the journey of a young composer: Not an essay

Grüss Gott! I'm feeling more and more like an actual resident all the time. I've ridden the U-Bahn (subway) several times, gotten lost in the city center, been to the post office, established a bank account, gone shopping for books (mainly English, but also some comical German finds that are hard to believe - more on that soon, I promise...), and purchased food at all the grocery stores within a five-block radius, which happens to be about ten or so. I've met with my teacher (just for coffee, our first lesson will be next week) and one of the composition students here, both very friendly.

Apart from all the excursions, I've been working on writing a new piece for Japanese koto, listening to and studying some music, and so on. This weekend I'll go to my first concerts here, one of 11th century music and the other of 21st - rather the full spectrum, I should say!

If you're dying to see the beautiful palaces of Vienna, the majestic cathedrals and the houses where Mozart lived, I hear you! I haven't gotten to any of it myself yet, though I certainly will. You can get previews of all that here. But I have taken some shots of interesting sights. Here's a floral display where the "canvases" hold silhouettes of famous Viennese buildings:

Classy. Here's the music school that I'm not attending - but it's where my composition teacher is employed, and I hope to get to know many of the students:

I think it wins the award for "World's Yellowest Conservatory". And here's an unusual way in which the name of Johann Strauss, Waltz King, lives on in women's fashion:

Here's a little evidence that Vienna, in addition to being a grand old city, is also a modern and international city:

An Oriental fleamarket on the street named for a 19th-century German philosopher. Finally, wouldn't you love it if park signs in America, rather than the blasé "Dogs Allowed On Leash", were like this: