Trip to the US - last one for a while

This is not at all career related, but I expect my blogging in that respect will take a back seat to more personal themes in the coming months. Hope that's ok with you!

So now that I've entered my official 7th month of pregnancy, I won't be traveling very much any more. No more airplanes for me.

We returned last week from our last overseas trip. This time to the USA. We visited family in Madison, Wisconsin and Missoula, Montana as well as a pit-stop to meet the famous Larry Santoro in Chicago in between.

We arrived much later on Wed. 1 July than I had realized we would. When we got out of customs and baggage claim at O'Hare airport, it looked like we just might catch the 4:00pm Van Galder bus to Madison after all, so we went chasing from Terminal to terminal, but no luck, it left without us. The next one didn't leave till 5:30pm and it was a good thing actually because when we sat down with ice cream to wait and I went to check my blood sugar, I realized I must have left my monitor on the plane. Panic!! But Swiss Air was amazing. I went to the ticket desk and they called it in and while I waited (maybe 10 minutes) someone showed up with it! Phew! We arrived in Madison at about 8:30pm and my mom picked us up. We went straight home and had sandwiches for dinner.

The next few days were basically filled with spending time with my parents, eating, doing some shopping, eating, sleeping and eating some more.

We celebrated Independence Day with fireworks at Elver Park (with my dad) on July 3 and by watching the annual Greentree 4th of July parade, which begins at my old elementary school (Falk) and ends at the park (Clayton), and always goes right past our house. Magnus and I helped my oldest childhood friend Naomi and her son Riley decorate his bike, which is an essential part of the tradition. This year the weather was unseasonably cool and it rained for 5 minutes on either side of the 5 minute parade (for a total of 15 minutes). After brunch with friends and neighbors we went down to the park for the festivities. I was looking forward to games and contests (3-legged race, potato sack race, dunking machine) and other attractions (food, drink and a pony ride), but was bitterly disappointed. There were only a few games for the kids and some food and pop. Later they did have a great magician who performed for about 20 minutes. He was fun. Patty, one of my best friends from High School and CapitolAires Drum Corps came by briefly with her sister. It was great to see her again and catch up. Naomi invited us to her house for a cookout that evening.

On Sunday, the day before we left Madison, my dad hosted a cookout and I made a blanket invitation to my friends in Madison. A few key people came (Wendy & Jim, Kathy, Laura) and a couple of people I haven't seen in ages (Diane + newish family and Lola - friend Matt from HS's mother). It was delightful to see all of the them. And my dad served the world's biggest steaks from Jacobson's Meat. I complained bitterly that my belly might be growing beyond all proportions, but my stomach is getting inversly smaller!

Some pictures:



The grand set up in front of Falk Elementary School



Off we go!



Riley and his glorious bike



The masses watching the parade

Part II - Chicago next!

Madrid, Spain

Got back from Madrid late yesterday evening. We were supposed to arrive home at about 6pm but our flight was delayed in Madrid already. Ugh.

We had a great time. We arrived on Friday evening and met the groom-to-be and a group of his home-town, Italian friends for drinks and dinner. I think we ate dinner at about 10:30 pm. Which, by the way, is totally normal in Spain. A little difficult for me, because I've been in bed by that time of late... We visited the La Latina quarter and had a great meal.

We stayed at the Hesperia Hotel, which is a 5 star, and worth every star. Especially since it was only €130 per night! I don't know if that was a special rate Antonino got for us wedding guests, but I'm not complaining.

The wedding was lovely, Alicia looked so Spanish in her veil. The wedding reception was at our hotel - a blessing! We had finger food and drinks until about 4:30pm and then moved on to lunch (!). Yes, lunch. That's what they called it anyway. The food was fantastic. I had a bit of trouble with the start of the finger food, because it was all raw. But then they brought out some yummy things I could eat. It was really too bad, being in spain and not being able to eat the Iberian cured ham (basically raw) and a lot of the fish finger food. But I didn't starve!

