Cuz Everything Is Rent

Did you know that gummi bears first came from Germany? I had absolutely no idea until Annie whipped them out (Haribo brand, the original German company) while we watched the miserable Superbowl last Sunday, and I exclaimed, "Where did you get those? You get them in Germany?" She replied with, "Umm yeah, they're German...they came from Germany originally, fool!" Gummi bears (or "Fruchtgummi" in German) make a good late night snack at times, like now. I just returned from Wuerzburg today after a three day (well, a little more than 48 hours) trip to visit my cousin and her family; her son was suffering from conjunctivitis, sinus infection, and bad fever, and she seems to have caught the sinus infection from him. It's miserable to be sick, especially when the weather is crap (it's noticeably colder in Bavaria - the south - than it is here in the north) and you've got tropical-flavored blood. Nevertheless, we had a nice visit; she made me eat too much as usual, and I left with clean laundry, kichdi, and a bag full of Indian snacks. I went to a new German class today with Frederika, and it was a fiasco. The classes are held through an adult night school here in Detmold called a Volkshochschule, and so we entered the main building and asked where class was to be held. The lady told us to walk to some other random building, and after 10-15 minutes of wandering around, we found it. We went in and waited by the room door, and met a Japanese student along the way. After waiting until nearly 6:50 (the class was supposed to begin at 6:30), I said that I had our teacher's cell phone number, so I'd call her - she was livid! We were in the wrong building, and so she immediately gave me directions and we walked to the Realschule, a different school building about 10 minutes away. We showed up at 7:20 in class - it turns out, she wasn't pissed at us, but at the lack of organization on the administrative end. Germany has this stereotype for being completely organized and almost perfect-mechanically run...COMPLETELY not true...so many things here don't run like butter, as the saying goes. Oh well. The class ended up being - we already have a reading on Thomas Mann for homework. I have a feeling that it will be a great course. Tomorrow our quintet rehearses the third movement of the Schubert and Klaus (my landlord) is coming to photograph us. He has an idea in the works for an artistic project that explores form, light, and the relationship musicians have to their instruments with the medium of photography. I can't wait to see what it turns out like. I'm also running early tomorrow with Annie, I hope I can get up on time. Two nights of utterly peaceful sleep in Scheinfeld will hopefully help me for the rest of this rather stressful week. Stressful because I have a lesson on Friday, my first in nearly one month, and the third movement of my Sibelius Concerto is nowhere near where I'd like it to be...hardly presentable enough. It's not as though I've been sitting around aimlessly the last 3.5 weeks - I've had three auditions of all different rep, three orchestra concerts, and now a gig with a baroque ensemble, not to mention a chamber music master class on the Schubert Quintet. You know it's bad when you're making excuses to your livejournal :) I ordered a book on Parisian walks today, and am hoping to get my acceptance letter/insurance information so I can file for my Visa very soon. I've also come across an amazing situation for rent come April. I have to vacate this apartment by March 31 because Anna (landylady)'s mother in law is moving back from S. Africa...was a bit worried but then through friend Dante, met a Mexican woman named Eugenia. She's married to a German and although she has a degree as an ESL teacher, she needs to re-certify next year and so has to start speaking more English. In exchange for speaking English with her for 20 minutes a day and therefore allowing her to practice, she and her husband have offered me free rent (2 rooms + private bathroom + shared big kitchen + shared common area + my own fridge + free internet) except utilities (50 euros as month) in their house, which is only a 5-6 minute walk from school. I just have to make sure I can practice there, as they were a bit reluctant to allow that because they had problems with past tenants practicing until sometimes 2 AM (ridiculously rude). I convinced them that I wouldn't do that (I don't even like practicing that late) and that it's absolutely imperative for me to be able to practice at home. If they are willing to let me practice and can provide the internet in the house, then I'm sold. The advantages of speaking English as your mother tongue are definitely visible - I've been offered teaching positions for Business English and now might possibly have a free living situation. It is, of course, a disadvantage, too - when you know English so well, you can travel mostly anywhere in the world and not have to learn a new language, thus making it more difficult to motivate oneself to learn the language of a new place. Pros and cons to both, I guess. And now, the Fruchtgummi is all done so I should go to sleep. More to come later. xo