The Ball

Last time I wrote, I was still in bed sick, and so much has gone on since then. My family ended up having me stay home Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which is the longest I’ve ever stayed out. I wasn’t really sick at all, something I probably would have never stayed home for even a day in the United States (but oh, that’s right, I do work there…) but the priority was mostly that I was healthy for the ball. That sounds like a Disney movie princess thing to do, doesn’t it? Or maybe just someone sort of spoiled. So Wednesday afternoon, my first rehearsal for the ball was at 3. We were supposed to eat at two, but Ferdinand came instead at 2.30, so it ended up being a pretty rushed introduction. Since there wasn’t enough time to walk to Elmayer, Claudius and Dominik took us on the motorcycle and moped, respectively. Elmayer is a really famous, super formal dance school right in the center of Vienna next to the St. Augustin church, where the high masses with the orchestra are, and the same hall where the Vienna Boy’s Choir sings. My dance school, Rueff, is their newest rival because it’s really good dance instruction, except it’s a lot more fun than Elmayer, so most new students go there, ie, me. At Elmayer, for dance class full suits are required for boys and a bit more than just a skirt and sweater, like I wear to Rueff, is required on the girls. Most of the girls I saw there taking dance class were are also sort of wearing skirt and suit sets, if that’s the right way to put it, with a blazer that matched their skirt. At the rehearsal there were only about 20 couples and they arranged us and started making this great big dance, and I was like, well, this is something more than just waltzing. I was still pretty confused as to what it meant that I was opening the ball. When I got home I asked why only 20 couples were going, and my family was like are you serious? There’s going to be hundreds of people there watching you do this in the beginning. And what’s that? You’re in the first row? So everyone will be able to see you most of all.
Oh.
So all this rehearsal nonsense continued every afternoon Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I got a mother of a bruise on my knee from all the rehearsals and having to bow and my knee and things. It’s still there, actually. I got pretty frustrated by non-compatibility of my dance partner and I. He was so tall and it seemed that he always went the opposite way he ought to have gone. Just too langy and too much body to actually be a proper dancer. He was pretty civil though and always walked me home. It wasn’t awkward either because he was one of those people who could talk and talk and talk and talk about things that I probably wasn’t interested in, such as the ÖVP, the conservative party of Austria, or like… actually, I don’t think he talked about anything else.
Thursday was a pretty bad day, as you can imagine, as this was Thanksgiving. We didn’t dance well at rehearsal, and then when I got home at six, my host dad presented me with a 300g bar of Milka Hazelnut cream chocolate, and said this was his Thanksgiving gift to me. He thought we gave gifts like at Christmas, cute. He told me they were happy to have me and he hoped that I didn’t get homesick because there was a huge party going on at home and I was here not doing anything! Of course I hadn’t even remembered it was Thanksgiving, and after that, despite his efforts I got a little teary, but didn’t really do anything about it. We went to go see the worst version of Romeo and Juliet after that. What kind of theatre group has a zombie invasion that eat the corpses after the lovers kill themselves? What kind of show would have Romeo savagely rip apart a watermelon as a symbol for his heart as he kills himself? It was disgusting. When I got home I was eating dinner and then watching my host sister play piano and I was thinking that all these things I do here are just so pretty and I could hardly stand it. I was standing in the kitchen talking to my host dad about something and then all of a sudden I was crying and I didn’t really stop for the rest of the night. My host parents put me to bed and told me they loved me and were glad I was there, which made things okay to wake up the next morning and thereafter. After that midpoint explosion, I think it’s all over for now, because I have a short 2 and a half months left and I can enjoy it without really having to be sad anymore.

Saturday I ended up getting pretty excited as soon as I woke up, for the whole dressing up and looking pretty aspect. My host mother made a bath for me, which was really nice of her, but a bit too cold, and then she curled my hair. However we found I have too much hair, and the whole process of curling my hair was very painful and took much longer than we had anticipated. I know though, that it doesn’t actually HAVE to be painful, since I had my hair curled for prom last year, and that only took a half hour and didn’t hurt a bit. The lady who cuts my hair in the US has so much ease with my hair, and I don’t know why the Friseurrin had so much trouble with it here, and my host mother as well.
Actually, family, I had memories of when I was younger and my mother didn’t allow me to have long hair, because I made her brush it, and I would cry each time she pulled too hard. Haha. Cute.

My friend Clara came over to help me with my hair and all that before I was about ready to go. Most things were finished, but it was very funny and nice to see her.
I got to the Parkhotel Schönbrunn promptly at 5, and was one of the only people there, of course, for at least an hour. What I have finally understood is that Austrians are simply not punctual. Germans are punctual. And to confuse the two is wrong, mostly.
My host brother Dominik’s girlfriend, Eli, was the one running the entire ball. She got there and looked beautiful and Dominik got there as well. Ferdinand got there somewhere in this time as well, and the ball started somewhere after that.

After this point, it’s mostly a blur. It started around 7.30 and went very quickly thereafter. We danced very well, and all that, and then after there was all sorts of other kinds of ballroom dancing in the ballroom upstairs and a disco in the basement. My dance partner kept trying to convince me that the disco was really awesome and tried to drag me down there twice, and both times I hated it, and I told him I was going to do. Oh well. It ended up with him staying down there for the rest of the night and me dancing with my host father or my host brother when I wanted to dance, for real. And that was a lot of fun, because they’re funny people. The whole ball concept was just so beautiful and it was all these beautiful things that make up a magical night and the time flies by and all of a sudden its 2.30 in the morning and you think you ought to go home. I ended up dancing the last waltz with my hostbrother Dominik who dances quite well and told me the whole time that I was also dancing very well and all that. He’s quite sweet to me as a brother, I adore it.

So the week after has been pretty busy! I went to the library a few times and got a giant book that covers the entire Austrian history. It’s quite interesting and it’s also something to do in school. This weekend Cory and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at his house for our fellow exchange students who have never had a Thanksgiving before, and that’s quite nice and all that. It’s felt very Christmas-y here the past week, which makes me glad. I went shopping all day yesterday with my host mother for her daughter in Argentina. I can’t afford to buy things and ship them over, so expect Christmas in February. However, I got some ideas of what I wanted those things to be.
Now the question is, what do I do for my host family? Find something here that I learned they like, or get them something I would typically give to my family in the US that they would never find here? Gifts are so awkward, especially for someone who’s doing so much for you.

So all is well for now. I’m looking forward to the beginning of advent, and then Christmas and New Year’s and my birthday! Then it’s only one month more, and it all seems so short from here.

Lots of love, and write me, because then I will write you and I would like to do that…
Julia