This past week was quite different from my trip to Italy back in March. It was a strange combination of being relaxed and being extremely busy, but it worked, somehow.
To begin at the beginning – a week ago Saturday, we traveled about 7 hours by train from Strasbourg to Berlin, managed to find our hostel (which was the first of the rather nice hostels we had), and went out for dinner. Unfortunately, though our Thai food was quite yummy and cheap, it took the restaurant 20 minutes to get all 8 of our dinners out, which meant we ended up being just a few minutes late to the Berlin Philharmonic. One way Germany is different from France – everything starts exactly on time. So, we watched the first half of the concert from the lobby TVs, but even through the TV, I could tell that the orchestra was pretty darn amazing. For the second half, we got the full experience of the awsomeness that is the Berlin Philharmonic. Our seats were behind the orchestra, which meant that we were looking right at Seiji Ozawa, as if we were being conducted as well. It was an unbelieveable experience – to see Seiji Ozawa at work, and have this wonderful music surrounding you (the concert hall, of course, has ridiculously amazing acoustics, possibly better than Carnegie Hall – I can’t remember three years ago very well), and it was so easy just to let yourself go and be enveloped by the music. Every single instrument was exactly in time with the others, not a single one stuck out any more than the rest – there could have been one violin, viola, cello, and bass, except that that would have been much quieter. The brass and timpani players, despite having to count for most of the piece (it was a Bruckner symphony, but I’ve forgotten the number), always came in perfectly – in time, exactly correct pitch, tone, everything. All 7 of the students were ready to marry the french horn soloist after the concert (if only because he was astoundingly good at the french horn – he didn’t have much else going for him). In short, I think that might be the best concert I’ve ever heard. I know I saw the Vienna Philharmonic 5ish years ago when my parents, Beth and I were in Vienna, but I can’t remember the concert so well now. The Berlin Philharmonic, though, took my breath away. If someone wants a little taste of heaven on earth, I would say book a trip to Berlin and get tickets for the Philharmonic. Just be sure to buy the tickets pretty well in advance, and get to concert hall early. :)
Sunday in Berlin was mostly free. After a relaxed start, Claire and I went to the Berlin Zoo, and though we spent about an hour and a half there, we didn’t see the whole zoo. It was a beautiful day, though, and the animals were certainly out and about. As neither of us had been to a zoo in a while, we both really enjoyed it. After a bratwurst of some kind on the run, we met our professor and the other students for a 3-hour walking tour of Berlin. Our tour guide, Torben, who was from New York but has lived in Berlin for six years, was an amazing guide. Even though the tour was long, it was very enjoyable, and most of what I was hoping to see in Berlin was covered by the tour. We learned a lot, which is always nice when one takes a tour. Some highlights from the tour sites: we walked through Museuminsel, where Berlin’s best museums are located, saw a lot of important churches including the Berlin cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, Hitler’s bunker (that was a little eerie, especially as now there are luxury apartments built around the area – the Germans don’t associate much importance with the bunker, as that was only one small thing in the grand scheme of WWII), the longest stretch of the Berlin wall that’s still standing, and Checkpoint Charlie. The bummer part about Checkpoint Charlie, though, is that everything is a replica – the guard house and sign saying “you are entering the American sector” are not from the days of divided Germany, but have been put there since Germany has been reunited. Torben also had a story up his sleeve for pretty much every sight we stopped at – from the man who locked his wife and son in a broom closet all day at the building where he worked, so after hours he could hook up a cable from the roof to the other side of the wall and get to West Berlin, to people who rented the lowest car they could find and zoom under the gate at Checkpoint Charlie in the middle of the night, to name two. A very interesting tour, and very fun. After the tour, Claire and I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which was cute and interesting, even if their English translations were a little funny. The things people did to escape East Germany… it was amazing. After dinner, we called it a night.
Monday was our completely free day in Berlin, and Claire and I enjoyed ourselves. We started at the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, and waited about an hour to get through security and see the view from the top. I will say, though, the view was AMAZING. You could see pretty much the entire city, and as it was yet another sunny day, it was not bad at all. After a quick lunch, we went to the Pergamon Museum, which houses Berlin’s most impressive ancient artifacts. The museum is named after the Pergamon Altar, from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon, and the altar is huge. Not only is it tall, but the whole structure is covered by wall sculptures depicting the battle between the gods and the titans. Very impressive, indeed. Another major artifact housed in the museum is the processional way of Babylon, which ends with the Gate of Ishtar. Nebuchadnezzar II (of Shadrach, Mishach, and Abendago fame) had built this walk and gate, and the tiles have either survived quite nicely or been very prettily restored (probably the latter), and the walk and gate are beautiful. And very big. I felt even shorter than normal walking through them, but I didn’t mind. The impressive architecture of ancient times tends to have that effect on me, sometimes. :) We walked around the rest of the museum a little, and then decided to swing by the Rathaus before heading back to our hotel for dinner, and to change for the opera we went to Tuesday night. The opera was really, really, really strange, though – I don’t think I liked it. It was Lady Macbeth von Mensk by Shostakovich (he only wrote two operas), and was about this woman (named Katerina) who was bored with her married life, takes a lover, her father-in-law gets jealous (because he decided to sleep with Katerina while his son was away, but discovers the lover), so Katerina kills her father-in-law, then husband comes home and gets jealous, so she and lover kill husband. That’s basically the first two acts, and they were LONG. The second two acts consist of Katerina and lover preparing to get married, but after they are arrested for the murder of husband (no one really figures out that Katerina had killed father-in-law), they’re sent to Siberia for prison, where lover falls in love with on of the other prisoners, and uses Katerina to secure the other prisoner’s love, then Katerina gets jealous, and kills the other prisoner and herself. Jolly opera, that one. And really hard to stay attached to. The orchestra was good, I think, but as the story was so bizarre, I had a hard time paying attention to the music. But, not everything is the Berlin Phil. :)
