Party Like It's 1899

Ball Season just recently came to a close.
Yes, formal balls are such a big deal in Austria that they have an entire season devoted to them that lasts until Mardi Gras. Vienna, especially, takes balls and waltzing very seriously.

A man with some connection to Fulbright invited all the Austrian Fulbrighters to attend the ball for the Technische Universität at the Hofburg (imperial palace) in Vienna. I'm not sure exactly this man was, but he was apparently important enough to invite 20+ people to the ball and wore some sort of medallion, indicating that he belongs to an exclusive society. I'm 90% sure it's the Order of the Phoenix. Fulbright paid for Megan (L), Emily (R) and I, who all live outside of Vienna to stay in the same hotel we stayed at during orientation, but this time they booked us the honeymoon suite, complete with a huge bathtub and fireplace.

Before going to the ball I had assumed that ball was often just another word used for dance. In Austrian high schools the graduating class has something called a "Matura Ball" that I had always just likened to prom, and I figured that the TU Ball would be a slightly more formal Mountaintop. I had also assumed that most Austrians didn't actually know how to waltz.

I was wrong on both accounts. To get into the ball you had to have a floor-length gown. Unless you knew some one really high up, this was strictly enforced and I saw quite a few people get turned away for not being dressed nicely enough. The TU Ball was also a debutante ball. I couldn't see any of this happen because there were about 4000 people all crowded in to watch, but the night's opening ceremonies largely consisted of the girls making their debuts in pretty white dresses. This wasn't strange to me. What was, though, was the fact that not only could the debutantes and their escorts all waltz perfectly, but so could almost all of the attendees. You can see them whirling and twirling in these two pictures.

When I went back to school on Monday I asked my students if they could all waltz, too. They all said yes because, duh!, they had taken dancing classes. Dancing classes seem to be some Austrian rite of passage (to me this is also a very Germanic idea, that dancing is something that you have to be taught how to do in an orderly way, rather than thinking of dancing as a form of self-expression). Emily (Fulbrighter in the first picture) was told by an Austrian friend that he took waltzing lessons because "that's what you do when you're 15." Even Tatjiana, one of my students who has pink hair, probably listens to Gwar, and shops at a store called "Trash" said that she enjoyed waltzing. I tried waltzing a little with Gergely, who is a Fulbrighter in Vienna and behind me in the group picture, but it turns out that that one time I waltzed with Dan in high school wasn't sufficient preparation.

I think the balls are a definite celebration of Austria's grand imperial past, but there are some modern updates that I'm sure have Franz Josef rolling in his grave. In addition to the ball room where waltzes were played, there was also a room for dancing to jazz music. And in the basement there was not only a disco (imagine a bunch of Austrian debutantes shakin' it the beats of Kanye and a trippy light show), but also a Heurige in the basement. (A Heurige is like a beer garden but with wine. They're really informal and you sit at long picnic tables and eat sausage. This is where I spent a lot of my time.)

I also need to mention that in this picture with Olivia I'm drinking the free tap and nursed the same glass of wine for a really long time because although the tickets were expensive, and I did get an espresso cup as a party favor, there were only cash bars. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

The ball went until 5 AM, but we left around 3, exhausted from trying to waltz, being in the Heurige, and making various puns on the word "ball" (because we attended, did that make us ballers?, and lots of other that I won't repeat here). The next morning I went to Schloss Belvedere, which houses a really big collection of Austrian art, including Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss", and has a great view overlooking the city center. I also took another self-portrait and have to say that I think all the practice in Ljubljana paid off as I now look directly into the camera when I take them.