Oh, Vienna.
Wiener Sangerknaben - otherwise known as the Vienna Boys Choir - makes its first South Island performance at the Regent Theatre tonight.
The sailor-suited trebles and altos will perform a two-hour programme, ranging from the Renaissance to modern repertoire.
It was fascinating meeting the choir for a photo at Moana Pool yesterday and watching the boys horseplaying and joking about in German.
Despite the prestige of being members of a world-renown 500-year-old choir, they were just like boys their age from any other country, although I sympathised with their chaperones, whose job it is to keep the 25 young spirits on the straight and narrow during the two-month tour. It reminded me very much of wrangling cats.
Part of the fun of the festival is meeting new cultures, learning new words and, occasionally, butchering them.
Several amused members of the Pacific Island community got in touch yesterday about the Samoan word for Europeans, pagali, used in our story on Where We Once Belonged playwright Dave Armstrong. It should, of course, have been palagi.
On the plus side, it has certainly generated some talk about Where We Once Belonged.
And I'm told pagali is now the new Samoan word for idiot journalist.
And while we're lost in translation, Comrade Z drummer Mikael Ekimov told me a joke the other day that I'm still struggling to understand.
"I like good formulaic joke," he chuckled.
"Recently, I heard about Western phenomena of hipsters. Two hipsters walk into a bar. No, this isn't right. One hipster walks into a bar you've never heard of. Da! Is good?"
It is easy to forget that we are an exotic, faraway land to many of our festival visitors.
Dohl Foundation founder Johnny Kalsi was so enamoured with Dunedin at the last festival, in 2010, that he had both his hands tattooed here.
"We really loved being part of the Dunedin festival, so it's a great souvenir of our time here in New Zealand," he told me at the time.
Speaking of hands, pianist Michael Houstoun had St Paul's Cathedral entranced in the St Paul's at One series yesterday.
A packed cathedral of all ages sat transfixed through the concert.
Curiously, the audience in the right-hand-side pews, whose view was obstructed by pillars, were afforded television monitors which showed Houstoun's hands on the piano keys. It added immeasurably to the experience.
Christchurch Symphony Orchestra principal harp Helen Webby will pluck harp and heart strings with soprano Pepe Becker in St Paul's at 1pm today.
One of this year's more unusual shows, Play, opens in the former-Standard Insurance building in the Exchange today. The free, eight-minute Samuel Beckett play is set in purgatory and will be played in a loop from 5.30pm to 7pm, so people can pop in and out.
And don't forget the Late Night Festival Club in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery from 10pm to midnight every day of the festival.Tonight, it's jazz, reggae and blues, with Saelyn Guyton and Harry Mahia.
