Pictures of the Center and the Conservatoire

First picture of the facade of the SU Center - the entrance









Second picture of the facade of the SU Center - the upper floors as seen from outside










Main staircase in the SU Center - 1st floor to 2nd floor









Le Conservatoire National de Region de Strasbourg

Now that I feel like I'm living in Strasbourg...

It is now two months into my semester here, and now I really do feel like I’m living in Strasbourg. I know my daily routes REALLY well (house, Syracuse center, Conservatoire, the locations of my preferred patisseries…), and after three mostly stationary weekends in Strasbourg, I have a much better idea of how the city is organized, and can find my way around without getting completely lost. Only just a little lost. :)

I thought, though, that this would be a good time to write a post about what my daily life is like here, as come tomorrow, I’m on Spring Break. Yipee! Beth and her friends are arriving in Strasbourg tomorrow after my last midterm, and then on Sunday, I’m off to Florence, where I’ll meet my friend Lilly from Wellesley (she’s studying in Bologna this semester), and then Thursday, I’ll go to Milan where my friend Meilan is studying abroad. I’m still hoping to get to Venice and Rome before the semester ends, but we’ll see how that goes.

As for my daily life… I’m generally out of the house by 8:15 am, and at the Syracuse Center by 8:30. Most days, my first class starts at 9h, so I have a little down time for internet or last minute reviewing. Mondays are not so good for me – I don’t have enough time in one block to get to the Conservatoire to practice, so Monday has become my internet day to talk to people back in the States. (Just FYI, GoogleTalk and Skype are both free programs you can download off the internet, and then you can talk with anyone in the world for free over the internet, as if you were talking over the phone. You’ll need either a mike on your computer or a headset, but it’s still pretty cool, don’t you think?) Tuesdays, I usually have my mallet lesson in the afternoon (after morning classes), and so can get some practicing in at the Conservatoire. I also have a Tuesday evening class at the Conservatoire, and then I get back to my house around 19h30 (7:30 pm – France almost always uses what we call military time, and I’m really starting to prefer it…), making Tuesday my latest day of the week. Wednesday, I’m done by 15h, but as the kids of Alsace don’t have school on Wednesday (common for the French school system), the Conservatoire is pretty packed with the younger students coming in to practice. I often watch a movie and practice on my bed, in lieu of having a marimba at home. Thursdays, I’m done at 12h30, and also try to get to practice, but as it’s my last day of classes, I’m not always in the mood. o:) Friday and Saturday mornings, I usually get to the Conservatoire pretty early before most of the percussionists are awake, and I can therefore get a room and get a good morning of practicing in. For my Sunday mornings, I’ve found an Anglican church here, and I really like it. The first Sunday I went, I realized that I’m still a foreigner – almost all the native English speakers are from England, not from the States, so I still have a funny accent. That made me think a little bit.

If it’s a nice weekend afternoon, I like to get out of the house and study or read at one of the nearby parks. Parc du Contades is the closest, and Orangerie is the biggest. So far, those are the only ones I’ve really explored. One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, while sitting in the park, I heard a woman say to her dog, “Sur la banc! Sur la banc!”, and it hit me that the dogs in France speak French. They wouldn’t understand “sit,” but they’d understand “assis!” You’d think that would be obvious, but I didn’t fully comprehend that until the woman asked her dog to jump on the bench, but the words “on the bench” were no part of the command.

Also, having three good weekends in Strasbourg, I’ve been able to explore the restaurants the city has to offer. I’ve found two streets that have quite a few restaurants on them, and another area with to-go lunch type restaurants, so I shall never be at a lack of places to eat – always a plus. Yesterday afternoon, I walked around downtown searching for all the sights I want to show Beth and her friends, and now I’m confident that I will not get the five of us lost this coming weekend. I’m a little concerned about the weather, so maybe no boat tour, but oh well. I’m getting more courage to speak to my host family, and the people who work at the center are also very patient with my slow French, but still let me practice with them. All things considered, I’m very content to be living in Strasbourg for these five months.

