In which Emily has more fun in one eight-hour span than ever in her life. Really.

10:33--Vienna, Austria

Let me preface this by saying that I crawled into bed at 6:30 this morning and have woken up in time for a cup of coffee and a shower before class. This means I have had four hours of sleep which, in my languid sleep-addicted brain, means many too few hours.

But it was totally worth it. Let me describe.
We walked into the Musikverein in our ball gowns and watched from a balcony as below us hundreds of beautiful women (beautiful!) danced with hundreds beautiful men (in TAILCOATS!), ages, oh 18 and up. It was later pointed out to me that the Vice Chancellor attended, as did the Minister of Finance. I couldn't have told you which were important people and which weren't, not because I'm not familiar with Austrian notables but because everyone looked to important in their formal dress.

We met two lovely Austrian men (Johannes and Michael) who were kind enough to dance with us, so picture, if you will, me surrounded by beatiful and beatifully dressed men and women, waltzing in a gold-encrusted music hall to the Blue Danube played live by the Wiener Philharmonik with a man IN A TAILCOAT. I have never, in all seriousness, had so much fun in my entire life.

I also danced the quadrille, which was very entertaining because I didn't the steps at all, and even though there's a nice man giving directions (in German) into a microphone (this man, I was told, is the headmaster of the foremost dancing school in Vienna), nobody else seemed to know it very well either. The same basic dance is repeated over and over again, faster and faster (the dance instructor would call, "Schneller!" and I knew I was in trouble), but Johannes and Michael kept me kindly on my feet. It culminates in a giant gallop round and round the hall, which is basically like the storming of the Bastille in high heels. It was magnificent.

P.S. Johannes studied for a year in Tillamook. Yes, Tillamook, Oregon. How insane is THAT?

As if this wasn't cool enough, directly below the music hall was a more traditional (in the modern sense) dance floor, with a deejay spinnin' the tunes. Only it was great because the people dancing there were young-to-middle aged people IN TAILCOATS (I really can't emphasize that fact enough). My favorite moment: a man who was, like, killing it with his break-dancing moves, in his shiny black shoes and somehow never tripping on his coat.

I was transported for an evening into the life everyone should lead: that of ball-goer. We were there from 10 pm to 5 am and it felt like only a few hours had passed.

We ate breakfast (in our ballgowns) in a bakery in the Westbahnhof on our way home this morning, and tried to savor a moment that we will all remember for a very long time.