The Hills are Alive

Word for Word

2009-04-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

I went to a theater performance in English that was brilliant. It was called “Word for Word.” There were six performers acting out some short stories by Tobias Wolf. The interesting thing was that the stories were done.... well.... word for word! For instance, a character would say “ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Claire said as she adjusted her hat.” Every single word in the short story was declaimed, hence the name of the performance. This particular evening there were three short stories, which were a perfect combination of poignant and humorous.

At then end of the performance, the actors and director came out and the audience could ask questions. I really enjoyed the entire concept. The creation of the vignettes was a collaborative effort between all involved. They would improvise (there’s that word again), experimenting with lines and blocking.

There was a reception at the American Library afterwards. I met some interesting artsy people and it was kind of fun to be one of them too!

Speaking of acting, artsy people and theater, I met Olivia de Havilland. She was the reader for Mass at the American Cathedral on Easter Sunday. She is 92 years old but looks every bit as elegant as she did in “Gone With the Wind.” When she was finished, Donna turned to me and said “Now you’ve been read to.” It’s really something to hear the lessons read by a seasoned professional.

Donna introduced me to Olivia after the service. I wasn’t sure what to say. What DO you say to a cinematic icon? “How’s the weather in your part of Paris?” So I said what I felt: that it was a thoughtful reading that had obviously taken a lot of time, care and reflection. It must have been the right thing to say. She squeezed my hand really hard! She’s 92 in chronology only.....

The Thinker

2009-04-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

The next day I went to the Rodin Museum. This was my favorite exhibit...... so far. I think that I will just have to return to Paris at some point. I came upon the museum from the bus stop to the south. I thought as I walked along that the garden to my right seemed very inviting and that it must be a lovely place to stroll around. Much to my delight, it was part of the museum! To get to the garden, you have to go through the main entrance which is situated in this hyper modern building. It’s one of the things I love about Europe. You can have all this spectacularly beautiful old architecture and then someone has gone and plopped a super modern building in the middle of all of it. I particularly like the Gothic churches with modern steel and glass entrance foyers. I understand the reasoning, but the juxtaposition is fascinating.

I spent little time in the modern building in my haste to get to the garden. I was not disappointed for the first sculpture that I happened upon was “The Thinker.” Just sitting there, like he had been for who knows how long, thinking. Oblivious to the throngs of people walking around him and taking his picture. I wish some of my students had that kind of focus. I wish I did for that matter.

I walked across the garden to the Burghers of Calais. I was mesmerized by the feet. How did Rodin DO that anyway? The feet were so beautifully realized. Then I spent some time trying to figure out how he sculpted all these figures in such close proximity. How does that work?

Sometimes I think that being musically inclined has left me rather deficient in other areas and particularly that of visual art. I remember having a conversation with the art teacher at my school once. While we were chatting, she was sketching and as we spoke, an entire landscape appeared. It was populated with imaginary creatures, but it had taken her less than five minutes to produce. I asked her how in the world she could do that, make things magically appear like that. She shrugged and said “How do YOU pull music out of thin air?” Touché! We agreed that it was a good thing that she taught art and I taught music.

It took me a while, but I did figure out that Rodin cast the Burghers separately and then assembled them into a larger piece. Inside the old hotel portion of the museum were several exhibits detailing the process. It reminded me of Orff Schulwerk! Rodin who take several castings and then use them in different ways in different sculptures. Those of you that had art history or any sort of art class at all probably already know that. But people like me who assiduously avoided anything to do with art are amazed. It would never have occurred to me.

It’s a good thing I teach music.

Paris - Part 1

2009-04-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

So I fly to visit Donna Fleetwood in Paris. I love to travel. Flying in Europe means that you will be treated to at least two languages on a “domestic” flight. On this flight to Paris, I got three languages - French, German and English! Now German I am used to since I hear it all the time. (I am still relatively unsuccessful at speaking it *sigh*). The English was so heavily accented that I had a hard time understanding it. I had five years of French in jr. hi through sophomore year of high school. That was a LONG time ago. You don’t need to do the math, you can just take my word for it!

Someone must have pounded it into my head very well when I was young, because I was amazed to discover that I could understand a lot of it. As usual, I could understand, but not really speak it. I think that’s the toughest part. I see it with the students I teach at the English Center. They comprehend most of what I’m saying, but can’t really speak it yet. I call it “turn around” time. One of the most fun conversations that I’ve had so far has been with a woman who understands English, but doesn’t really speak it. She spoke German and I spoke English and we actually conversed for about an hour and a half!

The interesting thing about hearing yet another foreign language was that I would try to speak German! I think it was a case of my brain saying “Ooohh!!! Foreign language!” and then spewing out all kinds of foreign words... German being the most recent. No matter. Meine Deutsche ist schlect!

Donna and I headed out to an African dance class the first evening I was in Paris. It was a very interesting location. We walked down an alley filled with nightclubs until we came to a sort of parking ramp. Underneath the parking ramp you could see lights and the sound of the drums reached us well before we saw the dancers. Since I am recovering from pneumonia, I decided that it was probably in my best interests to just watch.

It was a good call. I seriously think the class would have killed me. It was SO high energy, it was unbelievable. All kinds of people of all different ages and body types dancing in their own way. The instructor would give them a combination and everyone interpreted the movement in their own way. This was done at a high rate of speed with incredible energy. Then they would switch lines and do the whole combination over again and so on. There were maybe four combinations that built to this massive final frenzy and the drums stopped. You know what that’s like! The abrupt silence is like a slap in the face. Totally exhilarating! Everyone fell down. It looked like the Boneless Chicken Ranch. It was incredible to watch. I wanted to join in the worst way, but it truly would have been the end of me. I mean, these people were healthy.

The next day I decided to take on the Paris subway and the Louvre. The Louvre is positively enormous and you could probably spend a month in there at least. I am sorry to admit that I did the tourist slash and burn, visiting mainly the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. I did spend some time in the Italian painters exhibit (that’s where the Mona Lisa was.) I have never seen so many wings, horns and pink cherubs in my entire life. Lots of cherubs. Multitudes of cherubs. Throngs of them. All very pink. And lots of madonnas. They were easy to identify. Why is Mary always wearing blue? She is always modestly and warmly dressed in blue, but the baby Jesus doesn’t fare as well. He is usually minimally dressed in a swaddling cloth. Maybe he has a high metabolism or something, but I think he looks like he could use a blanket. And he’s pink too! Probably from the cold!

The hall containing the Mona Lisa was easy to find since it was the one with tourists spilling out into the central hallway. And why not? It’s a famous and fabulous painting. Of course everyone wants to see it. It was pretty exciting. You realize that you are looking at the real deal. Kind of takes your breath away....

I wandered into the Egyptian antiquities hall as well. Just the age of some of the specimens was impressive. And the work that went into them. I won’t bother with superfluous superlatives. It wouldn’t do the exhibit justice anyway.

Since the Musee D’Orsay was across the street (more or less), I walked over there to take in the Impressionists and some van Gogh. One of my favorite paintings was by Manet of turkeys. I really enjoyed the colors, but was sad when I went to the gift shop to discover that it was probably one of the few paintings that was NOT available as a card or poster. Bummer! But I’ll keep a picture in my head. It’s not quite the same but it will have to do for now.

My New Dirty Habit

2009-04-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeed, I confess that I have a new dirty habit. I smoke! Not that I actually light the cigarette or actually inhale. Someone else lights up and then lets the smoke drain under my nose.

I have become a second hand smoker. Austria is notably behind other countries in terms of smoking bans or rules or regulations. Restaurants are not required to have smoking and nonsmoking areas and in those that have them voluntarily, there’s only blue air that separates them.

Another shocking thing about cigarettes is the easy access that children have to them. There are cigarette dispensing machines posted in many neighborhoods and they are at an easy height for children to reach. I don’t mean to be a prude, but it is disconcerting to be waiting at the bus stop while an 11 year old sitting next to you inhales greedily. I just want to ask him...

“Does your Muti know you smoke?”

Just like that.....

2009-04-02T04:34:00.000-07:00

Boom! It's spring! The crocuses and daffodils are up and the flowering shrubs are budding out. The windows are open at the Institut and the lovely springtime odors of the neighboring farm are wafting in the window as I type. The fresh dairy air!! The Untersberg! The sunshine! The foehn!

The what? The foehn is a warm, dry wind that tumbles, sometimes with landslide suddenness, down the northern slopes of the Bavarian Alps. In winter and early spring, as it sweeps across Bavaria, it melts the snow and brings to the landscape a strange, bluish haze. German mountain-folk hold to an ancient belief that the foehn also brings sickness and melancholia in its blast. (an old article in TIme magazine)

Last time I talked a little about Kreislaufkollaps. Now you can learn a new German malady: Foehnkrankheit!

When the foehn blows, susceptible people have trouble with allergies, migraines, exhaustion, sinuses and all manner of maladies. Indeed, most of the Special Course class today was just dragging. The weather is spectacular but you feel too tired to enjoy it. It's rather like the totally Arctic days we have at home in Wisconsin. It's minus 30, but it looks beautiful outside. But you can't really enjoy it. I personally had a very tough time getting out of bed this morning and have been attempting to locate some serious caffeine in an attempt to snap out of my foehnkrankheit.

Funny how so many physical and mental conditions are linked to the weather......

By the way, the foehn is also called the "snow eater" because of its ability to lay waste rapidly to accumulated snow. It also leaves the air with a bluish tinge, which is quite observable today.

My next post may well be from Paris where I am spending the bulk of the Easter holiday with my Orff friend Donna Fleetwood. I'm sure that Paris will never recover!

Das Wetter ist schlect!

2009-03-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

As I look out the window, the weather is much as it has been since the beginning of February; cold, drippy, and gray. I have been counting. There have been exactly five nice days since February 8th.
Yesterday was one of those nice days. It was warm (60s!) clear and sunny. When the weather is nice here, it is SPECTACULAR!! The mountains are beautiful, the residents happy. All is well with the world. But as the sun set last night, the clouds moved in and this morning it was back to the gray steady drizzle.
Because Salzburg is in a sort of basin, the clouds can really linger for a long period of time. It also tends to rain and be drippy rather than snow because it stays artificially warm. It can be snowing in the mountains (you can see it!) and drippy in the city proper.
Aside from the mental havoc that a nonstop streak of bad weather can wreak, German speakers are prone to a condition called "kreislaufkollaps" which translates to "circulatory system collapse." Now of course that seems absurd, because if your circulatory system collapsed you would be deceased. I asked a friend about this and he was kind enough to explain that low blood pressure is a common problem amongst the Germanic natives and if the weather consists of a lingering low pressure system, the folks with low blood pressure feel unusually bad. The doctors are very busy during periods of foul weather with patients suffering from kreislaufkollaps. I've seen two instances of this phenomenon, and interestingly neither person was of Germanic origin. But the effects are not nice. They are rendered unable to stand or move around much, are light headed, and have difficulty understanding what's going on around them. In one case, I was at a store with a friend who had this problem. She was literally lying in the parking lot, unable to get up or walk without assistance.
One of the sales associates noticed that we were having difficulties and offered some "drops" to my ailing friend. Apparently you can buy them at the apotheke without a prescription. They consist of herbs and homeopathic meds that the FDA would never approve! The results were dramatic. First of all, the drops smelled quite toxic and my friend confirmed that the taste was unique to say the least. But within 10 minutes she felt much better and we were able to continue with the plans we had for the day. We managed to get the name of the drops so that she could head off future episodes.
We need some besser wetter and soon not only to stave off depression but kreislaufkollaps too!

Eating Good in the 'Hood

2009-03-23T04:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Pam from the States was here a couple of weeks ago. She plays in the Minnesota Orchestra and they were in Europe on tour, so she and had planned last summer to meet in Vienna and spend some time together. We had a wonderful time. We saw the Klimt exhibit, did some shopping (well, not me so much because I'm broke) and then we went to the Musikverein where she had to play and I got to listen. The concert was fabulous and the soloist was Joshua Bell. The seats were uncomfortable and I swear that I was sitting in the ADD section. The woman in front of me spent the entire concert tapping her foot and looking around. She even turned around and looked at the people in the upper balcony. Repeatedly! Others read their programs or texted (it's called simsiming over here, kind of a verb form of SMS). But all leapt to their feet when the concert was over. It was that good. And the Viennese are known for being picky.
Anyway, part of the fun of a new city is exploring the restaurants. I'm not sure the food is always that interesting. It must be very dangerous to be a pig here because most of the offerings on the menu are pork based. The prices are high but the portions are enormous!! As are the calorie counts.
There are some major but surprisingly subtle differences in the dining experience in Austria. Pam found this out in a slightly alarming way. At one restaurant, as soon as the waiter heard our American accents, a full bread bowl appeared on the table. Pam, who was famished, grabbed a roll and had torn into it before I could say "No! Wait! Don't!" You see, it's not like the States where bread baskets are part and parcel of the experience. In Austria you are charged for every piece of bread you eat.... and you are charged an almost outrageous amount. I told Pam this and she was incredulous when the bill arrived with an extra 2,30 Euro charge for two rolls. That's a lot in dollars, but factor in the conversion rate and it becomes unbelievable.
Now to beverages. It is considered RUDE to ask for tap water and of course you are charged for it. It doesn't just arrive unbidden like it does in the States. You have your choice of mineral water with or without gas (fizz). And of course it costs. The best bet I've found is usually the beer. It's local and delicious,
The wait staff generally does not hover over you or take dishes away or really pay any attention to you whatsoever. There is no incentive to do so as they are paid a living wage and not the $2.35 an hour that my daughter makes in the States. When you are finished eating and you are ready to go, you flag down your waiter and settle up right then and there at the table. The nice thing about this is that it's very easy to split the bill if you need to.
So the next time you are eating at Applebees and the funny redheaded waitress brings you a bread basket and free water, remember that she is trying really hard to give you good service and make you happy and for this she is only being paid $2.35. I say this not to promote Applebees. After all, their jingle is ungrammatical. "Eating good in the 'hood?" It should be "Eating well outside of hell" or something. Or maybe even "Consume Mass Quantities in the Surrounding Vicinity." Kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it?