Tuesday morning, we left Berlin and headed off to Dresden. We arrived, found our second nice hostel of the trip, and went into the city to explore. After finding a map, Claire, Dr. Nick and I went to the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche, which is really, really colorful. It almost looks like a children’s play place, except that it’s a church. It was cute, though, even if the bright yellows, pinks, and blues made it feel very different from your usual church. Claire and I decided to do something a little silly and go the German Hygenic Museum after the church. Not sure if that was the best way to spend the afternoon, but it was certainly different. Sadly, it took us longer to get there than we thought, so we only had time for the special exhibition and no time to walk through the permanent exhibits. The special exhibition was interesting, though – it was about the Third Reich doctors’ experiments with eugenics (basically, their belief that the Aryan Race was superior, and the experiments they performed to drive their point home). Not the most cheerful exhibit, but it did make you think. The other interesting part is that it’s an exhibit from New York on loan to the museum in Dresden, and there was no hint of bias or views at all – just straight facts. After checking the time and realizing we had run out of it, we walked as fast as we could back towards center Dresden to meet up with the others for a walking tour of Dresden. We had another good guide, though he was not nearly as young and cute as our guide in Dresden (another point of Torben’s appeal, I suppose ;) ). Our Dresden guide showed us the main sights of Dresden, including the castle, the cathedral, Frauenkirche, and the mosaic of all the Saxon rulers by the king’s building (Dresden is the capital of the state of Saxony). After the walking tour, however, Claire and I were both feeling pretty beat, so we just went to an internet café near our hotel to get in touch with the world again, got take-out for dinner, and ate it while we watched 10 Things I Hate About You. Claire had never seen that movie – I couldn’t believe it. It’s one of the classic chick flicks, in my opinion, and by the time one is 20, I definitely think it’s a must-see movie. :)
Wednesday, we took a day trip to Leipzig. I enjoyed the day, but I’m not sure how interesting the city would be to a non-music person. We began with a short detour into Nikolaikirche, which was J. S. Bach’s secondary church in Leipzig. After that, we went to the Bach museum, which was cute and interesting. It’s not actually Bach’s house, as the complex he shared with the other professors and students of Thomasschule (where Bach taught when he wasn’t writing music) no longer exists, but the museum is approximately in the same place. Right across from the museum is Thomaskirche, where Bach worked for about 25 years. Most of his pieces were written for this church, and as he was required to have new service music every Sunday, it explains why he has so much music published. The church wasn’t terribly exciting, but just to be in the church that means so much for today’s music history, considering nearly all music written after Bach was pretty much based on his theories, was a cool experience. After Thomaskirche, we visited Mendelssohn’s house in Leipzig. Mendelssohn was very important in reviving Bach’s music in the 1800s, so it was only fitting for him to spend his last years in the city where Bach had spent so much time. We didn’t have too much time between Mendelssohn’s house and our train back to Dresden, but we had enough time for ice cream (paid for by Syracuse University – yay!), and a little wandering time before we made our way back to Dresden for another opera concert. The eight of us met Professor (Raymond) Bach in Dresden, as Dr. Nick had to return to Strasbourg on Thursday and Prof. Bach would continue with us to Prague. The opera in Dresden was very different from the one in Berlin. Though the opera (The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz) isn’t very modern, the entire set was modern. The middle of the stage was a tunnel, in which the dancers and singers would climb around, and the chorus was dressed kind of like construction workers, and came in and out on the sides of the stage, which had platforms that resembled what you would see at a construction site. The production was very colorful, with the back of the tunnel opening to reveal a TV screen of sorts that they would show different “shows” on – one resembled a racing video game, at one point there was footage from the world wars, another time we saw JFK. I also think, though I had a lot of trouble understanding the French and the German subtitles didn’t help me much, that the opera was supposed to be set in a military hospital in the States. Various US icons made appearances – there was one point that the dancers were all wearing stars-and-stripes costumes, and they had big masks on of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, a cowboy, a Native American, etc., and another point, the girls were all dressed up as cheerleaders and the boys were dressed as football players. That was definitely an experience – seeing a French opera performed in Germany with the US’s stereotypes frolicking on the stage. And though I couldn’t understand the plot at all (something about Faust falling in love with this girl, and Mephistopheles wants to bring the two together so he can tear them apart and get Faust to sign to be on his side – Mephistopheles is devil-esque, but not actually the devil), the production was phenomenal. There was so much action, so much emotion… it was a little crazy, but it was good. Also the music was much easier to follow and had more emotion than Lady Macbeth von Mensk, so I enjoyed listening to the orchestra much more, and actually remembered the music this time. :) After the opera, since it was Dr. Nick’s last night on the trip and Alyssa (one of the other music students) was leaving from Prague for the States (and therefore it would be the last time the whole group of music people would be together), the seven of us took Dr. Nick and Prof. Bach out for drinks. Kind of silly, but it was fun, and I think Dr. Nick appreciated it.
