arty farty me

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well, haven't i been the little cultural butterfly!! today is technically my last day in vienna as i leave at 8am tomorrow. this week has flown by and i have no idea what i've done!! the evenings have been quite busy doing all the artsy stuff. monday night i went to the operetta (a gilbert and sullivan type performance). best thing ever - we went early-ish to get tickets, and we had the nicest ticket box lady. she gave us tickets for half price, even though neither of us were students. then we got shown to our seats...... our own private box thank you very much!! like in Pretty Woman. it was soooo cool. the operetta was really good, well done, apart from the fact that it was in german and we had no idea what was going on. oh well, we got some of the jokes, but mostly we just laughed when we were supposed to - when everyone else did. last night i went to the ballet to see spartacus. it was pretty modern but it was really good as well. i went with a girl that i met a while ago and she got a seat, but i went up to the top and stood in the standing room part. i could see everything really well though. i was very lucky that the gril next to me had a synopsis book though, otherwise i again wouldn't have known what was going on. i didn't know what to expect with standing room but it was fine. there was a little step that i could sit on whenever there was only one or two dancers, but to see the whole stage you had to stand. there weren't that many people standing so i had a central view and plenty of room. my poor friend had a seat but could barely see the stage, coz she had a pole in the way. so me standing up the top of the theatre could see more than she could!! go figure!! vienna as a city is really not all that special. the buildings are quite understated on the outside and fairly plainly decorated on the interior, but they are quite elegant. i feel like i've done vienna having been here for a week, and i'm very happy about that. oh, i'm going to the schonbrunn palace tonight for the free concert by the philharmonic orchestra - more music!! should be good though.

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