Gruss Gott!

So I am starting to get used to navigating the city. It wierd becuase the streets are not perpendicular here. Actually I bet there aren't two perpendicular streets in this whole city. Its basically a series of rings with different districts. The first district is actually the old city from way back in Roman times. The Ringstrasse is basically where the old city walls were. The first district is where the IES center is, where all my classes are, and it is minutes from the Staatsoper, Stephansdome, the Hofburg, museums, and pretty much everything important in Vienna.
I am pretty good at navigating the U-Bahn, the subway system, which is extremely simple when compared to the New York subway. And the U-Bahn is basically on the honor system. They assume that you will buy a ticket before you get on the U-Bahn, but there are people that randomly check tickets on the U-Bahn once in a while, and if you don't have a valid ticket, they throw you off. I haven't witnessed this yet, but I just buy my ticket and be perfectly honorable. Also the doors to the train don't open automatically, you have to open them. This is among the many things that are different and interesting. Another interesting thing, the plastic bags at grocery stores like Billa cost money and they are reusable, and no one bags your groceries for you. Staring at people is not rude. Calendars of naked ladies are sold alongside the office supplies. Everyone smokes. People bring dogs everywhere, into stores, cafes. There are no clothes dryers. Our apartment has a little washer and then you let yous clothes air dry. Also, Austrians sort their trash and recyclables into about fifty categories. Its all very interesting.

Last night me and several other students went to the Staatsoper to see "Manon" (the Massenet one) which was high on my list of operas to see. Diana Damrau was Manon, and for those who don't know, is a superstar German soprano, famous the world over. And Ramon Vargas was Des Grieux. It seemed to be set in later flapper times, so it was quite modern.
It is quite hard to coordinate plans when we all don't have Austrian cellphones yet. But we all made it there in several fragmented groups and bought the best standing room tickets for 4. Euros. They were orchestra level and I could see pretty much everything. It was Sunday night and the house was completely full. Amazing! it was a lot of fun to go with people who are just as excited about opera, so we can be geeks together. It was just an amazing show. Beyond words. I can't beleive we got to see the best opera in the world for 4 euros. We want to go back later this week and see Marriage of Figaro. I don't think any huge names are singing, but later in the season Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, and Elina Garanka will be there. There are several other opera houses here. One is in our district, the Theatre and der Wien, does early opera and theya re doing Poppea soon, so me and a few other early music freaks are going. There is also the Volksoper that does musicals, operetta, and other operas that are in German. Not to mention the Vienna Philaharmonic and countless other musical things going on. There is so much to do!
German classes starts today,and we will have two and a half hours of german a day for the next three weeks! I am excited to be able to communicate better. So far, all I say on a daily basis is "Gruss Gott!" " Danke" and " Entschuldigung!" We are getting a head start by watching some German television. They were covering the Golden Globes. And now we are watch some movie with Matthew McConaughey dubbed in German. But I should probably start my real German homework.