Der Weihnachtsmarkt

Christmas has hit Berlin. And I'm not talking about how the stores have put out Christmas decorations; those have been out since Sept. No, I'm talking about der Weihnachtsmarkt, the Christmas Market!

Now that it gets dark here by 5pm and on cloudy days, at around 4:15-4:30pm, there is a definite mood change in the city. But here they are creative and know what things bring good moods back, namely lots of Christmas lights, a big fair with lots of kitschy rides right in the middle of town, and of course Christmas markets, all over.

Most German cities with one main downtown, i.e., a no-vehicle, pedestrian mall area, have one large Christmas market in the central spot. Berlin, however, doesn't have one downtown. In fact, if you want to even try to figure out a "central location," you'd have to think in terms of "East" and "West" Berlin, dating back to when the wall was up. In the days of the Berlin wall, East and West Berlin both had their own central districts, including shopping areas, universities, etc. Now that the wall has been down (up in 1961, down in 1989), and Berlin is one big city without a division, it almost has "double" of most everything.

Take my music school for example. My music school was the former East Berlin music conservatory. There is another one in Berlin, much older, that was the music conservatory in the West. The famous Humboldt University was also in the East. There are two main shopping districts, Friedrichstrasse as the East shopping mile, and Kufuerstendamm as the West shopping hotspot, including the location of the famous "KaDeWe" department store. KaDeWe stands for "Kaufhof des Westens," which translates to "Department store of the West." It is a fancy 8-story department store which has very trendy and expensive products, from clothes to food. The top floor is, in fact, all food, and is where you can find the most top quality culinary delicacies, including olive oils for 80 euros.

They have a bakery with the most kinds of bread known to man; they have showcases filled with the most delicious, albeit expensive, cakes and pastries possible, they have endless counters of truffles, and on and on. One of the coolest things to check out additionally is the fish section. As you walk through you can see the strangest looking, biggest fish (some still with dagger teeth), or fish heads, on ice in the showcases. It's funny to look at and of course I made my family check it out when they came to Berlin this summer to visit.

Anyway, getting back to the subject of Christmas markets and their location, Berlin has, like everything else, Christmas markets in the eastern and western halves of the city, today without a division, of course, and many scattered about in other places - 50 total. Tonight I went to the newly-opened Christmas market at Gendarmenmarkt, the location of the recordings I just finished making about its history. The famous, beautiful square includes the German and French Cathedral and Concert Hall. This Christmas market especially pretty because of the white tents for booths with stars on the top. http://www.gendarmenmarktberlin.de/

Normal Christmas markets include lots of huts where artists and craftpersons sell their wares, many, but not all, Christmassy; lots of stands that sell bratwursts and many other wursts, and many other food stands with Chrsitmas treats such as honey roasted nuts, chocolate or candy coated fruit, big gingerbread hearts with such phrases as "You're my little bear" written in frosting which you can hang from your neck; and of course the stands selling warm drinks, namely "Gluehwein."

Gluehwein is a big favorite of Germans. Unfortunately I cannot seem to get used to it. Although I love coffee, cappucino, and tea, I never did drink hot apple cider at home, and Gluewein, a hot spiced wine, doesn't do it for me either. I tried again last year after not liking it in my exchange year in Freiburg, but my tastebuds hadn't changed in that regard. For kids, there's a non-alcoholic alternative to the warm drink called "Kinderpunsch" (I think the name is self-explanatory), but I don't even like that. This year I want to try the other warm drink they sell: warm egg liquor punch.

We had fun looking around at the different booths of crafts, including a stand by a man selling hand-made "nose flutes." Nose flutes? Yes. They are his invention of little wooden boxes you put under your nose. By blowing air from your nose into the little whistle-like box, and moving your mouth to control the pitches, you can get the sound of a recorder with the flexibility of a slide whistle. The man could even play violin concertos on the thing, which impressed my friend who plays violin. But it was 19 euros, so I didn't buy one. After Tobias and I looked around we sat down and drank a hot cocoa and had a nice chat.

