New Year's Greetings
Happy New Year! Well I survived Christmas away from home (for the 3rd..and hopefully last year). I went to Hamburg for a couple days before Christmas and enjoyed my time with Bethany. Then I left for my German friend's house a few hours south of that in the train. It turned out to be slightly awkward, as she and her mom (who live alone) have a strange interaction which mostly consists of the mother talking to her....and my friend sitting with a pouty face, ignoring her. Yes, the mother was a little overbearing and strange (always named her "child"), but she was nice. It was just a strange relationship. The hardest part was knowing my family was all celebrating without me back at home. But I was able to call and talk to them as they were opening presents which was really nice.
But to their credit, my friend and her mom did make a very nice effort including me in their Christmas. They gave me some very thoughtful gifts and they seemed to like mine. We also ate lots of fondue: cheese fondue on Christmas Eve, and meat fondue on Christmas day with their cousins. It was all very tasty. We also played a lot of games, which was a lot of laughs. And their little town was beautiful. It has 3 castles with real moats. The downtown was also charming.
After that adventure, Matthias came through from his house and picked me up after Christmas Day #2 (Germans celebrate an extra day...go figure with all their holidays). We drove to Berlin spent the week in here before New Year's. It was a fun week and we finally made it to an art museum. I went to so many museums my year in Freiburg that I haven't necessarily had the urge to go to all the art museums here, but Matthias took art history classes in school and really wanted to go to an exhibition that was going on. It was pretty fun and nice go do something I haven't done for awhile.
On the Sat., New Year's Eve, Bethany came in from Hamburg. While I was picking her up from the station, Matthias took the subway to the club we were going to that night to pick up tickets for that night. Once we were all back, we ate lunch, had coffee, tried to take a nap.... but unfortunately the loud "pre-show" of firecrackers was not to be slept through. The firecrackers had, in fact, started about 2 weeks before New Year's, with random explosions occurring at any given time, sometimes right outside my window. It really felt like I was living in a warzone.
But it's no wonder there were so many people setting these "rockets" off; you could buy the things at discounted prices at the corner grocery store! Having no rules or laws against such, in some cases, dangerous little crackers, kids of any age were the ones lighting and setting them off. They were even standing sometimes at the top of the subway stairs and throwing the crackers down to scare the people coming up.
So, as one could imagine, New Year's day itself became a constant drone of explosion and a palette of color. As my apartment is on one side of a soccer field, it seemed to be the place everyone was using to set them off. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed to pull together around midnight and we had what seemed to be our very own fireworks show right from my balcony. So that definitely made it all worth it, though I'm glad the mess and noise is over. Now I just have to make sure I avoid the shells of the firecrackers, which, upon explosion and in the snow, resemble dog poop, which is also all over. It's a dodging process to get by the unidentifiable substances without getting a footfull.
The club was pretty fun. It had the theme Venetian masquerade, but we didn't bring masks, though some did. There were even a couple of cool ice structures there. The next day, on New Year's, we made sure to turn on the TV at 11:45am because that was when my orchestra' s documentary was on. A little background: This summer I played in the 'Young Berlin Symphony,' which had 3 projects. The final project was a joint effort with a Russian orchestra from St. Petersburg, as a 60 yr. WWII anniversary of the German and Russian conflict.
The cooperative project was to be filmed for 2 German television stations, with one of the directors being highly-acclaimed for his already-produced film "Rhythm Is It," showcasing Sir Simon Rattle (Berlin Philharmonic) and co. working with street kids, transforming the undisciplined rough group into hard-working kids, proud of their finished dance project, which was performed before an audience.
With all the talk of this 'amazing' TV producer, we were all curious to know how he'd make our slightly unsuccessful project look on TV. You see, the Russians basically stayed to themselves, and likewise with the Germans. It was just too hard with the language barrier and everyone was a little shy. Our Russian conductor was also rude and impatient. Things got a little better after the "get-to-know-each-other party," but I don't think it was really what anyone expected. Unfortunately, the TV documentary captured just that. They seemed to take mostly negative interviews, show the moments of tension, and fail to climax it with a real positive ending, if there was one. Oh well, the week was fine for me because I got to hang around some really nice people I'd already met in the other concerts and we got free lunch everyday. And it was fun to be on TV, even if it was mostly the back of my head!