A Return to Sensibility

2009-03-22T08:20:00.001-07:00

After a LONG break I am back. It seems I caught the flu back in very early February. I thought I was over it but it blossomed into a nasty sinus infection. From there it went to bronchitis, and last but not least, pneumonia. It is my own fault. I delayed going to the doctor, not because I didn't have time, but because I didn't have money. I expected the cost to ruin me because after all, I am used to the medical system with all its cost in the United States. I also declined the student insurance that was offered here because I was assured that my insurance at home would cover my medical expenses here.
Yeah, right.
It's no secret that the health care INDUSTRY in the US is a disaster. I'm not saying that the doctors are poor or that the health care actually provided is bad - far from it. It's really quite excellent..... if you can afford it. Therein lies the rub.
Austria has a "single payer" system. Read the link to the Huffington Post article in the previous post to know a bit more. Here's what I can tell you about it first hand.
It is different from the start. At home if I call the doctor when I am sick, I am usually told that the first available appointment is about three months hence. When I say that I am sick TODAY, I am told to go to the ER or the ImmediaCare center. Major dollars already. Or maybe they can work you in two days from now if it's really an emergency and you're not dead by then. In Austria, you just show up during the doctor's office hours. You may recall from an earlier post that the office hours here tend to be erratic. I'm sure that if you miss the hours (and it's a small window) you have to go to the ER here too. But I was lucky. I managed to get to the office with time to spare. I figured that I would need it in order to fill out the inevitable piles of requisite paperwork. In the States you check in with the receptionist who asks all kinds of things about insurance and the like and then you fill out a paper that says nothing has changed and HIPA and whatever all else. Here in Austria you stand in line. Mind you, I'd never been to this place. I finally got to the front of the line, explained my situation (no eCard, private payer, I speak English, particularly when sick, etc..) and waited to be handed the pile of papers. The receptionist told me to have a seat in the waiting area. I looked at her and said "That's it?" I was assured that it was.
So I went and sat. Here's a thing that's very different about the waiting room. It's true of elevators too! When you enter the waiting room (or elevator) it is customary to greet everyone there like it's the deck of a cruise ship or something. It is also customary to bid farewell upon your departure. So here are all these sick people greeting each other. Some things weren't different, like the television and the outdated magazines, but as time went on and people were being called to the examining room, I realized that it was the DOCTOR himself who came out to the waiting room to fetch people! Unheard of!!! Isn't the nurse supposed to come get you while clutching a giant paper stack of medical records, then take you to yet another room and the doctor comes in the back door so he doesn't actually have to associate with the unwashed masses? This was all so new and amazing! Finally a fine young intern called my name and I was whisked off to a lab/examining room. I quickly explained my medical history, he entered the information into a COMPUTER and told me that I would need a CBC (complete blood count). I am VERY familiar with CBCs as I have to have LOTS of them (long story) so I rolled up my right sleeve explaining that this was the better vein. He looked incredulous and said no, they would just take a few drops from my finger and run it through a spectrometer and I would have a reading in 5 minutes. I asked him if he was sure that he didn't need 4 tubes of blood and a half an hour. Nope. Just a few drops. (Sorry to those of you who don't like to think about blood. Blood is my life!!) After quickly coming to the conclusion that I had sinusitis and bronchitis AND a middle ear infection, I was told to go home to bed and was handed a prescription for an antibiotic and two herbal medications. The prescription was a very neat, clean and orderly computer printout, not a slip of paper with barely decipherable chicken scratch. I looked at him in amazement. I said "First of all, I'm American. This is how it works. You are supposed to give me a prescription for the biggest, nastiest, most expensive antibiotic known to man and then I continue about my business. I DON'T do bed rest. And no doctor in the States would EVER give you a prescription for herbs. I don't think the drug companies would stand for it." He laughed and said "Go home and go to bed. Come back Friday."
I went and filled my prescriptions. The nasty antibiotic costs a fortune in the States and so I was cringing in anticipation of the bill. The last time I had it, it cost $85. Imagine my consternation when the pharmacist told me it was 12,70 Euro. I looked at her and said "That can't be right." She assured me that the total was indeed correct. Astounded, I went home with my antibiotic and my two herbal medicines. The one herbal, a cough suppressant, was made of primarily thyme and codeine. It had a rather complex taste, not unlike pond slime combined with liquid pencil shavings and turkey dressing. In spite of its modest herbal origins, it did the trick very nicely. Must have been the codeine!
After another visit to the doctor and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I had walking pneumonia and I was sent home for another week in bed. BORE!!! It was a good call. I am feeling much better and I didn't have to go to the hospital. Yay! And I've lost a lot of weight. Bonus!
Overall, I found the medical system here to be infinitely practical and efficient. The medical establishment is free to go about its mission of health care without the insurance and pharmaceutical industries hanging over them. And everything is computerized. All my medical information is available at the click of a mouse, the prescriptions are clear, the medical personnel are available, it's relatively inexpensive and available to everyone. Why can't we do this in the States????
Some of my Austrian friends complain about the medical system and the cost, but it's SO easy to recount stories of out of control costs in the States that they quickly cease their lamentations.
I have met a new friend here who is currently living with her mother-in-law in England. The extended family lives in the States, but they can't bring the 93 year old mother in law over from England because they can't get health care for her!! Instead they take turns staying with her in England. What's wrong with this picture?? I heard a piece on public radio not too long ago where they were interviewing mixed nationality couples (US and European) who in all cases had decided to reside in Europe because they could not face the hassle of health care in the States.
Fortunately, I have relatively good health care coverage. This is in comparison to self-employed friends of mine who pay $3600 a month for health insurance. I have a daughter who developed some health issues and had to drop out of college to deal with them. She could neither work nor go to school, but the insurance company dropped her because she wasn't in school. To continue her policy was $850 a month. Where, pray tell, was THAT supposed to come from? In Austria, it wouldn't have been a problem.
In spite of the fact that I have reasonably good coverage and in spite of the fact that I am supposedly covered here in Europe, the bottom line is that the doctor here is an "out of network" provider and I have to pay the bill out of my own pocket. The entire cost is less than my "out of network" deductible.
Something has GOT to change with health care in the US. There IS a better way.

Read this.... more to come....

2009-03-18T02:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/arnold-should-be-truly-in_b_38919.html

Holy lungs, Batman!

2009-03-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Whoa guys! Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I seem to have acquired pneumonia. I shall return in the next few days with some longer posts. I promise!

The Gieblers Get in the Car......

2009-02-22T03:46:00.001-08:00

My good friend Martha prompted my search for this commercial. My family jokes about it because in our family of four we have a music professor, a composer/arranger, a theater technician, and a modern dance major. This is what it looks like when we get in the car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L2OqPKYfJU

This is when we are NOT stuck in the snow of course!

Snow removal... Austrian style...

2009-02-22T03:27:00.000-08:00

There has been very little snow in Salzburg until this past week. Mother Nature seems to be making up for lost time and it has snowed heavily for days on end. I am from Wisconsin so I am used to snow. I am also used to Wisconsin style snow removal which for the most part is speedy and efficient. European snow removal is neither.
As near as I can figure, the snow removal system is one of laissez-faire. Everything is left to melt and/or re-freeze. Sometimes there are gravel bitties that are casually tossed on the sidewalks, but generally the roads AND sidewalks are a series of frozen ruts. This can make ambulation hazardous. I live a block away from a senior housing complex and I see them out teetering in their trachten with trekking poles, tentatively making their way to the Thursday market.
I shouldn't say that there is NO snow removal as the snowplow DID come through at some crazy hour in the middle of the night and cleared a small swath down the middle of the street. There are no policies regarding snow removal and parking, so the apartment dwellers who park on the streets take their chances with being trapped by the snowplow detritus. Yesterday I saw one such unfortunate attempting to dig his small vehicle out from under a mound of snow. He obviously wasn't used to doing this since his solution was to pitch the offending snow either under his car, effectively high-centering it, or under the car parked directly in front of him, high-centering that one as well. I am afraid that I was a bit of a voyeur in that I HAD to stop and watch this brand of insanity. I knew he wasn't going to get out but he hopped in the car and floored it. Had this been an effective strategy, he certainly would have driven his vehicle into the rear end of the car in front, but as it was, the wheels just spun and he sank deeper into the snow. He repeated this procedure several times, shoveling the snow back under the car, then gunning the motor. It was gloriously futile.
I haven't checked yet today to see if he ever made it out.

Men in black!

2009-02-22T02:43:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I've said it before, but the color black is like the European National Uniform. I was in Munich the other day for a concert (more about that in a minute) and I was at the Starbuck's in the train station watching the teeming masses on the street corner. Over half of them were dressed in black. I then realized, much to my chagrin, that I too was dressed in black.

I then got on the subway and saw a sign about "Schwarzfahren." This is a term with which I recently became acquainted. It means "black riding" or "riding without a ticket." The subway is full of people and I think it must be very hard to check everyone for tickets. No one is really on the subway long enough for a controller to check tickets, but the penalty is steep if you "Schwarzfahren." Astoundingly, it's not as high as the penalties in Salzburg (40 Euro vs. 60 Euro) but then things don't seem to be as expensive other places as they are in Salzburg. I may revise that opinion when I go to Vienna in a few weeks, but for now I'll let it stand.

The concert I went to in Munich was a concert of Hebraic music at the Orff Zentrum. The Orff Zentrum is a state sponsored library/recital hall/ archive dedicated to the preservation of Orff's work. Mostly theater works, not so much pedagogical work. Most of that material is here at the Institut. To get to the Zentrum, you need to go through a walkway from the main drag - Ludwigstrasse - to quiet Kaulbachstrasse. You can see the stacks at the state library all lit up, and there's a kindergarten located on the walkway. And there are crows....

The BBC recently did a mini-series called "The Tutors" starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry the VIII and Jeremy Northam who was Thomas Cromwell. Things ended badly for Cromwell and he was executed at the Tower of London. Of course the mini-series had several shots of Jeremy Northam in his prison cell and the most creepy thing about it (other than "Oh my GOD they're going to execute Jeremy Northam!!!!!! OK, it's a middle age woman thing..). were the crows cackling in the background.

The crows in the States are pansies compared to the crows over here. The crows here are big and ugly and have the most evil and sinister sounding voices imaginable. It is REALLY spooky. They sound like they are literally over your shoulder when they are indeed many feet over your head. And they never shut up!!

So the lovely walkway is shared with these harbingers of doom. They don't bite or attack or anything, they just sound sinister.

I was happy to get to the Zentrum because it is a bright cheerful place. For those of you that are interested in such things, it is located on the same site as the Günther Schule was in the 1920s. There is a beautiful Bechstein piano in the recital hall and everything is very tasteful.

The concert was a series of pieces by Ernest Bloch, some songs by Ravel, and the Kreutzer sonata by Beethoven. An interesting mix to be sure. Bloch is not necessarily my favorite, but the violinist was AMAZING!!!! The entire concert was top notch and the evening was rounded out by a reception afterwards (with wine!) where you could talk with the artists. It was lovely and the audience truly appreciated the evening. There was even an encore written by Orff!

Of course, all this sonic beauty was somewhat tempered by the fact that I had to walk the crow gauntlet to get to my hotel. But no matter. I had a hard time falling asleep because the concert had been so wonderful!!

Beauty and the Beast

2009-02-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

One of the most important things I learned in my college methods class was:

"The secretary and the maintenance man are the two most important people that you will ever deal with in a school setting."

Notice it wasn't the superintendent, or the principal, or even the parents. Over my now considerable years teaching, I have found this advice to be more than true. It applies even to the Orff Institut!

The secretary at the Institut is one of the most amazing and generous people I've ever met. Her English is wonderful and she is very helpful and patient when you are struggling with German. When my wallet was stolen, containing my ticket to the traditional Salzburg Adventsingen, she replaced the ticket for me out of her own pocket because she felt it was important for me to experience it. She also lives in my 'hood, and on more than one occasion has given me a ride home. She has an incredible assortment of Beanie Babies decorating her office and the dashboard of her car, all gifts from students current and past. She really is the heart and soul of the Institut!

The "haus meister" is a direct contrast. Sending frightened students scattering in front of him, he stomps the halls in his rubber hip-waders (WHY??), looking neither left nor right and responding to friendly greetings mostly with a loud "Harumph!" In a twisted way, I enjoy these kinds of personalities. There is nothing like sending a bright, cheery "Guten Tag" or "Good morning" his way. He can't ignore it (as much as he would like to) and has to do SOMETHING, whether it's shrugging, or snorting, or "harumphing." It's endearing in a cave dweller kind of way.

The haus meister enjoys routine, rules and regulations. Take Wednesday for instance. Wednesday is "outdoor maintenance day." In the spring and fall, the lawnmower comes out and the lawn gets mowed. It doesn't matter if it's raining or even whether the grass needs mowing or not. It's WEDNESDAY. In the winter, this same principle applies to the snowblower. Out it comes, whether there's snow or not! It's just tough if it snows on Monday. Wednesday is snow removal day and that's it! Who cares if by Wednesday it has turned into a layer of lumpy frozen ice? We'll just roll the snowblower over it anyway.

Then there's the chip and the bats. On weekends, the Orff Institut is electronically secured and one can only gain access with the use of a blue chip. This is not a stock, rather it's a key fob with some kind of electronic fingerprint. You hold it up to the scanner and the door magically unlocks...... but only for 90 seconds. If the door is open longer than this, the alarm sounds and the police are summoned....... along with the haus meister. The police are easy enough to deal with, but NO ONE wants to deal with the wrath of the haus meister.

The computer room on the second floor has a tendency to overheat and it is common practice to open the windows. It is not unheard of to forget to close the windows thereby causing a fledermaus problem. One can only assume that the bats want to check their Facebook page. Who doesn't? I'll bet the haus meister even has a Facebook page!

The Flu

2009-02-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last four days confined to my room as the result of influenza. I am prone to respiratory bother as it is, but I can't recall ever having the flu. Now I can say: Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt. Since I have spent a lot of time in the last few days looking at my apartment, I thought you might enjoy seeing what it looks like too!

This is my little kitchen. I like it. It reminds me of the tiny kitchen I had at the coffee shop I used to own. The coffee maker is one I purchased at the Flohmarkt (flea market) and I bought a little bakofen (a Pillsbury Bakeoven!) at Hofer, the Austrian equivalent of Aldi. I can make cafe and kuchen for my friends! The stove works on a timer which I think is a good thing, judging by how much blue burned dinner smoke fills the hallway on a regular basis. Not my dinner of course. I'm a hardened professional. The timer can get inconvenient if you are cooking something which has to simmer for a long time since it maxes out at 15 minutes. But you can adjust!

A picture of my state issue wardrobe and IKEA furnished bed.

The view out my window... sort of. There is a large empty building across the street from me. In fact, there is a lot of empty real estate in this part of town. My studentenheim used to be "the Krankenkassa" which I think means it was a building of doctors' offices. It was something medical. All the Salzburgers know it. When they ask me where I live, I say "The old Krankenkassa" and they say "Oh! Faberstrasse!" I used to find this amazing until I woke up and realized that Salzburg, in spite of its world renown, really is a very small place. Everyone knows everybody.
I brought the fuzzy lamb on the windowsill from home. I figured I couldn't bring my pets (I miss them!) so I brought something familiar and petlike along.

Nancy Drew and the Case of the Missing Staubsauger

2009-02-09T02:12:00.000-08:00

If you paid attention to the last post, you'll know what a staubsauger is!

When I was younger (yes, dinosaurs still freely roamed the earth) I loved the Nancy Drew books. What was not to like? Nancy had a cool dad, a dreamy and supportive boyfriend Ned, a convertible and brains! In short, everything I aspired to when I reached my late teens.... especially the convertible. She was a positive role model!

I was helping my friend Gabrielle do inventory at the book store last weekend and sure enough she had some Nancy Drew books in the Young Adult section. I was glad to see that they are still in print and even more glad to find that they are still selling even here in Austria.

In what has to seem to be a totally random fact, I was awakened at 4:30 Saturday morning by the unmistakable sound of the person upstairs vacuuming their floor. Now I ask you. WHY??????

What makes this so remarkable is that until a few days ago, the vacuum cleaner was MISSING!!!!!

