Emily's Exploits

I live in Utah. Utah was settled by pioneers. So we have Pioneer Day, every July 24th. Which means I have no school today. Just one more reason to love it! ;) I feel I wouldn't be doing my civic duty without blogging about Pioneers. Or about my pioneer ancestry. It's hard work, but somebody's gotta do it. Hannah Thornock (my great-great-great grandmother on my father's side) was three months old when her parents and five older siblings boarded the ship Golconda to emigrate to the United States, specifically to meet with the rest of the Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley. The ship left Liverpool, England on February 4th, 1854, and arrived in New Orleans on March 18th. From there they went to Kansas City and outfitted themselves for the nine week trek over the plains and rockies to Salt Lake City! "In addition to all the heavy labor of assembling the wagons, training the young oxen, constructing pasture fences and corrals and all the camping and household chores, there...

On Friday we have no class. So naturally, I wake up around noon-ish to get a good start on the day. This particular morning (February 27th) I was planning on doing a walking tour of Vienna, seeing some sights... you know, the usual. But it was Carli's birthday so we went to our favorite Shottenring Cafe for lunch! I met up with them around 1:30. Laura, Carli, Joseph and I were there talking about spy and mafia conspiracy theories, how great it would be if somebody could just choose our food for us (which the Schottenring cafe graciously did- they brought us fish and soup without us ordering it!) birthdays, friends, and family when Joseph asks:  "Do you guys want to go to Bratislava ?" We all look at each other with mischievous grins and say YES! It's an hour train ride to Bratislava from Vienna (Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia) and we called Elisabeth - she said it was a 12 euro train ticket, so we were TOTALLY on board.  I was wearing a skirt, boots, gloves, no...

THE BALL: A SAGA IN FOUR PARTS PROLOGUE: ONCE UPON A TIME On the evening of Tuesday February 24th 2009, Emily May Bateman attended her first ball.  That's right. A ball.  But not just any ball. This was the Elmayer-Kranzchen Ball in the Imperial Hofburg Palace. Elmayer is the name of the most prestigious dancing school in all of Austria. Dancers from this company performed a number of pieces for us during the evening. But I'm getting WAY ahead of myself. Let me take you back a ways, and this will all start to make sense (name that movie).  PART I: FAIRY GODMOTHERS The month of February is "Ball Season" in Vienna. There are balls in every major city building: the Rathaus, Hofburg, Staatsoper, Belvedere, you name it. We were lucky enough to be here during this festive time of Austrian tradition.  When the question was raised of going to a ball, I decided I didn't want to go. I had no formal dress and I felt like it would be a waste of my time. So for the week while...

The city of Vienna has a fabulous public transportation system. In order to get around, one can take the bus, Strassenbahn (street car), U-bahn (subway), the CAT (City Airport Train), or the Schnellbahn (Schnell means fast).  To get to the Stake Center where we have voice lessons, for example, I take the U1 (red line) to Schwedenplatz from Karlsplatz, then I take the Strassenbahn 1 to Wittelsbachstrasse. Last night after eating another excellent dinner at the Schottenring cafe of chicken, vegetables, potatoes and (as always) Litungswasser (tap water... unless you ask for this type of water specifically, they will give it to you in a bottle and also charge you- and Vienna has GREAT tap water, so its not really a problem), Rebekah, Britain, Carli and I headed for Rebekah's house to relax and watch a movie (since we don't have class on Friday). [this was around 7 pm] We got on Strassenbahn 1 to Schottenring U-bahn station, transferred to U-4 (the green line) and headed to Ober St...

What an adventure! I hardly know where to begin. It is now 19:27 in Wien  [VEEN] (or 7:27 pm for those who don't want to figure it out... haha) and somehow I'm beyond tired-- but I know I can't go to bed without writing this blog!  My flight to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful. Good food on Lufthansa Airlines. I got to watch Wall-E. Yay for Thomas Newman (my favorite film scorer).  And I loved watching the sun rise up over Great Britain! I rarely ever get to see the sun rise , except over a mountain... and hardly ever do I get to enjoy it. That was really nice. I was lucky to have a window seat.  Getting off the plane was fun. The crew gave each woman a red rose before we walked down the steps and off the plane to get on a shuttle that would take us to the terminal, where I went through customs... tried to act like I knew how to speak German... and it didn't really work between "Danke", "Entshuldigung Sie, bitte.", "wasser" and "ya/nei...