You might recall that it is now the time for midterms. Today I took my French oral comprehension exam, presented my paper for Communications, and took my Music Theory “quest” (counts more than a quiz, but less than a test). I’m reasonably confident about French and Music Theory, but I’ll just have to see my grade for Communications to see how that turned out… Tomorrow brings French written comprehension, Ear Training (rhythm and singing (prepared and sight) exercises), and most importantly, BETH!!!!! (If you can’t tell, I’m extremely excited about Beth and her friends coming tomorrow.)

I also apologize for the delay in posting. My plan was to post late last week, but I received some sad news from home and it kind of took priority over my blog. My maternal grandmother had hip surgery last Tuesday, and some complications arose later Tuesday evening. Friday morning, the doctors discovered that my grandmother had had multiple strokes that she would likely not recover from. Soon after, the decision was made to take my grandmother off the machines that had been helping her breathe, and she passed away early Friday evening. Her funeral was yesterday, and though I am quite sad I couldn’t be there for it, I know a lot of my family, even those on my dad’s side and not blood-related to my grandma, were able to make it, for which I’m grateful. However, now it’s just a matter of moving on, and getting back into the swing of things. Which includes posting on my blog! :)

One more day of classes, then three days of Beth and friends, and then I’m off to Italy! Hooray!

Pictures from Karlsruhe

View of the Rhine river as our bus crossed it







One of the views from the tower in the Badisches Landesmuseum







View to the top of the tower

Sedentary Times in Strasbourg

Bonjour! J’espere que ce post trouve tout le monde heureux… Je suis desole. Tout le monde ne comprends pas français. I mean, sorry. Not everybody understands French. Don’t worry, I’ll keep posting in English. :)

I’ll begin with this past weekend, and go from there. Last weekend (the 10th/11th) was a lesson weekend, so no big trips last weekend. I was slightly annoyed when my timpani professor wasn’t there for my lesson Saturday, but I found out Monday that he just forgot to tell me he wasn’t going to be there. However, since I didn’t have my lesson, I had more time to get ready for Karlsruhe, where I saw the opera The Magic Flute by Mozart. One of the classes at the SU Center is Opera in Society, and of the 7 music students, I’m the only one not in the class. However, they had an extra ticket, so I went. We had the afternoon to ourselves in Karlsruhe, and I went to the Badisches Landesmuseum with some friends. The museum focuses on the history of the Baden area of Germany, and was actually pretty interesting. One of the highlights is to climb the tower of the castle (the museum is in the castle), which I successfully did, though slowly (slightly complicated by my acrophobia). It did provide a pretty awesome view of the city, though. Another funny bit about Karlsruhe… There was some fair going on in the center platz, with dancers, bratwurst, and all sorts of fair-type things. Most of the costumes for the female dancers were German versions of cowgirl costumes, and at one point I heard “Deep in the Heart of Texas” over the speakers. That was pretty much the last song I expected to hear in a small German city. After our hearty and scrumptious German dinner, it was off to the opera. The production was very interesting. The Karlsruhe theatre is a very modern looking theatre, and the production was also in modern presentation. The three genies, for instance, (they always appear when the main characters are in times of trouble and need a little assistance before doing something stupid), were three boys wearing baggy sweatshirts, cargo pants, and baseball caps. Interesting. Good performance, maybe not the best opera company or opera orchestra (my ears wanted to run for hiding at one point because one of the timpanist’s drums was out of tune), but an enjoyable nonetheless. After the opera, we just came back to Strasbourg, and I went straight home as it was already midnight.

Last Sunday, I also went to church for the first time since I’ve been here (as it was only the 2nd Sunday I’ve been in Strasbourg thus far), which felt good. Also, the service was in English – a definite plus, at least in understanding what was going on. And, mostly, it’s the most welcoming congregation I’ve met in a VERY long time, which was really awesome. Before the service, I was speaking with the priest, and when I told him I was a percussionist, he immediately said, “Oh, it should be interesting to see what we can do with you.” And then, a Canadian man invited me to lunch with him and his girlfriend, which was nice, if slightly awkward since I barely knew either of them. Sunday afternoon, I watched some rugby with Lionel, and didn’t really understand anything. For dinner, Dr. Nick (the music professor from Syracuse who’s basically in charge of the music program this semester and teaches my theory course) invited all the music students over for home-cooked crepes. And though it was POURING Sunday night, the crepes were more than worth it. :)

