Doc Abroad

It is 5:30 a.m. according to my body but here I am in a smoking room in a shady hotel in Chicago waiting for a pizza delivery man to deliver us out of the depths of my own personal hell. In order to FULLY appreciate what is going on in my life, let me update you.

Last night was the final concert for our stay in Germany. It was an orchestra showcase night where we play all the recognizable classics, pomp and circumstance, arias from La Traviata, Star Wars... etc. So we spent our week after the final performance of our operas-- pulling double rehearsals daily for this show which immediately sold over 1,200 tickets. The concert was to be held on the stage of the open air concert hall that we had been performing in all summer. Our initial reaction to this was "so that concert is not going to happen." It rains everyday either a light misty sprinkle that would make even an almost entirely enclosed space impossible to have wooden instruments out in or a torrential downpour. Yesterday night was a combination of the two. They said the plan if it rains was that they were "planning for no rain"... at first I laughed thinking it was one of the famous language barrier moments... nope. They decided that just in case it rains...you know, in the off chance that a prediction of there being a 95% chance of rain actually came true... they would put a tarp over cables which would cover the top of the stage. Perfect. We spent the entire day yesterday saying "there's no way I'm bringing my instrument out in this weather" yet at 19:00 we were found traipsing down to the stage in soggy socks and performance clothes. Since we had no choice, we took their assurances that no moisture would get around the tarp and onto us. Being in the viola section which is tucked in safely into the center of the orchestra, I really didn't see a big enough reason to throw the fit that was my every right to throw. I unpacked in the dripping stage managers cabin and, using my umbrella to protect my instrument and getting soaked myself, I found my way on stage. The orchestra eventually settled down under this makeshift, tarp covered nightmare, with the torrents of rain cascading down around us and we played the first 8 bars of Weber (fitting since we're in his birth town) and, after stopping at a fermata, a few people glanced up at the tarp and the stirring this sight caused, caused the rest of us to gaze upon our impending doom. The tarp, secured on 3 sides and draped over cables keeping it flat had started to pool water between the cables therefore making it drift towards the musicians like a filling water balloon. The conductor called a few men with poles on stage (meanwhile the rain tripled in the amount it was pouring on us) to poke at the bulge and coax it off one of the sides. I, along with a few of my colleagues, took this opportunity to take off my jacket to wrap my viola up, holding it against me, my body acting as the shield and then opening the umbrella to cover this pitiful last attempt at keeping my viola from becoming drift-wood. Right then, two of the musicians in the back of the 1st violin section stand up, pop open their umbrellas and leave the stage. I'm not sure if anyone reading this believes in fate but allow me to make a believer out of you. Literally 2 seconds after this walk off happened, one side of the tarp snapped open and dumped a kiddy pool amount of water onto the horn section and what would have been the back of the first violins, now just drenching their music that was left. The orchestra, now unprotected from the downpour and remaining water dumping off the tarp, was in complete pandemonium. Screaming, we all stampeded around looking for the nearest exit that was not being blocked by percussion instruments while trying to only save our instruments. The conductor is yelling orders to stay calm and save the harp and move off the stage while countless stage hands poured on to try and get the flapping, spraying tarp under control. If I and the other 60 musicians hadn't been so mad at the recklessness and the stupidity of the whole situation, and if I hadn't been so urged to yell "I TOLD YOU SO"... maybe with a few choice words attached, it may have been funny. It is now. Needless to say the concert was canceled. And after some dried off their instruments and reported damage, I luckily dried off only myself and saluted God for handing me an epic win of a thought to protect my viola at that moment. Lessons learned? Next time you have to say the phrase "I mean, we could either build an ark or play"... don't play.


The only positive thing amidst all of this? We had been invited to lunch by the friends that we had met when we were lost looking for the tree (previous blog, don't be lazy) and enjoyed a splendidly cooked meal by a woman who we were surprised to hear thought fate had led us to her, a sentiment that my other friends and I stated right after we had stumbled across them. She said how disappointed she was when she thought she wouldn't meet anyone from the festival so that day she sent "vibes" out to try and draw us to her. Sounds crazy but how else do you explain what happened? I dare you to try. Seriously.

So, We ate with her husband, their son and their grandson and gave them all tickets to our concert. Sadly, since the concert didn't happen we did not get to see them. We walked out of the concert turned party with our hearts a little sunk because we realized we wouldn't get a chance to see them again before we left. We went upstairs to pack when one of our friends came in and called us out of our room. We emerged and who do we see? Helga and Rainer, our wonderful saviors, standing in our hotel. They had seen the bus leave the concert and since they couldn't find us before they saw them leave they followed them. They don't know how or why they went to the 3rd floor and were standing right outside our door without knowing our room number or level. Fate was on our side this day. After a big hug and a promise to write, we left our friends feeling like the day was worth living after all.