We spent a lot of time with Antonino's Italian friends, and had a great time. They didn't complain about my slow pace or need for frequent breaks. I expect they barely noticed. Italians can't walk and talk at the same time anyway, so I often found myself walking even slower than I needed or out-pacing the pack! We took the subway everywhere and someone always got up to give me their seat. It was very sweet. We visited the main tourist attractions: The Royal Palace, the Cathedral, Plaza Mayór, Plaza del Sol, Gran Via. Drank cheap beer (well, I didn't!) and ate great, but inexpensive food. Nom!

We forgot to charge the camera batteries, so no pics at this point. We used Magnus' phone instead...


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Is there such a thing as too much vacation?!?

On the eve of taking off on the first leg of 2+ weeks of travel (for fun) I'm finally getting around to blogging a bit. 

I was away for a good week, lazing at the seaside near Pisa, Italy; attending a wedding in Siena; and touring medieval hill towns of
Tuscany. It was a great trip. I needed to get away, get somewhere warm and sunny (as opposed to staying in cold and grey Hannover), read lots, walk, eat good food and feast my eyes. It panned out: Hannover stayed cold and rainy while we were sweating and doing our best not to get sunburned in Italy; We spent 3 days with the In-laws in Lido di Camaiore, loungeing poolside (reading, reading, reading) and walking along the beach. I managed NOT to get a sunburn, miracles of miracles; We ate extremely well, which you have to work hard not to do when in Italy; and we saw lots of beautiful places. We visited Lucca, San Miriato, Volterra, Siena and Vicopisano, all within an hour's drive of Bientina where we were squatting at a friend's place, and most of them medieval towns situated at the top of high hills with great views of the countryside. Actually, Volterra is quite a bit older than medieval. It was founded by the Etruscans thousands of years before the Romans arrived there. 

Anyway, here are some photos from our trip.
















You might have noticed a certain roundness to my mid-section.  I've mentioned it elsewhere, so most people who follow this blog, will know already that I'm expecting! A little boy will grace us with his presence sometime in October. Official due date being my dad's birthday: 10 October. We are immensely pleased.

Tomorrow we're flying to Madrid for the weekend. Another wedding to attend. Next Wednesday we'll be on our way to the USA, where we'll first visit my parents and friends in my home town of Madison, Wisconsin; spend a day in Chicago (and have lunch with the famous author, Larry Santoro) before heading out to Missoula, Montana where my brother and his family are planning the most amazing 40th birthday party for me! :-) 

See you around!

Catching up - UK trip

Wow, I'm a bad blogger. I have fun and perhaps interesting things to blog about and I don't manage to get around to it...

2 weekends ago Magnus and I attended some friends' wedding in Sheffield, England. We took the opportunity to visit some other friends in N. England and had a bit of a whirlwind trip because of it. We stupidly flew to Manchester instead of Newcastle, which would have been wiser, because we then jumped into a rental car and drove the 3 hours to visit Tony Smith of the StarShipSofa.

This was our first face-to-face meeting, in the flesh, as it were and it was quite exciting! Tony records the new weekly Sofanauts show on Friday afternoons and so I appear on episode No. 5 as a live studio guest! What a gas! You can listen to all or a bit of it here: Sofanauts No. 5 In case you don't know, the Sofanauts is a new panel-type podcast in which Tony invites 2 or 3 guests and there is much talk and discussion on current events or issues in the Science Fiction community. It's fun, but perhaps only if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Tony and Mrs. StarShipSofa are gracious hosts and the kids are great! Their house is beautiful, full of bright colors and quirky art and character. Tony's daughter vacated her room for the night so Magnus and I had a bed to sleep on - thank you E! Tony receives complimentary copies of several new books each week and they are starting to pile up. He practically begged us to take a few off his hands. So we did. Titles by Hal Duncan, Cory Doctorow, Anne and Todd McCaffrey, Patricia Biggs and Alison Goodman. We had a lovely evening just gabbing about various and sundry over dinner and into the evening. Unfortunately, we had to leave relatively early the next morning to drive to Sheffield for the wedding, which started at 1pm.

