Vienna Boys Choir AND Der Rosenkavalier

This morning we woke early to a quiet Vienna and walked through a light snow fall to attend Mass at the Imperial Palace. The service was sung by the Vienna Boys Choir which is a choir nerds dream. They sang Mozart's Coronation Mass and it was absolutely beautiful. The chapel was small and the service was in German and Latin and it was fun to imagine Mozart attending similar service during his lifetime. Our guide told us that it is really difficult to get tickets to see them and it was extremely rare and specially to get to see them perform at Mass. She had never even been in the chapel before that day so I feel so lucky that we got to experience that. After the service was over, the choir came down from the loft and performed a piece alone which was fantastic. As a future music educator, it was really fun to see boys from ages 7-12 performing at such a high level or artistry. After we left the chapel we went on a walking tour of the 1st District which was the oldest part of Vienna, including Roman ruins. Then we went to Schönbrunn Palace which was the home of the royalty outside of the city. It was so massive and impressive and our guide had a lot of interesting facts to tell us. Later in the evening we went to the Staatsoper (state opera house) to see De Rosenkavalier. The whole experience was unbelievable. The lobby was so gorgeous and then we walked into the hall and couldn't believe how massive it was. And then the overture began and I was so overwhelmed that all I could do was cry. Everything about the performance was so impressive, especially that it was 4 hours long. I was tired just sitting there and listening but the singers and orchestra were working so hard, I don't know how they do it. It was a long day and I'm pretty tired but it was another memorable day for all of us!

Also, this morning I discovered that our hostel has Nutella in a huge pump dispenser. I'm pretty excited about it.