Thursday I will be able to enjoy Thanksgiving for sure. I was invited to the house of American missionaries who live in a suburb of Berlin. The American husband even comes from 2 hrs. from my hometown! They work with the youth out there, most of which are poor and don't have parents around much. Unfortunately I won't be able to stay the whole evening; I have to come back to Berlin for an oboe class that night. But it'll be so nice to enjoy a warm turkey meal and be around others who also want to celebrate the holiday of being thankful. Then, of course, since Thanksgiving will be over, I can also officially start to decorate my apartment with Christmas decorations, including the little plastic tree which is currently smashed under my bed. I love having a Christmas tree!

p.s. After hearing that only registered users could leave comments, I changed the setting so that now anyone can leave comments. I just hope I don't get more spam that way! But thanks, Dad, for letting me know it was blocking non-registered users.

Oh, Bus, where art thou?

The recordings are finished! After a long weekend of recording the tour guide texts, 11 hours total, and then listening to check for mistakes and re-record, my part of the project is done. Now they have to do the editing as well as adding music, sound effects, etc.

It should be pretty good. They want to sell it to an online company, like i-tunes, so that before English speakers travel to Berlin, they can download the tour and take it with them. Of course, the tour is not free. Once they see how much this tour sells, they will be able to decide if they should make other tours for other areas/historical landmarks of Berlin. I guess only then will I see if I will ever work as a future voice of Berlin again.

I learned a lot about speaking slowly and clearly, though. It was interesting. When he first asked me to slow down and played the example of an English speaker talking suuuupppeeerrr slowly, I though, "huh? That sounds so weird!" But it has to be like that! When I listened to myself, as well as tried to follow along with the history of what I was saying, I realized it had to be slow or you lose the listener very fast. Especially if you're doing a walking tour and the person has to stay caught up.

In other news, I have been getting really annoyed at the buses here lately. The times when I feel like taking the bus instead of walking the 10 minutes to the subway station from my apartment, which I've been doing more now that it's so cold, I check the times online and then go out and wait at the stop by my door. Even though I make a point of getting out there early, since I know they tend to come a minute early, lately I haven't been early enough. Yesterday I saw it and ran over....and it left me in a cloud of dust as it drove off. Today I got out there 2 min. early and it was long gone!

Since the bus comes by here every 20 min. it doesn't make sense to wait for the next one, but that means I have to hurry along to the subway since I've already lost time in the bus process. It's not the end of the world, but I ask myself why they even have a schedule if they're just going to come when they want! I'm thinking of calling or stopping by the public transportation office to let them know how annoying the bus drivers are when they do that.

Last summer I was on the craziest bus ride ever with my American friend Bethany, who studies horn in Hamburg. We had to hold on for our lives because if we hadn't we would have flown through the bus with every curve or brake. And talk about not doing his job: the hasty driver didn't even stop long enough for a poor Asian student standing outside a university stop. He peeled the bus up to the stop and pulled right off before the Asian guy could even realize what was going on. Seeing the confused lad standing forgotten at the stop, I yelled "HALT!" from my seat in the back of the bus, but to no avail. The need-for-speed bus driver wasn't going to be stopped for an alone-standing passenger. But it was a record trip back to my apartment. I think he cut the ride from 14 min. to 10.

And then consider Italy. My German friend said in Sicily the bus stops don't even have a schedule. If you're lucky and you stand there, there might be a bus that drives by. Otherwise you could wait anywhere from 30 min. to an hour for a bus! Then they don't have to make excuses if they're early or late...you have to just be glad they showed up at all. Ahh, public transportation. Anyway, life goes on.

I discovered a really cool area of Berlin last night, which is just about a 10-min. subway ride for me. The city district is called Kreuzberg and although very Turkish, also attracts a lot of students and laid back types. I had no idea they had so many cool restaurants and bars, but the place is teeming with low-light, artistic-looking cocktail bars. It's the kind of non-ritzy, yet unique kind of trendy. Sometimes I don't like those kinds of places but as long as it's clean enough and not too dark, I generally like it.

