Here I am in Germany! My blogger is in German, so it makes it sort of hard to do stuff, but I am going to start posting some of my journal entries I've written for the past week. More interesting stuff later, but my computer's battery is about to die so here's what I've got so far! It is very long, just a warning. :) Miss y'all!
May 15
Today I departed for my summer trip to Europe! Andi took me to the airport in the morning for my 12:20pm flight. I flew from Phoenix to Cincinnatti, and I got to ride first class so it was awesome! I had a Reuben sandwich for lunch on the plane. It was a good flight, and when I got to Cincinnatti, I hung out in the Delta Crown Club lounge for a little bit and then headed over to my next flight- Cincinnatti to London-Gatwick. I also got to ride Business Class in this one, which was awesome because it was an overnighter. We got almost full-sized down pillows and comforters, and our seats went back to about 160 degrees! The flight attendant was passing out mimosas as we were boarding, and she accidentally dropped a whole tray of them on the woman next to me and me! We didn’t get very wet, but the floor in front of us and our pillows and blankets did, so she got us new ones. We had red wine and filet mignon for dinner, and then an ice cream sundae. I watched the movie Milk with dinner. I then went to bed and the flight attendant woke us up for breakfast.
May 16
This was an overnight flight, so new day! I had horse-food cereal and fruit for breakfast, which was pretty good. We landed and I had to go through customs, and the man had a full conversation with me hammering out details of why I was here, for how long, etc., and I really thought he wasn’t going to let me enter!!!! Luckily he did, and I picked up my bags and then waited for about 25 minutes for my driver to come pick me up. Matt and I were supposed to meet up at our hotel- the Holiday Inn Heathrow- so that’s where my driver took me, and I checked in. Unfortunately, there was no reservation for Matt at all…. And as it turns out, there are THREE Holiday Inn-Heathrows, and Matt and I had booked ourselves into different ones!! So I checked into mine and took a nap. I then talked to Mom and Dad and told them what had happened (I called them when I landed at 4am their time also), and they let me go to the hotel Matt was at and just pay for both rooms so that we could be together. So I moved over there, met up with him, and we went out on the town in London!! We went to a delicious steak house for dinner and then hit up about 3 bars before going to the famous G-A-Y bar. We got wristbands there to be able to enter G-A-Y bar’s corresponding dance club, Heaven, and went over there….. and got pretty drunk and danced until 1am. We did have a flight to catch the next day, so we called it a night at 1.
May 17
I am starting a new day’s entry here because, well, last night ended at 1am. We caught a cab and tried to get back to our hotel…. And there was this HUGE wreck on the highway we needed to take, and we sat there for an HOUR. And the cabbie left the meter running the whole time!!! I would have been set with my last GBP’s I had left- about 60- but with the meter running, we got back to the hotel and it was 78 pounds. Matt had to run in to the ATM to get cash out, and the cabbie left the meter running AGAIN, which ran it up 2 more pounds, bringing us up to a grand total of EIGHTY pounds. In case you aren’t familiar with the exchange rate, it is about 1.69, so our cab was like a hundred and thirty dollars. Unbelievable. We got to bed at about 2:30 and left the hotel around 9:45 the next morning to catch our 12:10 flight from Heathrow to Dusseldorf. We were both pretty hungover so ALL we wanted was some delicious McDonald’s…. but when we got there we had to check in. So, minor fiasco with my check-in. Apparently, if you travel inter-Europe, you are allowed 20 kg’s of luggage…. TOTAL. I had two bags which EACH weighed 20kg. So I had to pay for my extra bag. Not just the normal Delta $40, or $100….. I paid 180 BRITISH POUNDS. Once again….. nearly 400 American dollars!!!! What else could I do? Had to have my luggage…. Super annoying that nobody (travel agent of doom) warned me about this!!!!! We finally made it through security and… no McDonald’s to be found anywhere. We settled for gourmet pizza, which did the job just fine. Our flight to Dusseldorf was bumpy and we were a little nauseous, but it was only 55 minutes or so so we made it. We then flew to Dresden, and we both totally passed out for the 2 hours. We landed, got our luggage right away, and were met by Dorothy Maddison, the director of our program. She was there with our driver, Peter, and another singer, Abby, who is a student at JMU and is my Bastien. She is very funny and we had a great car ride from the airport to our apartment. We made it to the apartments and Alex, a baritone, and Lainey, another singer (don’t know what voice type???) were already here. We got settled in from about 6:30-8:15 and then headed out for our first true German meal, at the Schwanenschlosschen (Swan Castle) Restaurant. We had to order in German!!! It was really stressful!!!! I ended up with Freiberger local Bier (sehr gut!) and Rahmschnitzel (also sehr gut!). Rahmschnitzel is schnitzel (basically a fried pork steak) covered in creamy mushroom sauce