Doc Abroad

Nothing says relaxation like a little canoe ride around the Kellersee... at least for the people in the boat.

Earlier in the week last week two of my friends and I decided to take a boat that the hotel supplies out around the surrounding lake for an hour or so. Since this was the first time the weather really permitted this activity we asked the lady at the main desk to clarify if we could simply just walk up to a tethered boat and take it out. She waved in the general direction of where we knew the boats to be so taking this as a confirmation of our words, we set off. We walked over to a little house that could be a boat house and our key worked in the gate so we opened it and went out on this poorly kept dock and pulled the boat towards us. The boat was FULL of water so, being the brainiacs/ slightly immature kids we are, our first reaction was to try and get the boat out of water so we can tip it over. We all start pulling as hard as we can and the thing doesn't even budge. We pull harder, still nothing. We start rocking the boat as hard as we can in order to slosh the water out of the boat and only succeed in filling the thing with more water. It was around our 3rd attempt at this that a lady emerges from the house (boat house...?) and starts talking to us. She is speaking German and since none of us speak past what we need to get around, we just say "sorry we speak english" she says... "are you going to bring it back" and points to the boat we were like "yes, of course" I mean, obviously we weren't just going to steal it. So she just kind of nods and watches us then goes in and brings us a bucket to help get the water out of it. We thanked her and embarked on our journey. The lake was beautiful to be on and so relaxing but halfway through our trip we started discussing the weird interaction we had with this lady and that's when it hit us.... the "boat house" was not a boat house it was an actual house. Everything in the windows pointed to that, the welcome mat, the plants and curtains in the window... everything. This wasn't the hotel boats that we now saw tied in front of the hotel that were the actual canoes we were expecting not this weird shaped old boat with mismatched oars.... the lady asked us if we were planning on returning the boat... oh my gosh. We stole an old woman's boat.

Needless to say our return journey was filled with a tad more anxiety than we had expected our relaxing afternoon to include. We tied the boat off at the dock, grabbed our shoes and RAN. If only I could write enough German to apologize and thank this lady for, even when she thought we were stealing her boat, got a bucket and helped make our get-away more comfortable.


In lighter and less illegal news, we have been in several prominent German newspapers all that say basically who needs the Hamburg Symphony (professional orchestra they had before we came) when they have us. It's good to hear because a lot of people were skeptical whether the festival would be worth coming to and the word from the media and the audiences that have come is that IT IS. Pretty cool stuff.

That leaves the "Mayhem" portion of my blog. A week or so ago we all got on a bus (55 members of the orchestra) and went on a day excursion to Hamburg. We got there and spent the largest part of our trip just sitting in the U.S. Embassy with one of our orchestras "fans" who happens to be a higher up in the embassy talking to us about what goes on there. A brief tour concluded the boring event and we were bussed to the docks to eat and roam as we pleased. After grabbing pizza we only had an hour to look at the city so we decided to take a running tour of the city. We saw a Gothic churches steeple in the distance and HAD to see it. Since it was a good distance from the docks and where we were supposed to meet the bus we said, "Okay, let's run to that corner and then we'll have a good view of it" so we ran to the corner and there was a building in the way. "okay" we said, "one more corner". This continued until we had run all the way to the church which turned out to be just the steeple of a church built in the 12th century that was bombed and only had a shell remaining. Well worth the run. So we took a couple pictures and a video and ran all the way back making the bus with way too much time to spare to justify our sweaty dash through town.

Love you all,

Doc and E

A quick anecdote:

Tonight there was a chamber concert that we were all encouraged to attend. After being locked outside of the building for an hour while the important people socialized and ate... we were allowed inside but more importantly, into the concert. One of the main people from this trip stood up to introduce the piece he was about to play and this is what came out:

We are currently doing Don Giovanni under the direction of a very famous conductor. The rehearsals are going pretty well... If you count rebellions, brawls, the conductor pantomiming shooting us, storming out of rehearsals and mutinous section members. Welcome to the big leagues, eh? The rehearsals have been one of the most stressful things of my existence actually. If my section comes in wrong guess who's fault it is? If they play out of tune guess who's responsible? If you guessed me, you would be correct. Hearing someone play in a rest and then bracing myself for the imminent baton being brandished in my face like a sword or a finger-gun being pointed in your face is not what I call confidence boosting. We have generally 2 rehearsals a day with the exception of last night, which was a ticketed dress rehearsal, and tonight, which is a blessed break from stress. Don Giovanni gets officially underway tomorrow (Friday) with our first official public performance.

We haven't had a lot of time to get out and see things because of our rehearsal schedule but even the town square is a lot of fun. For example:

The other day Paula, Jessika, Ren and I were walking out of a greek restaurant and heading back to the rehearsal hall which is through the town square. We hit the cross-walk sign that gives us the light to cross and instantly an explosion of noise reached our ears. We looked to the right and were surprised to see a parade marching down the street towards us. Showers of candy began raining down on us and a lady walked up and gave us roses. Just like that, it was over. It was a yearly festival that, after the parade, culminates in a contest to see who can drink the most and still maintain the best shot at a wooden bird they hang. Sound dangerous? I thought so too. I'm hoping that it's not as similar to a pinata as I imagined when a local told us this story. It's bad enough to have men drinking and shooting at this wooden bird until it falls without adding the image of candy falling from said wooden bird to waiting children below. Yikes.


