Wow...

Well my day was filled with a lot of stress about preparing for the Vienna Philharmonic's first concert as well as a swanky Galadiner with celebrity chef Johann Lafer. Well, apparently he's a celebrity TV chef here. And then I came home with this really nice person that I've met while here - he's an older guy, with a daughter who ended up studying in Texas when she did an exchange in the USA. But he also happens to know a few different people in Michigan, and so we've been talking about Michigan and he has been telling me everything I need to know about Deutschland. After grabbing a Döner Kebap (delicious) and throwing on my suit, I went downstairs to ride with the family who owns the house where I'm renting.

The wife and I began walking down the street because there was a mass earlier this evening, and her husband is the cantor at the church. Then, I see a really cool car pull up -- it's the husband. And it wasn't just any cool car; oh no, it was a Ferrari! Needless to say, it was a very quick ride to the concert hall...

Before the concert, I worked the ticket booth for a bit, which was fun. I really love the customer service aspect of the job, though the language barrier is often challenging. It's definitely getting better, though. Another part of this job that I love is getting to do awesome things like...walk on stage and give Daniele Gatti (director of the French National Orchestra) a present from the music festival for his work with the Vienna Philharmonic. And that's totally disregarding the fact that I did that after sitting through an amazing (free!) performance of the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mahler's 9th symphony.

Wow! That's were the title of this blog post comes in. I will not soon forget this evening and I was very conscious of the great opportunity that I have right now all throughout the concert. I think sometimes during the difficult moments, such as the stressful preparations earlier today, it's easy to take great things for granted. But then sometimes we have these little realizations of how great something really is and it brings us back into the moment to appreciate, remember, and reflect. I hope I keep having those moments during my time here.