I have to back up here and give you some more information. I live in a studentenheim which is kind of like a dorm, but not exactly. University tuition here in Austria is free (unless you're a student in the Special Course) or minimal, but unlike the USA, housing is not provided. It's every man for himself. Studentenheime are loosely affiliated to universities in that they provide housing for students, but they are not a university entity. There is no cafeteria, food is entirely the student's responsibility. I live in a studio apartment. I have a kitchen (no oven) and minimal kitchen supplies. I have minimal furnishings, which is fine, and I don't pay utilities, which is great. There are laundry facilities in the basement (again, every man for himself), a haus meister (house master) who is on site from 9-11 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays but never on St. Swithen's Day, and lounge (translate: smoker's paradise) on every floor. As far as cleaning supplies go, again it's every man for himself.

The putzfrau (another fabulous compound word!) keeps the housekeeping supplies in a closet on the first floor. Everyone knows where it is, and since there are no rules about using them (as there are no rules about anything, i.e. NOT playing your stereo between 1-3 AM or vacuuming at 4:30, or slamming doors) people tend to be fairly casual about borrowing and returning. I myself have borrowed the "heim Staubsauger" (house vacuum cleaner) on several occasions, which reminds me, I need to borrow it today. I am always diligent about returning it promptly, because I know there are about 200 other people in the building that could make use of it as well.

Shortly before Christmas, the house vacuum cleaner went missing. I had wanted to vacuum my room before I left for the break, but being unable to locate it, decided it might be better to wait until I returned. The dust wasn't exactly going to go anywhere. When I returned, I noticed that there was now a sign posted in the elevator, in German, asking that please, if you had borrowed the vacuum cleaner, return it. The sign hung there for a couple of weeks. Alas, no sign of the VC.

Around the end of January, I received an email from someone at the "main office" (which as I may have mentioned before is on the other side of town and has odd office hours) stating that unless the vacuum cleaner was returned on such and such a day at such and such an hour, the powers that be would conduct a room to room search and when the vacuum cleaner was found, the unfortunate person would be publicly humiliated. Of course, this was all in German. With maybe one exception, everyone on my floor is foreign and speaks something other than German first, probably English second, and German may be 3rd, 4th, or not even on the list. When they changed the security system in late November, there was total pandemonium on the floor when all the doors spontaneously unlocked at 8 PM. People had no idea the system was being changed even though they had received an email explaining everything...... in German.

Upon receiving this latest email, I went downstairs to discuss the matter with the Hausmeister. He understands English but doesn't really speak it, I understand German, but don't really speak it, so we have these great Germish conversations. I told him that I did not have the vacuum cleaner and that I didn't want him in my room and I said I thought the vacuum cleaner would turn up if the information went out in English. I explained that yes, this IS a German speaking country and yes, they have every right to expect us to make the effort to translate the information that is sent to us, but that the bottom line is, NOT EVERYONE DOES. The Hausmeister understood, but he didn't feel that his English was good enough to post a sign. Neither did the house speaker who was also there to discuss the missing item.

I asked myself "What would Nancy Drew do?" I posted a sign in the elevator in English.

Guess what? The vacuum cleaner showed up. I'll never know if it was the sign in English or the threatening email In German that initiated its return, but I for one am glad that it's back and my room is much cleaner because of it.

The Efficiency of German

2009-02-09T01:49:00.000-08:00

I love German. It can be rather intimidating to attempt to learn, but it is fun nonetheless. In fact, the word "nonetheless" is a spectacular example in English of German compactness. You could write "none the less" or "none-the-less" but it's much more efficient and economical to write "nonetheless" and it means the same thing anyway. German is full of these compound words. Instead of hyphenating things like "He-who-must-not-be-named" or "orffan-in-austria" the Germans just run them all together. It's quite sensible, albeit not always easy to read.
I love the compound words. They make so much sense! See if you can guess what these words are in English. I've added a fairly literal translation...

A. Hubschrauber - screw
B. Reissverschluss - travelling closure
C. Meerschwein - sea pig
D. Ausfahrt - out drive
E. Staubsauger - dust sucker
F. Flusspferd - river horse

How fun is that???? Give up?

A. Helicopter
B. Zipper
C. Guinea pig
D. Exit
E. Vacuum cleaner
F. Hippopotamus

I've actually had an opportunity to use all those words in conversation. OK, maybe not Guinea pig.......

On the Sunny Side of the Street

2009-02-06T01:36:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that you can only imagine what dorm living is like for someone who has not lived in a dorm since her freshman year. Let's just be polite and say that it was quite some time ago. In fact, dinosaurs still freely roamed the earth at that point in time and there was only black and white TV. We used to listen to music on these plastic discs that you scratched with a needle. There were no cell phones, no internet, no laptops, no FACEBOOK!!! How did we EVER survive?

I can remember doing a project for a class when I was still an engineering major where we had to determine a future animal population using BASIC and punchcards. We then had to take the cards to the computer room, which incidentally was not a room full of computers, but a room with ONE computer which took up all available space. The grad assistant on duty would feed your cards into the computer and you would wait for 15 minutes for the answer - 1415 antelope. Or whatever.

Flash forward to today. I am living in a studentenheim (translate: student house) with people my daughters' ages. It has taken some adjustment. It's a bit like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I routinely come home to halls filled with blue smoke from either burned dinners or cigarettes. (Smoking is rampant here in Europe.) One day I was down in the basement jockeying for position for one of the washing machines and I found a confused freshman standing in front of the machine. She had never done her own laundry, confessing that "My mother always does it for me." To which I said, "And she still does!" as I sorted her clothes, set the machine, and let it rip.

One of the students on the floor below must have received a new sound system for Christmas and decided that everyone needed a demonstration of its inherent power. I'm all for showing off your new and fabulous stereo, but not between 1 and 3 in the morning. Never one to hold back, I went downstairs and told them in no uncertain terms that it was irritating.

My immediate neighbor is a nice guy from India named Sunny. I'm not sure that's his given name, but I must say that it's an appropriate nickname. He really has a sunny disposition. Sunny is kind and generous. He also has one of the most resonant voices imaginable. He likes to play virtual football (soccer) and will vociferously encourage or disparage his avatar at all hours. He talks on the phone at a high volume. The best is when he sings. He'll play something on the radio or computer that sounds like "Benny Lava" and sing along.

I must confess that at first I found all of this to be immensely irritating, but after a while I realized that these are all happy sounds and I find it weirdly reassuring to hear Sunny sing in the morning. It means that all is well in the world!

25 Random Things About Me....

2009-01-29T12:03:00.000-08:00

This seems to be the latest rage on Facebook. Never one to flout convention, forthwith is my contribution to the craze.

1. I have two of the coolest kids on the planet.

2. I like food. I like to cook it, I like to shop for it, I like to eat it. That being said.....

3. I loathe and abominate goat cheese because....

4. I used to own and show pygmy goats. Goat cheese smells like them. While I loved the goats, the smell was a bit overpowering.

5. I hate anything that goes around my wrist. This includes, but is not limited to: bracelets, watches, hospital IDs, tight sleeves, etc.....

6. I have an oddly shaped pinky toenail on my left foot. They never know what to do about it when I go for a pedicure.

7. I like my gin & tonic in a 7-11 Big Gulp tumbler. I don't fool around with small cocktails. I go for the swimming pool size.

8. I absolutely adore Queen. I could write a doctoral dissertation about them, I swear.

9. I once got a speeding ticket because of my adoration of Queen. Volume cranked too high, foot too heavy on the gas. In no way, shape or form has this staunched my undying devotion.

10. I am hopelessly addicted to knitting and have an unfortunate predilection for expensive and luxurious fibers.

11. I own a Mac. Always have, always will. End of story.

12. I use Sibelius, not Finale. Always have, always will.

13. I married my piano instructor.

14. I was admitted to music school on probation. I think they were mad about #13.

15. I am still married to him. So there!

16. I am trying to learn German, but I'm not very good at it. I don't care. It's fun to learn something new!

17. When I am working on a piece, I can lose hours at a shot.

18. I keep the "Music for Children" volumes on my nightstand for a little light reading before nodding off.

19. I have pierced ears.

20. I could have played string bass in 6th grade, but opted for the French horn instead. My mother and I had a big argument about this because she said playing the French horn wasn't "ladylike." Now I ask you. Is there ANYTHING about me that's ladylike? I picked up the viola at the age of 21 and haven't played the French horn since.

21. I taught myself to play the alto recorder when I was 9, and when I got to Orff Level I, the soprano was completely new to me.

22. I bit my nails for over 35 years and suddenly in the summer of 2006, for no reason and without realizing it, I quit. I looked down one day and SHAZZAM!! I had fingernails!

23. I am a hard core Episcopalian. I love high church, incense, hymns and dressing up in a cassock and cotta.

24. My Orff friends are my rock.

25. I am a pretty affable person, but if there is ANYONE in the whole wide world that I would have no problem hitting in the face with an undefrosted Sarah Lee chocolate cream pie, it would be my high school choral teacher. No ifs, ands, or buts. Consider yourself warned, Kenny!!

Rock Star!

2009-01-25T01:07:00.000-08:00

It's true that Barack Obama is a celebrity of sorts. The Obama mania that has swept the States is also in evidence in Austria, but of course, it's hard to tell since the Austrians tend to be restrained in their displays of enthusiasm. I'm sure that they have no idea of what to make of me....

The ex-pat community here in Salzburg is a close-knit one. They are truly wonderful people and they are making my time here so enjoyable. Since I am not really the same age as the more traditional students, it's nice to find friends who are in the same phase of life.... that is....middle age! A lot of my ex-pat friends have cool Austrian spouses. I've met some American students and some of the teachers at the International School. It's a nice community!

Of course, we are thrilled about Obama's election and so my friend Mary Ann organized an party at Hotel Stein, one of THE most chic places in Salzburg. The management was kind enough to set up a large screen TV and the presecco flowed freely. Mary Ann had spent the afternoon decorating, so there was red, white and blue everywhere. There was even a big "Obama" banner! Unfortunately, we didn't have the life size cardboard cut-out of the man, but we made do. The media was there, taking pictures and interviewing people. It was a great party and the goodwill was palpable. We cheered, sang, and toasted the new president and some of us continued the party until well into the evening.

I slept until 10:30 the next day, entirely missing my class. When I finally made it back to the Institut on Thursday, I discovered that I was a star. Apparently my interview and picture were in the Salzburger Nachrichten (the local paper!).

It's nice to be American!

International Evening

2009-01-25T00:24:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the blackboard, International Evening was held on January 22 at the Orff Institut. We put together a multi-media extravaganza that featured song, dance and play from around the world. It was a lot of work, but the result was worth it.
Here's the program:

Thailand - Long Drum March: We started in darkness and Toey began with a call and response bringing everyone to the instruments. It was loud and exciting and a great way to begin!

China - New Year's Dance: Fabia told a story about how some of the New Year's traditions came to be and then there was a lovely dance with firecrackers!

Japan - Ochilocka Hoi and Nabe: Two traditional Japanese nursery rhymes. The audience participated.

"Let's Go Swimming!" : This is how we got from one continent to another. It's a great song. Here's a picture of us brushing our teeth. If I can figure out how to link the tune, I will!

Iran - An improvisation by Mastaneh on the santur, and an arrangement of a traditional piece "Majnoon Naboodom" by Mandana. I think this was an audience favorite with good reason!

Turkey - Arsevi led us in a traditional nursery rhyme, which I can't even begin to type. It was about a fisherman in a rowboat. She added drums and a hand jive for additional fun

Columbia - A lovely 4 part arrangement of Prende La Vela. We have three people in the Special Course from Columbia, and a fourth one who is in the Masters program. We sang this one in the dark with votive candles. It was very effective.

America - Since we are really fortunate to have a jazz bass player in the group, he jammed and I led the audience in an ostinato. It was fun!

Portugal - Rui sang a song that was the cornerstone of the people's revolution in 1974. Not a single shot was fired, instead the people placed red carnations in the barrels of the soldiers' rifles.

Catalunya - This was REALLY fun. Each city in Catalunya has its own day of celebration. There are parades and festivities of all kinds, and a feature of these festivals are the giants. Here's a picture of the real deal:

And here's a picture of Marta, Tresa and Cathy painting the head of our "giant." (I dusted off my 4-H skills and made a dress out of some Ikea sheets) I think our giant ended up looking a bit like Mr. Bill.

Spain - Tresa, Arsevi, Virginia and Marta did a traditional stick dance from Aragon while I tried desperately to keep up with Pedro in a recorder duet to accompany. It was great fun!

Italy - Virginia got to let all her inhibitions out in a rousing rendition of the "Tarantella."

The entire evening was a great success and we were happy with the result. Of course, we were all exhausted the next day....

It's Raining Phlegm! ..or...The Downside of Mistletoe

2009-01-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

My only real acquaintance with mistletoe is confined to the curious custom (which originated in Scandinavia) of kissing someone of the opposite gender at Christmastime under a branch of mistletoe. In my case, it was never real mistletoe. It was a petroleum based product in the shape of the real thing. It probably explains why I have never been so fortunate as to be kissed under the mistletoe. And why I don't recognize the real thing when I see it.
Mistletoe is actually a parasitic plant that feeds on trees. The trees on the boulevard to the Orff Institut are heavily infected and they have the appearance of something that you would see in a Dr. Seuss book. Big balls of evergreen foliage everywhere. I naively thought at first that these tree balls were a lovely traditional European holiday tradition. DUH! The tree to the right only seems to have one mistletoe problem. Imagine the picture with at least ten more and you'll get the idea of how the trees on the boulevard look. SO festive!

The other day when I returned to my apartment, I was unzipping my boots when I noticed a rather large globule of what looked like...um.... well... mucus on the toe. Now being an elementary music teacher, I am quite used to the sight of drippy green candles oozing from kindergartners' noses, but I don't generally end up with them on my articles of clothing. I solemnly took a tissue and removed the offending item.

The Austrians generally are a neat and tidy people. I say generally because smoking is popular here as it is in most of Europe and it is not unusual to find cigarette butts littering the streets. There is also a state employee whose job it is to clean up the cigarette butts. That has to be a thankless job, I'm sure. So I was rather mortified to find the sidewalk to the Institut strewn with what appeared to be vast quantities of nasal expulsions. It truly was incomprehensible to me that the native population was now carelessly spreading germs in such an unseemly fashion.

And then....... PLOP!!!! A globule fell on my coat. EWWW!!!! Then another!

I looked up to see that it was raining phlegm from the trees. The greenish mistletoe berries ripen and leave the mother plant. They are sticky and slimy and green. This, boys and girls, is how mistletoe spreads. So the next time a kindergartner leaves slug tracks on your sleeve, remember:

It's not mucus, it's just reproducing mistletoe!

Holy Lackablogpost, Batman!!