I was there with my Turkish friend who lives in that area, and he showed me around the area a little bit. After we got a cocktail at a the first place, he showed me a place that was empty and normal looking from the main floor, but had a very interesting upstairs. It was an oriental lounge with little private tables separated with walls and had hanging beads in front of them, as well as some tables low to the ground with pillows or little stools.

The waiter brought us into a larger room in the back. The room, which looked like it came straight out of Aladdin, had maroon and purple cloth curtains draped across the ceiling and walls, with a green light above, and little lights around the perimeter. The seating was couch-like with pillows, forming a u-shape around the room, which meant everyone in the room could look at each other. Unfortunately, the room was very much a "couple room," and my friend and I were basically squeezed on the couch between 2 other couples..all of which seemed very in love.

But everyone seemed very relaxed and some were smoking the big water pipes (no drugs). We got a drink and enjoyed the warm, cozy room till I started falling asleep! But I'd love to go back with a small group and get one of the reserved tables with the beads. It looks so comfy with the pillows and dim lights!

Is that smoke I smell?

Last night I hosted my bible study at my apartment which included preparing a dinner. I had a busy day, doing laundry in the morning, rushing to the music school later in the afternoon to drop off music for my accompanist and practice for a little bit, stopping by the grocery store, and then another grocery store, just to find out that NO ONE sells Ricotta cheese here.... Well, they did at the grocery store by my old dorm. Strange. Luckily at the 2nd grocery store I found something similar though I wasn't sure how it would taste. Anyway, then I hurried home to clean the bathroom, pick up and vacuum, and start dinner.

Making my "special" lasagna takes lots of time. It had started out as veggie lasagna but I decided it was missing something so I started adding meat and now it has a little of everything! Last night I started adding the different layers and had the brilliant idea that if I turn on the burner on which the glass pan was sitting, maybe the cheese would start melting a little (this cheese came out of the container in spoon glops). Well, just as always when I have a great idea regarding pots and pans, after about 5 min. I smelled a strange burning. I quickly took the pan off the burner and realized that it had started buning the noodles on the bottom.

In a moment of panic, because I thought the dinner was doomed, I ran out of the kitchen to check the time. I still had over an hour....So I took a deep breath and calmed down. I started by taking out the layers of the lasagna and putting them on plates. Then I scraped the bottom layer out and washed the pan.

In a sidenote, while I'm sharing embarrassing kitchen stories, I'll quickly mention my horrible brownie experience from the dorms last year. So I found a packet of brownie mix in the American section of a big dept. store that carries food from all over the world. I was so excited to eat brownies again. Unfortunately at that point I didn't have a metal or glass pan. Alas, I stupidly thought putting it in a frying pan would be fine, completely forgetting about the plastic handle.

The mix was supposed to be in the oven for 15 min. but after 7 min., I decided to come check out the progress, and it's a good think I came at that moment. There was smoke coming out the oven and as soon as I opened the door, I was engulfed in the cloud. I grabbed a mitt and pulled out what had been a frying pan. The handle had melted forming a sort of round hook. As for the brownies....well, there wouldn't be any yummy chocolatey treats that day. All that was left in the pan was a hard, round hockey puck. I tapped the sorry substance with my fingernail and it didn't move. It was a big piece of charcoal. I knew that it wasn't coming out of the pan, either, so I put the whole thing into a plastic bag and threw it away in the dumpster outside. I replaced the pan a few days later.

Anyway, back to last night. So after cleaning the glass pan, I put all the layers of the lasagna back in the pan and put it all in the oven. Then later I added the pre-made Italian bread with spread to the oven. When the girls arrived everything had just come out of the oven, right on time. And everyone loved the lasagna, including myself. I think it was the best I've made so far and the new cheese was also really good. So I was REALLY relieved. You never know how things are going to go with timing, taste, etc. And I was expecting 3 to show up, including my German friend I'd invited, but 4 ended up coming, incl. that American girl who once came at the beginning of the semester.