Thursday, we left Dresden to go to Prague, and said farewell to Dr. Nick. After getting to Prague (and finding our hostel), we discovered that our hostel had overbooked, and we were transferred to their 3-star partner hotel. Not so bad, except the fact that it was a little frustrating and were worried about running out of time before we could get lunch and get into the city for our third walking tour of the week. We did have time, fortunately, and we had another good guide for Prague. This tour also lasted about 3 hours, but was a little more relaxed than Berlin. We didn’t have quite as many sites to see, but we still got a fair amount of the city – Old Town Square, the Jewish Quarter, various churches and synagogues, the palace where the Czech government works today, the cathedral (which is enclosed by the castle), and the Charles Bridge, for the highlights. After scarfing down our dinner after the tour, we made our way to the State Opera Theatre for Verdi’s La Traviatta. Out of all the operas I saw this past week, this one was by far the most normal. It’s your traditional opera story – boy meets girl, they fall in love, misunderstanding occurs, girl leaves though she doesn’t want to, boy gets mad, girl starts getting really sick (from consumption, of course), boy realizes his mistake and tries to make up for it, but girl dies before they can get married. And though this story was much easier to understand (despite the opera being in Italian and the subtitles in Czech), by the end of the opera, I was far less moved than I was by The Damnation of Faust. It might have been the set – it was very simple, and not very engaging. It also might have been that the singers were more singers than actors, and so they didn’t capture me as much as the singers in Dresden. But, it was still refreshing to have something easy to follow after two very confusing operas. After the opera, we went out for dessert, as we didn’t have a chance to eat dessert before the opera, and Thursday was Theresa’s birthday. When we got back to the hotel, the real celebrations started, and at one point, the lady sleeping in the room next to us had to come tell us to be quieter… oops. But, as I remained sober for the night, I could help keep the noise level down. :) At 2 in the morning, I decided I could go to bed even if the others kept celebrating, but they ended up just watching Grey’s Anatomy, and collapsing on the bed. I woke up at one point, and saw Elizabeth, Theresa, Alyssa, and Kristen all completely passed out on the double bed – it was really cute, but I was too tired to think about taking a picture. At 4:15 am, Alyssa left for her plane back to the States, and after that, I could just sleep.
Friday was a little weird. First, I woke up sick, and didn’t have the energy to leave the hotel, though I really didn’t want to pass up a free day in Prague. Around lunchtime, I finally decided I wanted to leave, and as I felt slightly better, Claire and I went to visit a couple sites. We saw the church she had sung in two years earlier with her college choir, and then went to the National Marionette Theatre to pick up our tickets for the show Friday night. Unfortunately, they cancelled the show at the last minute to put on a children’s show, so we couldn’t see Don Giovanni as performed by marionettes. :( However, the guy we talked to at the theatre was incredibly nice, and let us in to see the stage, and gave us a whole history about the theatre and the marionette company, all in pretty good English. It was very nice of him, and he definitely didn’t have to do that. So though we couldn’t see the performance, it was still a nice trip to the marionette theatre. We stopped at a café close to the theatre, in hopes that eating something might give me some strength, and over the rest of the afternoon, I did begin to feel slightly better. We then wandered around the Charles Bridge area, looking at souvenirs (I didn’t end up buying anything), and after a very overpriced dinner (we ate at an Italian pizzeria that was playing American oldies – in the Czech Republic – interesting combination), albeit with a nice waiter, we went to the park on the hill next to the castle to watch the city lights come on. The hill is far above the city and offers an excellent view, and is one of the most peaceful places I’ve been to in a very long time. Very few people came up as far as we went, and we were surrounded by birds singing, with a monastery at our back. After a fairly busy week, it was very relaxing just to sit there and be still for a little while. After that, we went back to the hotel and crashed.
Yesterday, Saturday, was entirely uninteresting. It took about 11 hours, including layovers, to train it from Prague back to Strasbourg, and then I was too tired to do much of anything once I got back to my house. It was very nice, though, to come “home” again, be in my own bed, and especially in my own room again. Sharing a room with 2-4 other people for a week straight can get interesting…
And just to let you know, as I took 400 pictures this last week, it'll be some time before I post my pictures from this vacation... sorry. :)
My break isn’t entirely over yet – the Conservatoire, which is my only work left now that I’m done with classes, is closed Monday and Tuesday, which means it will be a little hard for me to practice. I’ve decided, as a little extension to my birthday celebrations, I’m going to visit Nancy (the city) tomorrow, and then I can cross Nancy off my list of places to see before I leave France. It’s only an hour by train from Strasbourg, and hoping there are still tickets left (I only decided this last night), am planning on having a nice day in the city with which I share a name.
Speaking of my birthday… Other than visiting Nancy, my birthday plans will be eating dinner on the river in Strasbourg, and then going to Haagen Daaz for a scrumptious, if rather expenisive, sundae for dessert. So, I’m 20 today. I can no longer claim teenagerhood – guess I better start acting like an adult now. :)
And as a little side note, thank you to all for the cards, both snail mail and e-mail, Facebook posts, and e-mails I’ve gotten today. They have certainly made me smile. :)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
J'ai fini!!!
I am now officially finished with all class-related things until September. All finals completed, all presentations presented, all papers turned in. It’s quite a nice feeling, actually, though I don’t want to rub it in too much, as I’m pretty certain I’m the first of my fellow student friends to finish classes this semester…
This week, needless to say, was a rather stressful one. Can’t say I did many fun things this week, as finals pretty much took all of my energy. However, I did have a little fun today. First, there’s a chance that I – or, rather, my feet – will be on CNN in Europe. My communications professor works at the Council of Europe (which is NOT the same as the European Union – they’re two completely different organizations, just for your information), and had asked Sarah, another student in my class, to film a TV spot for one of the campaigns she (my professor) is working on. The campaign is directed at all European citizens, as an attempt to break down any and all sorts of discrimination. Really broad, I know… The slogan is “all different, all equal,” which fortunately translates easily into all the many languages of Europe. Anyways, this TV spot will be a 30-second shot of all different kinds of shoes (all different, all equal shoes, of course), and all kinds of different people wearing said shoes. Still shots, dancing shots, one pair of shoes, multiple pairs of shoes – quite a variety. And, as a member of the class and had helped brainstorm the idea for the spot, we were invited to the Council to help with the shooting. I got to wear some really great pairs of shoes, as I was the only one with feet small enough to fit in them. :) Let’s see… 2/3-inch red platforms, this crazy pair of aqua heels with a red and white flower print, flip-flops with giant pink flowers, and my teal crocs (yes, Corby, your Christmas present might be on international television!) with purple plaid PJ pants (talk about alliteration... and that’s another Christmas present that could be on TV :) ) – I think that was all I tried on today. It was a pretty silly afternoon, but also quite fun. I think I’ll get a copy of the final edited version, and it’ll be nice to see it.