2009-01-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Wow!!! Talk about a serious time out. Sorry about that. Things got pretty hectic around the holidays.
First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... late. I astoundingly did not make any New Year's resolutions, although my friend Henrikje and I had fun looking over our horoscopes (in German of course). I liked what mine had to say. I won't say what it is until maybe next year. We'll see how much of it comes true!
Before the Christmas break I had an orchestra concert. One of the things that I really wanted to do when I came over here was play some chamber music and play in an orchestra. The orchestra at the Mozarteum is much too young and competitive for me, but the University orchestra is just right. I feel kind of like Goldilocks. Just right! I'm not sure who all exactly is in the orchestra, but it's a variety of ages, mostly older adults with a variety of occupations (my stand partner is an OB-GYN) and we all love to play. I was especially excited about the concert. I just sat there on the stage thinking "Holy viola, Batman! I'm playing in an orchestra in SALZBURG!" It really doesn't get any better.
I spent the holidays with my friends in Nuremberg. It was a good time, although the weather was grim. For awhile there we said that we couldn't wait for the sun to go down because then we wouldn't have to look at the gray drippy weather. There wasn't any snow to put us in a holiday mood, so we compensated with a sun lamp and lots of sekt. We watched tons of movies, some of them dubbed into German and some with subtitles. We read books, listened to music, shopped, played with cats and in general had a calm and happy holiday.
New Year's Eve was a bit different than the States. They shoot off fireworks at midnight the way we shoot them off on the 4th of July. Since my friends have a beautiful panoramic view out of their upstairs window, we were able to see the fireworks all over Bavaria. OK. Maybe not ALL of Bavaria, but it was a good show nonetheless. The air was thick with the smell of ammonium perchlorate and after awhile the fireworks all blended together in a blue haze. Of course the haze hung on until the next morning when it was.... you guessed it.... gray and drippy.
I came back to Salzburg last Wednesday in time to teach my first class at the English Center. My students were Paulina, age 3, Anton and Luca, age 5, and Clara, age "5+1/4." There's a rather complicated way to say that in German which I fortunately understood. Actually, they speak about the same level German that I do, so it was all good.
I haven't taught that age group in a while, but I remember how much energy they have. Yikes! Here's what we did:

The Hello Song
Hop, hop, stop
Hop on One Foot Nanny Goat (I threw this in because they were wound up)
We read Chapter 1 from "Frog and Toad All Year." In this story, Frog and Toad go sledding outside.
I had flash cards with the names of winter clothing. We played some games.
We made up a song about dressing to go outside in winter. I played the guitar.
We made a craft project called "Me in My Coat." Draw your face on a paper plate, glue it to a construction paper coat and glue cotton balls around the edges of the plate for a hood.
Snack time!!!!

The class was deemed a success because no one had run screaming from the room! Apparently that's what they usually do. The moms were able to sit in the cafe and enjoy some conversation and coffee, but they did admit that they were really curious about what we were doing in there because it was so quiet. We also ran OVER in the time department.

By the time the dust had settled, everyone was happy, everyone had notes, there was a new student registered for my Friday class, and I was offered two more classes to teach!! 6-10 year olds and a mother and baby class.

How fun is that????

Shameless promotion!!

2008-12-14T12:52:00.001-08:00

One of my new cool friends in Salzburg is Kathryn, a former music teacher turned children's book author. I met her at the English Center a few weeks ago and we had happy hour there on Friday. We had fun discussing the creative process and publishers and all kinds of artsy things and now I am going to shamelessly promote her book. It's called "Sharing Christmas." If there are young children in your life and you are of the Christmas celebration persuasion, this is a perfect gift! Or maybe your school library should get it. The message is universal and timeless, it just happens to be set at Christmas time. The illustrator was born here I think, but lives in France now.
Here's a link:

http://www.jacketflap.com/profile.asp?member=Libelle

You can check "Sharing Christmas" out at Amazon and look at random pages. I might even be able to make an autographed copy happen for you.
Merry Christmas!

The bright side....the dark side

2008-12-14T12:26:00.000-08:00

This past Wednesday my classmate Cathy from Columbia and I skipped town and headed up to München for the day. The prospect of visiting the big city at holiday time was just too tempting. Besides, my passport was ready. Lest you think that I am naughty and that I skipped classes, you are mistaken. We had a pretty light week because a lot of people are gone for Christmas. Besides Monday was a national holiday... the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception. It's not one we really celebrate in the States....
Anyway, we hopped on a train and headed north......west. After Salzburg, Munich seems like NYC. People and noise everywhere! We went to the American consulate first then we headed down to the Christmas market. It was a cold, gray, dreary day, but the market was very festive and there were TONS of people. We drank lots of gluhwein (hot, mulled elixir!) and ate some wurst and Cathy bought the cutest little wooden snail. He has a marble for a shell and when you roll him along, the marble rolls too. We named him "Fidelio." I introduced Cathy to the consumer wonder that is H&M and we joked that it was 6 PM and the shops were still open, but in Salzburg everything would be closed. We wandered around until we were so cold we couldn't stand it, then we went to the Orff Zentrum to wait for the concert that they were having that evening. Messiaen's "Quator Pour la Fin du Temps." One of my all time favorites!! We had to wait for an hour and a half, but we were warm and happy.
The concert was great and there was a reception afterwards with wine and everything. The total party package. We enjoyed the wine as much as the concert and thoroughly enjoyed our subway trip to the Hauptbahnhof to catch a very late train back to Salzburg. It was so late when we got back that the busses weren't running and we had to take a taxi!! I got to bed really late and had to get up early for a class.... which brings me to....

THE DARK SIDE!!!

The alarm went off and I rolled out of bed and made a pot of coffee and fished around in my change container for 2 Euro so I could pay my bus fare. (My bus pass was stolen with my wallet) The bus was crowded and I suppose I could have just crunched my way in at the back of the bus, but NO! I am an honest person and I wanted to pay my fare. So I dropped the pile of change on the tray. The bus driver rolled his eyes, the students around me were snickering and I told him it was all there, I had counted it 3 times. He said I owed him 13 cents. I said I did not. He said give me 2 euro or get off the bus.
I got thrown off the bus!!!
Now burning with righteous indignation, I went to the local tour company and asked if they could change my pennies for 2 Euro. Nope. Go ask at the shop across the street. So I went to the shop and asked. The woman rolled her eyes, told me I was ten cents short and to get out. Welcome to Salzburg! Now I was ten cents short and I don't really know who ended up with it. I had to schlep back to my apartment and get another ten cents. I tried a different shop, but he couldn't open the cash drawer without a purchase. By this time another bus came along, I got on and ponied up the cash only to be told YET AGAIN that I didn't have enough money. At this point I became a screaming howling banshee. The driver either felt sorry for me or feared for his life because he gave me a ticket and let me ride. This all transpired before 8:15 AM. I got to class late and crabby.
Fortunately it wasn't anything that lunch and a nap couldn't cure.

What a Weekend!

2008-12-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

I have just experienced one of the most amazing weekends of my life. Our instructor Uli just about flipped when she found out that there were so many string players in our group and invited some of us to her home for the weekend to play chamber music. That's the good thing about playing the viola. You always get an invite! Virginia from Italy plays the violin as does Cathy from Columbia. Cathy and I play in the University orchestra together, but that's probably a post for another day. Marta from Spain is an awesome pianist and Uli is learning the cello. We all thought it would be fun to play some piano quintets, so after class on Friday we stuffed all our gear into a small VW and tooled on up into the mountains.

That's me on the left, then Virginia, Cathy, and Uli. Marta was taking the picture.

We arrived in Altaussee, the village where Uli lives, after dark. It had been raining at the lower elevations, but once we got some altitude, the rain changed to snow. Cathy was really quite excited about the whole thing because it doesn't snow in Columbia.
The local people were having a bonfire and serving hot "punch" which was cider and cinnamon and probably a fair amount of schnapps, judging from how quickly we all relaxed.
The best was yet to come. All of a sudden we heard roaring (for lack of a better word) and the Krampus arrived!!
The Krampus are a uniquely alpine tradition. They travel with St. Nicholas who as you may know brings sweets to the good children of the village. The naughty children get floggings from the Krampus. The Krampus are dressed in goat or sheep skin and wear masks that look like devils. Here's a picture of some Krampus in Salzburg. They are very trendy looking for the tourists.

The Krampus in Altaussee were a little more down to earth. While it's true that they flogged us with homemade switches, it really didn't hurt. They wore real sheep's horns and had carved their masks out of wood. They looked a bit more like Yeti with an attitude. I'll try to post a picture. When they weren't terrorizing the villagers, you could see them opening their masks, drinking punch, and kissing their girlfriends. I would say that they are "user friendly" Krampus, although I'm sure Virginia would disagree.
Someone must have pointed out to the Krampus that there were foreigners in the crowd. We were easily identified, or more specifically, Virginia was easily identified by her white hat with the big pompom on top. I think she got her face washed with snow 3 or 4 times! She must have been super naughty this year!
Many cups of punch later we piled into the car and headed up what must have once been a goat trail to Uli's house. When we got up the next morning we were treated to this vista:

Yeow! We hiked around the village and then went back to the house to make music.
I ended up playing the recorder! Uli had this lovely concerto by Pepusch for Two Recorders, Two violins and Continuo. It was the obvious thing for me to play as there was no viola part and no one else besides me and Uli who plays the recorder. It was a ball! I played soprano and tenor, and since I hadn't brought any with me, I got to play Uli's mother's Moecks. WOW!! It was fantastic! We played for about two hours, had some lunch and then hiked over the mountain to the booming metropolis (by comparison) of Bad Aussee. We checked out the Christmas market, then went back to the house for more music. Uli invited some close friends over for a mini-concert. There was schnapps, music, champagne and cheesecake!! What's not to love?
It snowed most of the time that we were there, but once we came back to lower elevation Salzburg, it turned to the usual gray and rainy day. But it didn't matter. It had been a great weekend and not even wet foggy weather could dampen our spirits!

Service with a smile.... and a gun!

2008-12-04T06:27:00.000-08:00

I went to the US consulate in Munich on Monday to deal with my lost passport. While the security people were friendly, they were still packing some heat.
Today (Thursday) I received an email telling me that my passport had arrived at the consulate.
Now that's service!!

Cover Your Eyes!

2008-12-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

If you are easily offended, cover your eyes, for here is a picture of the tour bus mentioned in the previous post. You can't say that I didn't warn you.
Ask your doctor if this picture is right for you. Side-effects include, but are not limited to: gasping, lifted eyebrows, rending of garments, gnashing of teeth and hysterical laughter. Blogspot assumes no liability.

The F Word

2008-12-02T05:23:00.000-08:00

I'll bet THAT got your attention.

It's funny how things that are commonplace and innocuous in one culture can become somewhat dangerous in another. For example, in the States a "thumbs up" is usually a positive gesture. It can mean "Good job!" or "I agree!" or "Way to go!" But in Iran, a thumbs up is the ultimate insult to those of the gentlemanly persuasion.
So it is with the "F word." It means one thing one place and something entirely different in another. British English uses the word in a rather carefree fashion. It doesn't seem to have the same hysteria inducing capabilities in Great Britain as it does in the States. After all, it's one of the words that is still bleeped out on commercial television in the States, even though you know darn well what's being bleeped!
Imagine my surprise then when we pulled into the parking lot for the Rothenberg Christmas market and saw a tour bus with the F Word emblazoned across the side. The letters must have been three feet tall. I kid you not! We even had to go around the lot again just so I could take a picture of it. 'Twas then that I discovered that the batteries in my camera were conveniently dead.
Bummer. You'll just have to take my word for it and imagine a busload of tourists riding around in a bus that says "F*&#ER" on the side. Both sides. Apparently it's an uncommon surname in German but a surname nonetheless.

Ouch......

2008-12-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for Krampuss, glühwein, Christmas Markets, and sadly, pickpockets. This time of year people of somewhat desperate circumstances take to roaming the Christmas markets and tourist areas and help themselves to what cash they can glean from someone else's possessions. This hardly explains WHY my wallet was stolen on a four block ride on the bus WAY south of the city center. The only other time my wallet was stolen was at my own church on a Sunday morning.
Having my wallet stolen at home is one thing. It's a bit different when you are in a foreign country. It's a bit different when the contents of your wallet include your student ID, some cash, your check card, a bus pass, your room key, your cell phone and the saddest of all, your passport. It was tough enough to wade through the bureaucracy here in Austria the first time. Now I have to do it all again, only this time there are fees and I have no cash, nor access to any. I must rely on the kindness of friends and they have been very kind, generous and supportive.
I was planning on visiting friends in Nuremberg for the Thanksgiving holiday. They are American, at least he is, so they celebrate Thanksgiving. I went anyway and had a marvelous time. We went to the Christmas markets in Rothenberg (probably the best example of a Medieval city in Europe) and Spalt which I may have mentioned is this charming hamlet of hops houses. While the market in Rothenberg was pretty touristy (I heard WAY more American English than German) the market in Spalt was fabulous. Lots of artisan Christmas things. In a way, it was a blessing that I had no money to spend because I certainly wouldn't have had any to speak of after a visit to that market. All in all, it was a lovely weekend. You really can have fun with no money!
I stopped in Munich on the way back to Salzburg because there is an American consulate there. It is conveniently located quite close to the Orff Zentrum. Munich is pretty big, but I know how to get to the Orff Zentrum. From there, it was an easy short walk to the consulate. That's about all that was easy about the process.
You have to go through airport style security to get in to the consulate. Since I had some knitting in my bag, I had to leave the yarn and needles at the checkpoint. That was okay. The tough part was not having ANY ID of any sort, and not a lot of cash to spend on passport photos that were inadequate the first time! I had to go to this little booth and feed the machine 5 Euro only to be told after the fact that I was too close to the camera and would have to repeat the experience.... with another 5 Euro. My first pictures actually looked semi-reasonable, but in the second ones I was definitely wearing the crabby face. I got a bit testy with the people behind the bullet proof glass and they gave me homemade cookies as a peace offering.
$100 (which my friend in Nuremberg loaned me), two forms and 10 Euro later I was done with the whole process.
I can't wait to take on the residence permit. Ouch.

Winter Wonderland!

2008-11-23T04:50:00.000-08:00

We finally have snow that stuck and several of my classmates are delighted. Some of them took the opportunity to create this happy snow denizen.

The Weather

2008-11-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

It's either feast or famine here in Salzburg. When the weather is fine, it's spectacular. When the weather is bad, it's horrible. There's very little middle ground. It's either wonderful or wretched.
I think today we discovered new dimensions of wretched. They are predicting vast quantities of snow for the weekend.... just in time for the opening of the Christmas markets. The Alt Stadt and the bridges are all festooned with twinkle lights. There's only one thing dampening the holiday cheer. Cold gloomy rainy weather.
In anticipation of the weekend snow accumulations I went to the local big box shoe store "Jello" in search of boots.Now what in the world does gelatin have to do with footgear? Very little actually. I had to remind myself that the J in German sounds like Y and therefore the store's name is more like "Yellow."
I will digress momentarily here to point out that while most business is conducted in small locally owned businesses, the big corporations are starting to creep into the city. For good or for ill, McDonald's has now firmly ensconced itself on Getreidegasse as has H&M and Zara. Getreidegasse is the main drag of the old city and is the address of Mozart's birth house. The most recent "big box" store opened on Alpenstrasse in August. That would be the "Erotik Markt", the Wal-Mart of leather, lace and other things better left to the imagination. It is quite controversial to say the least....
Back to Jello. I had just found the perfect pair of boots (cute, stylish and inexpensive) when I looked out the window only to see that it was pitch black outside at 2 in the afternoon. It gets dark here early (around 4) to be sure, but this was unusual. There was a loud clap of thunder and it started to pour BUCKETS!! After a few minutes, the rain changed to snow. Heavy-wet -stuff-that-accumulates-on-the-windshield-wipers snow. Wow!! I made a compound word worthy of German! It continued to thunder with some lightning PLUS rain PLUS snow PLUS hail. It was everything imaginable all at once!! Really wretched! Umbrellas were rendered useless!
In theory I will wake up tomorrow to 3+ inches of snow on the ground. We'll see....