with vegetables and potatoes. It was soooo good. Peter our driver is trying to learn English as we are attempting German, and we got a little tipsy, and it was great fun. It is also the time of the Spargel festival, which is this white asparagus. I do not like normal asparagus, but this stuff is pretty good! It is thicker and longer than green asparagus, and much more tender and sweet. And covered in Hollandaise sauce, it is very tasty! It is also our conductor’s favorite food. (The conductor is Dr. Reber, yay!). We are now back in our apartment (I am sharing a room with Abby, and Lainey is in the single room. We all share the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, and we have a TV! The boys are up a floor and they don’t have a tv, so we hung out in our apartment a lot today). I am liking everyone a lot so far, we are getting along great! The town is bigger than we all expected and is BEAUTIFUL with old architecture, rolling hills, and cute brick buildings. Tomorrow we rent bikes and buy cell phones, which are very exciting things. I am excited to get a full night’s rest!
May 18
Today was a big day! I accidentally woke up at 6am because the sun had come up, and I got up and had a salami sandwich and an orange. I went back to bed at 7 and woke up at 9, and then got ready and we all got together at 10am to fill out some paperwork for our apartment HausMeister (the super). Then we left in search of bicycles and cell phones. We went to three different cell phone stores to find the best plan and ended up all going back to the first place because it had the best rates for a phone you could change the sim card in for every country AND cheap rates for calling the US, calling each other, and texting. Then we went for the bikes. The bike place had about 9 bikes for us to choose from- and we were a group of 7. I of course had a difficult time finding a bike small enough for me, and the smallest one they had is too big. I went out back to test it and I had a really hard time, since it had been 10 or 15 years since I had ridden a bike. I am VERY sore tonight after riding the hills all day, on a bike that is slightly too big. Every muscle has been stretched to the max and my seat bones will probably never recover! Haha. We also had lunch down in the town center, and I had a little margherita pizza and a Frankfurter, which was a hot dog wrapped in a cheesy crossiant. Delicous! I also had a European Cherry Coke, which tasted nothing like American Cherry Coke, but it was still good. After we had been downtown a while, we went to the grocery store- KaufLand (Shopping Land, literally)- and bought stuff to make a potluck dinner. I bought a razor, shaving cream, a toothbrush, and body lotion…. And shredded cheese. We had pasta and sauce, and I brought the ever-important cheese! WE also had some wurst, garlic bread, green beans, wine, and cheese and crackers. And Kinder chocolate for dessert (Kinder mit Milche, which is a chocolate bar filled with sweet condensed milk, which is tasty). After dinner we rode our bikes to the theater (Middle Saxony Theater in English, don’t know how to say it in German yet) and watched their rehearsal for Tosca and then met Jan Horstmann and Urika (?), the conductor and director of our program! It was cool. We are going to be singing in the chorus of Tosca and our first rehearsal is tomorrow night. We told him we are keine Noten (without sheet music) and he is going to give it to us when get there, so my sightreading skills will be put to the test! The theater is cute and small. The whole town is beautiful and a typical small European town, just what you’d imagine, with cobblestone streets and a main pedestrian street with a piazza (German word for that????) with a fountain. Kind of difficult to bike around but SO pretty. So far the people have been friendly. I don’t know how to say any numbers yet, really, so I have to have them point to the little screen on the register when I pay (trust me, shopping in a German supermarket was tough!) Oh- earlier, we also had our first German lesson! How could I forget??? We spent the first hour at a lunch place with two German students and our German teacher, Frau Heineke. I pick up languages fairly quickly, but since I know keine Deutsche (no German!) it was slow going. I can say a few things, like “Ich heisse Amanda” (my name is Amanda); “Hallo!” (hello!); “Ich mochte ein Bier und auch die Rahmschnitzel” (I would like a beer and the Rahmschnitzel); and a couple of other things that I’m too tired to remember right now. After lunch we went back to the classroom and had a lesson, which was scary because she wanted us to introduce ourselves and I literally know NOTHING to say, so it was hard. I hate that feeling- wanting to communicate but just having NO vocab to do it. I could have answered her in English, French, Italian or Spanish, but not German. Boo! But we got textbooks and I am going to study up and I’d like to be able to speak to someone semi-intelligently in 2 weeks. It was a long but exciting day, and I bet I’m going to be very sore tomorrow from the bike riding, so I am going to go to bed soon. Tomorrow we go to school to officially register for classes (we are actually registering at the University as International Business Students since they don’t have a music degree there!). So far so good!
