Living our Dream

GOOD NEWS!

2012-01-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

And it better be, after such a long hiatus from the blog world.

Shea and I have been accepted, TOGETHER, to the young artist program at UTAH OPERA.

HALLELUIAH!
I can't even be any more happy. It's one of the biggest blessings we've ever had. That, and being accepted into grad school together, and being accepted into summer programs together. Well, being together in general.

Speaking of which, we will be working, TOGETHER, at Central City Opera this summer in Colorado.

I would write Halleluiah big and loud again, but I risk being redundant. Needless to say, the Lord is watching out for the Owens family...

....and the Owens family has been busy busy busy in the last few months. So busy that I haven't even used my laptop in 2 months! It's like I deserted my best friend of 5 years.

Well, better late then never. Happy New Year to you all! We've been globe-trotting (or at least North America-trotting) for a while so we'll take you back for some brief anecdotes and pictures.

l'Octobre. Così fan tutte. SO FUN. Halloween.We were pinky and the brain.

Trip numero uno. November. Thanksgiving. Cleveland. My sister's twin babies. TCTF (too cute to function).

Also trip due, to Chicago. Two auditions there, which just happened to be Central City and Utah. That was a good singing day. Cold.

Dicembre. Quick stint back in Houston to finish up the semester and a show. NYC! Friends, auditions, and our new connection to the Musical Theater world of New York. We may or may not have sung at Charlie Parker's Birdland Jazz Club during "Cast Party" open mic night, after which we may have been asked to sing at Michael Feinstein's Cabaret Club at Loewe's Regency Hotel. We may have even made the newsletter (emailed upon request). Who knew that the only fruitful audition of that trip would be open mic night? Saw an off-broadway show with Aaron Carter (yes, the pop singer) as the lead. Shea and I decided we could probably do well here if we really wanted to (no offense to the performers).

Also: Galveston, TX. And of course, Christmas in Arizona with the family. Oh, and I got my wisdom teeth removed. 5 days before an audition. NBD. (Ask your tween what that means if you don't know.)

Januahrrr: To LA for an audition and house concert at Gramma's house! Oh how I love the grandma. Last semester of school EVER (probably). Trip to Austin with Matt and Angelica (see here). Texas Barbeque. Trip to Old Towne Spring with Matt and Angelica. We like them.

Now we want to hear all your good news.

Dear to my heart

2011-10-13T12:17:00.000-07:00

Oh boy. Clearly school has gotten the best of me, rendering me unable to blog since classes started! As I look back on the last month and a half, however, school hasn't really been the issue. My only academic class is Italian, a subject in which I have advanced enough to not do busy work for anymore. No, no, the real culprit is PEOPLE! Crazy, happy, wonderful people. (I don't want my music to feel left out... yes you too have taken over my life but you are far less important.)

I want to introduce you to some of the wonderful people in my life (and in my camera!). They are so dear to my heart.

One of our dearest friends Brent came back from the Big Apple to sing for a couple recitals down here in Houston. What better way to celebrate than with breakfast for dinner? Brent is always so kind, courteous, and responsible. You can count on him to do anything, and he will do it with grace and charisma.

This lovely lady is a new addition to the master's program, and has kept me company on multiple occasions when I'm feeling very much like a girl (aka too hard on myself and perhaps slightly moody). The cookie's were Becky's idea on this particular girl's night, quite brilliant. After she teaches me to knit, y'all better watch out because we will be a knitting dancing cooking singing girl band.

Julia and I decided to have an evening of baking. Again, a brilliant choice (I have such brilliant colleagues). Our main task of the evening was a batch of cinnamon rolls, time consuming but divine. We tried letting the dough rise in a dishwasher that had gone through the first few minutes of a cycle; the hot steaminess was perfect. We also made these Oreo balls dipped in chocolate. I just ate three leftovers and they are still way too delicious to be consumed in the afternoon. Julia dubbed them rabbit droppings and that was that.

Now when we talk about Lori, we are in a totally different ball game. We met a couple weeks ago when Shea and I innocently visited to deliver a requested blessing to her in the Cancer Center. Well, her spirit captured me and ever since then, I have almost spent as many hours in the hospital as in school (and that's saying something)!

Where can you begin with Lori? In her short 30 years, she has done more than most accomplish within a long lifetime! Most recently she was working in hospitality for Hilton hotels, training and teaching like crazy even when her Leukemia made her exhausted. Before that, she was a translator for the Air Force, so she speaks 8ish languages, including Russian and Persian and Arabic and a bunch of other ones that I've never even heard before. WOAH. And I though doing Italian/German/French was hard. Oh, let's not forget to mention that she was also a paramedic and fire fighter in Colorado, or that she was 7th in the nation in downhill slalom skiing, or that she was Miss Teen Texas... She also joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints two years ago and has been a strong, faithful servant of Christ since then.

She also made me laugh, cry, and think about life in a totally new way. When she gets over all of this, she wants to be a motivational speaker for cancer patients, to do something to uplift those who suffer what she has suffered. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the past two years, with doctors saying over and over, "you won't make it to Christmas" or, "you better call your family, you won't make it to tomorrow." She triumphantly related these stories to me, ending with a wish to see those doctors again and say, "HA! I'm still here!"

One day last week we went down to "Kim's Place" in the hospital, where there are games and snacks and lots of fun stuff. She was still hooked up to her IVs and feeling weak, but she SCHOOLED me at both the basketball game and at pool. Wow. Then she played for me a couple songs she had composed on the piano and read me a poem she had written. What a talented, beautiful soul. From her example, I've realized that I could do so much more.

Keep her in your prayers as she prepares for a bone marrow transplant in the next few weeks.

Luckily Shea and I were able to spend some time in the temple this week to pray for Lori and redirect our thoughts to heaven as we seek for guidance moving into audition season and out of school. I thank the Lord for His house on earth.

Let us keep close to our hearts the things that matter most. Sending love and gratitude to all my friends and family.

A Tribute to Lists and Road Trips

2011-08-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

The summer is drawing quickly to its close, although it will feel like summer in Houston for quite a while yet. My last year of school EVER begins on Monday. I am trying to decide how much learning I want to cram into my last year, or if I should take it easy... no matter what, it's going to be tough, because auditioning is bigger than ever this year. After this is REAL LIFE!

...but not really. What is "real life?" It's every day, living in the moment. But sometimes it feels like "real life" = steady job, a house, kids, etc. We visited my sister Lacey, pregnant with twins, in her new house in Ohio, with her entire life basically planned out in front of her. I'm so proud of you Lacey! Way to have a real life!

My life for the next many years will probably not involve any sort of 5-year plan or a house, but I look forward to it. Bloom where you're planted, even if you are constantly uprooted. That's my motto.

So, by now you're probably wondering, "where are the lists and road trips?" Road trips can be fun, but I'm so over it. Luckily, we saw some interesting things along the way, which I will now present in the form of a glorified list:

A car, entering the freeway and seeing stand-still traffic, does a U-turn on the on-ramp and back down again. Um, isn't that one-way? Yikes.
Another car, when coming up on heavy traffic, decides to drive over the median (which happens to be a large ditch) and cross to the other side of the freeway. Yikes again. Traffic has that effect on people, apparently.
Two city names: "Arkadelphia" and "Texarkana," professed to be great places to live by their respective water towers. No offense, but that's an embarrassing wanna-be-something-besides-Arkansas name. I don't really want to live there.
We stopped at Elbert's gas station to use the restroom, only to find signs posted on every door that restrooms were for customers only. Right next to the sign that told anyone coming in to pull up their pants before entering (do they have a problem with that???). So Shea bought a Gatorade to be a "customer," which turned out to be a horrible flavor. We should have known, we were in unpaved road territory.
Our smoke alarm went off in our hotel from the steam from the jacuzzi tub. It made the jacuzzi much less relaxing, but luckily I disassembled the darned thing before I went crazy.
An Amish mother and son pulled up in their horse-drawn carriage to fill up 2 gas canisters at 11 p.m. Are you coming out here so late because you're hiding the fact that you use a gas-powered something? Who knows...
Is that a man sitting in front of a junk yard? Still haven't figured that out...

So these sights occurred on the way from Cleveland to Houston, after having road-tripped Virginia to Cleveland. In Cleveland, we helped Lacey and Austin set up their "real life" while they tried to remodel their 1947 house. I felt very much like a construction worker and also learned a few things:

Count your nails before you start nailing
It is possible to drill into cement and brick. You just have to want to hang curtains there bad enough.
Before you attempt plumbing, know what you're getting into. Otherwise, you may have a waterfall in your kitchen.
Doing research is always worth the time.
Some people are lazy, rude, dishonest, and irresponsible. Don't hire those people.

Now that all that's behind, I have some things to look forward to:

Teaching Primary at church
School and opera
New friends
Cooking in my kitchen. I may have busted out my Rachel Ray cookbook today... get ready for gourmet!
Voice lessons. Heaven knows I need them. Also, I'm excited to teach some.

Now that you all have read all my lists, go make some and be productive. I can honestly say I have never been better at accomplishing so much with such a big to-do list than in the last couple of days. And as soon as I publish this post, I get to cross off another thing! YAY!

But I have a few last thoughts and pictures from Wolf Trap Opera. I learned a ton this summer: about myself, about the world, about truth.

It's hard to make friends and leave them so soon. It's emotionally taxing, but it's still worth it to get to know people even if it's for a short time. Friends make life full and dynamic, and they teach you to be tolerant, forgiving, to look inside yourself, and to laugh hard.

It's definitely a challenge to be in this business where the people you are close to come from so many different places and have so many different ideas about life and the world. I constantly had to remind myself to take a step back and remind myself where I really stand. How grateful I am for a modern prophet who guides the way in this whirlpool of conflicting thought, Thomas S. Monson.

That's all for today! Back to the list...

Here's a couple gems from backstage at Tales of Hoffmann:

I know what you're thinking. *Those shoes are amazing!* Don't worry, I bought them and will be sporting in Houston this fall.

This is for Maggie :)

The 5 Browns at the Filene Center

2011-07-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

These people are amazing. If you don't know them, go here. Their playing is brilliant, but their brilliance is so much more than that. I can only imagine the road blocks... five siblings with career paths tied but lives of their own, families of their own. Practicing. Programming. Etc.

But they are so kind, genuine, and happy, helping people remember how awesome classical music is. And they stick to it. When I grow up, I want to be like you.

Y'all nailed the Poulenc. Dang. That was my favorite. (Concerto in dm for 2 pianos and orchestra)

Also, way to be modest and rockin' at the same time. It can be done! (see this cool blog)

And one more thing: thanks for remembering who I am even though I haven't seen you for years.

Wolf Trap is a super wonderful place to work

2011-07-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, busy summer so far, but it's wrapping up all too soon! We are so lucky to have such wonderful administration, staff, and colleagues here. I just get all the luck. Now that I've started using my camera, here are some pics!

Some members of the AMAZING cast of Sweeney Todd: way to take the heat, y'all. (It was well over 100 degrees for the outdoor rehearsals and performance). And don't worry, we're supposed to be creepy.

$5 appetizers at the Cheesecake Factory? Yes, please.

My awesome family came to see studio scenes and Sweeney. Thanks so much for your love and support! Warning: do not tickle Ashley! She will try to escape the photo. Lesson learned.

Speaking of studio scenes...

Love it.

This Business

2011-06-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

... is hard.

While in the midst of a full-blown crazy busy summer, I'm already planning for the next audition season. What repertoire do I need to learn? What auditions conflict with the operas at school? What am I ready for? How much money and time do I have to fly around the country to sing for people? Is my audition dress too long/short/boring/flashy? And everyone auditioning also has to wonder whether they are too short/tall/skinny/fat/young/old etc.... there's no predicting what matters to the audition panel. Yikes.

Luckily, I am not scared of much. Like, nothing. I can't think of one thing that I'm honestly terrified of.

Because in the end, we are just doing the work of the Lord, and His work cannot fail. This is a zero-failure zone.

I guess if I had to pick one thing, I'm only scared of losing my perspective about this whole mess called living in the world. But only a little, because I'm not going to let that happen.

Shea and I are lucky to be working at Wolf Trap this summer. Yes, it's been busy. We closed a Wolf-Ferrari opera (Le Donne Curiose) last week, and we are staging for our scenes program and Sweeney Todd, rehearsing music for Les Contes d'Hoffman, and trying to remember to eat in the meantime. Every day I remember that something needs to be memorized; it's like school times 3 except much more fun. It's thrilling to make music with other people who are constantly pushing me to be a better musician and performer. Absolutely thrilling. And I get to be with Shea. Lucky, lucky me!

When we need to recharge our spirits, we go to the D.C. temple. It works every time.

Last Day in Italia

2011-06-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

Bittersweet. We've been having internet troubles so it's been difficult to Blog this week, but we've also been very busy trying to cram in site-seeing during lunch and after classes! Here are a few of things we've been up to in the past week:

Gelato festival

Boboli Gardens

Siena

Florence (is this for real?)

Pisa (I promise this is real)

Family

School

It'll be nice to be back in America, I'm not going to lie. But my heart will ache without the people I've grown to love... my Italian family and the Rice students that are graduating and on to new things. Ciao, amici.

Cinque Terre!

2011-05-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Cinque Terre (5 Lands) is comprised of 5 small villages on the west coast of Italy. They are nestled next to the sea amidst lush green mountains with some very steep cliffs and amazing views. It is one of the most beautiful places in Italy I've seen.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107481848662748052141/ItaliaCinqueTerre?authkey=Gv1sRgCNTU4qf7_-TGtQE&feat=directlink

Photos from Florence!

