Grüße aus Wien!

Greetings from Vienna, for the Teutonically impaired.

Instructor of Music Nollie Moore and the Jane Froman Singers touched down in Vienna last Sunday, baroque capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They have also toured the hidden gem of Graz and are this weekend in glittering Salzburg, backdrop for The Sound of Music.

Here, according to the group's blog, is what the group of singers and Columbia College friends have experienced in Vienna:

• Vienna’s Central Cemetery, final resting place of Beethoven, Mozart and Strauss.
• Dinner at the Hotel Ananas: pumpkin soup, a roast, kleine new potatoes, an unidentified white vegetable and a raspberry pastry.
• The Winter Palace, especially the Collection of Musical Instruments in the Hofburg, where the Singers learned that some pianos were built larger to accommodate Beethoven’s loss of hearing.
• The Mozart House. Need we say more?
• The president of Austria meeting the prime minister of Romania, pomp, parade and all. Writes blogger and Columbia College senior Neal Lines: “This truly was an amazing sight. How often do you get to see in real life two world leaders meet? Most people never get to see such an event, and we were very lucky. The one thing that stood out to me most about the event was the amount of protection (or lack of) for the leaders. When the two leaders met, they were out in the middle of the Winter Palace with limited protection. Not only was there limited protection for the leaders, but we were also within 30 feet of the meeting.”
• Pizza with veal topping, the intricacies of Viennese pricing and of tipping.

Read more about their adventures at janefromansingersaustria09.blogspot.com.