I'm in heaven....

2008-11-19T00:12:00.000-08:00

When I originally pondered the thought of coming here to Salzburg to study I was not only enthusiastic about the work I would do at the Institut, but with all the other things that I might be able to do as well. I live in a very rural part of Wisconsin and it's pretty safe to say that my husband (who is the music professor at the local campus) and I often grow weary of all the musical demands placed upon us. You know, things like playing for a club's Christmas meeting providing background music for 3 hours for $25, or trying to cobble together a string ensemble to accompany the community chorus. I was looking forward to participating in musical events for which I had no personal responsibility other than to show up. And of course practice in the down time....
One of my goals was to play in an orchestra, something I've dearly missed since being dismissed from the Green Bay Symphony for political reasons. I have to say that the GBSO experience was my first major political skirmish. I had been good friends with the executive director and his replacement was his polar opposite. Anybody who had been friends with the former ED found themselves without an orchestra to play in. In a fabulous twist of fate, I received a phone call about five years after this had all transpired asking me if I could sub in the orchestra. First I was stunned, then I started laughing and asked "Is this a joke???" The woman on the other end assured me that she was perfectly serious. She'd heard I was a good violist (if indeed there is such a thing!.... see...I can make jokes at my own expense!) and she hadn't been with the orchestra long enough to know the political background. I might add here that the ED who had done all the firing was himself summarily dismissed after some improprieties so she didn't know him either. I respectfully declined.
I may have mentioned before that I borrowed a viola from the Mozarteum. It's a pretty good instrument and I enjoy playing it. The bow could be better, but my husband says that I am pretty spoiled in the bow department, which is true. Just before I was sacked, I had invested in a serious new instrument and a serious bow (translate:$$$) I was going to bring my rig with me, but decided against it at the last minute because it was just too much to drag along. The instrument that I'm borrowing has been christened "Astutula" by the witty and ever popular Virginia from Italy. Those of you that know Carl Orff's stage works will understand the joke behind "Astutula" and if you don't know them, look them up because they are worth the effort.
Now I was armed with a viola and I'm playing some chamber music with the other people in my class but I was still looking for an orchestral experience. The Mozarteum orchestra is a pretty tall order. I didn't want to have to audition (I'm a little rusty) and I wasn't up for a conservatory style competitive experience. I'm too old for that. One of the students at the Institut was playing in the University Orchestra which is a different entity altogether and said that I was welcome to join that. No audition was necessary and I would be more than welcome because I played the viola and violas were in short supply.
I went to my first rehearsal last night. It is EXACTLY the kind of group I wanted to play in. Everyone was SO nice and SO excited because I was a violist. One of the violinists asked me before the rehearsal even started if I wanted to play chamber music. Of course I do!! The rehearsal was conducted entirely in German and I am happy to say that I had NO problem figuring out where I was, or what was being asked, or when it was my turn to play. I am delighted that I have an orchestral experience AND two and a half hours of solid non-stop German. I am in HEAVEN!!!
At one point I had to close my eyes and take a time out while the violins were being put through their paces to just let the fact sink in that I am here in Salzburg doing what I love. It was kind of overwhelming.
When the rehearsal was over, the violinist who asked me to play chamber music gave me a ride home since she lives nearby. She speaks wonderful English, a result of having lived in London for a while. We chatted and it turns out that we know quite a few of the same people thanks to The English Center.
By the way, we are playing a lot of.... what else?.... MOZART! The Overture to the Magic Flute and Symphony #40 (It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Mozart!) and a Bruch Violin Concerto. Our concert is December 15th. It's a good thing that I brought a black concert dress although it might be fun to have to buy a new one. I'm losing a lot of weight thanks to the strenuous movement classes. This is not a bad thing!!
Life is good.

Chickenhead!!

2008-11-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

And now for a few brief observation about local hairstyles.....

It would appear that the local tween boys have adopted a hairstyle that I can only describe as "chickenhead." This is not to be confused with the hairstyle of cool with-it pre-adolescent males of a few years ago where they all went to Mom's hairdresser and essentially had their hair highlighted. I refer to THAT one fondly as "The Hedgehog." You know....where they look like they were dipped upside down in a vat of bleach, leaving a sort of bleached out Q-Tip effect. Fortunately it faded fast, as did their highlights. But "chickenhead" may have real staying power.
It works like this (or so I surmise!): You steal your sister's hair styling mousse and smear it in your hair. Make sure you use lots so that the end result is nice and crispy crackly. Then either blow dry the top layer of your hair straight up, or else take your fingers and lift it up to make a quasi-mohawk type dealie. Shape it to resemble a rooster's comb. Let it dry, then strut your 8-12 year old stuff. Makes the hens crazy!

I have a story for you.... and it's true!

2008-11-14T07:58:00.000-08:00

This is one of my famous quotes apparently. I use it with my students all the time.

Today in our class with Uli Jungmair we were given the task of making up text to go with one of the rhythm pieces in Music for Children, Volume 1, pg.80. I think it's #3, but don't quote me on it. You can look it up. Better yet, I'll put it in Siblieus and see if I can post it. I'm getting the hang of this computer stuff you know.... Wait. No I can't. Copyright violation. I guess you will have to find it yourself. My text isn't copyrighted. If you like it, you can steal it.... in spite of what happens to the girl in the story!

Once there was a naughty little girl
She swore and she stole and she lied.

One fine day, the bad wolf came along
And he ate every bit of the girl.

Then the hunters chased the wolf
AND THEN the hunters caught the wolf
THE WOLF, he coughed,
THE WOLF, he burped,
And THEN HE GOT AWAY!!

You must pay attention to this girl,
Or else you will end up like her!

Of course I sat on a chair and "read" the story to my class, using a notebook as the story book. I think I may actually use this text.....

The Dreaded Magistrat

2008-11-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

AGAIN!!!! I tried yet again (this is attempt #4) to properly register and deal with paperwork. I need to get this done fairly quickly because...... I HAVE A JOB!!!!

You can check the place out at: theenglishcenter.at

I have my first shift tomorrow. I'll be hosting a Round Table discussion in English but hopefully I can speak a little bit in German too.

So I gathered up some fortitude and once again tried to get things in order. This week the Servicepoint where I get my student card validated is actually open except maybe not tomorrow because it's St. Martin's Day and all the local children run around with lanterns and I forget why. It's a big traditional deal. Anyway, the hang up with my student ID card was that I didn't have a street number listed. The kind people managed to fix that problem, but the machine that actually validates the card and says "Good until..." was..... you guessed it..... not functioning and so I'll have to come back ANOTHER time (but probably not tomorrow) and take care of it then.

I didn't let it get me down. I figured that after three tries I had everything I needed to register at the Magistrat. Now "Registering" is a curious thing. I'm sure you remember the story of Mary and Joseph and how they had to go to his hometown to register and that's why the baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I'll bet that you are well acquainted with the story. We have to register with the authorities within three days of our arrival (I'm about a month and a half late) and "deregister" when we leave the country. I suppose it's for census reasons or terrorist identification or maybe just to keep someone employed, but everyone has to do it.

I marched in to the office, sat down at the desk facing this formidable looking woman and greeted her with the customary "Grüss Gott" that they use in this part of Europe. All the papers checked out and I forked over my passport and my lease.
There was a silence and then "tippity tippity tippity" on the computer and then "shuffle shuffle shuffle." She was looking for something. Finally she said "You need a stamp." A STAMP?? "Right here." She pointed to a blank spot on the form. "You need stamp from Studentwerk" which as I may have stated before is open odd hours on odd days. "Go get stamp and come back."

I did what any normal rational human being would do. I leaned over and started banging my head on the desk. Seriously. She looked aghast for a minute, then said "It's okay. I give you the registration, but you need to bring the stamp before next week."

This is only a minor warmup for the Visa Tango. I fully expect to be deported.

On a different note, I went to a viola recital this evening. Salzburg is so full of music that you can lick it off the sidewalk. On any given day, there are three or four recitals that you can attend for free. The violist was from the States and giving her graduation recital. It was a great concert: Bach Suite, a contemporary suite and the Brahms F minor Sonata, which I have played, but on the piano. It was lovely.

It turns out that in my class there are two violinists, two violists, a cellist and a bass. One of the Spanish women is a pianist, so we're going to put together a chamber group and play the Schumann Piano Quintet. How cool is that? The people at the Institut say that it's really unusual to have so many string players. I think it's great fun.

I am going to be sore tomorrow. Andrea Ostertag really gave us a vigorous workout this morning. It was lots of fun... but I'm going to pay! Ouch.....

Oh yeah! Some drunk guy on the bus told me I was a "real woman". Guess I'll have to put it on my resume....

It's over!!

2008-11-06T03:49:00.000-08:00

The election is over and now we can go back to our regular lives. One thing that is nice about being in Europe: no campaign ads! I personally spent election day totally ignoring the computer. I had spent Monday absolutely glued to the stupid thing and I decided that I needed a life and not a computer screen. So I set about on Tuesday to better myself and take some steps towards accomplishing things that I had intended to do when I came here.

I KNOW that I have mentioned the bureaucracy that seems to pervade every nook and cranny here. I have tried several times to "register" with the Magistrat. When you come to Austria, you have to register your presence and address with the local authorities. When you leave, you have to "unregister" or fill out another form and go to yet another office that's only open on Mondays and Thursdays....unless it's Saint Swithin's Day, in which case they are closed for a month.

I decided to start by getting my student ID card validated. I went to the appropriate office only to find that they are closed this week. No explanation. Maybe St. Swithin's Day is early this year? Next to the notice that the office was closed was another notice that a new section of beginning German was being offered because of high demand. WooT! I hurried upstairs to the correct office (which was only open for another 7 minutes) only to find that the class was already full. I said "Maybe if I go to the class and beg to be let in?" The secretary said "You can try." So off I went and sure enough, half the people that signed up for the class didn't show up (this I've found is somewhat typical) and I got a seat. The best part is.... it's FREE!!!!

Buoyed by the success with the German class, I went to the information window and asked if I could borrow a viola. I left mine at home assuming that since I was studying at the Mozarteum, I would be able to rent or borrow one. After making several phone calls, filling out many forms, going to a couple of different buildings and paying a nominal fee for insurance, I am the proud caretaker of an extremely nice viola that reminds me of my axe at home! Now I can play chamber music with my two classmates who are violinists and one of my professors who is a cellist. Additionally, I can play in the all comers non-auditioned orchestra for fun.

I was on a roll. Feeling extremely exuberant, I went over to the Magistrat to register. I managed to fill out the form correctly in German without help. Wow! Talk about empowered. I pulled out my passport and waited in line (of COURSE!) for the next available clerk. I smugly handed over my form and passport only to be told that I needed YET ANOTHER FORM!!!!! I didn't get mad. Having experienced so much success in other arenas prior to this one, I simply smiled and said "I'll be back".... to borrow a phrase from one of Austria's most famous ex-pats. I may go back tomorrow. Who knows?

I did do SOME surfing on the internet on Election Day. I found an article on CNN about Democrats Abroad (apologies to my Republican fan base) and after some surfing around discovered that there was a group here in Salzburg. Furthermore, they were having a pizza party to celebrate. All I had to do was RSVP.

The party was held at The English Center which turned out to be a coffee shop / book store owned by an American. The pizza was great and I am not usually a pizza fan. I met a composer, a painter and a nice man from Ohio who plays the French horn in a local orchestra. He told me which one but I forgot. I was chatting with the woman who owned the place and told her that I used to own a coffee shop and if she needed any help let me know because I was really experienced. She looked at me for a minute and said "As a matter of fact, I just placed an ad in the paper. I need someone for about 15 hours a week." The hours she needed covered fit exactly into my class schedule. I have a proper interview on Friday. Keep your fingers crossed! I don't even need to speak German! And I can teach some music classes to children whose parents want them to learn English. I'm really hoping it works out....

Now, here's a quiz question for all you Orff nerds out there. And I KNOW you're out there. St. Swithin's Day is a real day, I didn't make it up. Plus it is mentioned in Music for Children. Find it and I'll send you some Mozart balls. Maybe. First I need to land that job.....

Busted!!

2008-11-03T08:14:00.000-08:00

I've posted about the Salzburg bus before and you may recall that there are plain clothes security people who routinely check for tickets. I've been checked twice. These checks occur at random hours of the day and you can't predict them. It's kind of like speed traps on the interstate except that at least with speed traps, you know the patrols are going to be out around the 15th of the month and at the end of the month. There's simply NO rhyme or reason to the bus ticket checks.
I purchased a monthly pass which burned me in the first place. I had to pay full adult price for it and not the student price because the Mozarteum does not consider us to be "real" students. Hey!! I eat ramen noodles!! that makes me a student!
Anyway, the last monatskarte that I bought was on October 3rd. Now, do I have to buy a new pass on the 1st of November (which was a national holiday... All Saints) or should I buy one on November 2nd (a Sunday and NOTHING is open), or is this one good until the time stamped on the 3rd of November? I was planning on buying a new ticket at the service point close to the Orff Institut and I figured that the bus was so crowded in the morning that I could at least ride over there in peace. Who's going to check on a crowded bus on a busy morning for tickets?

You know what's coming next......

Two guys got on the bus. They were young and looked enough like students. One of them even had an earring!! There was hardly anybody on the bus anymore. The Institut is not a hot spot in the scheme of things even though I really like it. So I got a little nervous when Earring Guy headed my way and said in perfectly comprehensible German "I need to see your ticket please." I understand a lot of German (good thing) but can't put a sentence together to save my soul. What's a girl to do?
Play dumb of course. I put on my blankest expression and said "huh?" He repeated the question and I said "What?" He heaved an exasperated sigh and said "teekett." Okay, so now I know his English is as good as my German. Even though my stop was rapidly coming up, I knew I didn't really have enough time to stall. I frittered around with my Obama travel mug and finally handed it to him and said "Hold this while I dig in my bag." At this point I knew he was ready to give up, but I dug anyway and produced the ticket. Rather than trying to explain to me that my ticket had expired he waved his hand and said "Okay."

It's a good thing I went to Mass last night. I'd better go again this weekend. And I DID buy a new pass, but I haven't validated it yet.......

2 November 2008

2008-11-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

All Souls. The Dom. Mozart Requiem. I can die now.

Quiz!

2008-10-25T11:53:00.001-07:00

Here's the solution to yesterday's Match the Name with the Face puzzle.
Seated(?) on the floor: Ayako
Front row, L to R: Me (duh!), Cathy, Pedro, Mandana, Tresa, Toey (Sutawadee), Ines (in white), Fabia
Second row: Raquel (partially hidden), Marta, Rui
Standing: Virginia

It really is a great group!

