Merry Christmas

I'm listening to the Christmas playlist I made on my ipod while eating breakfast with two Spaniards and Sebastian, my Chilean roommate. We're getting ready to catch a train at 9:20 AM for Frankfurt, where we'll take a plane at 5 PM to Shanghai. I'll be in China for two weeks, giving 9 concerts with the Vinorosso Ensemble, a world music/Balkan music group. We'll travel nearly 2,000 miles in 14 days through the cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Zhejian, Shandong, Shenyang, Beijing, and the Jilin Province and through temperatures ranging from 50 degrees in southern Shanghai to -10 degrees F in the north. It'll be tiring, I'm sure, but a lot of fun too. Regardless of where you are in the world or what your holiday plans/lack thereof are, spend this time in peace and hopefully with people you love. Merry Christmas, everyone. I'll try to update as we go along in China!

Ridiculousness & London

For those of you who don't know, I love to write poetry. I used to write more frequently and would like to believe that it was better during this time period, but hey, who I am kidding? Most of it's pretty crap. I take no offense to this, though, as I enjoy writing it nevertheless. Here's a good one that summarizes my journey today on the Deutsche Bahn from Bremen via Osnabrück and Herford to Detmold: on the train listening to the JT Mix and Radiohead scattered raindrops on windowpanes the whir of the engine coughing and then sputtering and then no more. sigh. "es tut mir sehr leid, aber gibt's verspätung jetzt..." right, stay calm. the guy across the way from me is pretty darn cute. makes it all a bit better. After a lovely four days spent in London with Sara and her quartet buddies, I trucked my to London Stansted Airport to fly back to Bremen. The amount of ridiculousness I dealt with from Ryanair, a supposedly reputable low-cost airline, was, well, ridiculous. Not only did I receive the rudest treatment I've ever seen in the airline industry, but I would have missed my flight had it not been for a Random Act of Kindness from a completely German stranger. Basically, after having to pay a host of ridiculous fees for baggage check-in (I know I'm overusing the word ridiculous, but I'm sorry - there's just no other fitting word), I got caught up in a line at the currency exchange and also in the Ryanair fees payment line, and still didn't have enough pounds to cover my expenses. This wonderful lady who was also paying fees and on my Bremen flight leaned over and said in German, "These people are complete jerks. Don't worry, hun, I'll pay your fee with my credit card and you can pay me back once we're in Germany." I could have kissed her. It was a sheer moment of holiday guardian angel-ness. Afterwards, we zipped through security - well, I was ridiculously (there I go again) held up for 5 minutes until another holiday guardian angel security guard came over, asked, "What's the matter, love? You look like you're going to cry there" and then checked my bag, muttering about the incompetency of her colleague, and sent me off - and barely made the flight. In Germany, I endured 2.5 hours of ridiculous verspätung (sounds like some weird Spam-like meat, huh? It actually just means "delay"), came home with five minutes before a rehearsal, and so ran out again, only to eventually eat "dinner" (cold pasta + strawberry yogurt...no, not mixed together...I do still have some culinary refinement, thank you very much)at around 11:30 PM. Hmph. Could have been, worse, I suppose. Anyways, back to London. What a fabulous city during the holidays! We went for walks, ice-skated, watched lots of Family Guy and Sex & The City, and just chilllled out. It was exactly what I needed. Seeing Sara can clear out months of agitation and uneasiness like no other. Although the workload starts the second my foots hits German soil, I do feel refreshed. If you want to see pictures, check out my photo website some time next week.

And I'm back.

I had a stark realization yesterday. It occurred while I attempted to write essays for this incredible summer project I'm applying for called Cultures in Harmony (check it out, seriously: www.musicforthepeople.org). I have lost touch with writing and communicating my thoughts in English! It's been months since I last wrote anything here, and this livejournal was the one way I kept up my writing skills and maintained a personal voice preserved on paper (er, electronic paper...). I found that while writing the essays, words were coming to me first in German and Spanish, and while on one hand that's a good sign because it means these foreign languages are starting to become a part of me, it also means that my mother tongue is starting to fade. It would be a real pity to lose the gracious literary teachings which were imparted to me by Ms. Scholz and the GBN English Department, and so I am going to try to get back into writing regularly on here. Let's see, where were we? Oh yeah...I played a million concerts in places like Münster, Potsdam, Paris, Lage, Paderborn, and various other cities in the region. I have had many lessons, and am playing two pieces with my piano trio - Brahms C Major Trio from last year and the Mendelssohn d minor Trio. I've developed a sheer love for the baroque violin and baroque music/art in general, and also fell in love with Sevcik Opus 3 exercises for bow technique once again (thank you, Andy Mark, for freshman Orchestra Rep class). I lost hours of sleep, ate too much chocolate, smoked too many cigarettes, drank too much beer, and still managed to cook some amazing Indian meals. I lived out of a suitcase for a while, and will again this weekend when I go to London for a mini-break and to visit my dear friend, Sara. I've been enjoying the new experience of playing viola in a string quartet (Beethoven Op. 18 no. 5 in A Major) with three wonderful other musicians, and we just finished playing for the Tokyo String Quartet in a master class yesterday. They gave one of the most genuine performances tonight, and we ended up dining and sharing drinks with them for a few hours afterwards, which was, suffice it to say, an unbelievable treat. I love my roommates (Cristina from Spain, Sebastian from Chile), and my Spanish is getting to a level of fluency that is continually more comfortable and authentic. I met another American here, Nathan. He comes from Virginia and is a very mature 18-year-old who took a gap year by deferring admission to UPenn for a year...he's a smart and sweet guy. Iris, a Spanish cellist, has become a very good friend as of late, and I'm starting to practice yoga with my roommate, Cristina. My health has been quite poor lately because I've neglected it for so long (note: DO NOT try to live off of dark chocolate, black tea + coffee + hot cocoa, pasta, bread, and vitamins...you will eventually crash), but I'm learning that the basics in life are the most important things to keep in order, and that we do have more control over them than we think. I'm sorry to those of you (ahem, parents) whom I've not had regular contact with. I'll try to improve, but do bear with me because the next few weeks are really tough. Lots of love to everyone...take care of yourselves!