2011-05-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is the first set of pictures in the Florence Album. More to come--enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/107481848662748052141/ItaliaFirenze?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnPmcOHnJCHkgE&feat=directlink

Sounds of the City

2011-05-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

We're too tired to go out. There is always lots of activity under our window at night, which tonight, I am thoroughly enjoying. The Brazilians are performing Capoeira, dance-fighting, in the midst of the gelato festival as young people wander around looking for parties.

The night life is rather lovely here. For us, "night life" means walking around and coming home before 11:30. :) Last night we met with a couple from church for gelato and a walk around town. We were fortunate enough to run into something a bit more special than your average evening street musician: a concert version of La Traviata! It was quite lovely.

This afternoon our group of students from Rice gave a small concert at school, which was well-attended by our classmates. We sang Italian opera hits, arias and ensembles. It was so incredibly fun. It was like a deja vu of our little recitals in our school in Vienna. It is just different singing Italian music in Italy (as opposed to Texas, as much as we love it). The audience could not get enough of it. One lady from Russia said that the concert was the highlight of her entire trip to Florence. Another lady had said earlier in the week that opera did nothing for her and that she didn't like classical singing, but she left the recital in tears, promising that she'd return to the opera again and again because she loved it so much. Truly, it was a marvelous concert, well-programmed and well-sung by our incredibly talented colleagues. I was listening to everyone and thinking to myself, "Wow, is this group talented!" Remarkable, memorable, and rather emotional for everyone involved.

Buona notte! Only one more week left in Italia!

Ciao

Cooking Class in Tuscany

2011-05-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

If you like to cook, you should be jealous about this one.

We went on a gelato fast for a while so that we could afford a trip up to Tuscany for a cooking class with a real Italian Mamma! I think I've found the perfect place for my Tuscan Villa..

Her home was nestled in the hills with an incredible view of the countryside. The weather was delightful and the sunshine lasted for 5-6 hours we were there. Lorenza cooked in her own kitchen while 7 of us students observed and wrote furiously whatever we could translate or pick up. She didn't use recipes or talk much in English, so it was definitely a learning experience! Hopefully I will be as expert as her one day, to be able to feel what the correct ratio of flour to egg is when making my fresh pasta from scratch (!!!)

It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten. Some of the dishes:
Dried, grilled eggplant
Roasted peppers with garlic, parsley and EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
small sweet peppers and tomatoes sauteed with EVOO and some other stuff
gnocchi from scratch
pasta from scratch with bits of dried salmon and a lemon zest topping
pane with anchovies and cheese
dolce: white chocolate with nuts, red orange juice glaze, cocoa powder, strawberries and cream
My personal favorite: potatoes and prosciutto stuffed in a Zucchini flower and fried. WOW.

Lorenza is an expert for sure. As I've seen with other Italians so far, Lorenza sang her way through the cooking process with the best of Puccini hits. It's more like a yelling than singing, but it sure makes me happy!

And this one is because I can't get enough of Vittoria. She says Shea's name perfectly now, but I'm content to be "Mimi." :)

Ciao for now!

Pictures of Rome

2011-05-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

Since we can only put a few pictures on the blog, I've created an online album with all of the pictures we've taken. This first album is of Rome. I'll publish Firenze and Cinque Terre soon and you won't want to miss those! Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/107481848662748052141/ItaliaRoma?authkey=Gv1sRgCMaXlrmm3f_4NQ&feat=directlink

Cinque Terre: Five Villages, hundreds of pictures, thousands of steps

2011-05-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we spent the day in Cinque Terre, a land of five small villages on the western coast of Italy. The terrain is so steep there that one must have a reasonable level of fitness to walk through the villages, much more to go between them! The land is terraced with stone walls to create some sort of "flatland" for building and agriculture; the walls are said to be (in total) at least equal in length to the great wall of China! Stones were carried up anciently using men's shoulders and women's heads. The buildings appear to be stacked haphazardly on top of one another, but it creates the quaintest of looks, and with the sun shining and the ocean bringing up a soft breeze, it was a day like no other.

The trains were on strike when we went, so we took the pericoloso journey on bus. The bus couldn't go further at one point, so we hopped off in the middle of the road and took a hike down to the first town, Riomaggiore. Here we discovered the "beach."

We then hiked the "Via dell'Amore," Lovers' lane, to the next town, Manarola. We lost our guide several times (we went with a group from the school), but luckily we all came together in the end! We then hopped on a boat for a ride past Corniglia and stopped in Vernazza. Here, Shea and I hiked to the top of the cliff to find a beautiful cemetery and incredible views. We took the boat to the last town, Monterosso, where we enjoyed a gelato and laid in the shade on the real beach (with sand). We needed a break after all that hiking, and it was a beautiful, relaxing way to end the day.

The four-hour ride back was like a really bad teacup ride up the mountain, where traffic on the narrow street caused much jolting and fearful, it's-better-to-close-your-eyes moments! When we finally got home, we treated our sunburns and went to bed. This morning, I could barely walk, but it was Vale la pena.


Lemons are the big thing in Monterosso, and there is a famous alcoholic lemon drink that we didn't try, but could've for free!

Some of my favorite things of the day:
1. Discovering doors all throughout the villages leading to who-knows-what (more rock?). LOVE.
2. Petting the most adorable teensy puppy ever.
3. When we got home, Vittoria (the toddler) put her head in my lap and whispered "ti amo, ti amo, ti amo, ti amo!" I almost cried.

As you can imagine, it was difficult to decide which photos to put up. Hopefully we'll put up an album online soon. You do not want to miss these pictures.

Allora, time to study... Italian is difficult at the moment, so we've really got to kick ourselves in gear!
Ciao!

A day to be a tourist

2011-05-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Finally. I realized that being a tourist in Italy isn't all that bad! But which is better? Being a tourist or being a student?

We really lucked out today. We went with a group from school to see the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte: one of the oldest churches in Florence. Only the baptistry and a few small churches were around when it was built in the 11th century. It was quite a hike to get there, and our group leader was disappointed to find that a wedding had just started in the church, so he couldn't take us through. In truth, the wedding was beautiful, and we were still able to go inside while it was going on! I think we were pretty lucky, because it was a beautiful ceremony and there was an organist and soprano singing for the service. The church was gorgeous, and the views were spectacular.

My favorite thing was the cemetery surrounding the church. Apparently very exclusive, it houses the graves of Zefferelli (famous opera director) and other notable Italians. It was absolutely gorgeous, although Shea was thinking that some of the stone graves might be an impediment for the resurrection...

Since we had already made the hike, we stopped by Piazza di Michelangelo, where we met up for a few minutes with the French folks in our class and informed them that the David sculpture there was not the real one. They are very endearing people!

We walked through the door of the city to get there; there was a time when Florentines were locked in (or out) for the night!

Speaking of nights, we had a recital at our casa last night! Brent, Maureen, Chelsea, and Lauren came over and we entertained our family and guests with an array of Italian music. They loved it! It was so fun to see how the Italians react to everything. They are loud, for sure! They clapped in the middle of songs and hollered "BRAVO" whenever they could! Best. Audience. Ever.

Note bene: The piano is beautiful, but it is used solely as a decorative table in this house, so for you music nerds, here's the scoop: Down in the bass part of the piano, going up chromatically, instead of going up by half-steps, it's more like this: up a whole step, down a half step, up a minor third, up a whole step, down a half step, up a half step, etc. Luckily we don't have to play down there too much! The rest of the piano is generally 1/2 step flat, but there are occasional notes that play an entire interval or just don't play at all. Maureen did a fantastic job maneuvering the instrument! Brava ragazza!

Enjoy some pretty pictures. Ciao!


Ponte Vecchio

I love the Italian Old-Timers

Studying in Florence

2011-05-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

I imagine that most of you blog readers understand why there has been a pause in posting this week... we are "in alto mare," or high seas, meaning we have a lot on our plates right now! Homework isn't really the issue here, it's the brain full of Italian and trying to study and remember and not be too tired to do anything else...

School: The Michelangelo Institute is great! We took a test on the first day for class placement. Shea and I are in the most advanced class here, and we definitely feel like the dumb ones! It's a challenge because although the grammar is fine, the conversation topics are very difficult. Instead of talking about ourselves, where we came from, etc., we talk about psychology and idiomatic expressions and horoscopes. It's interesting, for sure, but it's very hard at this point to express ideas in Italian. That's our morning class (9-1). In the afternoon (2-4), we are with some of our Rice friends in a conversation class, which I LOVE. It's a place to ask tons of questions and talk about anything and everything. Mi piace molto!

Home: We have definitely bonded with Vittoria, the cutest toddler bambina ever! She now consistently remembers our names ("mimi" and "day") and I just want to cuddle her all the time. We always have dinner around 8, which throws off my day because I feel like there should be time after dinner to do things, but there never is... Dinner is always delicious though. Today I was thrown for a loop because it was the first time we didn't have some sort of pasta dish!

The City: Firenze is bellissima! When we took our trip through Italy in 2009 (see 2009 posts) Florence was my favorite city. I think it still is (although I really really liked Rome too). We haven't done a ton of sight-seeing, but we've tried to see a bit of the city after classes each day. We live in the Palazzo di Pitti, so we cross the Ponte Vecchio every day on our 25-minute walk to school. I consider our position in the city very fortunate, despite being a bit far from school. The view of the Arno river from the bridge is so gorgeous every morning and evening, and I always get a rush of delight when I look out at it. The one site we have been to so far was the baptistery next to the Duomo. The ceiling is gorgeous, depicting the last judgment of Christ and stories from the Bible.

We've also discovered a few things in Florence that have made us chuckle...

And for a quick review of things we missed, here is a picture from our last night in Rome. Hawaii's Junior Miss from 2006, Jakara Mato, saw that we were in Rome on Facebook. She is studying on a Fulbright grant in Rome right now, so she invited us for dinner where she and her boyfriend made a traditional roman dish. I thought that was about the nicest thing ever, since I haven't seen her since nationals five years ago!

And here's a picture in front of the Duomo with Elliott (Shea's uncle) during our brief three hours last Friday. You never know where you'll meet up with him!

Ciao for now!

Firenze... una bella città!

2011-05-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we changed our train ticket at the last minute in order to see Elliott Nelson (Shea's uncle) in Florence! We stayed in a tiny, but cute, hotel room (see Shea's facebook wall for a picture of the bathroom) and spent three good hours with Elliott eating delicious Italian cuisine and wandering the streets. And yes, there was gelato involved.

Today we met our host family for the next three weeks. They are SO ITALIAN! They only speak Italian to us so there's a learning curve for sure, but it's great. They have an eighteen-month old daughter Vittoria who is the CUTEST thing ever and loves to give bacciolini (little kisses). This is a well-off family, living right next to the Pitti Palace by the Ponte Vecchio. Original artwork and sculpture covers the walls of their relatively massive apartment, and even the ceilings are painted! However, they don't have toilet paper so we're going to have to get used to the bidet....

There was a car show going on in the streets of Florence today, so we had to walk all around in order to get to the institute, but we are now here! They gave us a USB modem to have internet at home, so we'll post more pictures soon!

Be sure to check out some pictures Shea posted of our time in Roma (our first few days... more later).
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=107481848662748052141&target=ALBUM&id=5606121763331898449&authkey=Gv1sRgCMaXlrmm3f_4NQ&feat=email

Well, we enjoyed some delicious pasta with our host family, but now we get to wander with Brent and Maureen for a few hours! (aka gelato)

Ciao!

gli italiani sono comico

2011-05-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Italians are funny. They've made me laugh out loud several times this week!

Scene #1: Sitting on a high ledge by the Trevi fountain eating lunch. Group of young teenage girls nearby. Italian boys down below shouting "bellissima donna" and other such nonsense. Italian girls not interested, leave the scene. Northern European girl wants the attention. Italian boys climb up the side of the fountain and over the ledge. They realize they only have English as a common language between them, but no one can actually speak English. Italian boy asks, "how old are you?" Girl says, "how old you think I am?" [feel free to insert hilarious accents] They arrive at the conclusion that she is about 22, and boy says "I'm 29." Friend of boy says, "no! 19!" Ok.... six or seven Italian teenage boys surrounding one northern European girl, saying things like "oh, he is moo-sel mahn" (muscleman) or "i am rohk-stahrr" (rockstar). Girl finally gets bored and leaves.

Scene #2: Our bus finally comes. Italian girl goes right up to the driver and proceeds to flirt with him for the entire 20 minutes we are on the bus. How does the bus driver concentrate with that girl yapping in his ear? Buses travel within centimeters of the cars parked next to them. Oh, the Italians!

Scene #3: Our map is totally useless. We can only identify one street around the Pantheon. We want to go south, so Shea asks a group of 3 military men passing by which way is south. These three men start turning around in circles, looking at each other like a bunch of really cute idiots. It was hysterical! Finally one of them identifies South, and the other two men look relieved. They ask Shea if he's in the military, to which he responds "maybe one day." But in Italian "one day" doesn't mean "someday," so it probably translated strangely... They gave him a salute and continued on their way. That one still makes me laugh out loud, remembering those guys turning around and bumping each other like a bunch of bumper cars!

Today was a good day. We practiced for an hour or so at the church, and Patriarca Calabrese was so thoughtful to bring us lunch! What a sweetheart. In the afternoon we went through the Capitoline museums, the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and a museum about the unification of Italy (this year marks its 150th anniversary).

Shea and I found it so interesting that of all the things and people that helped Italy to identify itself as a unified culture, the arts played the biggest role. Musicians, composers, conductors, artists, and writers were shown all throughout the exhibit (along with a soccer team) to show their influence on Italian unification. This just proves to me how important arts and culture are to a society. Without it, we are all just separate individuals that interact through transactions of money. That sounds pretty lame to me. I am so proud to be a part of the great work of culture and art in this world.