Icons

2008-10-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

I often teach with icons and graphics and there seems to be a sore lack of both in this blog. And so I present to you a picture of my class in one of its typical wild moments. If need a challenge, try to figure out who is who. Hint: I'm the only one with red hair.
The Asian women are from three different countries. See if you can match the name with the face.

Rui
Tresa
Marta
Cathy
Virginia
Ayako
Fabia
Sutawatdee
Mandana
Pedro
Ines
Raquel
Me (but I don't count)

I'll post the results tomorrow.

Skiing without snow

2008-10-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

The Salzburg bus system is truly an experience. I have a monthly bus pass and I often find myself riding the bus several times a day. The system is efficient and reliable which is rather boring, but there are several things which make it interesting and exciting.
All the busses here are electric. They scurry along like golf carts on a system of wires that run up above the streets. This is convenient because one day I got lost and I found my way back by following the wires. Sometimes at night you can see the electric sparks and flashes at the contact points between the bus and the wires. It's like miniature lightning bolts. The bus garage is very close to the Orff Institut and late at night you can see all the busses lumbering in to sleep. Although I called them golf carts, they are indeed quite large, with two "compartments" that are connected together with this large accordion. It can be quite entertaining to stand on the bus in the accordion, especially when going around corners. The floor shifts, kind of like a Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair.
The other thing that shifts are the passengers. The bus that I take in the morning often resembles a mosh pit with all the students trying to get to the university, junior high and high school on the southeast side of town. Some of the bus drivers are very cautious, but some MUST get up on the wrong side of the bed and seem hell bent on careening around corners and speeding up before a stop just for the sheer joy of slamming on the brakes. This can give the effect of skiing without snow. I am not a regular skier but I DO remember that it's a whole lot easier to negotiate the slopes with your knees bent. I have taken to riding the bus in a similar fashion. I've learned that the overhead orange straps that are there for your hanging convenience are particularly useless when you get one of these bus jockeys. Bending your knees does not help and you end up twirling around several times and dumping the contents of your satchel on the nearest innocent passenger. Thank goodness I haven't spilled the contents of my Obama mug! One time the driver went up on the sidewalk and the resulting drop meant that a lot of us bumped our head on the ceiling. Well, almost...
One night I got on the bus and they were training a new driver. I think I have bruises from that one.
The bus runs on a sort of honor system. The powers that be trust that you have bought a ticket and woe betide you if you did not. Virginia and I were checked one day for tickets by a guy who wore jeans, a sweater and a baseball cap. He smiled pleasantly, said "Tickets please" and flashed a badge. I found mine pretty quickly, but Virginia had to dig in her bag. The guy told her to forget it but she insisted. She did finally find the ticket and all was well.
Today I was riding back to my apartment and a friendly woman came walking up the aisle asking in German to see our tickets. (I'm glad I understand enough German to get the drift!) She was dressed in the standard European outfit (see previous post!) and flashed a badge. A young couple got on the bus, she hugely pregnant and he some other nationality. The friendly woman asked to see their tickets.
It was like a crime show! They couple could/would not produce tickets. The woman snapped her fingers and a security person appeared. Like magic! From some other part of the bus! The couple was escorted off at the next stop where they were met by two MORE security police. Everyone on the bus knew that they were goners.
The fine I understand is enormous. I have no intention of finding out what it is. Besides, you probably have to go to four different offices with six different forms on two different days at different hours just to pay it.

The moral of the story? When riding on a Salzburg bus, pay for the ticket and experience the ride of your life!

It's cheaper than the Sound of Music tour.....

The Language Differential

2008-10-20T01:48:00.000-07:00

I am the only native English speaker in my class. That includes the faculty. It's a fine line to walk. I am often torn between trying to help people with words and letting them say things in their own way. Some of my classmates have the same problem in English that I have with German: they understand a lot, but can't really turn it around and speak it easily yet. I am amazed by how quickly they can pick it up. One of the women has only been speaking English for a year and makes very few mistakes. One of the others is learning exponentially. But this past weekend left just about everybody wiped out!
Wolfgang Hartmann was here for the weekend to give us a history of Orff Schulwerk and some additional background on Carl Orff. In between we discussed philosophical issues. It was an intense session and A LOT of English, even for an American.
Everyone thinks it must be so easy for me because the class is in English but as I said before, it's a fine line to walk. How do I say things in ways that people understand? If it's too elementary, it's insulting. If it's too advanced or idiomatic, it's hard to understand. I have to deal with many different accents (so do they!). It's not always a good idea to fill in the blank either.
It's not any different when I try to speak German. I know the words but not the order. And sometimes if you can speak a little with only a slight accent, you get a volley of high speed German in return. But I keep trying anyway. My classmates are reasonably fluent in at least two languages. I should TRY to speak a second one.

Fried mouse

2008-10-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday and a cold rainy one at that. Every Thursday, rain or shine, there's an open air market on Mirabell Platz. You can find all kinds of things: fruit, vegetables, skinned rabbits, polyester plaid skirts, houseplants, pig lips, whatever. But my favorite thing is fried mouse.
OK, so it's not REALLY fried mouse. It's called gemäuse. What it is really is a sort of doughnut/fritter thing that is deep fried. The thing I love is the amount of raisins. The woman who sold me one explained that it was deep fried (in German of course) and since the spelling looks a little bit like "mouse", I call it fried mouse.
Please don't send PETA after me.

A minor triumph

2008-10-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Today is an auspicious day. Those of you in the Orff world are probably well aware of my absolute allergy to movement. I cannot say why this is. There is really no basis for it, other than I hate to sweat. Today I have conquered my movement phobia.
It started yesterday with an excellent class with Andrea Ostertag. No, I should probably go back further.
Growing up I had no opportunity to take dance classes. All of my artistic efforts were poured into music. Gee whiz, I was in high school before the advent of Title 9 (yes, dinosaurs freely roamed the earth and there was only B&W TV!) so athletics weren't an option. When I got to college, the picture changed dramatically. I was in Madison with access to just about everything cultural. I got this bizarre notion into my head that I wanted toe shoes. I took every beginning ballet class that I possibly could and finally got brave enough to register for intermediate ballet with the dance majors. Our teacher was Madame Christova who had danced with the Bolshoi ballet in the not recent past. She smoked like a chimney, had a gut, and could still throw a mean combination of pirouettes across the floor. She could never pronounce my name, calling me "Kinseeyah Bickers" and she would count off for Johnny, the long suffering accompanist by shouting "Tree forts Chonny!! One, two, tree AND" whereupon Chonny would gamely play a minuet and add the extra beat. Madame always carried a blackboard pointer and thought nothing of "correcting" your point, or "lifting" your derriere. It just made class all the more exciting.
I got married and moved away. Somehow many years elapsed, and even though my daughter Emma is now an accomplished dancer, I never really returned to class except vicariously. Well, not until yesterday.
Andrea's class on Monday morning is "Dance Technique." It was like deja vu..... without the cigarettes and pointer. Ballet terms, center work, floor work.... I was in dance heaven. Zounds!
It was like the dam burst and now I can't get enough. I went to THREE movement classes today. THREE!!! And I have two more tomorrow!!!! BRING IT!!!
Here's the cool part. The last class that I took today was yoga. Completely in German! And I could do it! I understand far more German than I speak, and the instructor thought I would be okay. And I was!!!

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks. And I sweat like a pig. That's all the animal analogies for today.

The sacred and the profane

2008-10-12T05:55:00.000-07:00

I told my mother that I was going to be Catholic while I was in Salzburg. I mean, why not? There are loads of beautiful Catholic churches here to choose from, each with glorious architecture, a noble past, and besides which, there has been an enormous amount of music written for the Mass. Today I went to the Dom for high Mass at 10 o'clock.
For those of you who are interested in such things, the Dom is where Mozart was baptized and it also features prominently as the church where Maria and the captain are wed in "The Sound of Music." Here is a link.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dom_Salzburg.jpg

The photo is taken from just about exactly where I sat this morning. The color is a little washed out, so you will have to mentally ramp it up a couple of notches.
On deck musically this morning was a cathedral choir (and orchestra!) from Switzerland offering Muffat's Missa in Labore Requies. I am grateful for my background as a high church Episcopalian and as a teacher at a Catholic school for many years as I was able to sing, stand, sit and kneel at the appropriate times. It was also helpful because I could translate the language in the standard responses. I got really good at "Und mit deine Geiste" ("and with thy spirit")
I need to take a quick aside here and mention that my German is improving, but not at the rate I would like. Most people in the German speaking word have their own dialects and the Austrian one takes some acclimation. The first priest this morning spoke in hoch Deutsch (high German) which I was relieved to find I could understand, followed by lay readers who spoke in dialect. It sounds a bit like.... forgive me..... yodelling. The sermon was given in hoch Deutsch, so I got a lot of that, and there was a greeting given by a visiting priest in French. Apparently the visiting choir was from a part of Switzerland that speaks French.
The music itself was beautiful......kind of. Where I was sitting there was a lot of delay. Because the space is SO massive, the sound never quite comes together. It goes up into the dome and out into the transcept and meets itself on the way back. The conductor used massive gestures to keep everything together and I'm sure he felt like he'd had an aerobic workout when he was finished.
That being said, there is nothing quite as thrilling as being in a packed cathedral with choir, orchestra, pealing bells and my all time favorite, incense. It was spectacular and made my little high church heart go pitty pat.
I mentioned before that the Dom was the scene of Maria's wedding in "The Sound of Music" and as such, is a high point on the Sound of Music tour. There is of course more than one tour, and at any given point in time, a busload of movie fans will show up. In spite of the numerous signs posted that a Mass was being said and PLEASE do not enter, there were many unconcerned tourists wandering to and fro during the Mass. It would have been less disturbing had they kept off to the side or stayed in the back, but they wandered about like grazing water buffalo in their jeans and sneakers. I might add here that I have seen a lot of traditional garb here in Austria, far more than in Germany. Apparently Sunday is the day to wear it as the lector was in a dirndl as were many other members of the congregation.
The other people I saw wandering about were the homeless or mentally impaired. I have seen quite a bit of that here, something that surprises me rather. It's not unusual to be at a bus stop or walking along the street and to come upon a person rocking back and forth speaking gibberish or yelling at the pigeons. I've seen several women clutching bedraggled stuffed animals as well. There were a couple of people begging on the church steps, all of whom looked as if they were down on their luck, or hanging on to a thin tether to reality. I guess in the States we don't see so much of that for whatever reason.
After this beautiful liturgy, I stepped out into the square to the sounds of a polka band. The annual BioFest was being held in the church square. It's an open air market featuring organic products. In a bizarre twist of logic, the longest lines were for the deep fried items. A bit counter-productive, don't you agree?

I find it amusing that after purifying your soul, you can step outside into the square and gunk it all up again.

Does it get any better?

2008-10-11T01:14:00.000-07:00

I am writing this morning on an absolutely spectacular fall day. It is our last weekend free before we have fourteen days in a row of classes. Yes, that includes Saturday and Sunday. But it has been a glorious weekend so far.
I am enjoying a big cup of coffee and a delicious piece of coffee cake courtesy of the Flohmarkt at St. Ana's church, just a block from here. Even without knowing German, I'm sure that you have figured out that it was a flea market. I thought I would stop by because I needed a few things for my apartment and I decided a flea market might be the best place to find them.
Wow! Did I hit pay dirt! I came home loaded down with an immersion blender, a food processor, an embroidered tablecloth, a coffee mug, a Mellita coffee maker and........ A PEARWOOD ALTO RECORDER!!!!!! The recorder cost more than the other stuff combined and I paid ten euros for it. I'm sure that you can do the math.....
It's a beautiful thing. It was tucked away behind a bunch of kitschy stuff. I'm sure the woman saw dollar signs when my face lit up and I pointed to it enthusiastically. She looked at me skeptically and said "Zehn" (ten). I opened my wallet and cheerfully forked it over. She wrapped it up very carefully for me which was nice. I think now that I must knit a case for it!! It only has one slight drawback: it uses German fingering. Who cares? It's beautiful!!
Now the other plus side of a flea market is that it is usually run by church ladies who bake. Oh baby!! Do they bake!! There was a whole entire room devoted to baked goods of every sort! It was without a doubt the best coffee house (and least expensive!) that I have been to so far. Huge slabs of homemade goodness for only 1 euro a piece. I ate a delicious peach and cream cheese cake there and brought the aforementioned coffee cake home to enjoy this morning. YUM!
Last night we went to a free concert put on by students of the Mozarteum. It's BachFest, so the theme of course is Bach's music. We managed to show up for contemporary night. All the pieces incorporated the B-A-C-H theme in one way or another and there was only one original piece by Bach in the first half. (The concert was four hours long) I have to say that I really enjoyed the ensemble pieces quite a bit. The solo things I didn't find as interesting. There was a duet for violas that sounded like a rhinoceros fight. And I play the viola!
This is just my personal opinion. You can disagree if you like. I am pretty open to most things, but I feel a lot of contemporary music is too cerebral. It's an exercise in sonic possibilities, yes, and I appreciate that, but it is so hard to play and to what end? If it takes a semi-professional group to play it, and a highly specialized ear to listen to it, and an even more specialized brain to write it, than it really is on the fringes and how often will it be performed? Perhaps the point is that it is cutting edge. I fall somewhere on the continuum. With pop music being a "1" and cerebral contemporary music being a "10", I would say my score is an "8." What's yours?
Today will be another adventure as well. Virginia (from Italy) and I are planning on going to IKEA (imagine that!) this afternoon, after which we will be meeting some friends and going to the BioFest in the Alt Stadt. Then I suppose we'll all have dinner, or cook dinner with things from the BioFest or something. We'll "play it by ear." This was an amusing expression for all of us. I am constantly reminded how fascinating English is and how frustrating at the same time. And that's a GOOD thing!

What a group!!

2008-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of some of my classmates after a concert at the Mozarteum. It's BachFest, and tonight's concert was all contemporary homages to Bach and all employed the B-A-C-H theme. Some were pretty cool and some were pretty abstract-random. The concert was four hours long but we only lasted until intermission.

From left to right: Toey, Ayako (with bicycle), Tresa, Rui (with his hands around Tresa's neck), Virginia (with the scarf), Fabia and Mandana. I'm in the back.

Let the games begin!

2008-10-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is four days later and I've had no internet for the prior three. No blog, no email, no surfing, and, worst of all, no Facebook! My husband has been beside himself because he can't locate me and vice versa. All is well for the time being. Of course with the Austrian bureaucracy it took a couple of days to figure out where to lodge a complaint. I think that what happened is all the students are back (school officially started Tuesday, but since nothing is as it seems, most classes don't start until next week!?) and the demand overwhelmed the server. So I am back.
There are 15 in my class. Two of them have not yet arrived because of visa problems. Imagine that! (thinly veiled sarcasm). I am the oldest, although there are two other women from Columbia who are also of my generation. The majority are in their late twenties and early thirties. Here's who's who:

Fabia; Fabia is from Hong Kong, but has lived in Berlin with her husband for the last year and a half. Because she is from Hong Kong, her English is great and her German is pretty good too. She is a chatterbox in the best sense of the word.

Sutawadee: We call her "Toey." She has quickly become the "Go To" girl because she has been in Salzburg the longest (about a month) and has made it through all the bureaucratic cogs. Very organized.