This past week was another hard week. I had my second lesson with my mallet professor (Monsieur Sejourne), and again, I had a lot of trouble keeping up with his tempo and his exercises. My lesson culminated with a lecture saying that I’m not necessarily a bad percussionist, I’m just lacking in technique and I’m probably not holding my mallets correctly. Hmph. Which brings me back to the title of this post – sedentary. Because I desperately need to practice so as (hopefully) not to embarrass myself next week, my last lesson before the Conservatoire goes on vacation, I’m staying in Strasbourg for the weekend and PRACTICING. I’m determined to have a little fun, though – today there’s an organ concert that looks interesting, Saturday an orchestra concert at the Conservatoire, and Sunday I might go to the Planetarium, just for grins. And, of course, midterms are coming up in about two weeks, and that requires some preparation. Analysis of the French media for Communications, some fun ear training things and begin analyzing a piece for theory (still don’t have my piece – percussion repertoire doesn’t lend itself easily to this particular assignment), not sure yet what exactly for French, and a presentation after Spring Break for music history.

But, once all that is completed, Beth and her friends are coming to Strasbourg for a few days, and then I’m off to Italy for Spring Break! Don’t have my specific plans yet, as I’m still waiting for one friend to get back to me if I can visit her or not, but I’m flying in and out of Florence and am definitely going to Milan as well. And, the best part (at least for today), is it’s sunny outside. That doesn’t happen very much in Strasbourg (in wintertime anyways), and I have just returned from about an hour and a half in the park close to my house, albeit doing homework, but still soaking up the sunshine. :)

Pictures from Munich

1st picture: Me with one of Munich's painted lions
2nd picture: picture of King Ludwig I (though I haven't posted Monet's lilies or Van Gogh's sunflowers, also found in the Neue Pinakothek)
3rd picture: The biggest room in Residenz, where they would host dinner parties
4th picture: The river in the English Garden
5th picture: Neues Rathaus (I'm in it too, though I turned out really dark)
6th picture: Frauenkirche
7th picture: Altes Rathaus

My Trip to Munich

(p.k.a. (possibly known as)
A Series of Unfortunate Events)

Looking back on it, my trip to Munich was pretty cool. Kristen and I saw almost everything we wanted to see, and enjoyed almost all of it. Plus, our hotel was really nice and we got a discount. :)

The two of us left Strasbourg Friday night, and didn’t get to the train station until about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave. The train ride was pretty uneventful, and after getting to Munich, we found our hotel with no trouble. Saturday morning, after breakfast at the train station (which was very close to our hotel), we attempted to find Schloss Nymphenburg, but after wandering around the area for maybe 45 minutes and finding nothing convincing, we gave up. We decided to walk back to the center of the city to visit some museums, but we ended up getting almost utterly lost in Munich. Of course, this afforded a view of Munich that most tourists don’t see – the industrial area, the train tracks into the city, and then finally, we ended up in the old, pretty buildings of center city. Quite a contrast. After lunch at a beer hall, we went to Residenz, the home of the Bavarian Dukes, Electors and Kings from 1508 – 1918. I don’t know much about Bavarian history, but Residenz is quite a spectacular building. Sadly, for me, we didn’t have enough time to explore all the rooms before the museum closed, but we saw most of it. Kristen and I then went to Marienplatz, where the Altes Rathaus and Neues Rathaus (old and new town halls) are located. Every day at 11 am and 5 pm, little figurines come out of the tower of the Neues Rathaus for a little show, but for some reason, they didn’t on Saturday. Bummer. As we left Marienplatz, we stopped by Frauenkirche, another main sight of Munich. After a little R&R at our hotel (as we had walked for almost the entire day, both of us were moaning the condition of our feet), we headed back to Marienplatz for a big and hearty German dinner, which filled our tummies quite contentedly (and emptied our wallets not-so-contentedly). After dinner, it was sufficiently late enough that we didn’t feel too lame going to bed.