May 19
Today was another big errand-running day. We met at school at 11am to start to fill out paperwork for our health insurance and student IDs. It was a lot of walking and visits to many offices and the bank and we finally breaked for lunch at 12:30. We ate at the Mensa, which is the University’s cafeteria, and we chose between four “Essen” choices- four meals they were offering today. I had a fried fish filet, the “tater tots” (some kind of Pommes, but not sure what they’re called), plus a chocolate pudding and water. It was fun, we all ate in the cafeteria with our new friends Connie and Eddy (Constanze and Edith). Then we went to a Kaffee Haus to fill out some more paperwork and have an Eis Kaffee (mit Hasselnuss) and it was delicious! Then Abby and I went back to our bikes while the others shopped around for Euro clothes. Abby and I got a little lost (we called it “Sight-seeing,” but….) and then I rode my bike all the way to our apartment all by myself and didn’t get lost! Big day for me! The hills on the way home from campus are a bitch and I came home and had to shower when I got back because I was POURING sweat. Then I got to practice a little bit, which was good! Everyone came back and then we left for our first Tosca rehearsal! I am singing Sopranista mit Abby and Lainey and Sasha are singing Sop II. The rehearsal was all in German, but Jan Horstmann said a few things in English for us. The woman next to me- Urka I think?- was very nice and spoke English and was helpful in finding page numbers, telling us when it was just Altos singing, etc. I really enjoyed the rehearsal. We also met Sam (last name?) who actually did our program 2 years ago and stayed in Germany and has been here since! We had dinner with him at an outdoor café and then he showed us his cute apartment which is about 100 feet from the Teater. Then Matt, Alex and I met up with our friends Eddy and Connie and played pool and drank all night. They had invited a LOT of their friends- many cute boys!!!!!!- who all spoke English. We had an excellent time!!!! They are having a party for us tomorrow night at Eddy’s house so we are excited. On the way home, I broke my bike, but it turned out that the chain had just come out of gear, so Matt fixed it for me. IT would have been a long walk home! We made it home right at midnight. Tomorrow we have Tosca rehearsal, then Bastienne rehearsal, then maybe some Essen (food), and then a German lesson, and then another Tosca rehearsal, then party!!! Big day tomorrow, but filled with things that are way more fun than sitting around waiting for insurance cards. Tschüss!
May 20
Today we had to get up for Tosca rehearsal which ran from 10-12. Abby and I had lunch at the Back Factory and ate it outside at the Ober Markt, which is an open-air market. People sell fruit and flowers, and there is an ice cream stand as well as clothing/handbag stands. We don’t really know if the food there is more or less expensive than at KaufLand, and we also don’t know if we’re supposed to haggle, which would be very scary since I am still quite tentative with numbers. Abby and I then rode our bikes to KaufLand to pick up some food, especially for tomorrow, which is a national holiday day, and everything is going to be closed. I picked up some pasta and sauce, Bratwurst, cereal, and a couple of other things. It wasn’t bad getting it home on my bike since I also bought a BASKET!!! Excellent day. We rested for a couple of minutes at home and then headed back into town for dinner and Tosca rehearsal. The Tosca rehearsal was in their Black Box theater (they call it an Experimental Theater Space) and it is very fun to attempt to decipher stage directions that are in German. After the rehearsal, we were invited by the Director, KappellMeister, and some of the principals to go out for beers, which was fun. The Cavaderossi is this huge Italian guy, only 31 years old but amazing! And he is HILARIOUS. They all speak excellent English (Except the Tosca, but I think she was just also timid) and we had fun joking around. They have sort of learned our names, which is nice. THEN, we had excellent plans with the Germans to go out to this club for a party/dancing because tomorrow’s the holiday so we all get to sleep in!!! We met up with Connie, Eddy, and their friend Patrick at the Mense at school and then walked to the club, where we drank and danced until about 2:30. It was LONG ride home, but not so bad with a little vodka in us. We met all sorts of people and (of course) were stared at all night. At one point, I was outside with Eddy and her frined Eric, and these German students kept looking at me over Eddy’s shoulder, so I finally looked them in the eye and said Hallo! And they laughed and were embarrassed. That’s what you get for staring at me! I wish I could wear a sign that says “If you want to practice your English, come talk to me” instead of just being stared at nervously. Oh well. It was a REALLY fun night and we will probably be paying for this for a little while.