The final fun part about today was the Farewell Dinner with Syracuse. Every semester, towards the end, Syracuse University takes all the students out to a nice dinner to say goodbye. Though I’m not actually leaving Strasbourg, most of the students will leave next week while I’m traveling with the music trip, so it was still a farewell. Not only was the dinner amazing (I had heard that the food was just OK, but my duck was quite delicious), but it was just a nice dinner. I took the pictures I wanted to be sure to have, and felt that it was a good way to finish this semester (course wise, anyways, for me). One of the other music students is leaving for the States straight from Prague, which means that tonight is her last night in Strasbourg. She was getting pretty teary – I’m not sure if it was just from lack of sleep from finals, or that she was really sad to leave Strasbourg. I’m still a little afraid that will be me come the end of May… At least, though, I’ll have the trip with my parents to look forward to, and hopefully that will lessen the pain of parting from this city that truly has been my home for these last four months.
Despite the fact that I’m loving it, as I’ve said many times before, in Strasbourg, there will always be things I will miss back in the United States. This news might come as a surprise to many of my readers, but for me and my family, we have been waiting for this for a few years now. Namely, my paternal grandmother passed away last night, six days before her 89th birthday. Her dementia had been progressing steadily for a long time, and her strokes had left her severely debilitated. For the past year or two, she had slept almost 24/7. So now, she is in a much better place, much more content, and is finally with my grandfather, to whom she said “I’ll be with you soon, Jim,” five-and-a-half years ago, when my grandfather passed away. It’s simply unfortunate, and though I wish I could be with my family back in the States, it just isn’t feasible. Especially as I will be on the train from Prague to Strasbourg while the funeral is happening…
Tomorrow begins my first trip in a month. We will travel to Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Prague, all cities important to the world of music. Tomorrow night, actually, we have tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the best orchestras in the world, directed by Seiji Ozawa, who I have always thought of as one of the greats of the conducting world. I’m ridiculously excited – it’s not every day one gets to see the Berlin Philharmonic. I know this trip will be amazingly fun, and I am planning on enjoying it. Then, I will return rejuvenated and ready to spend the month of May practicing and traveling around France. :)
This week, needless to say, was a rather stressful one. Can’t say I did many fun things this week, as finals pretty much took all of my energy. However, I did have a little fun today. First, there’s a chance that I – or, rather, my feet – will be on CNN in Europe. My communications professor works at the Council of Europe (which is NOT the same as the European Union – they’re two completely different organizations, just for your information), and had asked Sarah, another student in my class, to film a TV spot for one of the campaigns she (my professor) is working on. The campaign is directed at all European citizens, as an attempt to break down any and all sorts of discrimination. Really broad, I know… The slogan is “all different, all equal,” which fortunately translates easily into all the many languages of Europe. Anyways, this TV spot will be a 30-second shot of all different kinds of shoes (all different, all equal shoes, of course), and all kinds of different people wearing said shoes. Still shots, dancing shots, one pair of shoes, multiple pairs of shoes – quite a variety. And, as a member of the class and had helped brainstorm the idea for the spot, we were invited to the Council to help with the shooting. I got to wear some really great pairs of shoes, as I was the only one with feet small enough to fit in them. :) Let’s see… 2/3-inch red platforms, this crazy pair of aqua heels with a red and white flower print, flip-flops with giant pink flowers, and my teal crocs (yes, Corby, your Christmas present might be on international television!) with purple plaid PJ pants (talk about alliteration... and that’s another Christmas present that could be on TV :) ) – I think that was all I tried on today. It was a pretty silly afternoon, but also quite fun. I think I’ll get a copy of the final edited version, and it’ll be nice to see it.
The final fun part about today was the Farewell Dinner with Syracuse. Every semester, towards the end, Syracuse University takes all the students out to a nice dinner to say goodbye. Though I’m not actually leaving Strasbourg, most of the students will leave next week while I’m traveling with the music trip, so it was still a farewell. Not only was the dinner amazing (I had heard that the food was just OK, but my duck was quite delicious), but it was just a nice dinner. I took the pictures I wanted to be sure to have, and felt that it was a good way to finish this semester (course wise, anyways, for me). One of the other music students is leaving for the States straight from Prague, which means that tonight is her last night in Strasbourg. She was getting pretty teary – I’m not sure if it was just from lack of sleep from finals, or that she was really sad to leave Strasbourg. I’m still a little afraid that will be me come the end of May… At least, though, I’ll have the trip with my parents to look forward to, and hopefully that will lessen the pain of parting from this city that truly has been my home for these last four months.