Sunday morning, our feet still not recovered, we again had breakfast at the train station (we’re also cheap), and went to Königsplatz where some of Munich’s most famous museums are located. First was the Glyptothek, where King Ludwig I’s collection of Roman statues is located. The theme of the statues was the Trojan War, which I especially enjoyed, having taken Latin for so long in my prior life of high school. Second was Alte Pinakothek, housing King Ludwig I’s collection of Renaissance artwork. That particular museum was humongous, though, so I think his collection might have been expanded on. Another curiosity about Alte Pinakothek – as far as Kristen and I could tell, the left and right sides of the museum held the exact same paintings, in exactly the same display, just mirrored. Three languages pointed to one side and three to the other, and we were wondering if that corresponded with the audio guides you could buy, and that was the only difference. But then there’s the question, were half the paintings just copies, and half of them were real? And if so, did we see the real ones or the copies…? Progressing forward in art history, we traveled to the Neue Pinakothek, where you can find King Ludwig I’s collection of 18th – 19th century artwork. Of the art museums, I liked this one the best. We also tried the Pinakothek der Moderne, which has modern art on display, but the museum didn’t really grab us and we left pretty soon after entering. King Ludwig I of Bavaria decided to build the Alte and Neue Pinakotheks to house his art collections, but he was unfortunately no longer alive to help with the building of the modern art museum. I forget the exact dates, but I know he ruled Bavaria during the 19th century. And a perk about visiting museums on Sunday – entry is only 1 euro. We paid 4 euros to see 4 museums – yay! We found a little café for lunch, where my limited German unfortunately didn’t help much and it took over 5 minutes to figure out that Kristen wanted tap water and not bottled water. We then journeyed to the English Garden, where we were searching for the Japanese Treehouse (which I think we passed right by and just weren’t looking in the right direction.) After walking around for a little, we decided walking (at least for me) was too painful, and we might as well sit at the Starbucks at the train station and relax for a bit before our train. This was the only time I allowed my feet to rule over my willpower, and we took a taxi back to the hotel to get our bags. I had a little conversation in German with the taxi driver, but only sort of. He spoke too quickly for me to understand what he was saying, though I did understand a little about the building I had asked about. I think it was some sort of municipal building of Munich, but it was very pretty (as befits a city hundreds of years old). Having relaxed at Starbucks, we boarded our train for Strasbourg. For the most part, our train ride was no problem. There was the interesting hour or so that we didn’t have seats, as we had sat in reserved seats when we boarded the train in Munich (though all of the seats showed that they were reserved at some point in the journey), but after Stuttgart, we found seats and rode the last 2 hours of the 4-hour ride in comfort.

And now, two hours later, I’m sitting on my bed, typing up my post in a Word document, and crossing my fingers that when I wake up tomorrow, my feet will have recovered from the weekend…

However, it was a fun trip, I saw a lot of awesome things, and it was much easier to travel with just one other person than 6. So, it was all in all successful, with a couple of bumps in the road. :)

Pictures from the day trip through Alsace

Picture #1: Nighttime view from atop the Vosges
Picture #2: Barrel at the winery, with their name on it all fancy
Picture #3: My chocroutte
Picture #4: The courtyard at Musee d'Unterlinden

Day trip through Alsace

Last Sunday, Syracuse University took the students on a day trip through Alsace so we could get to know the region in which we live. It was fun, but it also reminded me how I’m not really a fan of traveling in large groups…

The day started off at Place Republique, one of the tram/bus stops in Strasbourg (conveniently pretty close to my house), where we loaded our purple butterfly bus that accompanied Syracuse all through the traveling seminar in early January. From Place Republique, we went to Colmar, a cute Alsacian town that is the birthplace of the man who built the Statue of Liberty. We went to Musée d’Unterlinden, which houses the altar pieces of Grünewald, some famous altar piece painter. They were actually pretty cool, and worthy of the 15 minutes I spent studying them and listening to the audio guide. :)

After the museum, the group went to Winstub Flory for lunch. (Winstubs, originally wine restaurants, are also typical of Alsace.) We were all served typically Alsacian dishes – I ate chocroutte, which is steamed cabbage with potatoes and various kinds of meat to go with it. A very interesting taste, to be sure. One advantage to the Syracuse sponsored trips, though – it’s a free three-course meal, with salad, entrée, and dessert. Well, relatively free, as it’s covered by the “program fee” we had to pay to Syracuse…