Now it's back to school and the normal schedule. We started rehearsals for the orchestra project last Thursday and they continue all week with our concert next Wed. night. The concert is all jazz. It'll be fun, I think, and it's fun to finally be playing first oboe after a year!
But to their credit, my friend and her mom did make a very nice effort including me in their Christmas. They gave me some very thoughtful gifts and they seemed to like mine. We also ate lots of fondue: cheese fondue on Christmas Eve, and meat fondue on Christmas day with their cousins. It was all very tasty. We also played a lot of games, which was a lot of laughs. And their little town was beautiful. It has 3 castles with real moats. The downtown was also charming.
After that adventure, Matthias came through from his house and picked me up after Christmas Day #2 (Germans celebrate an extra day...go figure with all their holidays). We drove to Berlin spent the week in here before New Year's. It was a fun week and we finally made it to an art museum. I went to so many museums my year in Freiburg that I haven't necessarily had the urge to go to all the art museums here, but Matthias took art history classes in school and really wanted to go to an exhibition that was going on. It was pretty fun and nice go do something I haven't done for awhile.
On the Sat., New Year's Eve, Bethany came in from Hamburg. While I was picking her up from the station, Matthias took the subway to the club we were going to that night to pick up tickets for that night. Once we were all back, we ate lunch, had coffee, tried to take a nap.... but unfortunately the loud "pre-show" of firecrackers was not to be slept through. The firecrackers had, in fact, started about 2 weeks before New Year's, with random explosions occurring at any given time, sometimes right outside my window. It really felt like I was living in a warzone.
But it's no wonder there were so many people setting these "rockets" off; you could buy the things at discounted prices at the corner grocery store! Having no rules or laws against such, in some cases, dangerous little crackers, kids of any age were the ones lighting and setting them off. They were even standing sometimes at the top of the subway stairs and throwing the crackers down to scare the people coming up.
So, as one could imagine, New Year's day itself became a constant drone of explosion and a palette of color. As my apartment is on one side of a soccer field, it seemed to be the place everyone was using to set them off. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed to pull together around midnight and we had what seemed to be our very own fireworks show right from my balcony. So that definitely made it all worth it, though I'm glad the mess and noise is over. Now I just have to make sure I avoid the shells of the firecrackers, which, upon explosion and in the snow, resemble dog poop, which is also all over. It's a dodging process to get by the unidentifiable substances without getting a footfull.
The club was pretty fun. It had the theme Venetian masquerade, but we didn't bring masks, though some did. There were even a couple of cool ice structures there. The next day, on New Year's, we made sure to turn on the TV at 11:45am because that was when my orchestra' s documentary was on. A little background: This summer I played in the 'Young Berlin Symphony,' which had 3 projects. The final project was a joint effort with a Russian orchestra from St. Petersburg, as a 60 yr. WWII anniversary of the German and Russian conflict.
The cooperative project was to be filmed for 2 German television stations, with one of the directors being highly-acclaimed for his already-produced film "Rhythm Is It," showcasing Sir Simon Rattle (Berlin Philharmonic) and co. working with street kids, transforming the undisciplined rough group into hard-working kids, proud of their finished dance project, which was performed before an audience.
With all the talk of this 'amazing' TV producer, we were all curious to know how he'd make our slightly unsuccessful project look on TV. You see, the Russians basically stayed to themselves, and likewise with the Germans. It was just too hard with the language barrier and everyone was a little shy. Our Russian conductor was also rude and impatient. Things got a little better after the "get-to-know-each-other party," but I don't think it was really what anyone expected. Unfortunately, the TV documentary captured just that. They seemed to take mostly negative interviews, show the moments of tension, and fail to climax it with a real positive ending, if there was one. Oh well, the week was fine for me because I got to hang around some really nice people I'd already met in the other concerts and we got free lunch everyday. And it was fun to be on TV, even if it was mostly the back of my head!
Now it's back to school and the normal schedule. We started rehearsals for the orchestra project last Thursday and they continue all week with our concert next Wed. night. The concert is all jazz. It'll be fun, I think, and it's fun to finally be playing first oboe after a year!
posted by Heidi at 4:00 AM
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