But we made do in my little apartment. We pulled the table up to the couch and had chairs around it on the other sides. It worked fine. My German friend brought pudding for dessert. The bible study itself was good. My German friend stayed after the others had left and we chatted briefly about the evening. She said she enjoyed it but it was a little overwhelming. She wasn't sure how much of it she was willing to take for herself personally (God as our best friend as illustrated with God and Abraham) just because it's all pretty new for her. But our bible study leader gave her a new testament bible that Students for Christ in Germany had published and even had our leader's testimony in the back. So that was cool.

Tonight I'm going to the movie with my friend from church. He wants to see this movie (an art film) because it has to do with music or something. So we'll see. I haven't been to the movie theater in a long time. Sat. I go back in to do more recordings. I was there on Tues. morning for 3 hours and we got through 4 pages of text. On Sat. I'll finish the last 4 and do whatever corrections need to be made. There was one whole page we have to do again because my mouth was somehow not close enough to the microphone. Then what we don't finish I'll have to come back in for on Sunday. The only reason I'd want to do that is because I get paid per hour. Otherwise, I'd be fine finishing it for good!

Fall walks, Heidi talks

I wanted more to do and what I got was busy. But it's good! I love having many things to do. Then I really enjoy the time I spend in my apartment after a busy day.

My first recording session for the "walk and listen" tour of Berlin's famous square, "Gendarmenmarkt," was yesterday. I had been slaving over the texts, trying to repair the poor translation job done by a supposed native speaker and finally finished all the corrections after ca. 9 hours. Luckily my voice came back completely just in time for the recordings. When I got to the office, I saw the "studio" that I would spend the next several hours in.

It was a small little make-shift box with just enough room for a chair and microphone and lots of blankets taped to the walls. I read the papers taped to the wall in front of me. It was really strenuous trying to read slowly with lots of exciting-sounding voice influctions. But we got a lot done in the 4 hours and my boss was happy with how it went. We meet again on Tues. for part 2. It's a temp job, but maybe they'll have translation jobs for me in the future.

Speaking of jobs, my neither-here-nor-there crazy Russian English pupil or mine has decided to take a break from English tutoring till December. I take that as for forever, so I will be placing another ad for more tutoring. She hasn't, however, given up on trying to drag me along to the disco. She made very clear that I will be joining her this Friday must invite my friends from last time. I told her we would see.

I had some nice Starbuck's visits this week, 4 to be exact. There's a really nice Starbuck's I like to go to that has two levels full of comfy stuffed chairs. I went there on Mon. with my Turkish oboe player friend and Tues. with my friend from the church. On Thurs. my German friend and I checked out another Starbucks which is near the music school and I was so excited by their toffee nut coffee (the other Starbuck's only has a few coffee choices) that I went back Friday shortly by myself to finish the translation corrections before babysitting.

It's just too bad that coffee there is so expensive. I'm not really sure of the prices in America, but for a small toffee nut coffee it's about $3.80. I really can't make a habit of going there too often, especially since I can get a nice little cup of cappucino from the music school machine for 40 cents. But it's a nice atmosphere and a nice place to meet with friends or bring a book.

I've been SO thankful for the beautiful fall we've been having in Berlin. Although now it's pretty chilly out, we still have a very atypical blue sky almost everyday. This much sun is not even so normal for summer here. I've really enjoyed taking walks, in fact, today I went on 2 walks. The first one was with my bible study leader, her British husband, and their baby. Then later I met my German friend for a nice walk through the Tiergarten, a huge Central Park-type area with tons of age-old trees and mystical ponds with bridges.

But watch out in the summer; there's one section of the Tiergarten that draws the naked Berliners, primarily homosexual men, who lay out or play ball with their dogs. That's one way to get to know new people on a personal level right away. But then again, most Germans go naked in the sauna, which I experienced with my orchestra this summer. I had my suit on, fully accepting and not feeling ashamed of my role as the "prudish American." And I learned to really make sure you make eye contact while talking to people. Otherwise it could be more than you bargained for. My friend just told me he has even been naked in the sauna with his sister many times. Eww!!

