Vienna so far

Vienna has been an interesting experience. There's been about 40 to 60 percent bad times to good. The German is hard to understand, it's a bit of a dialect. Everyone understands me, but once they start speaking I am totally lost and have to say that I don't understand so I've not been able to practice my German as much as I wanted. It's also been a challenge to get money and the Austrians are a little stricter about things like that, as opposed to the Germans at least from my experiences... But in the end I've been told my German is impressively good for having not taken classes and I've found an ATM that's compatible with Canadian cards after many tears and angry Austrian's trying to teach an "ignorant little Canadian girl" her lesson. It has also been kind of cold and rainy for three days now, which as we Vancouverites know, SUCKS. It was, however, easier to dance today.

Impulstanz has been both wonderful and challenging. I spoke with a few of the other participants and everyone was feeling a little defeated by the amount of information we were given, so I knew it wasn't just me. Our teacher hooked me up with the incredible opportunity to dance in Antony Rizzi's piece that was also affiliated with the AIDS conference. It was such an amazing time dancing in the show with him and this woman Penny Arcade who was one of Andy Warhol's Factory kids. When will I ever meet people like this again? Their piece was really educational about the epidemic, treatment, side effects and the history of the disease. It was both incredible to watch and depressing to take in all the information about what is not being done and recognized when it comes to this disastrous and devastating virus. It didn't only touch on the virus but also the state of the Earth, the oil spill, pollution, diseases, etc.

This is all stuff that has been on my mind of late anyway so it was great to get a little bit more information and history on these subjects and get a glimpse of what it might have been like only forty years ago when Penny Arcade was young in New York at the peak of the scene. All of a sudden her friends started dying. She has had over three hundred friends die from the disease. She has sat by their sides and seen the side effects of the medication, seen the pain and struggle over and over again. I was talking to Josh a bit about the show and how it made me feel, he's been reading a book that speaks a little bit about the possible initial spread of the virus. A Steward in the seventies who had had over 2500 sexual partners and had brought the virus overseas. Whether or not this is true, I don't know. Grain of salt, always.

This morning I had my first Release Ballet class with Antony Rizzi, and it was just lovely. He is such a natural teacher and has a wicked sense of humor which maybe only I get, because I am the only one laughing... I have realised North Americans have good technique, he actually had to tell people to lengthen their legs into the floor to start a tendu. All I could say at that moment was "Thank you, Arty" We spent about ten minutes on the concept of establishing fifth in the air in a changement right away, all I could say was "Thank you, Mr Gilmour" Most of the things he said to people were all things I would teach my students and was of course taught by Arty, Marquita, Mr Gilmour, Lynn and Emily.

Amber and Josh have been here for almost a week now. We have had so much fun the past while, buying cheap beer and drinking under bridges and in parks. We went to the Impulstanz kick off party and danced like fools, gotten caught in major thunder storms and laughed a lot. Which is nice, I haven't laughed like an idiot for a while.