we still had to carefully load up about 7 shopping trolleys (it's conveniently right next door to the supermarket) with all the presents and food, and Matze, Andrea and I wheeled them back to the house and unloaded them. Matze and I had trolley races :D (more in a 'we're so tired we have to do something fun and energetic to keep us awake' kinda way though). Finished at 2am.
Sleep :D
Oh and I forgot to mention- Andreas cousins and their mum (hanni's sister from Belgium) were there, and there were also relatives from Germany. But yeah. Ollie and someone else were their names (late 20s/early 30s) and they were really interesting to talk to! Ollie knew a lot about NZ and the company that he works for has something to do with NZ... I've forgotten now, but anyway, they were really cool.
Saturday 8thWas a lazy day. Hanni went to her sister Tina's, and Matze, Andrea and I were landed with the huge task of opening all Hanni's presents. It was awesome at first. However, after the 20th set of cnadles, or box of chocolates, or tea mugs, it got very, very tedious. All in all it took about 2 hours straight. Matze retired to playing computer games actuall...
At 4.30 Gudrun picked me up, and Saw Win Maw and I went to a concert in a church, which was very good. I've forgotten right now what they played... Bach perhaps? Anyway. Then we went back to a different place in Völls, where the Salon Orchestra played at a Benifits Concert (which people payed €45 to see!). It went pretty well, and Dominic (a courisn. Or relative somehow) was working as a waiter there, so I talked to him a bit. Afterwards Sara and Clemence and I stayed on and talked.. Sara plays the flute, and goes to Borg, in the infamous 9M class! (Along with Matthias, Rebe Marco and the rest, which you can see in the post below). I find it crazy that she's 20 and still at school! Clemence is 28, plays the violin .. I don't know the word in English. At the moment he's building a tunnel through South Tirol. He's not an architecht, and he's not a builder... he's the one inbetween, who checks that it wont collapse and calculates the materials and things. but yes. That was fun.
Sonntag 9th I was supposed to be doing things in the morning. Like practising. Somehow that didn't really happen. Rehearsal was in Wattens at 2, and the concert began at 5.30.
The programme was somethig like this:
Bach- Brandenburg Concerto no. 4
Vivaldi - 'Winter' from The Four Seasons (Saw Win Maw)
Pause
Vivaldi - A soprano recorder concerto. I've forgotten the name of it.
Dreyer - Symphonie No.1
Afterwards, we all went and had dinner together, which was nice. Sara and I talked a lot, and she said she'd ask if I could move into a music class the next morning (which she did). It was also Saw Win Maw's last night in Austria. He flew out on Monday, and is now happy in Thailand, trying to get a visa to live in Austria permanently.
Montag 10th
Michel's (in my class) Birthday! Other than that, nothing exciting happened. Oh wait! At 5.30, I went to help Matthias with his English, as he had an exam on Wednesday. We worked in the Konservatorium together in a practise room for an hour or so, and then went grocery shopping. Turns out that then he had a concert - it was his violin teacher's student-concert thing. However, he'd been sick, and decided not to play. So we went and watched. Then, two pieces before the end, he decided that he Would play, so off he went, and kinda just turned up at the end and said 'yeah.. I'll play this' 'This' being the slow movement from Bruch's violin concerto. It was beautiful. Afterwards we went for a drink (quickly) and then off home to bed.
Dienstag 11th
Had another 1st violin sectional for the Borg orchester. Was about the most exciting thing I did on tuesday.
Mittwoch 12th
Got home for lunch, only to be reminded (I'd completely forgotten) that Andrea and I were playing a trio (another Hayden) in a concert that afternoon with Gudrun. So that went ok. And then I raced off to an AFS christmas meeting/party/socialising thing in a nice hotel. It was good seeing everyone again, and we sang some austrian christmas carols, and they made me sing 'Christmas on the Beach' (which they find really, really weird). Nothing particularly exciting happened. Peter, Sabbi and I are supposed to be going snowboarding this weekend, but he hasn't got back to me about it yet, so I'll have to go chase him up.
Donnerstag 13th
Borg orchester! Umm.. that was about it. I think. Yeah.