The wedding and the reception were beautiful and we knew a couple of other people at the wedding. The couple being married were Jane and Anthony and Jane and I sang in the CtK Choir together in Frankfurt and Jane took singing lessons from me for about a year. I suppose I met Anthony at the same time as Jane, because he came to Frankfurt to visit our choir director, Stephen Hartley, and sang with the choir when he was there. It was lovely to see Stephen and Joyce, whom I haven't seen since he left Frankfurt. We never managed to travel to York to visit them while we were living in London. For shame! I fizzled pretty early and we skipped the Ceilidh in the evening, which I would have loved, but I think fast energetic dancing is out for the time being... (more on that later).

On Sunday we drove up to Lancaster to visit our friends Andy and Lizzy and their 8 month old Phoebe. We had a great time just catching up. We visited the Butterfly House in Williamson Park near the Ashton Memorial and I took some photos with my new Nokia, but they're not so great. Let see:

Wedding #2

This was Magnus' friend Francesco's wedding in near Arezzo, Italy. That's in Tuscany. It's beautiful. And if you've ever been there, you know what an understatement that is! It's also the home of famous medieval music theorist the monk Guido of Arezzo, famous for the "Guidonian Hand" a method to teach the Hexachords or "scales" in use back then. Don't ask me how it works, I don't remember!

Anyway, this blog is turning into more of a travel blog than a music blog, so those of you more interested in music than travel will have to bear with me, I promise I'll be posting more on music soon.

M & I traveled to Florence on Friday night. On my brother's recommendation we stayed at the Hotel "Il Bargellino" in central Florence. It's a lovely little hotel with a gorgeous roof courtyard which is open to guests.
On Magnus' sister Manon's recommendation we went to a great restaurant very close to the hotel called "da Mimmo" where they have the real Fiorentina steaks. We met our friends Pierpaolo and Yaki and we all ate these huge, yummy steaks. Tom, I'm sorry I didn't know about them when you and Barb were there!

Saturday, we met Manon and Francesco who were on their way to visit Francesco's parents. They went with us to pick up the rental car and then led us a ways towards Arezzo. We went on our way, visited the Pieve di Romena and the castle nearby, met Francesco who showed us his home town of Poppi, and then wandered around Arezzo a bit before having dinner. Francesco's father had graciously and generously bought us tickets to the famous jousting games . We watch a bit of the parade. The participants of the Joust paraded through town in costumes, with horses, horns and drums, and flags. We had a great time at this ancient competition. And I think it's worthy of its own post. Stay tuned!

The wedding was pretty early on Sunday - 11:45am. By that time it was already around 33°C/91°F and unfortunately the wedding was a bit long and boring, but it was in a beautiful little abbey church in the hills and I enjoyed Alessandra's (the bride) sister's singing. She has a sweet, clear soprano voice and has just started taking lessons (at 30). I hope the lessons don't ruin her voice! :-) I know, I'm terrible!

After the wedding we drove to a Villa where we stood in the HOT sun (or crowded under the few umbrellas) for an hour drinking champagne and eating trifles, then we repaired to a large tent where we had "lunch" (or dinner?!?) at about 3pm. After dinner, we went inside, where it was blessedly air conditioned for desserts. Mmmmmh. The food was glorious.

It was still early after the reception and so we decided to go with Danilo and Manuela (D is a friend from Karlsruhe) to the celebrations of the winning jousting team (Quartiere di Porta Crucifera) and watch the European Cup (soccer/football) semi-final between Spain and Italy. We had good food (which we were basically still too full to eat) and good company. Unfortunately, Italy lost.

Next day, we took it easy, packed, went shopping for Italian food staples and drove back to Florence and flew home. A lovely weekend.