Akayo: from Japan. She is a kindergarten teacher.... bless her heart! There's a special place in heaven for kindergarten teachers. Ugh. Herding gerbils, that's what I think of teaching kindergarten. Not my thing. Any way, Ayako is having some trouble with English, but she is hilarious and I think that will become more apparent as time goes on. She is also an incredible mover. She insists that she's had little prior experience and that she was "very bad," but this simply is not so.

Raquel: Raquel is one of three women from Bogata, Columbia. She is very quiet, I think because of the language differential. She is also a beautiful mover.

Ines: Also from Columbia. She works mainly with children's choirs. She is lovely.

Catarine: We call her "Cati." She is the youngest of the three from Columbia. She plays the violin. What a way to start the course! She fell and chipped her two front teeth and had to spend the second day of class in a dentist's chair. I must say the dentists are good here. Her teeth look perfect, but she says they hurt. I guess they would!

Marta: One of three from Spain. The others are Pedro and Tresa. Pedro and Tresa knew each other before they got here. I think that I should have been studying Spanish instead of German before I got here! Six of them speak Spanish, although Cati says that the Spanish spoken in Spain is different than that spoken in Columbia. Nevertheless, they manage to understand each other.

Mandana: Mandana is from Persia and speaks Farsi. She has only been speaking English for a year, but is amazing. She also plays the viola!!! How cool is that??? One of the other students who will be joining us, Mastaneh, is also from Tehran. She is still waiting for her visa.

Virginia is from Toscany, Italy. She is a violinist and very out-going. She does the wonderful Italian thing of adding "ah" at the end of most syllables and she is very expressive with her hands. Her English is quite good as well. We have plans to play some chamber music with one of the faculty who is a cellist.

Rui: A wild and crazy guy! He's into jazz and comes from Portugal. He also likes composition. I admit that I checked to see which section of composition and arranging he had signed up for, and I signed up for the same one. He uses Sibelius in addition to having a MacBook, which makes him VERY cool.

Me: the only native English speaker, period. None of the faculty speak English first, so I am constantly being asked "How do you say this in English?" So I guess that I'm the English teacher.

We are waiting for Serife to join us from Turkey, where she is still waiting for her visa.

The classes so far have been fun, but I think they will get more intense. The movement classes have been strenuous for people like us who haven't really moved all summer. There was a lot of lamentation about soreness.

Next week will be "Hell-ah" as Virginia says. Wolfgang Hartmann will be here to put us through our paces. We have class all day every day... including Saturday and Sunday!! For this we will need a special "blue chip" so that we can open the doors of the Institut on weekends...but not for more than 90 seconds or an alarm sounds and the police come. To get the chip you must:

A) find a student intern and request a form
B) fill out the form in German
C) Submit the form along with the requisite fee to yet a different person at yet a different office
D) Return with the stamped form and request the chip from the dreaded Herr Fischer (the head custodian at the Institut) who may or may not give you the chip.

It's exhausting just thinking about it.

On a sad note, one of our instructors was called out of class the first day because her mother was not doing well. Class ended early of course. The next day she was back, even though her mother had died. We all felt just terrible for her, but she felt that teaching would be a good distraction and would help take her mind off of things. It was a brilliant class. I think so far that it's my favorite - Movement Accompaniment. She also teaches a yoga class. I think I will go and try and twist my middle age body into a bretzel.......

First Day of Class!

2008-10-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

After a fifteen year wait, this is my first day of class at the Orff Institut. If I think about it too much, I'll get all verklempt.

Dorm life

2008-10-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

I am a little old for this.

Salzburg is in large part a college town and so it follows that there are large numbers of students. Unlike American universities, however, there aren't really dormitories, but housing units for students run by yet another bureaucracy. (see previous post) I live in Haus Mozart, a nondescript, recently renovated apartment building near the Haupbanhof (train station). It is a very convenient walk to the Mozarteum (music conservatory) and as such there are a disproportionate number of music students here, all of them young enough to be my children. Indeed, a lot of them are probably younger than my children.
I have a studio apartment In Haus Mozart which is actually very nice. It is brand new, or looks that way. It is furnished, mostly with stuff from IKEA. The bathroom is small but hyper-efficient. It seems to be a kind of fiberglass pod that was wrestled in through the door and then sheetrock was put up around it. I'll try to post a picture. It's lacking in storage; a problem I rectified by hanging up a shoe organizer to stash my stuff. The sink has one of those motion detectors on it that allows the faucet to dispense a pre-determined amount of water both at the required times and when you are least expecting it. Indeed, one day it lost all reason altogether and emitted a flood of water. In desperation I turned off the water supply, turning it on again only when I thought it was safe to do so. Of course there is no maintenance person to be found anywhere. To get it repaired probably requires 4 forms in triplicate which need to be handed in to 4 different offices with 4 different sets of hours. I'm living with it for now.
The kitchenette is functional. It has a refrigerator and a cooktop. Operating the cooktop requires turning on a little timer that has a maximum time of 15 minutes. This is fine if you are boiling water for tea, but I was making black bean soup today which meant that I had to stand in the kitchen for an hour and a half making sure to turn the timer on again. It makes sense if you have a building full of young people who are living on their own for the first time and prone to things like falling asleep while the water is boiling. Cuts down on insurance premiums. But for me, who likes to cook, it's a pain. There is also no oven. Thank goodness the special at Aldi tomorrow is on toaster ovens!!
There is a warbling voice major on one side of me (just like home!) and a bassoonist two doors down. Unfortunately the bassoonist has not figured out that there are practice rooms downstairs, so he practices in his room. It is spooky how he seems to know exactly when I am trying to take a nap. No sooner do I lay my head on the pillow than he starts tootling away. It is by no means an unpleasant sound. It's an expensive bassoon. You can tell by listening to it.
There also tends to be rock music of all sorts playing at all hours. Last night I was awakened by some drunken louts in the street.
Oh, to be young again!..........nah.......

How to Look European

2008-10-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

How to look European:

1. Wear jeans that are slung low, have pockets at the top of your thighs vs. the top of your butt and look like they are spray painted on. Preferably black.
2. Wear heels or boots or better yet, boots with heels. Preferably black.
3. A leather jacket. Mandatory black.
4. A large scarf wound around your neck several times. A neutral color is best.
5. A knit hat pulled down to your ears.
6. Black eye liner.
7. Dye your hair black. If not that, then some bizarre flaming red. Purple, blue and or pink should be for highlights or shock value.

How to look like a midwestern American:

1. Wear jeans that are slung low and have pockets at the top of your thighs vs. the top of your butt and that are baggy and too big. Preferably faded denim blue.
2. Cross trainers or running shoes.
3. Denim jacket.
4. Scarf? Are you kidding? I'm always overheated!
5. Hat? See number 4 directly above.
6. No makeup whatsoever.
7. I like my hair the way it is, thank you.

Time and Bureaucracy

2008-10-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

I once had a principal whose formal evaluation of my teaching skills was pretty much non-existent. The only things that he really had to say was that I was a) anti-social and b) allergic to paperwork. I took great exception to the first item, but had to grudgingly concur that the second was all too true. So what happens when a wood fiber challenged person like me meets an overwhelming bureaucracy like Austria?
There is an office and paperwork for EVERYTHING. In order to get anywhere or do anything, you must first take on the transportation system. Unless of course you decide to walk, in which case you need a map (paper!) because the streets don't run on a grid, and they have a tendency to change names every few blocks or so. Even having a map, I still managed to get quite lost. Which brings me to the bus. Salzburg has an extremely efficient transportation system which runs on a type of reliable grid. Some of the busses are electric, so the bus routes have overhead wires and very few low flying birds. To reorient myself the day I got lost, I looked for the overhead wires and followed them to the nearest bus stop. Because I was stubborn, and decided that I would just walk and I couldn't possibly get lost because Salzburg is a small town and besides there are all kinds of landmarks and how could I possibly get lost except that it was cold and rainy and foggy and you couldn't SEE the landmarks (the Hohensalzburg LOOMS over the city), I deliberately didn't take along bus fare. I didn't count on it being cold and rainy and foggy (like it is most days....DUH). I didn't count on getting lost either. So here I was at the bus stop with no bus fare. What's a wet cold lost person with no bus fare to do? Just what every other Austrian seems to do. Get on the bus. Riding the bus without paying is almost a capital offense...... if they catch you. None of the other people at the bus stop had any visible ticket, so I just got on with them. I rode to a place that looked familiar and got off, relieved that I had gotten away with it and resolved to pay double the next time I got on the bus just for karma's sake.
Of course, now I was wet and cold and irritated because even though I was now in the right place, it was the wrong time. The office I needed to go to was closed. They are only open M-W from 9-1. I had missed this week's opportunity to pay the rent. Let me just say here that the dorm room I live in is managed by an entity separate from the university and Institut. I had to go one place to get the key, another place to sign the lease, and a different as yet undisclosed location for maintenance. To add to the hilarity, you can't just pay the rent in cash, you need an Austrian bank account, which means even more paperwork and hit or miss business hours.
The behemoth of paperwork still lies ahead. You have to register!! Before you can register, you have to pre-register online, then report to a service point (yet another building!) which is only open a few hours here and there and is prone to unexpected holidays. Once you are done with the university registration, you have to take your stamped triplicate papers to the Magistrate which is another building somewhere else with a completely different set of hours. In addition to your university papers you must provide a formal 10 page application (in German), your passport and a copy of your passport, your birth certificate and a copy of your birth certificate, a letter from your health insurance company stating that you are covered for your year abroad, bank statements, and a letter proving that you have housing. Additionally, all these papers must be in German and not just any German, but professionally translated German! By now you can sing the refrain "Another building with different hours!!" (This can be sung to the tune of "Another opening, another show" for all you musical theater geeks out there.) I am NOT making this up. No wonder Austrians have a reputation for cynicism.

In what can only be described as an adverse (or perverse!) paperwork allergy reaction, I managed to leave all my paperwork at home, in a red folder, on the piano. And I mean home.... as in back in the States home.

There also seems to be a definite lack of clocks or timepieces. The myriad churches have clocks on their towers, but they don't always work. There are no clocks in evidence anywhere but the church towers. I never really know what time it is. I'm beginning to think that this is a deliberate attempt on the part of the bureaucracy to keep everyone confused about office hours! Everyone works on their own time and it's just too bad if your time doesn't coincide with mine.

I think it's time to buy a watch....

Trachten und rosa Haar .....

2008-10-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

... or "Traditional Garb and Pink Hair".... or "My Experiences with Oktoberfest." Okay, Oktoberfest is this big beer event in München. It is world famous; so world famous in fact that the school where I used to teach had a mini-Oktoberfest every, well, October! It wasn't a lot like the one in Germany, I'm sure.
The Munich train station was full of revelers in traditional garb. For men this is lederhosen (leather shorts with suspenders) and for women, dirndls which are skirts, white blouses with poofy sleeves, a vest that looks like a corset and varying amounts of cleavage. There are also felted wool hats with hops tucked in the band, or other kinds of head gear which can include, but are not limited to, pink hair, flashing bunny ears, plastic cow udders, or beer steins. An equivalent hat in the United States would probably be the beer hat, the ubiquitous baseball cap with two cans strapped to the sides and the plastic tubing for consuming the contents of the cans. These hats would never work in Bavaria as 1) the beer is much to fizzy to drink through a straw and 2) you couldn't consume it fast enough and 3) American beer is lame in comparison.
Oktoberfest and the resulting beer consumption has a tendency to bring out the jocularity in some people and the worst in others. Many, but not all, seem to be quite drunk and extremely loud. It's pretty hard to ignore.
Riding the train during Oktoberfest is an interesting experience. The trains are quite full and very festive. There was one day when I spent 8 hours on the train going to and from Salzburg. The ride down was uneventful, except for a group of Chinese students who were being quite silly. The return trip was anything but peaceful. There was an extremely noisy bunch of Irish, yelling and blowing a train whistle from Salzburg to Munich. You could hear the collective sigh of relief when they disembarked. I was looking forward to a quiet ride up to Nuremberg but sadly it was not to be.
The man had spent the entire day at Oktoberfest. It was now mid-evening. He was by his own barely coherent admission very inebriated. To add to this, he also spoke in dialect. I understand a modest amount of German, but I struggle with dialect, and drunken dialect was the proverbial double whammy. On top of this, he had decided to do his part to promote world peace by striking up a conversation. I might add that he spoke/understood very little English. It was a match made in hell.
At the end of the valiant effort to communicate we had come to the following conclusions:

Bavaria: Good
Germany: Bad
New Jersey likes Bavaria
New Jersey KISSES Bavaria
Trees are green.
Beer is good.
Bavarian beer is best.
He was 44 years old.
Either that or he has 44 ears.
Bush is bad.
Hillary is good.
Chicago?

It was the high point of the other travelers evening to be sure. It certainly was entertaining.

The Babylon Experiment

2008-09-20T09:05:00.001-07:00

I may be dating myself by admitting this, but there used to be a hilarious skit on SNL in the Mike Meyers days called "Sprockets" starring Dieter and featuring the phrase "Touch my monkey." "Sprockets" was all about high culture, at least in theory, but on Thursday I got to see a cutting edge premiere performance. I didn't understand much of it, which was okay because neither did my friends Wayne and Henrikje who both speak German. Besides, it was an opera about the Tower of Babel, so no one really got it...... I think. And that was probably the point.... or punkt!
Carl Orff would have been proud. All you Orff teachers out there would have been proud. This is how it worked:
The International Chambermusic Project commissioned a work from a British composer about the Tower of Babel. The idea was put forth of using children as the workers. About a year ago, the composer, Matthew King, came and did several workshops with disadvantaged children from schools in the Nuremberg area. Henrikje's students were part of this group. He took their ideas and melodies and incorporated them into the score. A choreographer was brought in from Munich to work with the kids on staging and movement. They did a lot of improvisation. It was far and away the best part of the performance. Each child was dressed in black and had runes written on their faces. (That bit looked a little like an episode of "Dr. Who" with the Ud. Long story, but take my word for it.) To symbolize each child's prison, they had what looked like a big picture frame. Sometimes they would frame their faces, sometimes they would use them as fences, it was all very cool. The whole production was in front of the Neus Museum which has a glass facade and a big spiral staircase by the entrance. I guess the staircase was actually the inspiration for the opera. The children would trudge up and down the stairs and it had a faint "Metropolis" angst to it. There was a lot of "Les Miz" about it too! Lots of cultural references! There were six soloists too, but I wasn't sure exactly what they were doing. One was the architect of the Tower of Babel, one the engineer, one the workboss, and 3 other people that seemed irrelevant but sang nicely just the same. The performance was outside and it was freezing cold (the weather here is still yucky) and those of us in the audience had blankets. Since it was a dress rehearsal, there were still a lot of technical things that were being worked out, so lights would go on or off at the wrong time, or the gobos wouldn't turn, or the mikes didn't work and there would be lots of swearing in English since the technical crew was all British. I have to mention here that the orchestra was great and the conductor was quite animated. Of course, he spent a great deal of his time trying to keep the kids on track. They had a tendency to rush. Kids are the same everywhere!
The overall effect was good and I enjoyed it immensely.
Today I spent the day accompanying voice lessons with a coach from Vienna. Tomorrow I'm playing in a concert in Bayreuth. It would seem that I am taking Europe by storm!! HAHA!! Not... Wayne is getting me gigs and he wasted no time in putting me to work. Seems sightreaders are in short supply on this side of the Atlantic too. I'm glad for all of my theater experience since musicals are a big deal here.
I think that I will be heading to Salzburg on Monday. Hopefully I will have figured out the camera by then and I can post some pictures. I've heard from quite a few of my classmates already and I'm even set to play chamber music with a violinist from Spain. How cool is that?