I'm hosting my bible study this week at my apartment. I'm excited to have visitors. With Berlin being so large and everything so spread out, it's not that typical to have guests since you might as well just meet halfway in the city. So I am looking forward to that, as well as making my veggie lasagna which I haven't made for a very long time. I also luckily have time that day to tidy up the apartment.

I invited my German friend to come and she enthusiastically agreed. She just told me today that she finds it too bad she didn't have more to do with the church growing up. I hope she feels comfortable and welcome and even finds some answers to some of her questions. Our leader is really genuine and personable.

Oh, and I didn't end up getting the position in Mannheim. Apparently it was more for a "doctorate" study with the paid orchestra positions on the side. But the good news is that they gave me my point score. To be accepted for the degree program it was 22 points. I got 20, which was still rated in the top category, so that helped me to feel better about it.

So it is just another audition to add to the list.... Even if I had gotten it, I'm not so sure I'd have taken it. It's 5 hrs. there with the train and a very ugly city. I wouldn't have wanted to move there from Berlin and to commute is also a bit much. But I am glad that I had another chance to take an audition because all experience helps and I already played stronger than my last audition. Hopefully the next one is even better!

I can't talk, so I'll write

The weekend is almost over, as is another episode of my favorite show, "Farmer Seeks Wife." Ahh...the people of the land and their love lives.

I had a good time at the party on Friday night, but I can't say the same for my poor voice, or what's left of it. Unfortunately whatever raw throat thing I was coming down with has turned into me losing my voice. I could tell something was wrong as I was talking over the music at the party in the living room, where the DJ was set up. It was really loud and of course I had to talk loudly to be heard.

I could just feel my voice going and know the feeling pretty well. Losing my voice is nothing new; for the past 10 yrs. or so I've seemed to have lost my voice every 2-3 yrs. The last time I lost my voice I was working in the summer program for school kids in a daycare. We were on an excursion to an ice cream store. Having no voice to stop the kids from touching any and everything was very hard. I ended up going home early since I was no help to the other teachers anyway.

This time, luckily, I have had a little time to relax my voice to hopefully not make it worse. Yesterday I spent the day in drinking bronchial tea and even made my first "hot milk with honey". It was really tasty but I don't really think it helped my throat. It almost made it feel a little weird. But the teas have been good.

Back to the party. It was really fun meeting up with some people from my orchestra from this summer that I hadn't seen in awhile....a couple since our concert in August. One of the guys and I had really hit it off as friends. He apparently had been trying to contact me but the e-mails were landing in my junkmail, without me knowing. That's also happened with some other people lately, so now I check my junkmail each time. Anyway, there's this American bar, apparently, here in Berlin that he wants me to check out. Unfortunately it has an unappealing name: "White Trash." Strange.

Otherwise, the party was really full. For a one-room apartment and an average of about 80 people crammed in, it was quite full and sometimes felt too crowded. The hostess of the party had invited her friends, work friends, etc. but lots of people brought friends, plus my friend, the Greek, had invited the people from our orchestra.

I met an American girl there. She lives in the bldg. where the party was and was there because the hostess had put up a sign warning about the noise and inviting the other tenants down to check out the party. She just moved here, is from Chicago, and is doing her PhD in history and is writing her discertation on the history of Prenzlauerberg, a district of Berlin that is considered the trendiest because of the pre-war apartments: wood floors, tall ceilings, big windows, and hip restaurants and bars on every block. It would be fun to live there but it's also kind of pricey (by Berlin standards, which is still cheaper than anywhere in America.)

But it's always fun to run into other Americans living here and hear their stories. I only know of a couple at the music school but don't really see them ever. Still, I like meeting new "Amis" (German's nickname for us) and get their impressions on living in Berlin.

I talked to my friend from church today. He's such an interesting person and I really have never met anyone like him. He's a charismatic Christian and really into the healing aspect of Christianity. Now, when he started talking about Christian healing, I automatically thought of those cabel channel church services where the pastor pushes a lady out of her wheelchair and she can automatically walk. It's hard to take those shows seriously. But he really has been to conventions where stuff like that happens. He's seen things as "minute" as aches and pains be taken away to cancer being healed in real life.

