Raelyn's Travel Sketches

This summer, I had the opportunity to visit three countries in Europe.  I stayed at Amsterdam, Vienna, and Budapest for two weeks, in early August.  All three countries had similarities and differences.  It was amazing to see different culture, currency, people, history, food, and way of life.  The purpose of this trip was for Kayleigh and me to perform at the winners concert at the Ehrbar Hall in Vienna, Austria.  The event was organized by the Golden Key organization, which I entered for festival event, while my sister entered for the composition competition.  It was such a great experience for the both of us.

Amsterdam was a very rural country.  The country is best known for their windmills, Gouda cheese, canals, wooden shoes, and many beautiful buildings.  We visited Dam Square, Anne Frank's House, Van Gogh museum, Rijksmuseum, and many more historic landmarks.  We ate their famous stroopwafels, poffertjes, loempia and Gouda cheese.  My favorite part about Amsterdam was seeing the windmills and wooden shoes.

Vienna was probably my favorite city during the trip.  It also had very beautiful buildings and palaces, which attracted many tourists around the world.  We went to the House of Music, Mozart’s house, Beethoven’s house, Schonbrunn Palace, Lichtenstein Castle, and many other places.  During one of the tours, I learned more about Beethoven’s music and hardship in his life, with many health problems.  Later in his life, he became deaf.  He never cared about his appearance or personal hygiene.

From another excursion, I found out that Mozart was different in many ways from such composers like Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss and Haydn.  He was a manipulated man who gambled to earn money, and used people to buy him expensive clothing.  I had the great opportunity to perform at his house, The Mozarthaus.

During stay-over in Vienna, I also had the privilege and honor to perform at the Ehrbar Hall.  I was very nervous in the beginning of the concert, but once I rested my fingers down on the keys, all my worries went away and thoughts were in the music.  And in another occasion at the Ehrbar Hall, my family and I came to listen to Stephan Möller performed Symphony No.9 by Beethoven.  That was any amazing performance and I really enjoyed the concert.

My favorite part our trip in Austria was going to Salzburg.  It had many beautiful buildings and sights, and it was where The Sound of Music was filmed.  It was crowded with many tourists all over the world.  We had the opportunity to try famous Austrian food like schnitzel, kaiserschmarrn, strudel and the famous sachertorte - the delicious chocolate cake served with whipped cream.

The final stop on our European trip was the very beautiful city, Budapest, Hungary.  It is an urban city rich with history and architecture.  During our visit, it was very hot, but we still walked around to see all the great buildings and statues.  We also went on a Danube River cruise and saw many more buildings in a different view.  We also tried Hungarian food, and I loved the goulash and hot stone meat dishes.

I truly loved and learned so much from this trip.  My experience was not just performing in the concert halls that Mozart and other musical masters passed by, but now I understand how these composers lived, what inspired their music and the challenges that they faced during their times.  I have learned so much about different music, history, art and culture, and I hope to explore more countries and their composers.