After my scrumptious and filling lunch, I attempted to work it off by walking around Colmar with friends, to no avail. We then loaded the bus again for a smaller Alsacian town, Eguisheim, home to the Wolfberger winery. Naturally, a tour of one of France’s wine regions is incomplete without a trip to a local winery. One of the workers took us on a tour of the winery, and she explained the details of the process and the building as she showed us all the oak barrels, packaging machines, and various other items used in their wine production. After the tour, we had the chance to try three of their wines. We sampled the Cremant d’Alsace (similar to champagne), a Riesling, and a Gewurztraminer, which was by far the sweetest and probably my favorite. However, since I don’t know what kind of wine my host family likes, I didn’t buy any. I did enjoy feeling cultured and swirling the wine, checking the look and smell, and pretending I knew what I was doing. :)

After the winery, we made a quick trip up a mountain in the Vosges mountain range to a World War II memorial. Unfortunately it was too dark to really see anything at that point. If I understood M. Marxer’s French correctly, it was a memorial to all the allies who came to help liberate France, including the Algerians, Moroccans, and other troops who are frequently forgotten. Being on top of a mountain, however, offered a very good view of the surrounding area, and I managed to get a pretty good picture. And for a little clarification, Strasbourg is in a valley between the Vosges Mountains and the Black Forest. Monsieur Marxer is the Assistant Director of the Syracuse program in Strasbourg, and he and his wife (who takes care of the financial matters of Syracuse in Strasbourg) were the two adults with us for this trip.

Other interesting things about my life in France thus far…

Little by little, I’m getting used to life in France generally moving at a slower pace than my life in the States. I will think I’m used to it, and then something else happens (for example, there’s a possibility I can play in one of the Conservatoire’s orchestras, but I won’t know for another month if there’s need for me), and then it takes me a little bit before I am able step back and remember it’s just France.

I’m still getting fed quite well, and though dinner is always something new for me, I haven’t had anything I wasn’t able to finish. Last night, we had some sort of celery and cheese tarte, which was actually quite yummy. And my family is still very nice. Anytime I try to help with anything, past cleaning up my own place at dinner, I’m told “tu es gentille!” (you’re nice!), even if it’s something as simple as chopping onions for dinner. And because I figure I live, sleep, eat, and shower here, I should help with dinner or dishes or something, I’m told “tu es gentille” fairly often. It almost makes me wonder if their other host students weren’t as keen to help out so early, or if the Olagnes are just nice people, which is quite possible.

Tuesday night, I got a little taste of the arts in Strasbourg at a modern dance performance. Usually Madame and Alix go to the dance, but as they’re still on vacation and Cecile had class until late, Lionel and I went instead. It was very interesting… A little bizarre, actually. The sort of story was the conversation between two of the dancers that opened the performance. Then somehow, it evolved into lots of really fluid movements, as the three total dancers traded off movements, or copied each other, or just moved with each other. Two of the weirdest moments in my opinion were when they were tearing off pieces of paper one after the other and eating them (though it sounded cool), and when they were all attached to each other and sort of rolling over each other, and anytime their head was free, they would “eat” one of the dancers (though the connectedness looked cool too). Lionel and I were in agreement that it maybe wasn’t our most favorite performance we ever saw.

Classes are still trucking along, and I’m still trying to find time to get down to the Conservatoire to practice and work out lesson times with my professors. I also finally got my winter snow, but it only lasted about a week. The weather in Strasbourg is a little off this winter – it’ll be cold enough to snow one day, then really warm the next day. I’m hoping for a little more snow, as I didn’t have the chance to play in it, but we’ll see.

As I have set two of my lessons in stone, I now know when I’ll be able to travel and such. Snare is every other Friday, and Timpani is every other Saturday, fortunately the same week. This means half my weekends will be stationary in Strasbourg (unless I take Sunday day trips), and I can travel the other weekends. This coming weekend is a non-lesson weekend, which means I’m skipping Strasbourg and heading for Munich. Time for me to practice my German again!