In fact, in a side note, there was a Muslim girl at church tonight who gave her testimony about becoming a Christian. She had been diagnosed with leukemia and was devastated. She was encouraged by someone to try praying to God instead of Muhammed. That night she had a dream where she was touched by Jesus, telling her he was the Way and he was healing her. She woke up and went to the doctor where the blood test came back cancer free.

My friend has also has shown me a very different side of Christianity as well. This is kind of personal to be writing, but I will because I want to share it. While chatting with him I was mentioning about how my professor is a difficult person, or how the woman I work for has a hard time controlling her kids and is really worn out from it. He asked me matter of factly if I'd prayed for them. Praying for my professor to be more punctual and not tell me last minute about a lesson? Never thought of it! Praying for the woman I work for? Hmm...I'd prayed for her in general, but not necessarily about the kids situation in particular.

His response was interesting. He almost laughed at me. Not because he thought it was funny that I hadn't thought of praying, but because he was shocked. "But you're a Christian!" He couldn't believe I wouldn't bring the issues on that were on my mind automatically to God, as trivial as they seemed. For him it was the obvious answer to the problem, like taking an Asprin with a headache instead of just sitting there, enduring the pain. As we talked more about it I mentioned how when it comes to the everyday things or annoyances, I didn't really think of bringing those things up to God, almost like it's too mundane for God to be bothered with, even though I'd always heard the phrase "the power of prayer."

What he said really made sense and really hit the spot. The little things, he said, are usually what are on our minds more often and become big things. Those thoughts will go somewhere, and if not up to God, then down to Satan, who will use them to slowly tear us down. My haircut, for example, was on my mind a lot...even when I wasn't consciously thinking about it. He suggested forgiving the hairstylist for doing something I didn't like. Then he suggested thanking God for my haircut, which would lead to me seeing it in a different way, maybe even liking it. I'd never even thought about praying about my haircut. But why not? If God loves me enough to care about my haircut, I'll do it!

Today on the phone we talked about me not having a voice. He asked if he could pray for me. And my bible study leader called yesterday to check in with me and also prayed for my voice, both on the phone. To be honest, I hadn't thought about praying for my voice because it is something I can live with until it comes back. But why not? My voice is still pretty gone, but today at the church service I could actually sing and talk at a level where people could hear me later at the dinner. So I had it when I needed it.

It's just a little new for me to pray so much about every little thing, but I'm telling you, even if I don't see answers for every single thing everytime, I am definitely seeing results of the prayer in little ways here and there. For example: I have just gotten a new job (tour voice), and the lady I work for brought up her child raising issues to me and wanted to hear what I had noticed by watching their family and what might work. I guess what I'm learning is that when we bring the little things to God and include him on a daily basis, it's not limiting him to the things we consider big and the things we feel desitnated for "God's help." He can also do big things through the little things.

Happy St. Martin's Day

So as I'm sitting here, drinking my "coughing/bronchial" tea, and waiting for my shirt for the party to dry on the balcony, I am watching "Center Stage" on tv. The cold I thought I was coming down with last weekend seems to have come back. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems to be lingering in my throat so far. I even felt a little sick to my stomach earlier on the train, but the bronchial tea should help. I will have to take it easy tonight and not stay out too late and I hope there isn't smoking in the apartment.

But luckily I don't have to go in for the text recording tomorrow. The boss called me and said their recording studio isn't working right and they'll have to wait for it to get fixed. I also told him about the terrible translations and how it's going to take me at least 5 more hours to get the rest corrected. He was surprised because he thought it had been good.

Unfortunately, his English skills were probably such that he thought it was right to put a verb at the end of a sentence or say "When you have now reached Markgrafenstraße 35...," "Just to your left, for example, are to be found the Greek Embassy and the Belgian Embassy...," and "That's hard to imagine today, or?" I mean, talk about directly translating the German words into English and not even considering how we'd say it!