Despite the fact that I’m loving it, as I’ve said many times before, in Strasbourg, there will always be things I will miss back in the United States. This news might come as a surprise to many of my readers, but for me and my family, we have been waiting for this for a few years now. Namely, my paternal grandmother passed away last night, six days before her 89th birthday. Her dementia had been progressing steadily for a long time, and her strokes had left her severely debilitated. For the past year or two, she had slept almost 24/7. So now, she is in a much better place, much more content, and is finally with my grandfather, to whom she said “I’ll be with you soon, Jim,” five-and-a-half years ago, when my grandfather passed away. It’s simply unfortunate, and though I wish I could be with my family back in the States, it just isn’t feasible. Especially as I will be on the train from Prague to Strasbourg while the funeral is happening…
Tomorrow begins my first trip in a month. We will travel to Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Prague, all cities important to the world of music. Tomorrow night, actually, we have tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the best orchestras in the world, directed by Seiji Ozawa, who I have always thought of as one of the greats of the conducting world. I’m ridiculously excited – it’s not every day one gets to see the Berlin Philharmonic. I know this trip will be amazingly fun, and I am planning on enjoying it. Then, I will return rejuvenated and ready to spend the month of May practicing and traveling around France. :)
Pictures from the Farewell Dinner
The eight music students (including the one who isn't actually studying at the Conservatoire, but we still consider her a music student), and the people that I have spent the vast majority of my time with these past four months
The back row, L to R: Dr. Nick, our music professor (go over to behind me) Elizabeth, Alyssa (just her head), Kristen
The middle row: Katie, Adrienne (Dr. Nick's wife), Kate, me, Theresa
The front row: Claire
Me and Cathie (Burton), my Communications professor
Mme. Paladino, my French professor, and me
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
My Holy Week (which wasn't only filled with holy things)
Well, my week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday was definitely an interesting one. To begin, I only ate dinner at the same time as my host family twice the whole week.
To elaborate. The weekend of March 31st/April 1st was the all-program Germany trip, but I elected not to go. As I had more desire to go to Rome than Stuttgart and Tubingen, I switched my lessons at the Conservatoire around so I had my lessons that weekend, and then couldn’t go to Germany. So, it was a bit of a lonely weekend with all the Syracuse folks out of town, but I treated myself to nice dinners and desserts, so it wasn’t all bad. Palm Sunday, I went to the service at my church here, and we had palms and started the service outside, just like I’m used to. I’ve found it very interesting how close the Anglican service is to the Episcopal service, which makes sense as Episcopalianism is simply the American version of Anglicanism, but at the same time, it’s interesting and comforting.
Monday night, I again got a “free” ticket to the opera with the opera class at Syracuse. “Free” because I didn’t have to work for it (and I’m not in the class), but I do have to pay for my ticket still. It was two operas, both by Stravinsky – The Nightingale, and Oedipus Rex. They were both very interesting, and very enjoyable. Both had a strong dance presence, which is uncommon for operas. Just as there is generally a chorus, a group of singers who basically narrate the plot, there was the chorus equivalent of a group of dancers. The Nightingale had a story and lots of virtuosic singing, as is common for opera, but Oedipus Rex was more of an oratorio – less staging, no scene changes. The chorus for Oedipus Rex was all male, which was extremely powerful, especially as most of the time the citizens of Thebes were pretty angry and the low voices really drove that angriness home. The main characters of the plot – Oedipus, Jocasta (who was the only female voice in the whole opera), Creon (Jocasta’s brother, if I remember correctly), and a few others, were raised out of pillars when it was their time to sing, and were dressed and make-uped all in white, as if they were Ancient Greek statues. It was really quite amazing. Oh, and the other awesomely interesting part of Oedipus Rex is that the entire opera is written in Latin!!!! So, though my oral Latin is failing a little after my year of German and year of French, I was able to get almost everything between the spoken Latin and the French subtitles. And, this is a further proof that yes, the Latin language is still alive!! Even 20th-century composer Igor Stravinsky wrote in Latin!! (Yes, Erika, you can make fun of me now :) )
Tuesday and Wednesday were normal days, with two little exceptions. Tuesday was my third not-so-fabulous mallet lesson of the semester, and got another lecture from my professor, culminating in him not telling me to act like an ostrich and hide, but basically to get my bum in gear and practice. And last Wednesday, it finally hit me that finals are quickly approaching, and I have a lot to do before April 20th. So, instead of taking an easy day, I worked all day long on my finals-type projects, and within this past week, have accomplished a fair amount. So, yes, I may have procrastinated some, as I’m pretty good at, but I should be finished with papers and things of that sort by the end of the weekend, and then it’s only studying.
Thursday night was my second rehearsal with the brass ensemble, but I didn’t get home until after 21:00. The other interesting part about Thursday was the exams I heard at the Conservatoire. This week and last week, the students at the Conservatoire who are hoping to pass their 4th or 5th cycle (the 4th and 5th levels of instruction at the Conservatoire, with 5th as the highest, where you’re either on the pre-professional track or the perfection track) are having their exams. These exams are open to the public, and are an awesome free entertainment. Tuesday, actually, I had heard two percussion ensembles perform their exams, and Thursday I heard two of the other percussionists’ 4th cycle solo exams. I’m afraid I can’t remember too many specifics, just that I was floored by how good they were, and the realization that, if I wanted to (and had the time to practice 7 or 8 hours a day), I really think I could play those pieces as well. Hmph. Tomorrow, the 12th, and Friday, the 13th, I’m hoping to hear the final percussion exams, and then they will all be done. I’m also looking forward to the exams being finished, as the Conservatoire has had a semi-stressful environment this past month or so as people were preparing for their exams…