We paid an arm and a leg to do laundry today, but it was worth it because next door was the BEST gelato we have found in Rome. Cheap, HUGE servings, and molti gusti (lots of flavors)!!!
Y'all liked the floppy hat picture, so here are some more... for the movie star in me :)

Ciao!

It's Ciao time!

2011-05-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been benissimo! We spent some time Monday at the Spanish steps and all the fancy stores down the street. I think we were feeling slightly poor and uncomfortable there, but we did muster up the courage to go into a few shops! We stopped by Caffè Greco too, once frequented by famous writers and musicians like Keats, Goethe, Liszt, and Wagner... but we didn't feel quite distinguished enough to stay for long!

We spent most of the afternoon at the Villa Borghese Park, a massive spread of trees and grass and everything beautiful. Formal gardens, avenues, and random statues were everywhere, and it was about as enjoyable as it could be! Unfortunately the Galleria Borghese was closed on Monday, and when we went back the next day, all the tickets had been sold out until Saturday after we leave for Florence. Bummer. Regardless, it was gorgeous.

We ran into some hilarious market (anyone need some cheap underwear?) on our way to see the opera house, which unfortunately closed it's last show a couple days ago and won't start the next for another couple of weeks. Not a day of luck for us!

Yesterday proved to be a spectacular day, longer than most. The weather was gorgeous, and we spent some more time at the Villa Borghese. Then we went back to the church, where we were able to meet the Patriarch of Rome, a friend of our bishop in Houston. It looks better than a garage from the inside! We sang a hymn and he called the church in Florence for us so we know when and where to go on Sunday. So nice! We're going back today to practice a bit, because we're feeling a bit out of voice...

In the afternoon we enjoyed stumbling upon the Trevi Fountain on the way to the Pantheon. It shows Neptune and his Tritons, symbolizing different aspects of the sea. Here we enjoyed eating lunch (from the alimentari--grocery store). In fact, earlier in the day we sat at another fountain to eat our 2 oranges for 40 cents! We even fill up our water bottles at the fountains we find all over Rome. I love fountains. Is there a t-shirt for that?

Other sites for the day included the Pantheon, the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a museum with a special exhibit about the painting techniques of Caravaggio, the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and Capitol Hill. We ended the day with a pasta dish and pizza at MangiaNapoli.

I'll post more pictures at another time... it's just taking too long and the day is getting away from us! Love to you all.

Ciao!

Roamin' around

2011-05-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my beautiful mammas and gramammas. LOVE YOU!

We are pooped from the last two days of traveling. Shea has been snoozing for the past couple of hours and he's not likely to get up soon!

Yesterday we roamed around the ancient center, specifically the Colosseum and Palatine. Boy was it fun! The line at the Colosseum was ridiculoso, but we managed to stay in good spirits enough for me to wait in line again for 20 minutes or so to use the ladies restroom...almost as ancient as the Colosseum!

We used the sites for a backdrop to model Shea's awesome new European man bag:

Yep, he's pretty cute.

I didn't want to miss out on the modeling gig either...

I loved walking through the Palatine and seeing the ruins of what was clearly a spectacular center of amazing buildings and gardens. I found myself giddy because the day was SO perfect and it was so quiet and beautiful everywhere. We really could not have asked for better weather these last few days. It's honestly perfect, and we're loving it.

We went shopping for Sunday groceries in a nearby shopping center. In this tiny grocery store, there were TWO pasta isles. Typical.

Last night we enjoyed a spectacular pizzaria with some friends from the hotel. They are from Hamburg and barely speak English, much less Italian! Shea and I spoke German the entire evening between orders in Italian. It was soooo confusing, but awesome! Who knew we'd be speaking in German in Rome? Some of our best foreign language conversation here yet!

Today we tried to go to church. It was an adventure for sure, all-inclusive with a several-hundred-step climb! We met a few other members trying to go to church too, but in the end, I think there was some sort of conference going on in another part of Rome, so this particular meeting house (that looked like a garage!) was chiuso (closed). Oh well, blessings for trying, right?

Later we went back to St. Peter's to see if anything interesting was going on or if the Pope was still blessing people. We just found a big line, so we walked down to see Castel Sant'Angelo, a big fortress (originally meant to be a burial place) that has a quick get-away path for the pope linking it to St. Peter's. There were incredible views of the city there, and some wonderful art. We then enjoyed frolicking through the nearby gardens, which was definitely the highlight of the day.

You might as well not even ask how many times we have eaten gelato... let's just say it's rather irresistible!

CIAO!

I Musei Vaticani e San Pietro

2011-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

First off: I know that everyone is a tourist and we all come from different places, but could we show a little respect for places that are supposed to be holy? That's all.

The Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's Basilica marked the highlights of the day. SO gorgeous and awe-inspiring. Michelangelo was a genius of sculpture, painting, and architecture.

The Vatican museums are extensive and awesome. Shea and I walked up to the massive line and were invited to go in right away if we joined a tour group. So we did, and an eccentric Italian vecchio ran us through the museums at lightning speed... and it cost us too much $$. We tried not to regret it, but it was so fast that we had to go back to really look at everything. So, we did the museum twice. Our backs will be "back" in business for all the museums soon, but tonight we need massages.

We had our first pizza and gelati today. Yes, we had gelato twice. Duh, we're in Italy.

Here are some picture highlights!

Musei Vaticani

Piazza di San Pietro

"The Last Judgment" (Michelangelo)

I always like to find a spotlight where I can... here inside St. Peter's Basilica

Shea being ponderous

The Pieta

Ciao!

ROMA- that's my grandma's name

2011-05-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

... and she was a wonderful lady who taught me how to tap dance. But this post is about how I'm FINALLY in a hotel in ROMA, ITALY!

To make a long story short, we'd been traveling for 24 entire hours from doorstep to hotel, and I was just about to lose it so many times (between phases of silly) that I can honestly say I have just taken the best shower in my life. Ever.

This is what we saw of Paris during our 2-hour-delayed-missed-connection-another-delay-and-three-different-languages time:

I guess Paris should be our next study abroad since that's the only language we're really missing now. I'm planning it with my lil' sis Ashley Roma (yes that's her middle name too) and Mom for 2013. Anyone else want to join?

I don't feel any pressure to leave the hotel stasera (this evening). I had plans for tourism today but arriving 6 hours later than planned messed with that. And it's ok. Tomorrow there is a public transportation strike in the middle of the day so we'll have to plan things carefully, but I'm excited. I hope people stop answering my Italian questions in English...

Ciao!

CIAO

2011-05-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my lovely sister Lacey for her beautiful senior recital last weekend! It was wonderful to see the whole family out in snowy, snowy Utah for a few days.

In a few (too short) hours, we will be on the plane to ITALIA! Check here for our adventures as we get around to posting about them.

Much love to all, and keep your skype on if you want to chat!

The world is upside down

2011-04-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

When I ponder on the current state of the world, I realize that it is completely upside-down, and people flounder to find solutions to the many problems we face in society. My solution?

Love (by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ)
Love is the pure energy of God;
Pray for it ardently.
Be grateful when it comes into your life;
Give of it gen'rously
Lavish it on others,
Even the undeserving ones.
Cultivate friendship with care;
It is the best love of all.

Some of the things I love...

2011-04-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

To name a few, in no particular order...

Happy Easter.

N'Orleans!

2011-04-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

This particular post has been sitting, in desperate need of pictures and editing, in draft form for quite a while. It's time it enters the world.

Although we miss BYU, I do not miss having school straight through without any breaks in the winter semester. Here at Rice, we enjoyed a spring break, and then a post-spring break mini break! And to top it all off, we only have 9 more days of school left! It's the shortest semester I've ever had...

I'll get around to posting about spring break, but I wanted to focus on our mini-break (April March 24-27) for this post. We closed the opera "Our Town" on Wednesday night, for which Papa Owens flew out. Shea brought a shimmering and flexible baritone to the role of Mr. Webb (yes you can quote me as a reviewer) and Amy sat very still in her role as a member of the dead chorus (my proudest moment yet!).

The next day we enjoyed the most marvelous Spring weather that Houston has to offer. Earlier in March, we had tickets for the "Azalea Trail," a series of beautifully decorated and landscaped homes to tour. Azaleas are the beautiful flowers seen all throughout Houston. I LOVED it (not surprisingly) and we had to take Papa Owens to see the gardens at my favorite destination of the trail: Bayou Bend Mansion and Gardens.

This is a picture of me with the Azalea Trail Garden Club Car in early March. I know, it's intense.

Here are the cuties enjoying their matching shirts and flowers:

I now have added 14 acres of gardens to the "my future custom home" dream list. I mean, how could I possibly resist this???

Anyway, the days with Bradley T. came to an end, but as soon as we dropped him off at the airport, we were road-tripping with Matt and Angelica to New Orleans in celebration of Matt's birthday. Thank you Matt, for being born, and thank you Angelica for doing all the planning!

Saturday was our one full day in New Orleans, which naturally revolved around food. We started off the day by taking the trolley into town and walking to the French Quarter, where we joined hundreds of travelers wanting a plate of Beignets at Cafe du Monde. DELICIOUS. Wow. Fried donuts with powdered sugar... doesn't get much better than that!

The French Quarter was bustling, but beautiful. I love how much culture can be found within a drive from our Houston apartment. Cities are built around culture, and it's incredible how much America has. It's so important, so please don't anyone cut funding for these things that actually help the economy so much... just sayin'.

I loved looking at all the street art, watching a sub-par juggling performance, and listening to the various sounds of tourist-hungry business interactions. We went into the St. Louis cathedral at Jackson Square, where we were able to enjoy some wonderful organ music and ponder the heavens for a moment. Soon, of course, we became hungry, so we decided to sample some legitimate Cajun cuisine. We found a convenient restaurant across from the first community theater in America (I heard that from a passing tour group), and it was AMAZING. We can now say that we have tasted Alligator, and it was astoundingly delicious. In addition to the alligator, we had jambalaya, etoufee, and red beans and rice. (You can find a picture and additional highlights at the Nelson's blog.) Yum.

The afternoon passed in great fun. We got Mardi-Gras beads and everything! We also saw this strange costume:

and dressed up in our own... (the owner of the shop told us we should buy them and wear them out to dinner or dancing. I told her, um, people in Houston don't dress like this.):

That night we went home to stretch for a little bit...

then enjoyed another delicious meal before going to the best jazz club in New Orleans (according to Google), the Spotted Cat. It was pretty cool. And crowded. And there may have been a few strange and drunk people there, but we had to experience it!

On Sunday we found the local ward and attended church in the morning, as did many other Mormon visitors. There were so many people there that we had to sit in a different room and listen through the speakers. But the spirit of the Lord was there with the people of New Orleans and all those who came to share in that spirit while on vacation.

Then we drove to see Oak Alley Plantation, which someone told me later is the most haunted mansion in the U.S.! No ghosts this time, just beautiful oak trees that were planted long before the mansion was built. They're incredible.

Lucky for us, there was also a little festival going on that same day! We enjoyed tent-shopping through various hand-made items and some rather questionable food.

Since we were right by the Mississippi, we had to take some pictures! I loved the sense of connection I felt remembering that this is the same Mississippi that reaches my beloved Nauvoo, Illinois; the same river that the pioneers faced in their journey to freedom in the West.

Alas, the weekend came to a close, and we stopped for a last picture at a rest stop on the way home. Everyone who lives in Texas needs a picture with the Texas star! (even though it cost me about 10 mosquito bites!)

Life is wonderful. I love the Lord. Time goes so quickly and I can't believe I'm almost done with half of my Master's degree! I am so excited to see my sister Lacey give her senior recital in a couple of weeks and to spend time with my family. I am so excited to go to Italy (I'll try to blog more there). I am so excited to work at Wolf Trap again with Shea. Life does not get more prime than this! I really do feel like we are living in a dream...

Dangerous stores

2011-03-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

#1 Williams-Sonoma

Not that I am in danger of actually buying anything... but I am in danger of extreme worldliness and coveting. Yesterday I discovered la cornue ranges. How have I not known about these before? I have now spent my Sunday evening perusing pictures of the kitchen I will someday have in my custom home when I'm obviously filthy rich (after I build a new Fine Arts Center for BYU).

And I should be studying Italian....

neighbors

2011-02-25T11:46:00.001-08:00

I don't recall ever living in a place where I had real neighbors... not that they didn't exist, but I've discovered that to really have a neighbor is to stop by all the time, share things, ask for a cup of sugar every once in a while, stop by and play a game spontaneously, etc....

Friends are great, and there is something to be said for planning and traveling for a visit with friends. But it's nice to know someone is on the other side of the wall, ready and willing to share some "home time." I love it.

Matt and Gracie were at first nervous about us as new neighbors, since all they knew of us was that we had a "GO AWAY" doormat. Gracie came over with some delicious dessert to welcome us anyway, and we've enjoyed many a good dessert since. I hope I can be that kind of neighbor to people in the future. It's so refreshing.

Darshi and Katan are the other couple who live in our three-apartment section. (All three young couples!) Darshi thought of Gracie and me on her recent trip to India and brought us back some sparkly and jingly bangles! What a sweetheart.

This is a picture from our neighbor game night:

I guess we're the weird ones.... (they said it was a silly picture!)

Here's to good neighbors! Thanks Matt and Gracie, Darshi and Katan for being so warm and friendly! I think I still have some borrowed chocolate sauce I need to return.....

Music for the Soul

2011-02-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

There's never a lack of music in our lives... at times I wish for more quiet, but I guess even the silence can be musical (especially if you're talking to John Cage).