Freitag 14th
Oooh ooh ooh! Freitag I got some exciting news! Professor Portugaller, who's the head of music, told me in the middle of our rehearsal that I was now to be in 9M! Eee! It was very exciting. Anyhu, the rehearsal was for the Hayden Messe again, but this time with a smaller orchestra - only three first violins, two seconds, a cello and a bass. And the organ. And a smaller choir too. That night, my french class and I went to a play in the Landestheatre (biiiiig old theatre.. it's really.. like you would expect it to be I guess) about Edith Piaf, which was amazing. There was an orchestra, and she sand, and just .. wow.
Samstag 15th
At 5pm, Hanni and I went to a traditional Tirolian christmas concert thing. It was kinda all these different music groups playing, with two children talking to their grandfather inbetween about what christmas meant and things. It was really good, although I was very tired, and the first half was very slow music and I kept nodding off - oops! But yeah.. They were all in their national costumes (yay leiderhosen!), and there were lots and lots of Real christmas trees all around to make it look like a forest, and yeah. I'm sorry I didn't take any photos.. I'll try see if I can find a link for you on the internet though. Afterwards we went to a free African drumming session (which had nothing to do with the Christmas concert thing.), where we all sat around in a big circle, each with our own african drum (!!) It was so much fun, and there were some really really good drummers there. It's amazing how good it can sound even with the simplest of rhythms. Some of the more experienced people did some improvisation and stuff overtop, and it was really really fun! After That, Hanni went home, and I met up with Andrea and Matze, and we went for a drink in Treibhaus, before heading home.
Sonntag 16th
Sleeeeeep
Montag 17th
Fifth and sixth hours we had another rehearsal for the Hayden Messe, which was good. Not really sure what else happened. Uhh. Maybe I didn't do anything. Nothing is always good!
Dienstag 18th
I had the most horrible Physiks class ever. It wasn't actually horrible.. the lesson it'self I mean. But the sun was blazing through the windows, and I was starving hungry, and when I went to the bathroom, I could hear the choir practising from one of the classrooms, and the mountains were all covered in snow, and it was quite torturous sitting there in class watching my classmates draw complicated looking weird sound wave diagram things that I didn't understand At All.
Andrea and I planned on making christmas cookies that afternoon (as she's sick. Poor andrea) Didn't end up happening though.
Gestern (Yesterday!-Mittwoch) 19th
Was my first day in 9M! Matthias had made me promise to come Before the christmas holidays, and seeing as nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it (my form teacher didn't even know till I told her on Tuesday), I went to the secratarian's office early in the morning (yes, I was actually early to school for once), and asked. Turned out the Dirktor was sick, but she said I should just go and it'd be fine. So. Off I went! First class was physiks. It was a bit awkward, as the teacher was kinda like 'hi' and i was like 'hi. um.. yeah, I'm new.' and she was like 'oh. Oh. ok then', but other than that, she seems really nice. Then Nici went and wrote up a whole lot of equationny things on the board, with lots of Qs an ts and Ws and sins and cos's and I slowly died. But not to worry. Then was English, but they switched the classes around, so we had german instead. We were looking at a text, which we had to read out, except nobody wanted to read out, and just at that point, Jakob from 8M came in to give us a notice, so we got him to read it out instead. Then was Philosophy, with the same teacher who taught me BGW (kinda arty thing) in 7B (old class), and he got me to read out this strange text, which, when you read it as if it were english (even though it doesn't make sense in english, and not even all the words are in english), it tells a funny story in an Austrian dialekt. I had no idea what I was telling them, although I found out later it was about Skiing. Fourth period was supposed to be History, but Matthias, Rebe, Olivia had another Hayden probe. Rehearsal in the kirche. Church. (eek my german will be bad tomorrow cos I'm writing so much english!) The church is a really big old one- not crazily overdecorated, but still pretty well.. Baroque. Angels on the celing flying up into the heavens and stuff. However, we were in the choir stalls. Which we were right up high next the organ at the back of the church, all squished in around a corner. It was quite uncomfortable. And cold. Churches are always freezing to play in. Anyhu, that went well. As well as it can go when you're all wrapped up in a five layers trying to play violin (it's really hard!), and trying to find space for your bow to go when you play (impossible).