Friday, after sleeping in and doing some work, I went to a picnic lunch with some friends in Orangerie, the biggest park in Strasbourg, as Friday (and most of the days lately) was absolutely gorgeous. I meant to go to the Good Friday service at my church, but simply couldn’t turn down the invitation to have lunch in the beautiful sun. After our picnic, my friends continued on a little tour of Strasbourg (one of them had a friend visiting), and I went to hear St. Matthew’s Passion by J. S. Bach. A lot of my friends were in the choir that performed the passion, and as Bach isn’t such a bad composer, I thought I’d go to the concert. The performance was amazing, though really long – it lasted nearly 3 hours, with only a short break between the two parts. Everything was together, though – the orchestra played extremely well, the tenor who sang the part of the Evangelist (the narrator, I think – it was in German and I didn’t have a translation, English or French) was a fabulous singer, and the other soloists were also very, very good. It was a little hard to sit there for three hours, though, especially without a way of following what the choir was singing. I still enjoyed it, though, and met up with my friends for a little time afterwards and could tell them how wonderfully they had sung. After St. Matthew’s Passion, I went straight to the apartment of the man who organizes the music at my church to rehearse for Easter Sunday. Fortunately, he had a few percussion instruments, so I was able to drum and tambourine along to the songs. But, again, this meant I ate late on Friday. Friday night, my friend Claire and I went out salsa dancing, which was quite fun. We weren’t asked to dance much, sadly, but it was fun just to people watch, especially as I’m not the world’s best salsa-er. (I haven’t seen anything about swing dancing in Strasbourg, unfortunately.) And, we both realized that we were completely clueless as to what the social dancing custom was in France – is it OK if a girl asks a guy to dance? Is the girl just supposed to stand there and wait for someone to ask her? We decided on the latter, and as neither of us are especially good at leading salsa, we were stuck until someone decided to ask us to dance. But, again, we still had fun, and it was a night out, which I don’t do very often. :)
Saturday was a pretty down day. I ran a few errands, and then when I came home, my host-mother invited me to lunch on Saturday. What I expected just to be a normal lunch turned out to be the whole shebang – my host-family ate their Easter meal Saturday lunch time, as Timothé, the second oldest son, was leaving to return to India (he lives in Bombay) on Sunday. The meal was magnificent – an elegant salad of white asparaghus, mushrooms, and some other veggies, followed by duck cooked with orange, and a homemade chocolate cake served with strawberries for dessert. This wasn’t any chocolate cake, though. It’s what’s called a souffle cake, and if you know what molten chocolate cake is, think of the warm, gooey middle of a molten chocolate cake, only a teensy bit more cakelike. It was amazing, and it was Alix’s first time to make this cake. Yummmm…… Later on in the evening, Claire and I met for a movie and dinner (in that order). We saw Cinderella and the Not-So-Charming Prince, and though I think my French was still suffering from a food coma after my amazing lunch, I was able to understand most of the movie (which was, of course, dubbed in French). For dinner, we went to a tartine restaurant, which has a specific name in French that I’ve currently forgotten. A tartine is literally a slice of bread, but when served, has things with it – for example, my dinner was a tartine of goat cheese and thyme (quite scrumptious), and Claire had a tartine with turkey salad. Though I already knew what a tartine was, this was my first trip to a tartine restaurant, and it was quite satisfying and not very expensive – definite plus.
Easter Sunday, I got up at 7 when my alarm went off, put chocolate out for each member of my host family, and went back to bed. My surprise worked, and when I really woke up, they were excited to have their little surprises, and I was happy I could surprise them. Timothé left for India just as I was waking up, and so was able to thank him for the Indian scarf he had given me as a present. Then, it was off to church for Easter Sunday, and the Dominicans (whose church we, the Anglican Communion of Strasbourg, use) had put lots and lots of beautiful flowers all over the church for the occasion. The Easter music went pretty well (no major disasters, anyways), and we received many complements afterwards from members of the congregation, which always makes one feel better. Evidently, the last time a percussionist had performed for this church, he didn’t impress them much, but I think I successfully convinced the congregation that there is such a thing as a good percussionist. After church, I traveled out to Keinheim (a small Alsacien village outside Strasbourg) for the church lunch, which was also enjoyable. Again, I’m the only American in this congregation, but I spoke with many an Englishman (or woman), Nigerian, and a few French. I also discovered that one of the mothers in the congregation might want me to befriend (hook up with?) her son, especially after she told me that I’m “a very successful young woman,” and insisted on having my address so we could meet up in the future. When I tried talking to her son, though, he was kind of shy, which made it difficult. Interesting. Can’t say I expected that. I ate Easter dinner out, with my friend Jessa, and we went to a very scrumptious Italian restaurant and ate pasta. Maybe not your traditional Easter dinner, but at least it was yummy. After dinner, we went out to a bar (also unlike my usual weekend), and at the end of the night when we left, the waiter forgot to charge me for my kir. Bummer – a free drink. :) (And, for a side note, if and when you come to France or anywhere else that sells a kir, I recommend trying it. It tasted quite nice, and is one of the few alcoholic drinks I like. But don’t worry, Mo and Da, kir-drinking will not become any sort of habit for me. :) )
This past Monday was supposed to be my work day, and I would make flying progress with my projects, but sadly I woke up sick. It got worse as the day went on, and ended up spending the afternoon in bed, eating soup for dinner, and then sleeping for almost 11 hours Monday night. The upside of that, however, was that I was completely better yesterday, and am now ready to conquer the end of the semester (class-wise).
I’ve received a few confused comments from family and friends as to what the next six weeks or so hold, so I thought I’d clarify. Next week, the 16th – 20th, are my final exams. Come Friday afternoon, I will be done with my Syracuse classes. Friday night is the farewell dinner with the Syracuse program, and then Saturday morning the 21st, we seven music students will take off on our music traveling seminar. As we missed the traveling seminar way back in January, this is the program making it up to us. We will return to Strasbourg on the 28th, I’ll celebrate my birthday with those that are still here on the 29th, and then there’s only the month of May. During said month, all I will have to do is practice at the Conservatoire, go to my lessons, perform with the brass ensemble (the 6th, again), and travel as much as I feel like (balancing with practicing). On the 26th, after Pam has graduated from Johns Hopkins SAIS and Beth has graduated from Baylor Medical School, my parents will fly to Strasbourg, where we’ll spend a few days or so. Then, I will move out of my host-family’s house, and travel with my parents for a little. First, we’ll spend about four days in Paris and vicinity, and then my dad and I will travel in the Belgium/Netherlands area for another week, returning to the States on June 9th. So, that’s my plan for the full end of my semester. It’s really hard to believe that I’m already talking about the end of my semester – I’m still not ready to leave France, and still don’t really want to think about leaving. Fortunately, I still have about eight weeks until I’m back in the States, so I don’t have to come to terms with it quite yet.