So now that the recordings are postponed I actually have a little time tomorrow to recover from the busy week and lack of sleep. Today I drove the hour it takes to pick up the little 3 1/2 German girl I babysit from the daycare. Her parents, who are building a house in that area, have been out there painting and laying flooring. So I walked the little one over from the daycare to the new house and we all had a cup of coffee in their little make-shift kitchen, consisting of a coffee-maker on the floor, some Christmas fruitcake on a tray, and a few camping stools.

After we had the little "tea-time" we walked around the new house and I felt bad for all the work they have ahead of them. It just takes forever to build a house in Germany. They started planning their house months before my parents did and my parents have been living in their finished house for a couple months. This family's house doesn't even have toilets, kitchen, doors, or much of anything. But it's all out of concrete which takes a lot longer to prepare and pour. But still...

Then we made our way over to the daycare for their fall "St. Martin's Lantern festival." All the kids and their parents gathered together in the dark with little self-made lanterns. There was a man playing a crank-handle organ. Then we all set out on a "parade" of lanterns. It was pretty cute to see all the 2-3 yr. olds holding their lantens and here and there singing a lantern song.

Well I need to slowly make my way to the party. I think with the 2 bronchial teas have helped..for the time being, anyway.

Hey, it beats the Greyhound

Whew...what a day! I sat in a train today for about 10 hours. The day started out early as I bought my ticket from the automatic ticket machine in the train station. I rode about 5 hours south to Mannheim, which is south of Frankfurt, for an audition. It's for an "artistic diploma," or something comparable, at the music conservatory as well as a position in the academy orchestra, including chances to play in 4 local orchestras (Heidelberg, etc.) . The audition is not just for oboe, it's for all wind instruments, from which they will select 4 total. So I did it for the same reason I take other auditions...every audition has slim chances and you just keeeeeep trying.

So I arrived in Mannheim and was not that impressed with the city. Whereas most German cities have a pretty area around the train station and downtown, this one was plain and seemed like a bunch of ugly buildings. I walked to the music conservatory which was downtown and it was also in an unattractive area. When I got to the audition room a couple guys who were auditioning asked where I was from and when I said Berlin they were really shocked that I'd have driven all the way for the audition. Apparently even though the positions are advertised all over (my prof. had the announcement taped to his wall), normally only Mannheim music students audition for the position...and even then said it was hardly worth it. Maybe they have more gigs in Mannheim, because to complain about orchestral playing is something you DON'T do in Berlin because you can't. There isn't enough for everyone so we jump at the chance to play when we get it.

Anyway, I warmed up and went down to the audition. It lasted all of 8 minutes and most of those stupid excerpts I practiced so hard were not even asked for. That's okay...maybe I didn't play them this time, but I will have to know them for other auditions. I felt like I played pretty well...technially stronger than my last audition, but you never know what they're looking for. There were actually about 15 people sitting in on the audition, too, so that was a funny feeling. They were either professors from the music school or musicians in one of the 4 orchestras the chosen students will play with.

After the audition I set out for the downtown. I wanted to check out more of the city before taking my train home. The downtown was a little better than the train station area, but not much. I really have to say it's one of the least attractive German cities I've seen so far! But hey, can't win 'em all! Anyway, I went into "United Colors of Benetton," a store many Americans have probably forgotten about but still lives strong in Germany. They were having a close-out sale and I found a nice pair of dress pants for 15 euro. I realized today, while picking out audition clothes, just how few nice pants I have. So that was a good deal.

In other news, I got a phone call yesterday from the boss of the "walk and listen" English tour CD company. They want to work with me and asked when I could start. Yay! He really wants to start recording this weekend, but for me that was a little too much. Like I said before, my Greek friend, who studies in Belgium, is here in Berlin visiting her bf and she and another girl from our orch. are throwing a party tomorrow night which a lot of our orch. friends will be at. And she and I wanted to get together on the weekend at some point,too. But I compromised with the boss and will go in for 4 hours Sat. and maybe that much Sun. I'm not looking forward to going in Sat. at noon with a raw voice from yelling over music.