Then we went back and had religion, where we did a play (the advent christmassy one). Sara and I were the two shepherds (I was second shepherd, and I had about 30 lines to read! And I got through them pretty well! Hurrah!). Olivia was God, Matthias (other matthias. we have two in our class) was Joseph, and Jonny was Mary. He was awesome- he was wearing the hood off his jacket (without the jacket) and spoke in the most ridiculous high pitched voice the whole time. It was hilarious.. even our teacher was in tears of laughter. We also had an angel who's sparkler (showing that she was an angel) ran out half way through speaking. Oh and the cake from Saint Nikolaus tag is standing proudly in the corner of the room, preventing anyone from closing the curtain or pulling the blackboard across too far. Oh, and some cool things about being in a music class: We have a piano in our class (they played a lullaby for me when i lay down on the tables during break because I was tired) And we have a mac computer and some really nice speakers :D And we have a huge piece of paper which they've counted down the days till christmas. Starting with 65.days. Till Christmas.
(four days till christmas people!)
And incase you were wondering, here is my new timetable!:
Montag- Religion- English- Musik- Latin
Dienstag- German- Musik- Maths- Chemie
Mittwoch- Physik- English- Philosophy- History- Religion- German
Donnerstag- Maths- Chemie- Musik- Latin
Freitag- Maths- German- Philosophy- Geography- Physik- English
Yes I'm doing latin. And there's no french. But it's alright. My latin homework I got today.. actually, she didn't even notice me, so I'm sure she won't mind that I didn't do it. But yeah.. it's pretty crazy. The days with only four subjects finish at 11.45, and the days with 6 subjects finish at 1.35, so I'm quite happy. And my whole class is really nice. After Religion (we'd already had german earlier in the day) on wednesday, we all went out for lunch together, except our favourite place was full, so we decided to go somewhere else, except then half of them deserted us and stayed there anyway. But it was fun without them anyway!
Today (20th)We had the concert! Met at the church at 8am, rehearsed a bit and then played. It's strange playing in a concert where you can't see the audience at all, and have no idea how many people are there and how they're reacting to the music. But all in all it went pretty well. Even colder than Wednesday though! Eek! Got back to school in time for music and Latin. Music was really interesting- they're working through well.. everything musicy really. It's music history. Today we looked the forms that Symphonies have taken throughout the ages. And listened to some Schumann and Bruckner. And then was Latin, which was.. well, I don't really know, as I didn't understand Any of it. Then was our last Orchestra rehearsal for the year (it's lucky i'm in a music class now, as I'd completely forgotten about it!). The next rehearsal that we have will be on Jan 2nd, the day before the Ball, which we're playing in at the Congress house(which is really big and fancy). I'm really looking forward to it- it'll be a lot of fun.
Got home from school, and Andrea and I made christmas cookies with lemon creme icing stuff which taste reallly good. She's a bit better now, which is good.
Tomorrow is our last day of school before the christmas hoildays. A lot of the people in 9M are going home (many of them live in flats in Innsbruck) to other parts of Tirol or to Italy over the christmas holidays, but I'll see them all in a week or two at the ball anyway, and christmas holidays aren't that long. A friend of mine- Melissa, who's also a Kiwi on exchange here (we flew over together) is coming down to Innsbruck from Vienna where she lives on Saturday, so I'll meet up with her, which I'm looking forward too. Oh and of course there's christmas! So far I have no idea what I'm doing. Andrea doesn't do christmas. But I've been invited to Matze's house on christmas (what they call 'Christmas' here is actually Dec 24th. Dec 24th is when you have your big meal and open all the presents), and his flatmate is putting on a christmas play for little kids, and we're going to go and watch that too apparently.
Hanni went to Tux today, and bought back a whole lot of bread (mmmm bread) as well as a little christmas tree, which is very cute.
Anyhu, I'll keep you informed! (even if there is a big delay and the next post ends up being longer than this one!-Sorry!)
I'm thinking of you all and your summer weather!
Schonen Weihnachten!
Liebe Gruße
Kelda