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter vacation, and for those in Boston, cheer on those marathon runners for me! Maybe you’ll even get a nice, sweaty, sloppy marathon-runner kiss. :)
To elaborate. The weekend of March 31st/April 1st was the all-program Germany trip, but I elected not to go. As I had more desire to go to Rome than Stuttgart and Tubingen, I switched my lessons at the Conservatoire around so I had my lessons that weekend, and then couldn’t go to Germany. So, it was a bit of a lonely weekend with all the Syracuse folks out of town, but I treated myself to nice dinners and desserts, so it wasn’t all bad. Palm Sunday, I went to the service at my church here, and we had palms and started the service outside, just like I’m used to. I’ve found it very interesting how close the Anglican service is to the Episcopal service, which makes sense as Episcopalianism is simply the American version of Anglicanism, but at the same time, it’s interesting and comforting.
Monday night, I again got a “free” ticket to the opera with the opera class at Syracuse. “Free” because I didn’t have to work for it (and I’m not in the class), but I do have to pay for my ticket still. It was two operas, both by Stravinsky – The Nightingale, and Oedipus Rex. They were both very interesting, and very enjoyable. Both had a strong dance presence, which is uncommon for operas. Just as there is generally a chorus, a group of singers who basically narrate the plot, there was the chorus equivalent of a group of dancers. The Nightingale had a story and lots of virtuosic singing, as is common for opera, but Oedipus Rex was more of an oratorio – less staging, no scene changes. The chorus for Oedipus Rex was all male, which was extremely powerful, especially as most of the time the citizens of Thebes were pretty angry and the low voices really drove that angriness home. The main characters of the plot – Oedipus, Jocasta (who was the only female voice in the whole opera), Creon (Jocasta’s brother, if I remember correctly), and a few others, were raised out of pillars when it was their time to sing, and were dressed and make-uped all in white, as if they were Ancient Greek statues. It was really quite amazing. Oh, and the other awesomely interesting part of Oedipus Rex is that the entire opera is written in Latin!!!! So, though my oral Latin is failing a little after my year of German and year of French, I was able to get almost everything between the spoken Latin and the French subtitles. And, this is a further proof that yes, the Latin language is still alive!! Even 20th-century composer Igor Stravinsky wrote in Latin!! (Yes, Erika, you can make fun of me now :) )
Tuesday and Wednesday were normal days, with two little exceptions. Tuesday was my third not-so-fabulous mallet lesson of the semester, and got another lecture from my professor, culminating in him not telling me to act like an ostrich and hide, but basically to get my bum in gear and practice. And last Wednesday, it finally hit me that finals are quickly approaching, and I have a lot to do before April 20th. So, instead of taking an easy day, I worked all day long on my finals-type projects, and within this past week, have accomplished a fair amount. So, yes, I may have procrastinated some, as I’m pretty good at, but I should be finished with papers and things of that sort by the end of the weekend, and then it’s only studying.
Thursday night was my second rehearsal with the brass ensemble, but I didn’t get home until after 21:00. The other interesting part about Thursday was the exams I heard at the Conservatoire. This week and last week, the students at the Conservatoire who are hoping to pass their 4th or 5th cycle (the 4th and 5th levels of instruction at the Conservatoire, with 5th as the highest, where you’re either on the pre-professional track or the perfection track) are having their exams. These exams are open to the public, and are an awesome free entertainment. Tuesday, actually, I had heard two percussion ensembles perform their exams, and Thursday I heard two of the other percussionists’ 4th cycle solo exams. I’m afraid I can’t remember too many specifics, just that I was floored by how good they were, and the realization that, if I wanted to (and had the time to practice 7 or 8 hours a day), I really think I could play those pieces as well. Hmph. Tomorrow, the 12th, and Friday, the 13th, I’m hoping to hear the final percussion exams, and then they will all be done. I’m also looking forward to the exams being finished, as the Conservatoire has had a semi-stressful environment this past month or so as people were preparing for their exams…
Friday, after sleeping in and doing some work, I went to a picnic lunch with some friends in Orangerie, the biggest park in Strasbourg, as Friday (and most of the days lately) was absolutely gorgeous. I meant to go to the Good Friday service at my church, but simply couldn’t turn down the invitation to have lunch in the beautiful sun. After our picnic, my friends continued on a little tour of Strasbourg (one of them had a friend visiting), and I went to hear St. Matthew’s Passion by J. S. Bach. A lot of my friends were in the choir that performed the passion, and as Bach isn’t such a bad composer, I thought I’d go to the concert. The performance was amazing, though really long – it lasted nearly 3 hours, with only a short break between the two parts. Everything was together, though – the orchestra played extremely well, the tenor who sang the part of the Evangelist (the narrator, I think – it was in German and I didn’t have a translation, English or French) was a fabulous singer, and the other soloists were also very, very good. It was a little hard to sit there for three hours, though, especially without a way of following what the choir was singing. I still enjoyed it, though, and met up with my friends for a little time afterwards and could tell them how wonderfully they had sung. After St. Matthew’s Passion, I went straight to the apartment of the man who organizes the music at my church to rehearse for Easter Sunday. Fortunately, he had a few percussion instruments, so I was able to drum and tambourine along to the songs. But, again, this meant I ate late on Friday. Friday night, my friend Claire and I went out salsa dancing, which was quite fun. We weren’t asked to dance much, sadly, but it was fun just to people watch, especially as I’m not the world’s best salsa-er. (I haven’t seen anything about swing dancing in Strasbourg, unfortunately.) And, we both realized that we were completely clueless as to what the social dancing custom was in France – is it OK if a girl asks a guy to dance? Is the girl just supposed to stand there and wait for someone to ask her? We decided on the latter, and as neither of us are especially good at leading salsa, we were stuck until someone decided to ask us to dance. But, again, we still had fun, and it was a night out, which I don’t do very often. :)