He also sent me the texts I'll be reading and asked me to check them over. They were originally in German and then translated to English. But I tell ya, whoever did the translations was a few fries short of a happy meal. He or she mostly just translated directly from German, so verbs are all backwards, strange phrases are everywhere, even vocab. selections doesn't make sense sometimes. Plus, whoever wrote the original texts (in German) tried to throw a little humor into the deal by using some risky political references. I'm thinking...okay, and this is supposed to be a serious tour guide CD and you're talking about how "politicians these days will just be lucky if they keep a promise in their lifetime," etc.

Some of the history of the area on the recording is also a little off, or at least don't follow all the stories I've heard about some of those buildings. So I basically don't know how much re-arranging I should do or just simply correct the grammatical errors/funny word order, or if I can also add tidbits and/or take out worthless junk. Out of 12 pages, I got through 5 in 3 hours. I'm getting a small amount of money to correct the translated texts, but I don't think my boss realized how bad it was. I'll have to talk to him and let him know the extent of the damange.

I'm really exhaused after this long day. Tomorrow I get up early again for my favorite class: Padagogy (learning how to teach), where the teacher always gets into philosophical discussions. Then I babysit the little German girl. Then it's off to the party....Greek style!

"Welcome to Berlin, I'll be your voice"

There has been progress concerning the drunk neighbor son. My landlandy and her son have been working on writing letters, getting complaints from others together, and finalizing the eviction of my little old lady neighbor. I feel bad for her in a way, but to be honest, not that much. She has had many warnings from the apartment owners, other tenants, and police. Unfortunately she is still allowing her son in the apartment and covering for him. Hopefully she, i.e. they, will be out for good in a couple weeks. If I have another night of disturbed sleep (from ca. 4-5am) again I will not only be really angry, but also really exhausted.

I had a "job interview" yesterday at 9am, and since I had to wake up early enough to give myself 45 min. to get there, I was extremely tired because of another rousing episode from next door the night before, forcing me to lie wide-awake in bed in the middle of the night until the screaming was over. But I did make it to the interview, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, or not so much.

On the subway ride to the interview it was bombarded with school children on an outing. The kids were highly out of control and the 2 teachers didn't seem to care. So when I wasn't protecting myself from kids flying into me because they thought it was funny not to hold on to the railings and thereby get thrown around in the subway, I looked at the people around me, like usual.

When I got to my interview and the secretary led me to the office of the man with whom I was to speak, I recognized him right away from the subway. He had been standing there and once we caught each other's eyes. He was a youngish Berliner who reminds me of an old piano player friend from home. Once we shook hands I asked if we'd just seen each other on the subway. I knew he remembered me by the way he was acting, but just said "could be...could be." Whatever.

Anyway, the interview consisted of me reading a text out loud to see if I could read without making mistakes too often. The text was for a so-called "walk and go" CD tour guide. I'm not sure exactly what the company does, but I know they do a lot of translations. And apparently text recordings by native speakers.

After he told me I was reading way too fast and played a couple of CD examples of VERY slow English and very exaggerated intonation, I realized what was expected. So I re-read some of the text and both he and his co-worker who was sitting in the room were very happy and told me I read without mistakes, which is important so they don't have to "cut" so much during the recordings. But alas, there were others for the "casting" and I won't find out till later this week if I'll get the job. I'd love to make a touring CD though. The thought of being "The Voice" is exciting!

My Greek friend who studies in Belgium is in Berlin visiting her German boyfriend and us for her birthday. Last night we went out to celebrate her bday and this Friday night there' s a big party with a lot of people from our orchestra, where she and I and most of these people met. I'm looking forward to it. The people from the orch. were so nice and it's a good chance to catch up again.

We also had our oboe concert in the nursing home last Sat. night. It went fine and afterwards our prof. took the money we'd made and paid for our meals in an Indian restaurant. After that several of us, incl. the new oboe students, hung out at a chic cocktail restaurant downtown. It was fun to get to know the new oboe students and hang out. At this point we only have one German full-time oboe student. The rest of us are foreigners from Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and of course, yours truly from the USA. After the rest pooped out and went home, my Turkish friend from the studio and I went out for another drink at another cool place in the area. It was a fun night.