Weekend in Helsinki

M has to go to Finland every 2 or 3 weeks for business. Until now, it's been winter (no fun for vacation) and/or his meeting has been in the middle of the week. This time his meeting was on Monday and since in Germany May 1 is a holiday and NO one works on a Friday after a Thursday holiday here, we made a LONG weekend out of it. We were there for 5 days and we hit the weather jack-pot! It was sunny and "warm" the whole time! I guess that's pretty unusual. It was between 60° and 70°, but the breeze off the sea was still pretty cool. One day I ended up carrying my jacket and my sweater around all day!

We walked our feet to bloody stumps! I didn't bring great walking shoes and we did a whole lot of it. Ouch. We had bought a brochure detailing 6 or so walking tours of the city and an island fortress and we did at least 4 of them! The brochure gave the details of the more interesting buildings, churches and statues, parks and even some historical cafes! The island with the fortress on it was beautiful, we had a fun picnic eating Finnish bread and cheese on a bastion overlooking the sea where the huge ferries come in and out. And since the weather was so fantastic there were also lots of cute sailboats on the water.

We ate fabulously all weekend, trying various typical Finnish dishes. The first night we went to a cute restaurant called Lappi that specialized in food from Lapland (the area above the arctic circle). We ate a taster platter with deer sausage, reindeer steak and moose/elk steak with root veggies. I had a cool cocktail with sort of pale pink blackberry sort of thing called cloudberry. :-) The second night, at the Seahorse M had deep fried Baltic Herring and I had Finnish meatballs. mmmmmh. The atmosphere wasn't so great though. The third night we took a boat out to an island just off the coast to a restaurant called the Boathouse and had grilled salmon. oh, was it good! Here we had the whole second floor of the restaurant (which was round with huge picture windows overlooking the sea) to ourselves. It was lovely. Not sure why business was so slow. It was only their 3 day open for the season...

We went to the movies twice! The movies in Finland all have Finnish and/or Swedish subtitles, as opposed to in Germany where everything is dubbed. So we took advantage and saw Darjeeling Limited and There Will Be Blood. Both were very good, but There Will Be Blood was a bit creepy. Mostly I think it was the soundtrack that gave me a weird feeling all the time, but the main character, one of the first oil barons in Texas, was such a violent person lacking in any moral fiber. Darjeeling Limited on the other hand was a delightful movie. You should go see it if you haven't already! It's about these 3 brothers who meet on a train to go across the Indian countryside ostensibly to go visit their mother who's become a nun after their father died. They are wacky characters and much hilarity ensues. I'm sure you'd get a kick out of it.

One of my pupils here in Hannover is huge fan of the Finnish band, Him, and asked me to buy her a CD she couldn't get here. The singer, Manna, is married to the guitarist (I think, well someone) from Him. So we went on a little treasure hunt. It wasn't too hard to find the CD once we found the shop! That was a bit of an adventure - we got lost in the department store Stockmann's! Back at home I've listened to the CD and it's really great. I can recommend it highly. I think it is possible to get it through iTunes. Manna writes the songs and lyrics for the most part and sings. She has a lovely light voice, which is clear and the words (in English) are perfectly understandable. The music is not loud, more on the folky/pop-y side. Very nice.

We also bought a graphic novel version (in English!) of the Kalevala, which is the Finnish folk epic kind of like Beowulf or the Canterbury Tales. We asked for a version of it in English and they showed us two paperback editions, one was cheap quality and one was super expensive and we wanted a nice one that was maybe illustrated or something. Just to have, who knows if we would read it! Then I had the idea to look in the comics section and there it was! A nice hardcover edition in black and white and in English! Amazing.