The weekend before Valentine's Day was a fun one. I had my 1st Graduate recital on Friday and Shea had his on Sunday! It was a crazy, busy time, but it was great to have Mama Owens, Grandma Daw and Carrie Nelson in town!

Yesterday, I had three wonderful music moments.

1. I was coaching a brand new aria with my coach Tom Jaber: "I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung" from Nixon in China by John Adams (there was a MET broadcast of the opera last week). It was composed the year I was born (1987) in minimalistic style, and it is AWESOME! I had listened to a recording before, but actually singing it while Tom was playing for the first time was a thrilling experience. I never really expected to be so intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually energized by a piece of tri-toney music in a coaching. I can't really get this across very well, but these moments are the kind that transform a day, define a week, and change an attitude for life.

2. One of my undergraduate friends, Abbey Curzon, gave her lovely senior recital early in the evening. She sang a Strauss set, which was awesome because he is generally my favorite composer ever. "Morgen" is a beautiful art song, and I was enjoying it like always... and then there was the postlude. Something about the way the pianist, Jan de Chambrier, played those last chords moved me so deeply. After the recital I thanked her for that moment. What she said in reply confirmed to me the communicative power of music: "When I played those last chords, I was thinking 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...'" She played her music to praise God, and although I didn't know exactly what she was thinking, that message was transmitted so powerfully to me.

3. Later in the evening, another concert was happening at Rice. (There are always several per day.) Shea performed as a soloist with the Rice Chorale and a small orchestra in Bach's Cantata no.21. The other soloists were also Rice students. WOW. From the first note to the last, I was in heaven, quite literally transported to another place. I changed my mind... Bach had to be my new favorite composer! I realize, though, that my favorite music is actually just what I am listening to at a specific moment. It is all so wonderful. I wish you all could have been there to experience the final number, with soloists and chorale rejoicing in the Lord, with the Timpani pounding and the trumpets blaring! I was actually dancing; I could not hold still. Who knew that Bach was the best dance music out there?! The audience couldn't get enough of it... so they played the final number again as an encore. Heavenly. Simply heavenly.

All of this excitement in one day is exhausting... but my heart leaps on days like these, when my perspective on life sharpens and I feel so lucky to be singing and experiencing music like this.

Another cool moment: just now, as I was searching for a heavenly picture to represent my thoughts, I typed "heaven" in my browser. At the bottom of the window, it said "connecting to heaven...." I am so glad that we can connect to heaven faster and more consistently than the internet at Rice can!

This is what a "snow day" in Houston looks like:

2011-02-04T08:33:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, Rice University shut down at 3, recitals and events were canceled, and everyone went home. Today, all the schools are closed. I can understand snow days in the Midwest and the east coast that got dumped on, but I haven't seen a drop of precipitation here, although it is below freezing (barely).

I'm not complaining.

The Year in Review

2011-01-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

I know you all are shocked that I'm posting! The time has come to post the highlights of 2010, since once February hits there is no excuse for looking back. Here goes!

(Central Park, NYC, Dec. 2010)

2010

January:

We compete at Utah District Metropolitan Opera Auditions. Shea goes to finals.

Shea performs in the chorus of Carmen with Utah Opera.

Amy wins “Singer of the Year” and NATS at BYU.

We begin teaching primary at church.

Amy begins taking 21 credits to graduate on time.

February:

We audition for grad schools. We fall in love with Rice and are accepted!

Amy plays Perky the Duck in Opera Scenes. :)

March:

We sing a duet from Rigoletto at Concerto Night at BYU.

We give a combined Senior Recital; all of the family is there!

Shea sings with the Utah Lyric Opera at the Covey Center.

April:

Amy begins physical therapy for knee pain.

We host Lacey’s bridal shower. Yay!

We barely get into the conference center for general conference. Shea sings at the Priesthood session with the BYU choirs and alumni.

We graduate! We sing “All Creatures of Our God and King” at convocation.

Amy sings at President Leadership Council Women’s Conference Retreat.

May:

We pack up the apartment into a moving van. Brendan and Papa Owens are nice enough to drive it down to Houston and put our stuff in a storage unit in blistering, humid heat. They must love us a lot.

We drive up to Wisconsin and spend the month there.

We go to Nauvoo for Lacey and Austin’s wedding. Congratulations!

Matt and Lynn get engaged. Congratulations again!

Amy is diagnosed with arthritis and Shea pushes her in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks.

June:

We drive to the east coast, visiting the Russels in Ohio and the Hirts in Virginia.

Amy begins work at Wolf Trap Opera Company. Shea stays with her for two weeks and tours D.C.

Shea takes three trains up to Tanglewood Music Festival.

We sing a lot.

Amy can walk again.

July:

We both sing sing sing sing sing sing.

Amy performs in Il Turco in Italia.

Shea and Amy meet Newark, NJ and go to church at a lovely little branch in an office building.

Amy meets her in-laws in Washington D.C. They have a blast, as usual.

August:

The Owens visit Shea at Tanglewood to see him in Ariadne auf Naxos.

Amy performs in Opera Scenes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Wolf Trap.

Shea grows a beard.

Amy visits Shea at Tanglewood to see Ariadne and some other performances, because Shea was performing pretty much every day there.

Shea comes back to Wolf Trap for a day; we drive off the next morning and through the night to get to Houston.

That afternoon Amy flies to Salt Lake City for Matt and Lynn’s wedding the next day.

Right after the wedding, Amy flies back to Houston where Shea is busily moving in.

Several guys from church help us move in. One gets stuck in the elevator for an hour until the entire fire department shows up to release him.

A day later we start classes at Rice University.

September:

Shea and Amy learn a lot, and you would never guess this, but… we sing a lot too.

We rehearse for the fall opera, L’incorinazione di Poppea.

October:

Shea sings Papageno in The Magic Flute with Phoenix Opera. (He shaves for this.)

We dress up as Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom for Halloween.

November:

Mama Elbert, Mama Owens, and Grammy Daw come to watch Amy as Drusilla and Shea as Liberto in L’incorinazione di Poppea. (Shea grows a goatee for this one, Amy likes it.)

Harry Potter 7! We dressed up in our Halloween Costumes again.

We audition for several summer Young Artist Programs (YAPs) in Houston and Dallas. We see friends who are also singing in Houston.

Shea performs in a studio recital of songs by Samuel Barber.

We spend Thanksgiving with the Anderson’s (Krissy and Chase and kids and extra family).

Shea is called as a Sunday School teacher; Amy is called as a Primary teacher again.

December:

We perform in “Spirit of the Season,” a Christmas show/fundraiser for Rice.

We fly to New York City for an audition and to celebrate our birthdays. We win the “Wicked” lottery and get cheap front row seats on Shea’s birthday! We see good friends. We also make $8 singing on the street with friends and do as much fun and free sightseeing as we possibly can.

After NYC, we fly to Phoenix to spend a week or so with the Owens. We see the Halletts and Grandma Elbert too! We celebrate an early Christmas and get to see Brendan and Tara for a day.

We spend the rest of vacation in Wisconsin with the entire Elbert family: eating, sledding, snowball fighting, serving, playing games, singing, cooking, watching Matt jump into Lake Michigan on New Year’s day in freezing weather, etc.

Shea and I accept offers to study in Italy for the month of May and to perform with Wolf Trap Opera this summer.

It’s been quite a year! Thank you to wonderful friends and family who’ve helped us along the way!!

Together again

2010-08-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

It has been a wonderful eventful summer for the both of us, and as I write, Shea is on a bus from Pittsfield, MA to meet me here in Vienna, VA. Tomorrow is my last day with Wolf Trap Opera, and then Shea and I will drive to Houston, immediately after which I will fly to Salt Lake for my dear brother Matt's wedding! School at Rice University starts on Monday. Life is fun and exciting.

Some highlights from the summer:

Washington D.C. trip with Shea

Wolf Trap Studio Opera Scenes
Die Lustigen Weibchen von Windsor

La fille du regiment

Visiting Shea at Tanglewood

Seeing him perform in Ariadne auf Naxos at Tanglewood (There was no picture of him, so Zerbinetta will have to do!)

More Wolf Trap Opera (because that's what I have pictures of, and it's awesome)
Il Turco in Italia

...and many other splendid moments! Here's to many more in coming months!

Eventful and Wonderful

2010-05-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

This has been an eventful month for us! I am sitting now with my face wrapped in ice after this morning's wisdom teeth extraction, which really wasn't that bad! I only got the top two out from a wonderful dentist in my homeward. Thank you Dr. Crego!

Well, that's not the biggest health news, and many wonderful family and friends have been praying and waiting to see what's wrong with me. Thanks for all of your love and support! I have been diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis, but I don't have any viruses, Rheumatoid arthritis, diseases, or anything else random. My body is just attacking my knees, right ankle, ring finger, elbows, and jaw! I've been better but hopefully medication (that I will begin as soon as my wisdom teeth holes clear up) will put me back to normal, more than functional and even thriving! I will need to gain back strength an flexibility that I've lost in the past couple of months, but I am confident I will be able to go up and down the stairs once again! At this point though, I am thoroughly done with needles after all the blood tests and this lovely tooth extraction...

Shea and I have loved being back in Brookfield. Lacey's wedding was wonderful and we are thrilled to have Austin Cope in our family! They are so happy and I know they will be happy forever. We took a trip to visit the family in Pheonix for a week with a detour to California to visit Grandma Daw and Uncle Doug. We love them! It was about as wonderful a trip as it could possibly be.

I am getting down to the wire now with my preparations for Wolftrap, trying to memorize the mounds of music that menacingly make my mind melt. It's not really that bad; this was an exercise of alliteration. We leave next week, and luckily I will have Shea with me for the first week or so to help me out as we figure out the new medication's effect on me. Then, he's off to Tanglewood music festival! It should be very exciting and rewarding, as well as educational and career-boosting!

We also wish the best to my wonderful brother Matt and his new lovely fiancee Lynn, who will be married in August. There are too many wonderful things in this life; I can hardly contain the gratitude!

Lots of love to all!

The Update!

2010-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

The past months have been full of family, fun, and good news! For those who haven't heard, we both received offers for "Young Artist" programs this summer. Shea got into one of the top programs with James Levine, the conductor of the Metropolitan opera. He will be near Lennox, Massachusetts, with the Tanglewood music festival starting in mid-June. I was offered a position as a studio artist with the Wolftrap opera company in Vienna, Virginia, and will be starting at the end of May. So although we will be apart for 2 months, these are incredible opportunities and we are thrilled! We will have to visit Holly and Spencer at some point, and we're excited to be going out east.

As for graduate schools, we are still waiting to hear back about auditions from most places, but we will be auditioning at Rice University in Houston in a couple of weeks. This would be a fantastic place to go for both of us, so we're excited that we were invited for a live audition. Starting tomorrow, we are going to study hard for all of the music theory and music history tests we have to take with our audition!

This week, many exciting things have happened. Shea and I competed with a duet and won a spot to perform at BYU's Concerto Night with the Philharmonic orchestra in March. I look forward to this event as one of the highlights of my undergraduate experience. Shea has been rehearsing most nights with the Utah Opera chorus and opened the opera Carmen last night successfully. I will see it on Monday and can't wait. While he was rehearsing this week, I competed in three rounds of the BYU Singer of the Year competition, and I won female singer of the year! Our good friend, Ted Reedy, won male singer of the year. It was a wonderful ending to a week full of competitions! I thank the Lord that I didn't get sick, despite my overwhelming class schedule and demanding evenings.

Although the past two weeks have been incredibly eventful, I cannot forget to mention the most beautiful holiday season ever. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to be able to be with both my in-laws and my parents and siblings for Christmas. The weather in Phoenix was wonderful, and it was amazing to have Elder Matthew Elbert back to share the season with us. We spent time with so many friends and family, and were overwhelmed with love and friendship. Thanks to the Halletts and Grandma Elbert for all the fun times, and to the Owens for an unforgettable Christmas. We have to thank Grandma and Grandpa Daw for being our biggest fans and support, and for your generosity and love. To extended family and close friends, we love you all! Thank you thank you to everyone, and happy New Year!

Merry Christmas! A blog post!

2009-12-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

I guess we're long overdue for a blog post, so while Shea is at the church practicing the organ on his birthday, I might as well remedy this situation.

This week was great birthday week for us, starting with the Owens in town this past weekend and ending with the stress of finals coming on... and we have so much to be grateful for. Thank you to all of our family for the love and support you give us.

I thought we'd give you a bit of an update on our November trip to New York City for auditions. It was a blast, and so far we've heard both rejection news and good news for potential hiring. Shea will be flying back to NYC next week to sing for James Levine (of the Met Opera) to audition for a couple of roles for the Tanglewood music festival in Boston this summer, which is very exciting. We just finished our last applications for graduate schools (a couple of hours ago!) and hope to be returning to the east coast early next year for more auditions.

We met some famous people, had the opportunity to work with some excellent teachers and coaches, and even got to do a little sight-seeing around the city. It was a wonderful trip. Many Thanks to Darrell Babidge for making it happen.

Here is the group of students that went, inside the Metroplitan Opera house after seeing "Il Trittico" (I think... it may have been "Faust"). Apparently pictures inside are illegal, but oh well. And the black shiny lady in the middle is not a BYU student, don't worry. She couldn't keep the dress code.

Here we are backstage with Beth Clayton, New York City Opera star and Patricia Racette, Met star, after "Il Trittico". Beth gave us a master class and invited all the students to go backstage. We got autographs, and it was awesome. In one of the shows there we saw a tenor that we met back in Vienna... I think there's even a picture of him with Shea in an older blog post!