May 21
Today was a German holiday (Man’s Holiday, left over from Socialism, where they worked every day), so everything in the city was closed. We thought we’d have a lovely day off, but no! We woke up around 10, talked about last night again and how awesome it was, and how hungover we were, and then went downstairs for German class with Frau Heineke in Dorothy’s apartment. It was MUCH better having German in a close setting, so we could actually hear Frau Heineke and actually catch individual words. We hope to convince everyone to have class there every day instead of at school in that echo-y Physics classroom. After class, we came upstairs to our apartments for lunch. I cooked linguini with tomato sauce and Bratwurst with my roommates, and the boys made some kind of delicious potatoes and eggs dish and they brought it down and we all ate together. IT was soooo good. Then we went back down to Dorothy’s to watch a movie of the live play we are going to see next weekend. The play is called the Captain of Koepernick. The movie was horrible and boring, in German with English subtitles. We were all struggling to stay awake but most of us slept on and off throughout the film. Then Alex, Abby and I tried on our Bastienne costumes and they are really cute! I guess the era is Classical? I have a corset and a white wig and petticoats and everything. Then we came back up and had a little nap time, which was NOT long enough. We had to get back up at around 6, at which point I had dinner with the boys and then we all went to the Symphony concert downtown. The same conductor (Jann Horstmann) conducts the orchestra concerts as well as the operas, and the same orchestra plays all of these things too. It was an excellent concert, in the church where our Tosca is going to play. Then we went out for dinner/drinks with Herr Horstmann and I had a Fanta, a grosse stilles Wasser, and an Apfelstrudel. (I had made a decision to give my body the night off from alcohol!) The Apfelstrudel was delicious, of course, and had this yummy custard sauce with it. We were at the restaurant until about 11:30 and then made the trek home and went straight to bed. Some cool observations as of late: we are starting to run into some of the same people, mostly musicians from our ChorProbe and Tosca, and even instrumentalists. They all recognize us as the amerikan Studenten, which is fine, since that’s what we are. But they do recognize us individually too, so when we walk to the theater, the door person buzzes us right in now so we feel cool!
May 22
Today was the beginning of the weekend! We woke up and had Tosca rehearsal 10-12 like normal, then I had my first Bastienne coaching with Dr. Reber, and then German from 3-5 at school, and then I was done for the day! I walked around downtown a bit and then headed home to hang out. The girls cooked dinner together, more pasta, bratwurst and zucchini. It was good to have the night off. Dorothy and Dr. Reber rented cars for our weekend trips, so we got to go to KaufLand in the CARS and buy all sorts of heavy and bulky stuff we couldn’t bring home on our bikes. It was awesome!
May 23
Today, Dorothy let us skip Tosca rehearsal and sleep in. We left for Leipzig around 1pm and it took forever to get there because there were Staus on the Autobahn (a Stau is a big accident that can be miles long because the Autobahn goes so fast that you don’t see a wreck in front of you until you’re pretty much in it). We made it to Leipzig around 4 and walked around a bit and then ate at the restaurant where Goethe did a lot of his writing. I forgot the name of it. We also went to the ThomasKierche, where JSBach is buried and had written some of his music. It was very cool! We went to the Leipzig Theater then to see their production of Carmen. IT was VERY Euro. Modern setting, stuffed animals, and a man throwing glitter…. Plus child molestation, pole dancing and weird things. The singing was VERY good, though, so it was really good to hear. This show was originally written with spoken dialog instead of recit, and they did all the spoken stuff into microphones on the side of the stage, as well as hand-held mics, in German. It was really disjunct from the beautiful singing, which sounded wimpy (of course) compared to the huge over-amplified microphone speaking. But Carmen had a beautiful voice, so I enjoyed the show.