Nothing Much

So, now I've been back from traveling for a while. After Brussels we went to Vienna which was lovely - the highlights being lunch on one day and a special Fugu (Japanese Blowfish) dinner at our favorite restaurant "Kokoro" and seeing the Magic Flute at the Volksoper for M's birthday. From Vienna we went to Bussolengo and visited family for a long weekend. Friends of M came for lunch with their kids on Saturday, which we had at a great country restaurant. It was quiet (we were also the only ones there!) and there is a large field where the children could roam. M and I were home for about 4 days, but first he was ill and then I was a couple of days later with some strange stomach bug or food poisoning. We headed back to Italy for a long weekend, stayed with friends in Milan for a night and then headed to Turin where M had business on Monday. We stayed with Michele and Eva and their 3 young children. It was very lively! We ate way too much fantastic food over the course of the weekend. We skipped a couple meals even, but should have skipped more! I flew home and M stayed on traveling around Italy doing business and giving lectures in Turin, Genua, Pisa and Rome.

That's all folks!

Brussels

This is off-topic, meaning it has nothing to do with my career, but I thought you might enjoy hearing about my travels anyway.

Thursday, M and I flew to Brussels for the weekend. We stayed in the swank hotel Crowne Plaza for a night and then stayed with friends, Andrea C and his girlfriend, Silvia. Andrea picked us up at the hotel on Thursday night, where we had a drink - my first Kriek (bier fermented with cherries) of the weekend! Andrea took us to a Lebanese restaurant which was quite tasty.

M had a business meeting on Friday (which was the main purpose of our visit) and I wandered around the heart of Brussels. I took the subway to Centraal and visited the beautiful cathedral nearby. There is a spectacular oak pulpit which depicts events from the fall of Adam and Eve to the Redemption. It was the highlight, in my opinion. I then walked into town, following my nose, more than anything. I had nothing particular in mind to see, since I've been in Brussels several times already, but it was a nice day, so I walked past all the familiar sites. I found a table at a cafe where I had a long lingering lunch with my book (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein) and was entertained by a tap dancer as well. Unfortunately, lunch was nothing to write home about. I continued to explore, this time with the vague objective of finding a "drug store". I found millions of Pharmacies and a few so-called "Bandagistes" (whatever that is!), but no pharmacies... Shrug. I did find a popular cafe with tables outside in the sun and I sat there for what seemed like ages while I waited for M to get out of his meeting and meet me in town. Made good headway on my book though! :-)

When M arrived we went to view the Mannekin Pis - the fountain of a little boy peeing into a large shell. I have always found it a bit disappointing - there are statues sold around town which are bigger than the real thing. But it's a symbol of the city. We wandered around some more, having a look at a medieval tower, St. Catherine's Church and the Begijnhof and eventually made our way back to the hotel where Andrea was to pick us up. We went back to Andrea and Silvia's place and had a lovely Porcini Risotto!

The next day we had a lazy breakfast and then went into town. Eventually we went to the Rubens exhibition at the Musee des Beaux Arts. It was very well done. I actually prefer many of the sketches and models he made before the actual painting was executed, often by others working in his studio. Ice cream afterwards was divine - a special banana split with Dark Chocolate, Speculatius and Honey/Ginger flavored ice cream. AFter that we passed by a Chocolaterie, where we bought some designer chocolate. Dinner that night was a the Spanish Center, where we met several of their friends, some of whom we'd met in Paris last year. We waited an eternity for the tapas, but it was wonderful. And Jose had brought a tray of baclavá(or whatever the Moroccans call it) for dessert. It was fun, but the place was unbelievably smoky and loud. Really makes me appreciate the smoking bans in the 3 places I spend most of my time (UK, US and Italy)!

Sunday saw us sleeping in and going to Patisserie Pierre for a breakfast of Tartes. Then we went to the Musical Instruments Museum, which is fabulous. If memory serves me, I had been there many years ago, when it was housed in a different building. Now it's in a beautiful Art Deco building called, of all things, "Old England". We had lunch with Andrea at another Tarte cafe, this time savory AND sweet. I don't know what was wrong that day but in both Tarte cafes the service was TERRIBLE. But we did eat eventually.