Here we are in the Time Warner Building. It was amazing, and the stars behind us changed colors. Christmas decorations are lovely.

Shea and I (but especially Shea) got some good compliments on our singing in NYC and feel very encouraged to continue pursuing this somewhat scary career. Thanks again for everyone who checks up on us, and we wish you a Merry Merry Christmas!

Goodbye Wisconsin!

2009-06-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 3 this morning to pack and leave for Utah.... I think my eyes are burning out of my head! We are safe at Aspen Grove and will start work in the morning. It is so beautiful here, with the beautiful spirit of nature all around and a good team of fun-loving people. I can't wait to get started. We'll post pictures of our cabin soon, which is quite small, but cute!

We have to send a special thanks to the Elberts in Wisconsin for their love and generosity. We loved spending the last few weeks in such a loving home and wish we could have stayed longer! WE LOVE YOU Mom, Dad, Rachelle, and Ashley!!!!!!!!

Italy Highlights!

2009-05-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

With finals over and no worries, Italy was bound to be a wonderful trip. After an overnight train from Vienna, we were in Venice with beautiful sunshine and a world of canals and alleyways. The Vaporetto is Venice's subway system... on the water! We took a trip through town on the boat and showed up at St. Mark's square, which was packed with tourists. We did get to see the highlights, climbing up the Camponile bell tower to get a view of the city, and walking through the most exquisite Cathedral (built around a stolen relic!). We then took some time to get our first official gelato in Italy (which was delicious) and get lost in the city. Here are a few pictures of what we found:

Cute puppies, fun markets, all sizes of alleys, spectacular hand-made masks, and beautiful romantic bridges and canals.

We all relaxed by a canal, watching the gondolas drift pass and enjoying the sunshine, not knowing it would be the last warm day of our entire trip. It was a perfect, beautiful day, topped off with dinner provided by our extremely nice hotel (no hostels on this trip!) and a good night's rest.

The next day, we took some time to explore the greater Venice area with a trip to Murano, island of blown glass. It was so fun to see all of the beautiful art made out of glass, and to compare styles from shop to shop. We got to see a special exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions, which was remarkable, and enjoy some more gelato and beautiful streets on our last day.

The next day, we hopped back on the train to Florence, where we checked into our beautiful hotel and were brought around town by Michael, an NYU student studying in Florence for the semester. He is a friend of Emily's, and so we were privileged to have him show us some sites! The most beautiful part of the day, and of the whole trip really, was to experience the NYU campus grounds, set on 100 or so acres of Tuscan hills and vinyards, in what used to be a collection of villas. One cannot find a more beautiful place. There were flowers and trees and perfectly manicured gardens with secret paths and gazebos nestled in the bushes; fountains and statues and beautiful views, encompassed in the wonderful scent of blooming spring plants. I was in heaven.

Can you see the duomo?
Speaking of the duomo, it was the most beautiful sight, so patriotic with its white, green and red marble, and so exquisite in its decoration both on the outside as well as the inside with famous enormous frescoes. Shea and I paid the 8 euros to climb up 481 steps or so to reach the top and to see the frescoes up close. It was a precarious climb! Here's the view:

We got to see the David, and I took an illegal shot of him... and he is worth all of the hype. There is something really transcending about this masterpiece, and I cannot put my finger on it. Seeing a living, breathing piece of marble is really quite remarkable. We also got to see the Uffizi gallery with its enormous fantastic collection of famous artwork. Wow, we are so lucky.

During our Florence stay, we cavorted around the bridges at night and saw some other wonderful things including Michelangelo's piazza, and ate the best gelato in all of Italy, Europe, and probably the world- at Grom's. I highly recommend it... just around the corner from the Duomo. Although we only got a half a day of sunshine, Florence was my very favorite stop. By this time, our group was one of inseperable friends, and it was a blast to spend this vacation with all of them.

On our way out to Milan, I made Shea sing in the train station... why not? The Italians love music. In fact, they couldn't even get enough of us singing "happy birthday" at breakfast to Ty in Venice and wanted us to sing more! :) Shea got some looks, but plenty of applause!

Giovanni Aria in train station from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

Milan greeted us with rain, but entering the city is quite grandiose! The train station is incredibly beautiful and fancy, and I loved it. It was Sunday and we were all pretty tired, so we enjoyed the afternoon with a devotional and final religion class. It was wonderful, and we all realized how wonderful it was to be together and to develop the relationships on the trip. Some of us went to the Brera gallery, which happened to be free (like all of the museums in Italy) for culture week! We were lucky to have that, because the recital we were all looking forward to at La Scala (arguably the most famous opera house in the world) was canceled because the soprano was sick. So lame. However, we did tour the opera house and look through the museum there with old costumes and portraits of all the great singers who sang there, including Maria Callas. Shea and I hope to sing there someday. I felt so small looking out into the beautiful theatre, a measly coloratura with big dreams... maybe someday.

We enjoyed shopping, well, more like browsing, in the galleria. Never more have I wished to have thousands of dollars to spend on adorable clothing that spell class and cuteness all over the little suits, skirts, and jackets. There were all sorts of fun stores there: here is a quick tour:

The Gallery in Milan from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

Despite the rain, we saw a good part of the city, with the most beautiful Gothic Duomo... it's so hard to compare them all, but this was spectacular! The relic they protect is a nail from the original cross of Christ, and it is hoisted on the ceiling with laser alarm systems protecting it. They paid some astronomical sum back in the day in order to obtain it. If you add up all of the nail relics from all the chapels and cathedrals in Europe, there are probably significantly more than would have been used on Christ. Relics are an interesting thing; I'm just happy to have the gospel and the word of God as my relic!

We got to see another exhibit at the castle (free!) and explore the beautiful parks and streets, along with some other churches before we left Milan. It was an amazing trip.

We were worn out when we got to Innsbruck back in Austria, and we got to enjoy the most fantastic, probably 5-star, Hilton hotel there. I wanted to live there, and I've never had such a fantastic breakfast! The city was absolutely gorgeous, with majestic mountains and beautiful scenery. Although the cable car up the mountain was closed (the one non-holiday day in the year that it's closed, of course!), we toured through town to see the darling buildings and neat facades, including a golden roof!

Our stay there was unfortunately short, and we waited about an hour for our late train to arrive and pick us up. The whole crew performed opera ensembles a capella, which was quite amusing and a little bit off-key at times, but overall a good way to pass the time. I don't know if people were impressed, entertained, or just wierded out. Well hey, we can say we performed in Innsbruck! One lady asked to take a picture with Shea after hearing him sing, except she didn't have a camera so she had us take it on ours... then gave no way to send it to her. Interesting, but funny. We arrived back in Vienna in the late afternoon to find that there was a confusion in the hostel bookings and we had no place to stay. We found a place, but not before everyone lugged their luggage all the way to a Heuriger, (a traditional Viennese restaurant) where Beethoven wrote his famous Heiligenstadt testament. We all survived, and we said goodbye to a couple of people for the last time as they headed off to their homes in America. I wanted to go too, but we had more adventures ahead of us! Next post should finish them off!

More of Europe... in review

2009-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've posted! Forgive me... I'll do my best to recap on our European adventures before going into the American ones.

After Salzburg, we went on that beautiful Thursday afternoon to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where 50,000 people were exterminated in WWII. Hearing the stories and seeing the places where innocent lives were destroyed was very sobering. It was a beautiful experience though, because that Thursday marked the day in Christ's life where he suffered for the sins of the world so that the world would not suffer so much. With the hope of the resurrection in our minds and the beautiful sunshine on our backs as we walked through the camp, I could not help but feel overwhelming gratitude for the Savior and his gospel.

We traveled out by train and arrived in Melk as the sun was setting. I immediately fell in love with the cute old-town cottage feel as we walked through the streets in the fading light and breathed in the most wonderful scents of blooming flowers and rich greenery. I felt that I was walking into heaven. Melk was my favorite part of the trip. After settling in to our semi-dirty hostel (I had hairs on my mattress and a piece of dried gum on my bedpost), we went out exploring the hills during the night, seeing the majestic Abbey, dancing in the gardens, and making friends with a snuggly cat.

The next morning we toured the Stift (abbey). I imagined what it would be like to live in the shadow of that wonderful place. Almost as good as the shadow of a temple of God. The building houses many priests as well as an exquisite chapel, marble halls, and the most AMAZING LIBRARY EVER! I was in love with it. I was coveting the books and the globes and the beautifulness. It is my dream for my future library.... just add Harry Potter and a Book of Mormon and it would be set!

Rebekah and I couldn't help but sing again with the beautiful acoustics, and we all left feeling wonderfully happy.

We met down by the Danube river to begin a neat boat ride, spotting medieval castles and beautiful landscapes. There was a time where castle owners charged ridiculous rates for boats to pass through the river, and they would threaten them with cannons and the like if they did not pay. This day, however, we got by without further fees. The most beautiful city that we passed was Duernstein, where the Vincents' son was married. The blue steeple and colorful buildings made it look so inviting. I wished we could have stopped there.

The boat ride took us to Krems, where we stayed long enough to observe a fantastic gathering of ants before we hopped on the train to go back to Vienna.

Easter Sunday came around, and we decided that instead of going to an exciting mass at Stephansdom, we would go to Sacrament Meeting to meet for the last time with our dear brothers and sisters in the Vienna 5th ward. And a miracle happened.

We were late because we missed the train, but we got there just in time for the opening hymn. When we snuck in I was immediately called up by the chorister to play the piano! No pianist had shown up on Easter Sunday for Sacrament Meeting. The last person to bear her testimony on that beautiful Easter fast and testimony meeting was a sister who told the story of how they had been praying for a pianist to show up for the previous two meetings. "This is a special Sunday; we need music!" When they announced the opening hymn, and still no one was there, they prayed harder. How wonderful it was to be part of the miracle shown to every member of the congregation to show up just in time! I only wish we could have been there sooner...

We were invited by Traude to spend Easter afternoon with her family out in the beautiful 23rd district of Vienna. (Traude is the woman we met in standing room at the Opera.) We had several courses over about six hours at their home, including carrot cake, delicious fish and home-made hummus! It was a divinely delicious day. We got to play the piano and sing from some old sheet music, dress up in her grandfather's old uniform, and watch part of Verdi's Requiem with Placido Domingo on DVD. Overall, it couldn't have been better! The Viennese are so hospitable and generous. We were sad to say goodbye, but we plan to keep in touch with this wonderful family, especially Traude!

We enjoyed our last days in Vienna by exploring the streets and churches again and visiting some museums that we hadn't had the chance to look at yet, including the Albertina collection of fine art and the Naturhistorichesmuseum (museum of natural history). The weather was beautiful and my heart was singing with the city, which was beginning to bustle with the sounds of summer tourism.

We found this dress on the ritzy "Graben" street: 18,000 Euros!

Before we left Tuesday evening for Italy, we packed up all our stuff, packed for Italy, had one last lunch with Sabine, one last dinner with Oma and Opa, and moved everything out. We got to finally explore the backyard of the house we stayed in for 3 months, which was beautiful and full of fun things, including a ping-pong table and a cellar!

We left most of our things at the Vincents' apartment, and the next 8 days were spent in the beautiful country of Italy... which deserves a blog post of its own.

rewind...April 8-9 in Salzburg, city of music and Mozart

2009-04-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

April 8th saw the end of our semester in Vienna as we took our last exam in German and left shortly after to Salzburg, the city of Mozart! After we checked into our hostel, we took a bus ride up to Hellbrunn Palace, a beautiful hilltop building that resembles Vienna's Scho:nbrunn palace with its Baroque structure and yellow paint.

The tour of the gardens included close-up examples of how the water systems were run by pure gravity from its flow off of the Alps... the tour guide seemed to have quite a bit of fun with all of us. I was really amazed at all the detail and features in the large garden, built mainly for the entertainment of guests. We were thoroughly entertained.

We saw the gazebo where the famous "16 going on 17" scene from The Sound of Music was recorded, and then continued entertaining ourselves with jumping pictures by the lake...

We returned to the main city to find some great Mozart sites, including his birth house and a monument in the middle of the city by the river. The monument comes with instructions for the viewer to sit in a chair, eyes closed, to ponder Mozart. Quite a unique monument.

And how could a trip to Salzburg be complete without a Salzburger? We all found a nice restaurant by the river and enjoyed our meals, complete with a slice of real Sachertorte, which was delicious.

We walked around a bit more and found a main square, where we saw two men playing chess on the practically-life-sized chess board. I found this very cool.

The next morning we made our way back to town to go up to Hohesalzburg Fortress. On the way, we found a perfect picture-taking opportunity with the Sound of Music Cow, which turned out to be even more perfect when a guest unexpectedly showed up in the right-hand side of the frame. :)

The fortress can only be visited by going up the steep tram on the side of the mountain. I hope you're not scared of heights!

Salzburg, Tram to the fortress from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

The view of the city from the fortress was unforgettable. What a beautiful place. I wanted to sing really loud and dance through the meadows like Julie Andrews!

We saw the large and beautiful cathedral, meant to house 10,000 people, before we ran to the woodcarver's shop for a nativity and then RAN to catch our train to Mathausen. There wasn't quite enough time to take the Sound of Music tour, but I've at least convinced Shea to watch the whole thing when we get to Wisconsin. :)

Overall, it was a trip of beautiful sites and fun vacationing. Our train ride to Mathausen took us to the other side of life's emotions, which we will share in the next post.

Love to all!

zzzzz...