Love you all,

E and Doc

**Disclaimer** it's 1 in the morning here and I'm exhausted. I WILL make grammatical errors and spelling errors and I don't care.

Yesterday I went to the Sky market to pick up some supplies and my dinner. I walked through the store and I didn't find anything that was easy enough to make that I really wanted so I decided to go over to the deli section and try my luck there. The sign was all written in a rather short hand german. For example it would say something like "Roast beef sandwhich" and then have "with a roll and cheese" but since I didn't understand what the "roast beef" part meant, I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't just going to purchase cheese and a roll. There was a lady at the counter so I asked her if she spoke English. She shook her head. I said out loud "oh brother, this isn't going to work very well" she shrugged and said something in German to which I looked at the sign and shrugged. She pointed to a really delightful looking sandwich and then at me and said "yes, good" so I nodded, she brought out the sandwich and put it in the oven. When she was heating it up she asked me "Kansas?" I said yes because that's where we're technically from on this trip. She ran over to the counter and started thumbing through a pile of newspaper which she then showed me after rapidly flicking through 3 of them. It was a picture of my group that was taken at the fourth of July celebration in the town square. She gestured for me to take the paper and upon a closer inspection, I found that most of it was dedicated to us and there was actually a picture of just me in it as well. I thanked her as she handed me my sandwich saying in German "hot, hot" then walked outside. She came to the window and gave me the thumbs up, I returned it. I think I made a friend and I'm in a German newspaper. Pretty successful day I'd say.


Tonight we had our first concert. We performed various works ranging from Copland to Gershwin to Von Suppe. It was in the "barn" at Hasselburg which is a castle in Eutin. The concert was the opening concert to kick off the Eutiner Festspiele and we played to a sold-out crowd of 900 people! The program was fun to play, especially with all the American music, and looking out over the crowd told me that I wasn't the only one enjoying myself. We also played "the evening prayer" from Hansel und Gretel, one of the opera's we're doing this summer, as sort of a "teaser" for the audience. It is an incredible piece and one that is well known to German audiences. By the time we played the final chord, there was hardly a dry eye in both the audience and on stage. We got several standing ovations and each one of us received a rose and countless compliments on our energy and performance.

So I made it!

Passed the TSA agent that insisted on poking my viola with a wand while I tried to put my belt back on after my latest airport strip tease,

passed the lady who checks boarding passes and yells at musicians to check their instruments because they take up too much of the overhead compartment space,

through the first flight and the first airport, and onto the plane that would take me to our first airport in Germany and landed....

Right next to a 16 year old girl with the highest pitched voice, biggest love for excersising said voice, and most uncontrolled elbows and knees I have ever heard/met/seen in my life.

On the airline we were flying, there were no TV's on the backs of every chair that I, as an entitled American, have grown used to on any flight longer than a few hours. In addition to this disappointing lack of digital stimulation, my headset that was supposed to connected me to the in-flight entertainment that WAS available (retro mickey mouse, German version of bob the builder, Disney's "prom" and an episode of Golden Girls) was giving me the sound of a tennis match that was not being televised. Needless to say, I spent my time trying to fall asleep and having 16-year-old Elbows McGee fighting me for every last inch of my space.
The sun set and rose at what would have been our early afternoon and then only about 4 hours later at 5 a.m. local time. I lost track of time, sense of hearing from the constant booming of the airplane's engine, feeling in my feet and... (Corie close your eyes) a red jacket that I realized halfway through the flight I had left it in the women's room in the Chicago airport. Luckily, this had the keys to my suitcase in the pocket as well (told you they'd be safe there, mom).

I survived the plane somehow, it's sequel from Frankfurt into Hamburg, and after being shepherded to the buses, driven through the beautiful northern German countryside with 60 other delirious and rather smelly individuals who were all packed into yet another moving tin box, arrived at the beautiful seeschloss hotel in Eutin, Germany.

The missing key proved not difficult thanks to my stealthy friend who proceeded to look at me, have a conversation, while pulling a bobby pin out of her hair and popping the lock without even blinking... good thing I have her on my side eh?

The first day passed quite uneventfully and after being greeted by the Eutiner Festspiele officials and people at the Opernscheune we were free to collapse in our beds.

Yesterday was a different story. We had a reahearsal from 10-7 with a lunch break in between and then we were to go to the town square for our independence day party thrown by the people of Eutin. The whole town square was used and there were food and drink vendors as well as a singer and some other entertainers. It was fun to just be able to enjoy the city and have everyone know who we were and why we were there and appreciate us for it. They had us line up by sections of the orchestra and sign the official festival guest book, it was cool knowing that I left my mark on the festival history. After a night of good food and jazz music, American rock 'n' roll music and soft love hits from various countries, we relaxed with our drinks and, to the sound of the band playing America the beautiful, we sung the anthem and watched a firework display shot right from the heart of the town square. It was a beautiful night and the fact that it was done to welcome us and make us feel at home made it even greater.

Hopefully that gets you caught up on where I am. I will start my usual anecdote posting soon as well as picture posting as soon as I can.

Off to rehearsal.

Love you all,

Doc and E