Our flight to Vienna was uneventful and I'll be going on a boat cruise on the Danube shortly!

Chester

Poscimur sang in Chester on August 10/11.  
M came along, and we took the train up on Friday evening.  We had a nice meal at a pub along a canal and had a stroll through the center of town.  The town is full of cute half-timbered houses and they have the most fantastic shopping streets.  The shops are on two tiers, one is street level and another up a short flight of stairs to a covered gallery walkway, great for rainy England I'm sure!  We had fantastic weather though.  On Saturday we took a walk along the medieval walls, which go right around the center of town.  Beautiful vistas all around. I had to rehearse and sing in the afternoon, so Magnus went on a 2-hour guided walking tour of Secret Chester.  They were shown places which your average Joe doesn't have access to. The choir was singing wonderful music this weekend - Faire is the Heaven, by Harris; The Te Deum by Stanford; The Tomkins Responses; Mags and Nuncs by John Ireland and Stanford; the Mass setting by Harwood; Cantate Domino by Pitoni; My soul, There is a Country by Parry; Never weather beaten sail by Campion; Turn thy face from my sin by Attwood and A Litany by William Walton.  After the Evensong on Saturday we ate at a fantastic Grill restaurant and had an early night.  Sunday morning I was busy singing, but we met for lunch and went to a new Italian shop and restaurant. The food was good and Magnus stocked up on some pasta, wine and cheese!  Then more singing and off back to London...

Ten days in the States

I'm just about to end my tour of the US.  Just kidding, I was only in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City. I had a concert with the Voices Found Singers (formerly known as the Lady Chapel Singers) at Bryn Mawr college in Pennsylvania yesterday.  It went extremely well, especially given that it was a completely new program.  But it's a wonderful program, full of fun music from all over the Americas - Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the US (folk songs, spirituals and modern compositions). I had a great time.

Last Tuesday Lisa Thomas and I gave a presentation on Voices Found and a bit about Hildegard von Bingen at Rowan College. Another member of VFS, Lourin Plant, teaches voice there and is co-teaching a class entitled "Songs of Protest, Songs of Praise", for which we gave the presentation.

From there I went to New York City for lessons with Cornelius Reid.  He looked well, but complained a bit about disintegrating - he turns 96 later this month!!!! My lessons were great and restored my confidence greatly.  I also went to Patelson's Music Store and bought the last remaining book of Cornelius', his Dictionary of Vocal Terminology. Now my collection is complete!

While in NYC I spent a lot of time with Anna Levenstein, a member of Elysium. We had some stuff to do to prepare for our concert in Salem, OR in March.  It was lovely to spend time with her. I also took advantage of Tower Records' closing sale and bought several DVDs ("Good Night and Good Luck", "The Big Sleep" and Peter Sellars' opera production "Cosi fan tutte") and CDs ("The Magic Flute", Mozart; "Don Pasquale", Donizetti and "The Cries of London").

So, that was that.

 

Greetings from Vienna - the wedding saga continues

It's almost all completely behind me! In a couple of days I'll be flying back to London to "resume" my "normal" life... We are in Vienna this week - Magnus is at a conference here.

Hmmm. Where did I leave off? Ah yes, my mother arrived in London on Wednesday. We spent about 2 days at home, she rested and Magnus and continued getting ready for the wedding. Namely, we had the program to make. Mom helped me get ready for the WNA gala dinner performance by accompanying me on my piano. I wanted to memorize the songs, but memorizing text has never been my forte!

My brother, Tom and his wife, Barbara arrived on Friday. I let them fend for themselves getting to the Tooting train station on their own. They made it! They settled in a bit and then we all went out to have a drink and dinner at a pub in town. Magnus met us there. Tom, Barb and my mom loved it. I'd forgotten it was Friday and so it was VERY lively at the pub, with the clientel spilling out onto the street of course.