2009-04-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Since our last post, we've taken all our exams and visited Salzburg, Melk, Venice, Florence, Milan, Innsbruck, Strasburg and Paris. We are now in Holland back at the Nelson's house, making a full circle in our European experience. We've taken lots of pictures to show, but it may have to wait; to be honest, we are thouroughly exhausted.

Europe is full of grandios buildings and rich culture, and there will never be enough time in a lifetime to take all of it in. We are just so lucky to have touched on some of the highlights of this area. The best part of going to different countries with cultural and language barriers is to see the goodness of the people, especially apparent in public transportation when they help you find a certain metro stop or carry your suitcases down several flights of stairs. We will never be able to repay the kindness we've received, everything from long dinners in a Viennese home to kind reminders from kids on the U-bahn to grab a forgotten bag from your seat before you hop off. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the generosity of the people we've spent time with and for all that we've learned from them. We'll let you know about some more of recent adventures we've had when we can. For now, I think it's bed time. :)

Presenting....fur

2009-04-06T02:27:00.000-07:00

I think we've finally reached the point where people have stopped wearing heavy coats outside. It's a very exciting thing to have the sun out and to not be wearing the same boots, the same coat, the same long johns, the same sweaters, and the same scarves every day anymore! However, I am missing the sight of the fur coats.

One of the first things I noticed about Vienna was the general fanciness of outdoor wear, especially among old women.Though I doubt I'd ever buy one or wear a fur coat, they are quite wonderful to look at. I've seen every kind of fur it seems, and have been able to get shots of many of these delicious coats. In general, I don't think anyone noticed that we were taking pictures of them, but subtlety became less of a concern if there was an especially wonderful coat to photograph.

This is my very favorite picture. We purposely sat across from this lady on the U-bahn to get a good shot of her. Shea took this picture after turning off the sound and flash from the camera, and we were so subtle. She really epitomizes the fur coat trend in Vienna, because she was also decked out with sparkles from the rims of her glasses to the buttons on her purse.

Coats were all over the Flomarkt... I was almost tempted to look through them, before it seemed gross to me. (Notice the subtlety of this picture.... we pretended it was a picture of me.)

We got these shots in Budapest. Orange seems to be a pretty popular color there!

I found a whole family of fur coats outside the Staatsoper, which was hilarious because in winter, pre-opera activities include a fashion show display of fur coats in the checked coat section.

Even the babies wear fur:

We have lots of pictures, but here are some more of our favorites:

This blog would not be complete without our dear Sister Vincent, who is under five feet but struts it like every other European in her fancy coat and furry scarf. What a cutie!

So, thought of the day: animals are cute and cuddly when they're alive, and fancy when they're dead. It's quite an unfortunate thought, really. I've been looking for Cruella but haven't found her yet, unless she died her hair pink. I've seen several women with pink hair... they must be the culprits!

Our time in Vienna is short... we hope to get a couple more posts up before we leave the country! Much love to all!

Buda and Pest

2009-03-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

These two cities united in 1873 to create Budapest, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful spots in the world. It seemed less tourist-oriented than Prague, and had a unique historic feel to it, despite the fact that 60% of its infrastructure was destroyed during the war and its communistic regime. In fact, in the courtyard behind our hostel, there were still bullet holes running up the side of the building from a hefty machine gun.

When we arrived by train to Budapest, we took the subway and the street car to find our homey little hostel in Pest. Although the street cars were sleek and new, we couldn't help but giggle at the state of the subway cars, rusty and blue and looking just like a bus from the 60's.

That first night, we walked down to West End to find the street of fantastic restaurants. Shea and I were all ready to make this trip a relaxing one since it seemed like there was a bit too much go-go-go in our life. We stopped in at Matyas, a happenin' restaurant with quality service and DELICIOUS hungarian dishes. When your meal costs thousands of forints, its easy to think you're living the high life until you realized that a dinner for two with steak, specialty drinks, and large deserts costs only $30.00 in American currency.

We walked by St. Stephen's church, gloriously lit up in the night, and walked down a beautiful avenue towards the river, where the chain bridge glowed in pristine beauty with the palace lit up in the background. The sight was truly breathtaking.

Oh, and we discovered where Cassidy (Shea's sister) came from:

On Friday, we decided to go explore all the beautiful buildings across the river that we had glimpsed the night before. We stopped at a really fun indoor market, with all sorts of food shops and touristy booths. I probably could have stayed there all day.

We made some good purchases and then went across Elizabeth bridge to admire the beautiful monuments on the hill and walk through the beautiful park overlooking the city.

We explored the castle and then walked by the beautiful fisherman's bastion, all the while admiring the views of the river from the hill.

(Check out videos from the castle on vimeo.com)
Oh, and I guess that Water Closets around the castle are wherever you see a sign?

After eating at a delicious all-you-can-eat Hungarian restaurant, we all wanted to wind down at the baths. In Hungary, there are many natural baths that people enjoy for the health benefits of the minerals in the water. Doctors prescribe visits to the baths, and it's pretty cheap to go because they are heavily subsidized by the government. After walking by the exquisite neo-Gothic Parliament building, we spent several hours in the huge pools and saunas at all different temperatures, and it was lovely. I felt very relaxed afterwards, and pruny.

We then walked down the "Champs Elysees" of Budapest, which was beautiful at night, passing hero's square and some beautiful monuments.

We had to finish off the evening with a stop for some dessert, and we found a cute little restaurant tucked away on the side of the street. We sat on arm chairs and couches, sipping hot cocoa and tasting delicious Hungarian specialty treats while listening to a fantastic jazz pianist with a singer who sang in several different languages. This evening was definitely a highlight of Budapest, and we couldn't help but dance!

Dancing in Restaurant from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

The next morning we went back to the Fisherman's Bastion and explored the Matyas church on the hill. It was under renovation, but the inside was very beautiful. The day brought warmth as well, a welcome change from Viennese cold wind.

We stopped for lunch in West End again before heading to the "House of Terror", a building that housed both Nazi and Communist headquarters. The museum was very interesting, and we saw where prisoners were kept and executed. I knew terrible things happened under the communistic regime, but I didn't really know how it affected the people so closely for such a long time. It was sad and terrible, but a great reminder to us of how blessed we are to be living in a free society where we don't have to worry about being tortured and hanged, or even not having any food available on any given day. We left in a sober mood, and then ran into the LDS missionaries serving in Budapest on the way out, which lifted our spirits considerably with the realization that after such terror, happiness is coming into the lives of the Hungarian people.

It was very sad to leave this beautiful city with so much history and depth. Budapest was such a wonderful, eye-opening city that brought both excitement and relaxation. The ride home was generally uneventful, besides when Ty was naughty and we had to banish him to the hall stool.

We love you all! Sleep well, but not too much, and have a wonderful week! More to come...

Nap Time from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

Budapest preview

2009-03-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

These cities never disappoint... I fell in love with Budapest, the "little Paris", right away. I want to post all our pictures and tell you all about how wonderful our trip was, but this week forecasts our Art History final exam, German quiz, two opera scenes performances, and vocal proficiency exams. I might have to put off a full report, but I'll post a few pictures to get you excited about the "real" Budapest blog!

Prague: you want to go there...

2009-03-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

Prague. What a breath of fresh air! I wanted to stay there for much longer than the two days we had there. It was a wonderful trip, and it started with an adventure...

We missed our train from Vienna to Prague. Shea and I had a hang-up with the public transportation system and re-worked our route, arriving to the train station 7 minutes late. We happened to hold the one ticket for six people, so 4 other on-time students had to miss it too. We felt pretty bad, but everyone was really nice about it and we enjoyed the afternoon with a picnic in front of the Belvedere singing songs in solfege. We went in to tour the gallery, which was one of the best art museum experiences I've ever had. The paintings there are beautiful, famous, and grouped in a way that makes the viewer ponder life. Overall it was a wonderful afternoon waiting for the next train to come three hours later.

As we returned to the station, we were informed that our ticket was not valid for the next train departing to Prague. However, Shea used his mad skills with the conductor and he let us stay on!
"Zug fa:hrt ab" never sounded so sweet...

4.5 hours later, we arrived. We had a wonderful youth hostel to stay in where we all got to be together. The staff was friendly, the beds were nice, and the best part for us was that the shower was normal! We could stand up and everything! This was quite a luxury after our excuse-for-a-tub washing area, and after I took a shower there I felt like I would never get dirty again. That night we withdrew some beautiful Czech crowns (there's just something about a bill that has the number 1000 on it!) and found an Indian restaurant that was still open late to eat at. It was difficult to judge prices because we had very little concept of how many Euros 185 crowns was, for example.

Our first full day in Prague started out with a trip to "Bohemian Bagel" for breakfast. We got a bit lost on the way there, but the wonderful thing about Prague is that it is very easy to find places to look out over the city to get your bearings. There are plenty of hills, and so plenty of views of gorgeous buildings and red rooftops. When we finally got there, it was totally worth it. We had the closest thing to a large American breakfast that we've seen here (since Carrie's cooking in Holland). Wow. I hope 500 crowns wasn't that much... :)

When we get to the sight-seeing portion of the trip, I don't even know where to start. I can't believe how much we were able to see in our short time there. Friday we saw Old Town Square, with St. Nicolas church, church of "our lady", and the old town hall. Shea and I loved the astronomical clock there because we are obsessed with clocks. We went up the tower of the hall and saw some beautiful views of the city, and then took a tour of the hall to see the underground caves made of stone. They support the current building, and were built before the city was raised four meters in an attempt to eliminate flooding from the river. It was fascinating. Shea took plenty of videos, so take a look at his vimeo video site.

We went across Charles Bridge on our way to Little Quarter and saw some very fun things there.

We saw the Estates Theatre, where Don Giovanni was premiered. Shea had to relive the "being dragged down to hell experience" when we saw the statue of Il Commendatore...

Then we had the opportunity to see the bigger St. Nicholas church. It was extremely beautiful. It is a fantastic example of high Baroque architecture, and I'm sure that our art history professor here would want us to see it. We had to pay to walk in (restoration costs), but it was beautiful and ultimately worth it to see.

The castle was great! It is more like a collection of lots of different buildings with the St. Vitus Cathedral as the central building inside. This cathedral was stunning (and we didn't have to pay!), with stained glass windows and exquisite Gothic architecture. I've never seen a Gothic building so beautiful and bright inside, and I've seen a lot of them so far.

Here a couple more pictures from around the castle: one of the outside, the "golden lane" of adorable little houses, and the beautiful view from the hill.

That was quite a bit to see in one day (Emily's birthday, by the way), and we all settled down at the Imperial Cafe for dinner and a little birthday celebration. The food was delicious, and the atmosphere was fantastic! It was affordable elegance, with mosaic tiles on the ceilings and swans for taps in the bathrooms. Since food (and let's be honest, the dessert) is arguably the most important part of a vacation, I have some pictures below for your viewing pleasure:

Saturday morning, we woke up early and went out with Emily to enjoy the peace of another perfectly beautiful morning before the hoard of tourists arrived. It was a very happy morning. We even discovered the biggest shopping mall around! It's the pink building.

We went to the Jewish quarter, where everything was closed because of the Jewish sabbath (why we didn't think of that is beyond me), but we got to have a peek at the Jewish cemetery and some old synagogues. Centuries ago, they only allowed Jews a tiny track of land to bury their dead. It is estimated that 100,000 people were buried in this tiny area, many many layers deep. The last person was buried there in the late 18th century.

Jewish Cemetery from Shea Owens on Vimeo.
We saw some other fun things in Prague before we left, including a foot on the street, the prettiest man-hole in the road, and a turnip marking a building (they used symbols instead of numbers for addresses).

We luckily caught the train ride home, and it was a sleepy ride...

We took so many pictures, it was hard to decide which ones to put up. Prague is so beautiful, and we just wanted to capture every view and every moment so that we could remember it all. There are plenty of videos in vimeo, so check them out if you're interested! This trip brought us so much happiness. Walking down the streets, I wanted to laugh and sing and jump and dance and hug! We did some great shopping there too, and that made me happy. :) Tomorrow, we go to Budapest, Hungary!

Weisswurst on Walk #4

2009-03-09T02:42:00.000-07:00

It was warm for a few days, and then some of the worst rain and wind yet struck on the weekend. No worries, we still have plenty of adventures to report. We did our fourth walking tour in sections, and saw many interesting things ranging from an abortion clinic to summer palaces to ancient ruins and Mozart's death place.

As we began the tour, we saw a picture of "Weisswurst" and thought it looked absolutely revolting. Ironically, that night we had the very same dish with our host family, and it was actually good, although the sauce they eat it with has a very interesting flavor. Feel free to rate how appetizing this picture looks to you on a scale of 0-5, 5 being the best:

We thought you'd like to take a look at the place where Mozart died, which is now marked by a large department store called Steffl and a small monument on the 7th floor. This is the place where he wrote his last work, "Requiem", on his death bed.

We enjoyed walking around the Ring and viewing many different buildings in Ringstrassen style, meaning the buildings are built in a style that embodies their origin. They used neo-classicism for the parliament, neo-gothic for the Rathaus (council), neo-renaissance for the University, etc. Here we took a short video of the Regierungsgeba:ude, a military building which seems out of place in a country that spends more government money subsidizing operas than on the military...

War Ministry from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

We found someone's former winter palace that is now the federal finance ministry. We found it odd that the building was hiding behind a very long, high fence, with signs covering every inch stating in English: "We have to be very careful these days because....". Strange. I wanted to see the facade on the building.

We discovered some charming churches (big surprise... there are at least 4 on each tour), including Franziskanerkirche. Moses, in a slightly feminine stance, guards the front, and the organ inside is said to be the oldest in Vienna.

