What A Weekend!!!!
Well, it's Monday and I haven't really done anything today. Yes, that's right, I didn't even go to the two out of three classes I actually had today! That's just how insane my weekend was. On Monday, I learned that I had two new neighbors from France, Benedict (girl) and Betrand (guy), which confused me because I thought Benedict was a guy's name and Betrand was a girl's name...Oh Well! Anyway, we all learned very quickly that the French liked to party all night, drink and eat other people's stuff, play loud music at 8 in the morning and burn incense that makes the whole apartment stink. ARGH!!!!! Luckily, I think we have most of the kinks worked out as we ate dinner with them yesterday and have begun teaching them how the system works here. Wednesday night we went dancing, but it definitely wasn't the same without Marla and Elliot there - it was fun, but no dice compared to before. I can only say that I hope it improves again!
Tuesday night, I called Ulf, who is in charge of the organization of the Russian Choir and he said that Barabara and I should come to rehearsal and the concerts regardless of how many songs we knew. It was embarassing because we didn't know some of the songs, but there were other people who didn't know them either, so it worked out well. The concerts went pretty smoothly too, except there were some times when we thought we knew a song and then had to fake it because we had never heard it before! That was WAY exciting ;-) At the Saturday night concert, there were over 800 people in St. Martin's church!!! It was awesome because the accoustics made us sound amazing and the church was still decorated for Christmas - it was gorgeous and we sounded so professional! The Russians from Siberia wore really colorful Cossock-type uniforms and were really fun to watch perform - I wish I had pictures, but I didn't have my camera with me. The Sunday morning concert wasn't as good because we were all exhausted and the space in which we had to perform was tight and not as accoustically pleasing (it was an old cellar under one of the college buildings - cool looking, but no comparison to a church for sound!), but we got it done and I'm glad to say that I don't think anyone hates us as much as we thought. Yes, there are still some snobby people, but what can we do - we tried our best to do everything, but we failed. Like Homer would say, ''the lesson is, never try!''
This weekend was also insane because Kris came to visit me! I picked him up at 8 in the morning on Saturday when he came into the Hauptbahnhof and from there, we went back to the StuSie to eat breakfast with Sebastian, Barbara and her mom. Then Kris and I hit the town, climbed to the top of Schloßberg and went in the Münster. We also ate a delicious lunch at Tacheles where we had schnitzel and stuffed ourselves so much that we didn't eat dinner! Besides the concert on Sunday (Kris attended and said he enjoyed Sturday's concert ;-), we made Döners for dinner and hung out. Our dinner party included Barbara, Sebastian, Kris, Johanna, Javor, Betrand, Benedict, Max and Evelyn (Sebastian's friends). It was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone and just relaxing, but as with dancing, it's going to take a while to get use to having big dinners without Marla and Elliot - they were ''Family Dinners'' before, but as Barbara and I have said, we now have a broken home! What an analogy...! Oi!
Well, I have some studying to do and I still have to get ahold of Grandma, but her line has been busy - she's a talkative one! I'm still pooped from the weekend, but hopefully I can actually get some work done tonight! Tootles, folks!
Annabelle :-)
P.S. - My e-mail hasn't been working, so for all of you who have tried to e-mail me, I haven't been able to receive anything since Tuesday! D'oh!
Tuesday night, I called Ulf, who is in charge of the organization of the Russian Choir and he said that Barabara and I should come to rehearsal and the concerts regardless of how many songs we knew. It was embarassing because we didn't know some of the songs, but there were other people who didn't know them either, so it worked out well. The concerts went pretty smoothly too, except there were some times when we thought we knew a song and then had to fake it because we had never heard it before! That was WAY exciting ;-) At the Saturday night concert, there were over 800 people in St. Martin's church!!! It was awesome because the accoustics made us sound amazing and the church was still decorated for Christmas - it was gorgeous and we sounded so professional! The Russians from Siberia wore really colorful Cossock-type uniforms and were really fun to watch perform - I wish I had pictures, but I didn't have my camera with me. The Sunday morning concert wasn't as good because we were all exhausted and the space in which we had to perform was tight and not as accoustically pleasing (it was an old cellar under one of the college buildings - cool looking, but no comparison to a church for sound!), but we got it done and I'm glad to say that I don't think anyone hates us as much as we thought. Yes, there are still some snobby people, but what can we do - we tried our best to do everything, but we failed. Like Homer would say, ''the lesson is, never try!''
This weekend was also insane because Kris came to visit me! I picked him up at 8 in the morning on Saturday when he came into the Hauptbahnhof and from there, we went back to the StuSie to eat breakfast with Sebastian, Barbara and her mom. Then Kris and I hit the town, climbed to the top of Schloßberg and went in the Münster. We also ate a delicious lunch at Tacheles where we had schnitzel and stuffed ourselves so much that we didn't eat dinner! Besides the concert on Sunday (Kris attended and said he enjoyed Sturday's concert ;-), we made Döners for dinner and hung out. Our dinner party included Barbara, Sebastian, Kris, Johanna, Javor, Betrand, Benedict, Max and Evelyn (Sebastian's friends). It was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone and just relaxing, but as with dancing, it's going to take a while to get use to having big dinners without Marla and Elliot - they were ''Family Dinners'' before, but as Barbara and I have said, we now have a broken home! What an analogy...! Oi!
Well, I have some studying to do and I still have to get ahold of Grandma, but her line has been busy - she's a talkative one! I'm still pooped from the weekend, but hopefully I can actually get some work done tonight! Tootles, folks!
Annabelle :-)
P.S. - My e-mail hasn't been working, so for all of you who have tried to e-mail me, I haven't been able to receive anything since Tuesday! D'oh!