Saturday was a pretty down day. I ran a few errands, and then when I came home, my host-mother invited me to lunch on Saturday. What I expected just to be a normal lunch turned out to be the whole shebang – my host-family ate their Easter meal Saturday lunch time, as Timothé, the second oldest son, was leaving to return to India (he lives in Bombay) on Sunday. The meal was magnificent – an elegant salad of white asparaghus, mushrooms, and some other veggies, followed by duck cooked with orange, and a homemade chocolate cake served with strawberries for dessert. This wasn’t any chocolate cake, though. It’s what’s called a souffle cake, and if you know what molten chocolate cake is, think of the warm, gooey middle of a molten chocolate cake, only a teensy bit more cakelike. It was amazing, and it was Alix’s first time to make this cake. Yummmm…… Later on in the evening, Claire and I met for a movie and dinner (in that order). We saw Cinderella and the Not-So-Charming Prince, and though I think my French was still suffering from a food coma after my amazing lunch, I was able to understand most of the movie (which was, of course, dubbed in French). For dinner, we went to a tartine restaurant, which has a specific name in French that I’ve currently forgotten. A tartine is literally a slice of bread, but when served, has things with it – for example, my dinner was a tartine of goat cheese and thyme (quite scrumptious), and Claire had a tartine with turkey salad. Though I already knew what a tartine was, this was my first trip to a tartine restaurant, and it was quite satisfying and not very expensive – definite plus.
Easter Sunday, I got up at 7 when my alarm went off, put chocolate out for each member of my host family, and went back to bed. My surprise worked, and when I really woke up, they were excited to have their little surprises, and I was happy I could surprise them. Timothé left for India just as I was waking up, and so was able to thank him for the Indian scarf he had given me as a present. Then, it was off to church for Easter Sunday, and the Dominicans (whose church we, the Anglican Communion of Strasbourg, use) had put lots and lots of beautiful flowers all over the church for the occasion. The Easter music went pretty well (no major disasters, anyways), and we received many complements afterwards from members of the congregation, which always makes one feel better. Evidently, the last time a percussionist had performed for this church, he didn’t impress them much, but I think I successfully convinced the congregation that there is such a thing as a good percussionist. After church, I traveled out to Keinheim (a small Alsacien village outside Strasbourg) for the church lunch, which was also enjoyable. Again, I’m the only American in this congregation, but I spoke with many an Englishman (or woman), Nigerian, and a few French. I also discovered that one of the mothers in the congregation might want me to befriend (hook up with?) her son, especially after she told me that I’m “a very successful young woman,” and insisted on having my address so we could meet up in the future. When I tried talking to her son, though, he was kind of shy, which made it difficult. Interesting. Can’t say I expected that. I ate Easter dinner out, with my friend Jessa, and we went to a very scrumptious Italian restaurant and ate pasta. Maybe not your traditional Easter dinner, but at least it was yummy. After dinner, we went out to a bar (also unlike my usual weekend), and at the end of the night when we left, the waiter forgot to charge me for my kir. Bummer – a free drink. :) (And, for a side note, if and when you come to France or anywhere else that sells a kir, I recommend trying it. It tasted quite nice, and is one of the few alcoholic drinks I like. But don’t worry, Mo and Da, kir-drinking will not become any sort of habit for me. :) )
This past Monday was supposed to be my work day, and I would make flying progress with my projects, but sadly I woke up sick. It got worse as the day went on, and ended up spending the afternoon in bed, eating soup for dinner, and then sleeping for almost 11 hours Monday night. The upside of that, however, was that I was completely better yesterday, and am now ready to conquer the end of the semester (class-wise).
I’ve received a few confused comments from family and friends as to what the next six weeks or so hold, so I thought I’d clarify. Next week, the 16th – 20th, are my final exams. Come Friday afternoon, I will be done with my Syracuse classes. Friday night is the farewell dinner with the Syracuse program, and then Saturday morning the 21st, we seven music students will take off on our music traveling seminar. As we missed the traveling seminar way back in January, this is the program making it up to us. We will return to Strasbourg on the 28th, I’ll celebrate my birthday with those that are still here on the 29th, and then there’s only the month of May. During said month, all I will have to do is practice at the Conservatoire, go to my lessons, perform with the brass ensemble (the 6th, again), and travel as much as I feel like (balancing with practicing). On the 26th, after Pam has graduated from Johns Hopkins SAIS and Beth has graduated from Baylor Medical School, my parents will fly to Strasbourg, where we’ll spend a few days or so. Then, I will move out of my host-family’s house, and travel with my parents for a little. First, we’ll spend about four days in Paris and vicinity, and then my dad and I will travel in the Belgium/Netherlands area for another week, returning to the States on June 9th. So, that’s my plan for the full end of my semester. It’s really hard to believe that I’m already talking about the end of my semester – I’m still not ready to leave France, and still don’t really want to think about leaving. Fortunately, I still have about eight weeks until I’m back in the States, so I don’t have to come to terms with it quite yet.
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter vacation, and for those in Boston, cheer on those marathon runners for me! Maybe you’ll even get a nice, sweaty, sloppy marathon-runner kiss. :)
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