I loved discovering a small church right off of the main street in town. I've walked past it many times, but never noticed it. People can just walk off of the busy street and into the serenity of this neo-classical church at any time. What a beautiful thought.

Besides our walking tour discoveries, we were able to take tours of the UN building and Scho:nbrunn palace! The UN was a fantastic trip. When you walk in, you are officially in neutral territory, not in Austria (although it's right in central Vienna). Our professor's son works in the nuclear control center of the building, and so we got a private presentation of what the nuclear test ban treaty is trying to accomplish. I never realized how many nuclear explosions have occurred on our poor planet earth. It's quite overwhelming and very sad.

Below, you can see the central room where all the flags of the 192 countries in the UN hang, a model of what the UN buildings look like (created so that every office has 2 or 3 windows), and a meeting room where all of the diplomats get together to discuss important UN business in at least 6 different standard languages. (You may find it interesting that German is not one of the 6 languages, even though we're in Vienna.)

Scho:nbrunn palace was wonderful, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. It is furnished in the Rococco style with the original furniture of the Hapsburgs, and there is a lot of Chinese decor as well. While I was walking through, I had a strong desire to live there. Everything was so beautiful! Even the napkins displayed on the dining tables were folded in an extremely elaborate way that apparently only two women know how to do. It's tradition that the folding is kept a secret between only two people. I was apparently more interested in the dining habits of the family, admiring the tea rooms and napkins, because I was compelled to buy a Vienese Cookbook at the giftshop afterwards. I am so excited about it, and have already picked out several recipies to try as soon as I get home! The gardens were also beautiful, but we are going back when it's not freezing and there's a bit more green out.

This weekend we saw Guys and Dolls, auf Deutsch, at the Volksoper. It was so funny to hear how they translated American phrases and used Austrian culture for a few things in place of the hard-to-translate New York culture references. The production was really great though, and had some fantastic dancing (including back-flips). Oh, and notice that I'm wearing my new glasses that are really awesome!

We also saw Eugen Onegin, by Tschycovski, at the Staatsoper, and it was fantastic. This was a premier, with a super-star cast and a super-star conductor. They were great, but the director/set designer/costume designer came out to bow and they got boo'd, big-time. Vienese audiences are not really into modern, minimalist stage productions. I thought it was well-done, but we met an international opera critic afterwards and he thought it was very much a "non-production". I enjoyed it though, and thought it was one of the best things I've seen at the Staatsoper. Meeting a really nice lady in Stehplatz and this critic afterwards was great too, and we got their contact info to maybe meet up with them sometime. (Between my study of "How to win friends and influence people" and Shea's reading of "Marketing Singers", we're gathering contacts wherever we go.)

[For some reason my computer won't recognize the memory card right now, but we have a couple pictures of the cast to post as soon as we can.]

We finished off the weekend with another performance of "Wie gross bist du" at church, which went very well and made everyone cry. I got to talk to my dearest Liz Olson on skype, and Shea and I turned in summer job applications. Is there really life after Vienna? I guess there is. We'll let you know of our final summer plans when we know for sure. Have a fantastic week!

(To be sung:) It's springtime for the Owens in Austira!

2009-03-03T01:53:00.000-08:00

After some harshly cold days, Vienna has warmed up to rain and highs in the upper 40's! I can finally walk outside with my head up to look at what's around me rather than keeping my nose in my scarf and looking at the muddy sidewalks while fast winds sucked the breath from my lungs. We even had a day when I wished I had worn sunglasses...

Pretty much everyone else in our group (including our professor) is currently very sick, so Shea and I feel very blessed since we are in good health and high spirits. We performed our opera scenes last night at the church's Outreach Institute for FHE, and it was a huge success despite illness. Today, everyone is in bed recovering and we have the day off. Shea and I are not taking the day off, because there's so much to do! We have been going non-stop, but eating, sleeping, and living well. Last weekend was another 3-in-a-row opera run; this time we saw Nabucco, La Boheme, and Carmen, all at the Staatsoper, all in Stehplatz. My feet never want to do standing room again after 12 or so hours of it. Most of the time spent was worth it. Nabucco was probably the worst opera I've ever seen in my life, so I won't say more than this: I really know what not to do on stage now.

La Boheme was incredible; it's not surprising that it's famous. It's an absolute masterpiece, and the voices of the singers for this production were miraculous. I was crying for about 30% of the show.

Carmen was a bit of a different experience because we didn't get in line very early... we had terrible spots in the Galerie, and I could only see a fraction of the stage (which happened to be the fraction where Carmen was not singing her famous arias) until I moved around to a spot where I could lean to the left and see most of the stage until my back and neck needed a break. It was definitely a different perspective of the Staatsoper, but worth it for a wonderful opera. We were late because we got to run through our opera scenes in a rehearsal in the Theater an der Wien with Sebastian, the casting director who got us seats for Partenope. I tell you, there is no better connection to have with Viennese theater than this one. He had great comments to give, and hopefully he will be able to conduct a master class with us in the future.

We've had the chance in the last week to visit some great museums. We walk through history every day. It's like living in a history textbook that is mostly pictures... so, a picturebook. A pop-up picture book. Here are some highlights:

At the Kunsthistorische Museum: The Saliera (the most valuable piece of art there... made to hold Salt and Pepper! Only a little cooler than your average grinder) and Breugel's Peasant Wedding. We also saw an artist making a copy of Breugel's The Tower of Babel.

We loved discovering the Austrian resistance (against Hitler) museum and finding pieces of propaganda there. This voting slip isn't exactly subtle:

We went back to Judenplatz where we discovered the memorial to the Jewish-Austrian victims of the Holocaust and went to visit the underground excavation of one of their old synagogues. It was very interesting to see what it was like and how their culture relates to the modern fullness of the gospel.

From walking through these "picture-books", Shea and I both feel an increased awareness of people of all cultures and the reasons for great and terrible historic events in Europe. We hope to reach greater levels of understanding of all of God's children here on the earth right now. Let us all be grateful for the time in which we live, and that springtime is upon us!

Viennese hospitality

2009-02-26T03:04:00.000-08:00

Well, it's about time you met our host parents, Oma and Opa, who liked to be called by these names because they treat their students like their own grandchildren. Every Tuesday night we sit down to a fine Viennese meal prepared by Oma, made without a recipe and always including multiple courses and dessert. I don't remember what each dish is called, but we had stuffed peppers one week, some multi-meat-and-vegetable roll thing, and a topfen noodle dish with bacon... lots of good food. For dessert, we've had Apfelstrudel, Topfenstrudel, melon and pudding, Austrian doughnuts, and various other delectables.

Oma used to work as an English teacher, and Opa was an engineer that worked from a home office that is now converted into our bedroom. His favorite game is chess. He told us a story of a boat trip up to London from South Africa on which a chess tournament was held: an old military captain arrogantly proclaimed that he would win the tournament, and acted haughtily in every other circumstance as well. Opa, being much younger, despised his arrogance. The time came in the tournament that Opa and the captain played against each other for the championship, and Opa wanted to beat the captain. It was a tough game, and Opa made a mistake and lost his queen! Knowing that this was going to be difficult, he began flattering the captain, telling him that he was so much better and wiser and would of course win the match... and then Opa won. AHA! Opa said that it was a victory, but he really actually felt defeated because it took so much out of him that he was out for the rest of the day, and he felt that he had acted underhandedly with the flattering trick. There is a term for that "victorious yet defeated" feeling referring back to a historical battle in which an army won but lost most of their soldiers. He has some good stories. I decided I'd take him on in a battle of chess, even though I haven't played in years. I held my own pretty well, and even put him in check once! It may be difficult for you to imagine this, but he actually won. Maybe next time the tables will turn.... :)

We have the best host parents, but we've also met some other incredible people here that have been mentioned in past posts. Donna Allen, soprano from the Staatsoper, took Shea, Britain, and me out to lunch and we enjoyed a wonderful conversation and some good food as well. She is from Canada, and is married to her first conductor from an Opera she did in Germany. He is very ill now, and so she takes care of him, her senile father back in Canada, and her two teenaged daughters while singing to support them. She is an incredible woman with very down-to-earth priorities and motherly instinct. She invited us to have lessons or a master class with her sometime, and even to come to her house for dinner sometime! I wish I had a picture of her... hopefully soon.

I do have a picture of the front of the Staatsoper here on the day of the Opernball, the biggest event of the year. All the wealthy people come to display their medals and sashes with noble family lines represented. Just so you have an idea of the kind of money the Opera takes in on the night of the Opernball (the only night that they actually make money), it costs about 250E for a ticket in, and the top box costs around 10,000E for the evening. Let's not even discuss how much they charge to check your coat or have a bottle of water...

Opera Ball 1 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

On the Sunday that we gave our concert at the church, Carmen Meissner invited us over for dinner at her apartment. So last Thursday we went and enjoyed tacos and gelato (yum!) with her and her four wonderful children. They are a musical family (the only musical one we've met in Wien, the music capital of the world!), and Carmen plays violin and piano. Her son, David, sang in the Vienna boy's choir when he was younger, so we may get a tour of the school soon! The kids are Florence, David, Phillip, and Vivian... and there's Rocky, the dog. They sang us a welcome song and then we enjoyed the rest of the evening making music with them. I edited Florence's application for an internship in Salt Lake, which was interesting, because although her English is very good, it's hard to really know how to say complicated things clearly in a language that is not your own. I hope she gets it. What a treat it was to get to know this wonderful family.

Some other tidbits:
We found a lady with red hair a the Theater an der Wien. It could be pink. I'm pretty sure the guy next to her caught us taking pictures...... oops.

This is the stake center at the Bo:cklinstrasse.

Zanoni and Zanoni, 2 scoops of Gelato for 1,90 Euro. We must have at least 12 sweet things a day to survive here.

It was cold so I wore Shea's hat.

I think it's starting to warm up now, which is a wondrous thing. Hopefully the skies where you are are clear and that spring is near. (It rhymes, so it must be true, right?) Happy Thursday!

Wiener _________(insert any noun)

2009-02-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

So much of Wiener (Viennese) everything! Let's start with walk #3

2/21/09
What a beautiful city walk this was! We strutted around central Vienna observing the architecture of the buildings and discovering old stables, churches, and courtyards. Although it was a cold day (surprise surprise), we had some indoor destinations to break up the tour and help us warm up.

The first of these destinations of warmth was the Mozart House, formerly called the "Figaro Haus" because it is the apartment in which Mozart lived while he wrote "Le Nozze di Figaro". What an incredible museum! It provided wonderful insight into the life of Mozart, who made pretty good money but accumulated debts from illegal gambling and a desire for fancy things. Status and display of wealth meant a lot more back then, even for a composer that was highly esteemed no matter what he wore. I got these pictures in Mozart's apartment before they told me it wasn't allowed: the game room/parlor (Mozart had a billiard table), a clock that plays a tune that Mozart composed specifically for it, and his "Giovani Liete" chorus (from The Marriage of Figaro) written in his own hand.

I am so grateful that we have so much of Mozart's music today. Every opera or concerto is a timeless masterpiece. I loved that two of the three highlighted operas in the museum were done by BYU in the last two years: "Don Giovanni" and "Le Nozze Di Figaro". The other opera was his last, "Die Zauberflote". I was glad that we saw it here at the Volksoper already to truly appreciate the information presented about the composition. For example, Mozart was a Free Mason and the images in the opera reflect those beliefs. He was a musical genius, and he left this world much too soon. Mozart ist mein Lieblingskomponist.

I love that wherever you go in Vienna, there is some unknown treasure of history just waiting to be discovered. We found gravestones in the walls of an old courtyard and a huge old sycamore tree hidden in another before making the best discovery of all: the largest Wienerschnitzel at Fu:gelmu:ller's. We enjoyed our dinner before traipsing through the Fleishmarkt and discovering another delectable Austrian jewel: the handmade gourmet Austrian chocolate shop. The shopkeeper let us in after they closed so that we could spend 15 Euro on chocolate. It was worth it.

We met Augustine, the Bagpiper who played to keep people's spirit's up during the Black Plague. Legend has it that he stumbled, drunk, into a mass graveyard and barely survived being buried with the rest. He even survived the plague to tell the story later on. You'll never guess where we found him... under the sidewalk! He was happy to see us. :)

Now let's talk about last Friday night. 2/20/09
Partenope... wow. The "Theater an der Wien" is a bit more.. uhh... posh(?) than other theaters around town (not to mention my favorite so far; it's so intimate and beautiful). Joseph Olson happens to have a connection with the casting director of the theater, and so all of us students had the special opportunity to be led backstage and into the house for perfect seats for the dress rehearsal of Handel's Partenope (for free!). I'd never heard of this particular opera before, and it was done in modern style, which I had never seen before either. I had no idea what to expect, but I was blown away. For a very long, potentially boring opera, it was breathtaking. It was even better than most, if not all, of the "fun and exciting comedies" of popular opera literature that I've seen. The singers were so engaging, with beautiful voices and great expression. The best part was seeing how well the director pulled off the modern perspective. The staging kept the audience engaged through yoga, modern costuming, and even a boxing match. It was inventive and hilarious, with all of the acting perfectly timed and rehearsed. The set moved in seemingly hundreds of different ways for very dynamic actor-set interactions and ingenious staging. I cannot say enough good things about it; the energy of the performers and the apparent energy of hundreds of other people into producing the final product boggled my mind during the performance and I've been dreaming about it ever since.

It's such a shame to get behind on the news from Vienna, because so much happens! Tomorrow, expect to hear more about some recent adventures. Be excited.