Now, quickly on to Chicago. After a day of connections, international flights, airports, lines, customs and baggage claims, we finally got to our hotel to find that we didn't in fact have rooms to stay in. The numbers that we have received, were for some reason absolutely incorrect. No numbers have ever been more wrong, it seems. So we spent 2 hours between waiting for the hotel shuttle and standing around in the lobby to finally get offered a smoking room. Fine. Let the pizza man come and then let me sleep. Save me Tom Cruise. Only if you have a pizza in hand, that is.


Love you all

Erin

Hey all!

There is a famous tree here in Eutin. It is a big oak tree that actually has it's own address and because of a tradition started a long time ago, people from all over the world sendlove letters and postcards to this tree. So, the other day 2 of my friends and I decided to go see this tree for ourselves as one of our final adventures into Eutin. And and adventure it was...

The night before our adventure, my friend looked up the address to the tree online and google mapped it. It was about 7.3 km away, so a good walk but definitely not bad when you have the whole day to kill and a burning desire to get out of a rehearsal room. We woke up late the next morning grabbed brunch and set out at a good pace towards our goal. Promptly, as usual when caught enjoying oneself outdoors , it started to rain. Luckily we were prepared and the rain only heightened the feeling that we were embarking on an epic quest to find "the tree." We walked through town, through a forest-y area and took our first turn. A half hour more of walking through the gorgeous scenery, we hit a dead end. Okay. First wrong turn only wasted 30 minutes. Not a big deal. We turned back and continued straight where we had before turned. A little while later we execute the correct left turn and continued south along 76 until we reached Bockholt (please, do everyone a favor and pull up a map, it's hysterical). We turned towards Roebel and kept walking. This was hour 3. The majority of the trip so far had been a steady flow of conversation about how this walk was like we were on a quest, how we wished we could dress like characters in our novels when they embark on journeys and the very occasional "is this the right way...?" to which we would shrug, slow our pace, get distracted by something and keep walking. Along this road we saw a bull lying on the grass on a rolling pasture surrounded by ducks as if he was there protection, we saw forest paths lit with the ominous, cloudy light where mist was still clinging to the ground and swirled when interrupted, we saw flowers that made us stop and look or smell, apples that made the branches the hung on bow until they hit the ground and we made friends with the cows along the way. In our defense, even after all of our "I don't think this is the right way"s, how could we have stopped? We walked until we reached Bujendorf. When we reached this town we really knew something wasn't quite right. We had gone through 2 forests and come out the other side with no sightings of this famous tree. We had to ask for help. We ducked out of the cloud that was encircling us, misting us from head to toe into a car repair placed called "Kramer's" and asked if they spoke English, nope. We asked how to get to the tree, he grabbed our address that we had for it and google mapped our way back to where our address was trying to lead us, because he didn't understand what "baum" we were talking about. We looked at the map and started to laugh. His map had the "tree" stationed just off Bockholt... nearly 2 hours and 6.9 km back. We laughed and thanked him and began back down the path we had just struggled up. Our feet were killing us, we were wet and cold and now very hungry. We got back to bockholt and turned down the road to Fassensdorf which was the correct road. 1 km outside of Fassensdorf and we realized that yet again google maps had failed us. We were distraught. There was then a shop to our right that, upon passing it the first time looked closed. The second time we passed it I said "What if the tree is in there?" Duh, of course it wasn't, but we decided that was a good idea to check since we had in fact checked everywhere else. We walked up to the glass doors and though we just knew it was locked. Miraculously the doors immediately swung open and we walked into an artistic looking room with concrete floors, pastel colors and classical music playing in the background. The piece playing was one that we had just played and the whole thing felt a little surreal, stepping out of our crazy exhaustion into a cool and relaxed place. Suddenly, a lady descends the stairs winding down in a back corner. Her hair is white and loosely pulled into a braid that frames her face in an "I know you're an artist" type way. She welcomes us and recognizes us as part of the festival immediately. She said that she's been waiting and wanting to meet some of us because she wants to offer her home to a student to come live with and be part of their family and teach them English and help in the garden. We fell into talking and told her we were searching for the tree. She tells us not only is it not anywhere around there, but it's in the complete opposite direction from where we were walking. Discouraged we all look at each other with what I'm sure was a pathetic expression and were going to thank the lady and cut our losses on the whole excursion when she says that she would love to drive us to the tree. She calls her husband down, we get into her car and drive the 10 minute drive to the forest. On our way, her and her husband call us "heroes" for saving their festival and thank us for everything we've done. This is the 3rd time I've either gotten a ride, or help from a person who wanted to give back to us after we have given their festival back to them. It is an amazing feeling to know how much our music does for a town. We arrive at the tree, all load out and walk with our new friends to a beautiful oak tree in a forest whose rival in beauty could only be found deep in British Columbia or the like. We took pictures in front of the tree and left. They drove us into the town square and invited ("invitated") us to dinner. We declined because of our dinner waiting at the Opernschuene (though we emailed them and invited them out tomorrow night and got them tickets to our concert).

The day was a perfect one. Good company, beautiful sights, and wonderful people. Days like this restore my love of people and remind me that no matter where you are, walking 14 miles to who knows where and lost in a random town in Germany, people are willing to help and offer you the best of them.

Pay it forward.

E and Doc