I can’t believe that we’re already back home. It’s been a
couple days since we got back to Washington, and it’s weird to be back. The
trip went by too fast, yet I don’t think I would change the amount of time we
were there. It was an incredible trip and probably a once in a lifetime
opportunity for a lot of people. With all the memories that were just made on
this trip, I couldn’t have asked for something better to spend my J-term. I had
so much fun with the people on this trip, the places were insanely beautiful,
and the performances were some of the best I will ever see in my life. I don’t
think I’ll have another experience like this for quite a while. I’m very glad
that I was accepted on this trip and met some amazing friends while there.
Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, Berlin, Salzburg, and back to
Vienna, that was the route we took for this trip. I think Dr. Powell did a good
job picking the places we went to and the concert we attended and activities we
all did together. Dr. Powell and Dr. Brown gave us a lot of good insight about
everything we did because of either previous experiences, or it’s about the
concerts, and they are music professors after all. They were also pretty good
professors to hang out with too, giving good restaurant suggestions and other
activities we could do in our free time was very helpful and they did have some
great suggestions. They made the trip even better than it was already. I probably
won’t get over how amazing this trip was for a while because of how much
planning and thought Dr. Powell put into creating this trip for us.
One of the best parts that we had was all the concerts. There
were quite a few of them, and sometimes all we wanted to do was just eat dinner
and sleep, they were still absolutely amazing and worth going to. I will be honest;
I almost fell asleep during a couple of them near the beginning. Whether that
was from jetlag or just being incredibly tired from all the activity during the
day. I never wanted to fall asleep, but my body was telling me differently. That
was only for about the first week, after that I was able to fully pay attention
and appreciate the immense talent and skill these performers had. Out of the
ballets, orchestras, operas, and the couple random ones, my favorite
performance out of the whole trip was The Vienna Philharmonic with a horn and
piano concerto during Mozart week. They were amazing, and I am a bit partial to
piano pieces because of playing piano myself. If I were to go by category, I’d
say that for the ballet my favorite was Onegin, the very first performance we
saw, for orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, for opera, I would say Otello, which
was the very last performance we say. For the few random ones, I put chamber
groups in there, and my favorite was Les Vents Francais combined with Kodaly
String Quartet. These two groups combined for Mozart week and had such an
incredible performance that some of our group cried by how enamoring the performance
was and the mastery of skill that was shown.
This is a trip to go in the books, and to stay there for a
very long time. I can’t believe I was able to go and be a part of this program
and have an absolute blast and wish I could go back soon. I’m sad that we ever
had to go home, but I’m also happy to be back in my bed and with my family and friends
again.
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