Tick-Tock

2009-02-18T01:25:00.001-08:00

Time always passes too quickly. We've been in Europe for about a month now! We've seen a lot, but there's so much more to learn and experience. We were reminded again of the constant ticking of the clock when we returned to the Uhrenmuseum yesterday to visit the 2 floors we didn't have the time to see last time. (It's everywhere!) We wanted to share some of our discoveries with you.

Some beautiful Uhren:

I want an hourglass like this someday. And here's a huge organ clock that I don't want someday, but it's cool anyway.

I don't know exactly why this freaky puppy was in the museum... maybe its eyes show time?

Biggest cuckoo clock I've ever seen:

This is what you call a Bilderuhr: it's a picture of the Stephansdom, and the clock on the tower is real.

The Asian clocks :

The ladies pocket-watches were my favorite, and we especially enjoyed this violin watch:

Check out some of our clock videos:

Clock Museum 2 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

We had the chance last week to see the Kunsthistorischesmuseum with Professor Kro:ll. It is beautiful, and we get to go for free, so you can expect another visit later and more pictures!

Here's Mozart, the most famous Austrian!

With professor Kro:ll and Maria Theresia

This is the man that taxed the world when Christ was born. Haven't you always wondered what Ceasar Augustus looked like?

Venus, clothed (?)

These pieces were carved out of single stones that have varying layers of color. The artists who made these used the layers to create background/foreground effects and shading. It is incredible.

This eagle is not "glued" onto the white surface; it is one stone.

And here is a very famous sculpture of a warrior crushing a "barbarian" centaur (Theseus and the Centaur). It was originally made for Napoleon to represent his victory over a "lesser" people, but wasn't completed before he was defeated. Later, Hitler wanted this sculpture. You can guess why. Theseus wears a "modesty leaf" because this piece was made during the time where nudity was thought of as immoral. It is incredibly realistic because the artist (Antonio Canova) shot a horse and made a cast of it in the position of the finished sculpture to depict the centaur. Not the most pleasant story, but a beautiful and interesting work of art.

Wishing you a great day and a chance to enjoy every minute of it.

Showed out

2009-02-16T02:55:00.000-08:00

It's snowing here, but in Vienna, the important thing is what's showing. This past weekend, it was The Barber of Seville, Stiffelio, and The Magic Flute. On Sunday, it was yours truly with the other BYU students. Yup, we performed in Vienna!

The Barber of Seville was the best Opera of the weekend; we didn't have to wait too long in line for a good spot in the Stehplatz area. The show was fast-paced, high-spirited, and full of awesome singing. Shea and I went backstage and met the tenor, a down-to-earth IU grad from Ohio. We got a picture with him and the incredible baritone, and then met the soprano who immediately gave us her number and invited us to have lunch with her (she is dying to have a conversation in English). It was over-all an uplifting evening that left us craving for more entertainment... so we went back to our apartment and watched Oceans 13.

The next evening we did Stehplatz again (our legs are officially very strong now) and soaked up the gorgeous music of Verdi sung by voluptuous voices. We met the leading soprano afterwards again, who was very gracious, even in her broken English. It was awesome, although not as enjoyable as the Barber of Seville, since it was longer (making it harder for my super-strong legs to bear my chocolate-laden weight) and the singers were having some intonation problems. You can't expect every night at the opera, even in Vienna, to be a perfect one.

Valentine's day... great, because this is our first Valentine's day married, and holidays are better married. Life in general is better married, but we can just focus on this particular day for a paragraph. We "splurged" at the Schottenring cafe on a wonderful meal of Wienerschnitzel and Salmon with chocolate marzipan cake. We then "splurged" again by buying student tickets for 10 Euro [any unsold tickets 30 minutes before curtain are sold to students for this excellent price] and saw Die Zauberflo:te. It was awesome, and the Queen of the Night was a totally glitzy diva. It was a wonderful Valentine's day, and I have a wonderful husband.

The one other thing about Valentine's day was the call we got in the morning from Dr. Vincent announcing our performance the next day, which none of us knew about. He received an email Friday night that was sent to all of the bishops in the stake telling them to announce the fireside for Sunday evening in their wards. We became slightly ruffled, and then put together a great program with the other students. Shea and I were already on the program for a sacrament-meeting performance earlier in the day: we sang "how great thou art" in German, which is "wie gross bist du"... people thought we were native German speakers! That was a big compliment to us and Dr. Vincent for making sure our diction was perfect. The evening performance went really well. People clapped so long after one of my arias that I got to bow TWICE! That's a first for me. Shea rocked the house with his Deutsch Lieder, and they loved our duets (which somehow both ended with a kiss of some sort...). The concert was based around our recital, with the other voice students each singing a piece in German and Ty playing a beautiful hymn arrangement. Everyone performed so beautifully, and I was so proud of us. We all got some wonderful compliments, and we all went home elated.

More of the best

2009-02-12T03:31:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, the sun came out! It was a beautiful day, and we visited the Naschmarkt and its Saturday morning Flea Market (a glorified garage sale), which has all sorts of treasures and junk. Most everything is dirt cheap, except for a 1600-euro dish set that I found and the over-priced yet delicious dried fruit that we somehow got swindled into buying.

We spent the afternoon skating at the Rathaus, which was incredible! I'm not that good of a skater, but I did learn to skate backwards and didn't fall down a single time. This was no regular skating rink; it had several open areas and paths through the woods, as well as a disco ball! We did a few relay races through the trails, stopping to do a couple disco moves before speeding to the finish line. Although I got the slowest time out of the 4 of us that went skating, I felt pride that I didn't wipe out when bombarded by several falling children or by families holding hands and skating slowly in a line across the entire width of the path. When it started getting dark, colorful lights sprayed the Rathaus and the trees surrounding the skating paths, and the disco ball glittered over the ice. It was so beautiful; truly a unique skating experience.

Just a reminder to keep it to yourself:

Haben ein Guten Tag!

Walk #2, Stephanplatz to Judenplatz to Marie am Gestade.... and a great weekend!

2009-02-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

For one of our classes we go on "walking tours" of Vienna. These are fascinating. I will get to the first walk sometime (which was wonderful), but for now I will let you know about the things we discovered on our second walk this past weekend (2/6/09). Discovering this beautiful city is one of the best things we have ever done.

We began in the center of town in Stephansplatz, and explored the Graben. Here there are three attractions: the Joseph fountain, the Leopold fountain, and the Pestsa:ule (Plague column). Many Austrian towns have a plague column to commemorate the lifting of the disease from man by God.

Pestsa:ule from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

We then approached Peterskirche, St. Peter's church. It is beautiful on the outside, with its dome roof and elegant oval form, but is absolutely exquisite on the inside. We were able to listen to an organ concert of sacred music here in the afternoon, which was an unearthly experience. We have tried to capture some of that between-heaven-and-earth feeling in this video for you.

St. Peter's Church 1 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

St. Peter's Church 2 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

Within the church, there are also bones of Christian martyrs adorned with jewels and robes... it reminds me of Pirates of the Carribbean, to be perfectly honest, and it's a bit disturbing. However, the church as a whole is a marvelous work that I cannot begin to understand, with its altars and detailed goldwork.

We walked town the Milchgasse (milk lane) and saw where Mozart lived and wrote The Abduction from the Seraglio.

Clocks, clocks, clocks! I don't know why we are obsessed with them, but they're amazing! Shea and I found our favorite museum so far, the Uhrenmuseum, displaying clocks from the earliest spits to the most informative European grandfather clocks. It was fascinating, but we only got to see 1/3 of the museum before we had to meet others for lunch... we can guarantee our return to this little-known Vienna gem.

Clock Museum from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

It was worth the trip out to meet our new friends from church (Elizabeth and Claudia) for Mexican food. Burritos in Vienna! It was actually really nice to have a taste of home there, and we chatted for a couple hours before leaving. Although we spoke in English, we picked up a few new German phrases as well, like "ich bin Satt" (I am full).

We stopped to take pictures of the Votivkirche on our way back because it was sunny out. The spires are exquisite. We'll visit there soon.

We continued our walking tour at the Judenplatz (Jews' Plaza), which contains plaques that both condemn and apologize to the Jews, as well as a museum, a statue of Lessig (symbol of tolerance), and a large monument. This monument commemorates the Austrian victims of the Holocaust with rows of books, with their spines turned inward, representing each person's life as an unreadable book.

We continued on to the old Rathaus (city hall... full of "rats"??), which houses an Austrian resistance (against Hitler) archive and the Bezirksmuseum of the first district. We got a private tour of the museum (since we were the only guests there) by a very nice Austrian man who wanted to show us around. He showed us a piece of the original Stephandom bell, and played a recording of the current bell ringing (it only rings 4 times a year... we can say we heard it!). He even took out a tuning fork so that we could figure out the exact tone of the bell, which seems two-toned in a major third from G to B; the original bell played at a B-flat. We heard the recorded voice of Franz Joseph, examined the pen that signed the declaration of war on Serbia, and admired the batons of famous Austrian conductors. We also saw the original doors from the Ringtheater, which unfortunately opened inward: when a fire broke out on the stage during a performance, no one could get out and everyone there burned to death. Nowdays, every theater has a fire curtain separating the stage from the audience, as well as outward-opening doors. Here's a picture of these doors, as well as a shot of a painted horse right in front of it entitled "Flower Power".... not exactly your typical Vienese art.

We finished off our tour with a quick look at the church Maria am Gestade (incredibly beautiful) and a walk down what used to be a river bank.

We took a picture of the Hannaken fountain, which commemorates a legendary physician that would hire thugs to beat people up and then heal them for a large fee. Why they built a fountain for him, I have no idea.

By this time we were starving and stopped at what looked like a German "Aldi's" and bought all sorts of chocolate (all of which we have already consumed). When we got home, we experimented with the food we had, cutting out shapes in the middle of bread (Shea was proud of his five-point star) and filling it with meat, cheese, yellow pepper, and eggs before baking them. They were quite delicious, and we were "Satt" when we showed up at the young adult stake dance that evening, where they served dinnner. So we were super-Satt, or super-saturated with food by the end of the evening. It was a fun dance; everyone danced swing to everything, caring nothing for the beat of the song. Internal rhythm, you could call it.

Overall, it was one of our more productive days, and I felt thouroughly elated, and full, by the end of it.

The Jewels of Wien

2009-02-05T03:37:00.000-08:00

Vienna is full of treasures. "Schatz" is the word for treasure. Shea ist mein Schatz. That's the first one. Next, we have the Viennese people. They are wonderful, especially the LDS members here. Church on Sunday was interesting; we strained to understand the German. Relief Society was relatively simple and easy for me to understand, since the lesson was on the basics of prayer. Shea had a hard time in Priesthood, because the teacher spoke with such a heavy accent that even fluent foreigners would have a hard time understanding. Joseph worked so hard to understand that he took a nap:

This was me in sacrament meeting as well (the 3rd hour). Despite language barriers, it was wonderful to feel the spirit there and know that the church is true, even in German. Shea had a conversation with a wonderful Austrian woman (Andrea) almost entirely in Deutsch, which he was very proud of. Though most Austrians are kind, they rarely are smiley or friendly to strangers. They even have a short bus...

You could consider the language itself as a treasure, since it takes some searching to discover the value of the words. You could create a never-ending word in Deutsch if you wanted to. We finally decifered this one as some sort of institute for the blind:

Our host family's house contains quite a few unique antiques that are absolutely exquisite. They have inherited ancient furniture from ancestors, as well as a piano that is over 100 years old. It plays pretty well, even though "D" above middle "C" doesn't make a sound. You might be able to hear a plunk every time I try to play a D in the video.

I bet you didn't know it, but you can find running sushi here. What a novel concept.

Of course there are also life's special moments. Shea took this picture while I was waiting for our microwave popcorn to pop. I wanted it badly, and the microwave we have is 25 years old and has strange looking symbols on buttons and dials that I have no clue what to do with. With some experimenting, it popped after 10 minutes in this ancient Bosch.

Now, for the REAL TREASURE! (Not that the above do not qualify as Schatz.) We went to the museum containing the crown jewels of the Austrian empire, including Hapsburg family heirlooms. Here are pictures of a marvelous crown for you to admire, as well as a sceptre made from the tusk of a narwhal whale (that symbolizes Christ.... it's a long story as to why...) and a golden orb symbolizing global power.

There were a few other crowns also, one of which, I discovered, had a jewel missing! Ack! Although the jewels were massive and incredibly beautiful, I swear I did not swipe it. Below, we have a picture of Napoleon's child's crib. It's not too fancy.

Here is a gift to the Hapsburgs from a pope in Rome (I think?). It is an exquisitely carved rose-bush made entirely of gold. The detail is astounding; I'm sorry I could not catch it in this photograph.

This cape is completely hand-stitched and is an example of the most incredible craftsmanship that exists. Each figure is so detailed, with shading to make them look life-like and beautiful. It took my breath away.

I'm sure there are many more treasures to find. This may be a good time to discover some treasures in your own life and surroundings... in the meantime, we'll continue sharing our discoveries.

Our living conditions . . .

2009-02-02T05:33:00.001-08:00

We love Leanne, Cassidy, Bamma, and the Reedys! (They were the first to spot Amy in the Where's Waldo picture. :)

We're sure you all want to know what our current home looks like - here is a video we took on our first day for you! It has been about a week now and we have come to really like it. We live in the top floor of a house and it's actually quite nice compared to some of the other places we have seen here. Even so, it just makes you better appreciate some modern conveniences as well as the space we have in America.

Our Vienna home from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

And here are a couple of videos of the Nelson's home in Amsterdam! We were really quite spoiled there - so if any of you are thinking of visiting them, we highly recommend it! :)

Nelson Home 1 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.

Inside Nelson Home 2 from Shea Owens on Vimeo.