I love Bavaria!

2008-09-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

It is beautiful here! I took a long walk (the weather finally was semi-reasonable) and took in some fresh air. It is cool and fall-like. There's a series of walking paths that networks through the valley and you can find health conscious Germans out at any time of day walking with trek poles, riding bikes, jogging, or walking the dog. The terrain reminds me a lot of upstate New York where I was born and raised and it feels familiar in spite of it being a foreign country. The plants are a little different, but a lot of them are the same. And cows smell like cows..... no matter where you are!

When in doubt, say "Genau!"

2008-09-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Bavaria, staying with some friends in Hilpoltstein. The weather is cold and rainy, and me without a coat! I'm typing on a German keyboard and having adjustment issues. German uses far more Zs than English, so the Z key is where I'm used to having the Y key. Which brings me to another point! There are precious few (if ANY!) contractions in German and possesion is indicated by a marker on the noun (ask my daughter...she studies linguistics) so the apostrophe key is way off somewhere and you need the shift key to access it. It's a tough adjustment with jet lag.

At this point, you say "Genau" which means "Exactly" and nod your head vigorously.

I got here by way of Icelandair and Minneapolis. I LOVE Icelandair. I love all the announcements in Old Norse and the food is good too. For the obligatory complementary beverage service, pure Icelandic water is served. There was even an option on the touch screen from which you select your movies (you have to PAY!!) for learning Icelandic, which I was very interested in.

Your turn: Genau!

However, to learn Icelandic you needed a handset which you also had to pay for. When I asked the flight attendant about this she looked surprised. She didn't know you needed a handset. I said "Nobody has ever asked about it before?" to which she said no. I asked "No one wants to learn Icelandic?" and she said "Genau." She didn't really. She said it in English. Bummer! I thought learning Icelandic was the perfect diversion.

As you may or may not know, I have this little project going entitled "Everybody Knows This One!" which is a collection of children's songs from all over the world. The songs are indigenous to their countries and not well known outside the borders. I know an Icelandic lullaby and decided to test my theory that "Everyone knows this one..." I hummed it for the flight attendant and she said "Yes, I know that song. We sing it to our children. But how do YOU know it?" I'm actually working on an SATB arrangement of that one, so I sang another one for her, which my Anderson friends from this summer will know, and she knew that one as well. Guess you'll all have to wait and see how THAT turns out!

Icelandair owns eleven planes and each one of them has a name! The flights were very comfortable and I highly recommend them.

I got to ride on the S bahn (subway) and the regional train. Bavaria is just beautiful. The train would emerge from a tunnel in the middle of a hops field. Hops grow a lot like peas, only up a gigantic trellis. When the hops are harvested, they are hung up in a hops house to dry. These are the tall triangular houses that are so often associated with Bavaria. The first two floors contain living space, and hops hang from the rafters of the floors above. There are shuttered windows that open to let the air flow through to dry the hops. It would probably be easier if I just took a picture. Which I will at some point!

We all know what hops are used for. To make the legendary German beer!

Genau!!!

It is getting to be Oktoberfest time, and I saw some people at the train station dressed in traditional garb or "trachten." You know, lederhosen and drindls and all that.

I'm going to the opera in Nuremberg this weekend and I already have a gig accompanying some students at a workshop.

I think I am going to be busy.

Genau!

The furry chainsaw

2008-09-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is Gretl sitting in the dog's empty water dish.

Purring.

Gretl and the batcave....

2008-09-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

I have this cat named Gretl. She is a unique and baffling feline. In all my years of cat ownerdom, which at this point is considerable, this one takes some kind of prize. Our neighbor girls found her in the ditch up the road. They were amazed to hear this sound that was a bit like a chainsaw and were further amazed to find this sound emanating from a scrawny scraped up kitten. They brought her back to the house and we knew she had arrived even before we saw her. The purring was disproportionately loud to the size of the kitten. And she was tiny! Fortunately, we just happened to be having dinner with our veterinarian that evening, so I called him and gave him a heads up that Gretl would be in tow. He checked her out, pronounced her a bit banged up but basically functional and told her that she was one lucky kitty to have ended up with us. I asked him about the unceasing and deafening purr, the likes of which I had never heard, and he said "Oh, they'll purr like that when they are really happy." This cat was ecstatic. We left her in kennel with a can of food, a blanket, and some fresh water and went to enjoy dinner.

Some hours later it was time to go and we went to retrieve Gretl. The purr had not stopped and the formerly skinny kitten now looked like she had swallowed a grapefruit! The can of food was obviously now gone and the full tummy in no way dampened the purr. The vet laughed and reminded us that it was all going to have to come out at some point. We bundled her up and took her home, still sounding like a chainsaw.

Gretl has been with us now for two years. She is still tiny and still purrs in inverse proportion to her size. She has proven herself to be a mouser without peer and she is excessively fond of catnip. She loves to sit near you, but does NOT like to be held. Which leads to the Batcave....

I have an unfortunate habit of sitting on the couch sort of side-saddle. I know it's terrible for my posture, but it IS comfortable. (Someday it will cost me, I'm sure). But in the meantime, Gretl enjoys nothing more than to curl up in the now snuggly space enclosed by my folded up legs. I refer to it fondly as the Batcave. She will lie here and purr for hours. Can you imagine how safe she must feel to be curled up in the shadow of a warm, benevolent being?

She is curled up in the Batcave and purring as I type. She must be really happy.

I will miss her terribly when I'm in Austria. My friends in Germany have a cat, but she isn't as unique as Gretl. But still she'll be a reasonable substitute. There's no purr, but they both like to bite....

The First Day of School

2008-09-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

..... for everyone else, that is. Me, I am here at home, not believing that I really am not going back to the slammer, and not really believing I'm going to Austria either. There are so many things to do! Paperwork to get in order, bills to straighten out, things to pack. Yikes!

I leave on September 13th. That's less than two weeks from today. Tomorrow I'm going to my mother's in Philadelphia for what is probably a long overdue whirlwind visit. Both daughters are settled in to a new school year routine, one at Loyola in Chicago and the other at the University of Minnesota. My husband started back today. And here I sit in time suspension.

My flight gets in to Munich on Sunday the 14th. Thanks to a fortuitous purchase on eBay, I'm flying Icelandair (which I like!) and it's their last flight into Munich for the summer season. My apartment in Salzburg is ready the 15th.... I hope. I'm staying with friends in Nuremberg until I get over my jet lag. Since they are on vacation in Sardinia, I will actually arrive at their house before they do! That ought to give me some quality time with their cat Mimi who was named for the character in La Boheme.

So far I know that there are 15 people in the class with me and I'm the only American. Three are from Spain, 3 from Columbia (looks like I should've studied Spanish instead of German), 2 from Iran, and one each from Portugal, Thailand, Japan, Italy, Germany and Turkey. I'm the only native English speaker. I'm looking forward to learning lots of new songs and I'm really excited about meeting the Iranian students. I've already had email from one of them.

I have a new camera, a new laptop and a new telephone so I can post and keep in touch. My phone number is 715-330-4433. You can just dial from the States like it's a local number and I can call without the international rates. Vonage is a wonderful thing.....

And so the REAL adventure is about to begin. I'll keep you posted! HAHA! Get it?

In the meantime, here is a sentence that I learned in German:

Der Pferd frisst ein Karotte.

My friend assures me that I will NEVER use that sentence, but I am going to find a way to use it. If you don't speak German, you'll have to wait for the appropriate post. I promise that there will be one.

2008-03-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

WOW!!!! I have just returned from a whirlwind trip to Germany and Austria! I went with my good friend Michael and his friends Ben and Sharon. Michael and I have always talked about traveling to Germany together and this year our spring breaks lined up, so off we went!

We met in Frankfurt at the airport and rented a car. Driving on the autobahn is a real experience. It really isn't as frightening as I had been led to believe. The autobahn (and the cars!) are built for high speed, but you don't have to drive as fast as you can. The semis are confined by law to the right hand lane and they have a speed limit of 100 kph (60 mph). Everyone stays to the right except to pass, whereupon you move back over to the right. The far left hand lane is for those who feel more confident with their vehicles' road capabilities (translation - REALLY REALLY FAST!!!) If you need to get out of their way, they flash their headlights at you. Once you get used to the speed, it's a pretty civilized way to drive. By contrast, driving in Chicago is a free for all, even with a lower speed limit. People think nothing of passing wherever they can, and that includes the shoulder!

We spent our first night in Germany with Michael's friends the Taubers. They live in a small town NE of Frankfurt and they own an apotheke or drug store . They live in a beautifully renovated old house and are probably some of the most gracious people I've ever met. I was amazed to discover that I can understand a lot of German, but speak very little. So my contributions to the conversation were in English!

We toured around Frankfurt the next day. Ben and I engaged in some empirical research for my book project "Everyone Knows This One!" One of my students last summer had just returned from two years in Thailand with the Peace Corps and taught me this song in Thai about elephants. He assured me that everyone in Thailand knows it! We had stopped to buy bratwurst and "pommes mit mayo" (French fries with mayonaise - !!) from a street vendor and there was another vendor next door called "Chaang" - Thai for "elephant." Ben and I decided to see if they knew the song. I wanted to find out if everyone from Thailand really DOES know the song! After making the usual apologies for my German and asking if they spoke English ("Nein!"), I launched into the song. The woman looked at me for a minute. I suppose it did seem strange to hear a redheaded American singing in Thai, but by the second phrase she had chimed in, and by the end of the song everyone was singing and doing the motions. When the vendor's son returned from an errand, they pointed to me and started the song again and he joined in too!!! So here we all were on the sidewalk singing and doing the motions and when we were done, there were high fives all the way around and much laughter. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll post the song. Thank you for the "Chaang" song Matthew! What a great way to make friends. (I might add here that I had a very similar experience at a Thai restaurant in Minneapolis. Our waitress spoke little English, but she knew the song. The whole staff came out and sang it!)

In the evening we headed to Munich. It was a longer trip than we anticipated. There was an accident between Nurnberg and Munich and traffic was backed up for miles. Unfortunately, accidents on the autobahn are rarely survivable, thanks to the high rate of speed. The car involved was crumpled up like a soda can. It was a sobering reminder that you need to be vigilant when driving..... probably useful on US highways as well.

I had been to Munich once before, but I'd had a GPS system and it was daylight, and this time we had the benefit of neither. Of course, we promptly got lost. Things were not particularly well marked, but then most Germans take mass transit or know where they are going. They're not as car dependent as we are! We ended up in the Old City in the pedestrian zone. We finally found a landmark that both Michael and I recognized and from there it was smooth sailing. We found our hotel, but it was late and we were hungry. We found an Indian restaurant that was willing to make us some carryout, but they were very generous while we waited for our food and gave us some pappadam (YUM!!) and a mango liquer (double YUM!) and of course we had to have some beer. The food was delicious and worth the wait.

We woke up relatively early the next day (jet lag) and headed over to the Orff-Zentrum for a short visit with Doctor Thomas Rösch, the director. The Zentrum is jointly owned and operated by the state of Bavaria and the estate of Carl Orff. There is all manner of Orff materials housed there, including just about every edition of the Schulwerk ever published in every language. I was really excited about looking through some of resources, but that had to wait until later. There were many other things to see and do, and our host would not be free until later in the afternoon, so we went and explored in the Altstadt. The glockenspiel at the City Hall was amazing. I know that sounds trite, but there really aren't words to describe it satisfactorily. The old churches were of course beautiful.

It always astounds me how OLD everything is! America is such a young country in the scheme of things.....

After a day of sightseeing, I went to a concert at the Orff-Zentrum. There is a lovely performance area with a beautiful Bechstein on the second floor of the Zentrum and a concert series is offered throughout the year. This evening's concert was a piano recital by Cornelia Herrmann, a resident of Salzburg. She played beautifully, one of those performers who has complete control of the sound she is making at all times. The Bach English Suite No. 5 was particularly fine. Fabulous sense of line! (Maybe if I practiced I could play like that.... one can always dream *sigh*) For more information, you can check here:

orff-zentrum.de/veranstaltungen_vorschau.asp

or here:

corneliaherrmann.com

Speaking of Salzburg: our next day's destination. We managed to get a good deal on some train tickets. It is worth knowing that the trains run bang on the dot on time. If your train leaves at 9:18 (as ours was scheduled to), you can bet that it leaves at 9:18. Not 9:17, not 9:20 but 9:18. We knew we were cutting it close and so we RAN through Munich, through the subway station, through the train station to the FARTHEST track. There were several hopeful newspaper hawkers spread throughout the station and I unfortunately crashed into one of them and went sprawling. Needless to say, we missed the train. It was not a huge catastrophe as there was another one about an hour later. We caught our breath and settled in to some nice seats on the top deck.

The train stopped at Prien am Chimsee along the way, so we piled off the train and into a taxi and went to Breithunn to see Gunnild Keetman's mill house. Of course we aroused the suspicion of the neighbors and their dogs. After all, they probably aren't used to a taxi load of Americans wandering the street in the middle of the day. We then went back to Prien and visited Keetman's grave. The cemetery was small and well kept. The graves are lovingly tended to and embellished with flowers and candles.

We managed to do all this in the space of 45 minutes. We hopped back on the next train and climbed higher and higher into the Alps. Naturally there was snow. Since all three of my traveling companions are from Texas, this was an oddity. Since I am from Wisconsin and currently (STILL) suffering from the snowiest winter on record, this was an annoyance. In spite of the snow, or perhaps because of it, Salzburg is astonishingly beautiful. We've all seen the clips from "The Sound of Music" (our hotel played it on the TV 24/7), but the movie can in no way prepare you for the actual size of the Hohensalzburg which looms over the city......

....... to be continued.......

How fun is this?

2008-01-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

It's 2008! I am going to embark on a musical and educational journey! I am applying to the Orff Institut in beautiful Salzburg, Austria for a special one year course in music and Orff pedagogy. It's something that I've always wanted to do.... well, maybe not always, but for at least the last 15 years. I've decided it's time. In this blog I hope to document the process (!).

I'm hoping to do some serious composition and writing while engaged in my studies. I have to book ideas. One is called "Everyone Knows This One!" and it will be comprised of 10 or 12 different folk songs from all over the world. The commonality is that in each home country "Everyone knows this one!" I already have several arrangements ready to go. Some have been kid tested and piloted at workshops; others still need a test run, and I'm sure there are others out there I haven't heard yet. The other book idea is "Intermediate Elemental." It will be a book of original pieces for intermediate level students in elemental style.

I'm also hoping to get to the Orff Zentrum in Munich to do a comparative analysis of all the international editions of Music for Children.

Of course, since I'll be in Salzburg, I want to take the "Sound of Music" tour. The film was made in Austria and Julie Andrews is one of my favs!!