Saturday Tom and Barb went sight-seeing and were out carousing for a very long time! They met some real characters in their pub trawlings - a lesbian bachlorette (hen) party and a local man at a pub near Tooting Broadway Tube station named Bill. Magnus and I managed to finish the programs and started printing them. We ordered Indian and ate in - yum!

Sunday we managed to get our act together and get downtown to St. Paul's Cathedral and to the Eucharist. It's the 2nd time I've been there and the Cathedral Choir hasn't sung either time. The music was great though! We had lunch in a local pub and Tom and Barb went off again on their own. We had a steak and potato dinner which T & B had conceived.

They left at about 4am to catch their plane to Pisa. I couldn't fall back asleep of course, because we had to get up only an hour or so later to catch our own plane to Brescia with Mom.

To be continued...

USA Trip Part 1 - Wisconsin/Iowa

What a whirlwind!

I've been in the US for most of the past 4 weeks, visiting
family, singing, singing and singing. Now that I'm back in
Germany I've been singing (!) and moving house. More
about that in a subsequent post - first things first!

I flew first to Philadelphia and spent only a night there.
The Lady Chapel Singers graciously covers my travel
expenses, but only to Philadelphia. I flew on to Madison,
using frequent flyer miles, the next morning.

I had one of the most embarrassing things ever happen
to me that night in Philadelphia. I was staying in the
guest apartment in Lisa and Charles building (as usual)
and I went up and went to bed pretty early, I guess
around 10pm). I set my alarm for 6:30 because my flight
was early and I was to have breakfast with Lisa. I got up
when it rang, took a shower, got everything packed up
again, and went down to their apartment. I knocked and
knocked, no answer. Finally, Charles came to the door,
which was the final clue that something was amiss,
because he should have been gone to work already. It
turned out that I'd forgotten to change the time on my
alarm and it was only 1:00 am! Omigod! I was mortified.
Needless to say, I went back upstairs, set my alarm to
the correct time, got back into bed and slept another 5
hours!

In Wisconsin it was business as usual, I called all my
friends to see who had time to spend with me. I saw
Naomi, my longes friend, she came over for dinner. I
went to Julie and Mike's for dinner (who had nearly
forgotten me!) and spent some time with their 3 beautiful
little girls. Mom and I spent a day together. We heard a
recital given by a voice faculty candidate at the UW and
afterwards we went to the Union for coffee with my
favorite music history professor and now friend Charlie
Dill. We went to Ward Brodt Music House where I
bought a new metronome (thank you Tom and Barb!) and
we went to see the move Ray at the 2nd run theater. We
had a great time. I had a fabulous homemade breakfast
at Kathy the Mezzo's, catching up with her. I never did
speak with Wendy personally :-( Next time I hope.

My dad and I took two days and drove to Ruthven and
Spencer, Iowa (north western Iowa) to visit my
grandmother. Recently, following some bad spells with
her health, she'd been moved to a nursing home in the
town she's lived in most of her life, Ruthven. It's just like
a hospital, and she can't really do anything independently
anymore which is just awful for my Gram. But she
looked pretty well, if a lot thinner than I last saw her. She
was in pretty good spirits but it seemed like a terrible
effort for her to even just speak. She says she sleeps a
lot. Not as much as her roommate (who I guess is
always sleeping) but still a lot. She just seems worn out,
but not as depressed as usual. She still has her feisty
streak, which is good to see, but she's gotten much more
cuddly.

Next installment:
USA Trip Part 2 - Philadelphia part 1 and NYC

The Big Apple

I'm in New York City!!!
Got here yesterday and of course it's so overwhelming...
I've been here quite often before, but you forget how much is really going on.
Tomorrow I will have my lesson with my beloved teacher Cornelius Reid. I can hardly wait. Unfortunately, it will be the only one this trip. He is taking his wife to the hospital. I hope she will be OK. But I'm disappointed nonetheless. But at least I will have one lesson!
M. the cook will be joining me here tomorrow and I'm sure we will have a wonderful time exploring this place together.
More later.