entry november 4
November 4 2006
have most of the day off!! sweeeeet. so my roomie, assia, came in at about 4am after her hot date last night... sounds like she had an awesome time. i got up and went to breakfast and met up with xiaodan, kate, and kelsey to tour around with the destination of the chateau de chillon. ironically this is the castle on a post card that i sent to keir this morning with a message on the back saying i'd never been there before. well i guess i hadn't up to that point!
anyway, the walk was gorgeous, there's a path along the lakeshore that we could follow all the way from the hotel straight to the castle. it was about 45 mins or so one way, plus a pit stop for taking photos with the giant statue of freddie mercury (apparently he lived here after he got famous! who knew). unfortunately i guess kate and i walk much faster than xiaodan and kate, and we kind of left them in the dust a bit. they also ran into hassan and islam and mohammed, the egyptian boys, so that slowed them down even more i think. so by the time we got to the castle, it was just me and kate, although we ran into mohammed later somewhere inside.
the castle itself is quite interesting. it's a very old one, dating back to the 1100s in places, and is quite well-preserved. some of the original wall paintings from the 1300s are still there and in reasonable condition too. pretty crazy. there's a dungeon you can go through where i guess this guy was a prisoner for 4 years, chained to a big post in the dark and cold, because he supported independence for the region or somesuch. pretty crap deal i say. anyway apparently lord byron, the poet, also thought it was a shit deal as he a) carved his name in one of the posts and b) wrote a huge long poem about the place called 'prisoner of chatillon'. very cool.
so after wandering around the freezing cold castle (it was actually warmer outside than inside... who needs a/c) for a couple hours we walked back to the hotel and spent time in the spa, lounging around in the sauna and the hot tub. very nice. am working on practicing mandolin now, naptime, and then rehearsal/concert! i guess it would make the most sense for me to finish this entry later, when i can give a full review of the concert and subsequent debauchery...
okay, now it's 1am and here i am again. skype is still not working on keir's end, which is very frustrating as i very much miss talking with him. for the last while, even while he was in nyc and i was in TO we still talked on the phone for an hour or more a night, so this whole cold turkey thing is just not cool. grrr.
anyway, concert was good. got through the dvorak without any major disasters, which is pretty impressive considering we were sight reading it yesterday and it's actually an incredibly hard piece to accompany. everything else on the programme went pretty smoothly... i'd forgotten how long mahler 1 is, though. wow. what a workout! playing the encore afterward was a little hard but oh well. concert clocked in at 2h 40 mins, which i have to say is pretty ridiculously long, but really short for this festival! hopefully the other programme will be shorter. yeah right.
hung out down at the hotel bar for a while with kate, kat, assia, stanni, and jen post-show. nice thing about nice hotels is you can just chill at the hotel bar, and you keep running into more people from the orchestra as the night progresses. too tired for more than just one beer, but it was a nice beer, and relatively cheap by montreux standards (only about $5 for a bottle, not so horrific).
anyway should go and pack up my suitcase. tomorrow we fly to naples!
hours in transit: 0h.
hours flying: 0h.
have most of the day off!! sweeeeet. so my roomie, assia, came in at about 4am after her hot date last night... sounds like she had an awesome time. i got up and went to breakfast and met up with xiaodan, kate, and kelsey to tour around with the destination of the chateau de chillon. ironically this is the castle on a post card that i sent to keir this morning with a message on the back saying i'd never been there before. well i guess i hadn't up to that point!
anyway, the walk was gorgeous, there's a path along the lakeshore that we could follow all the way from the hotel straight to the castle. it was about 45 mins or so one way, plus a pit stop for taking photos with the giant statue of freddie mercury (apparently he lived here after he got famous! who knew). unfortunately i guess kate and i walk much faster than xiaodan and kate, and we kind of left them in the dust a bit. they also ran into hassan and islam and mohammed, the egyptian boys, so that slowed them down even more i think. so by the time we got to the castle, it was just me and kate, although we ran into mohammed later somewhere inside.
the castle itself is quite interesting. it's a very old one, dating back to the 1100s in places, and is quite well-preserved. some of the original wall paintings from the 1300s are still there and in reasonable condition too. pretty crazy. there's a dungeon you can go through where i guess this guy was a prisoner for 4 years, chained to a big post in the dark and cold, because he supported independence for the region or somesuch. pretty crap deal i say. anyway apparently lord byron, the poet, also thought it was a shit deal as he a) carved his name in one of the posts and b) wrote a huge long poem about the place called 'prisoner of chatillon'. very cool.
so after wandering around the freezing cold castle (it was actually warmer outside than inside... who needs a/c) for a couple hours we walked back to the hotel and spent time in the spa, lounging around in the sauna and the hot tub. very nice. am working on practicing mandolin now, naptime, and then rehearsal/concert! i guess it would make the most sense for me to finish this entry later, when i can give a full review of the concert and subsequent debauchery...
okay, now it's 1am and here i am again. skype is still not working on keir's end, which is very frustrating as i very much miss talking with him. for the last while, even while he was in nyc and i was in TO we still talked on the phone for an hour or more a night, so this whole cold turkey thing is just not cool. grrr.
anyway, concert was good. got through the dvorak without any major disasters, which is pretty impressive considering we were sight reading it yesterday and it's actually an incredibly hard piece to accompany. everything else on the programme went pretty smoothly... i'd forgotten how long mahler 1 is, though. wow. what a workout! playing the encore afterward was a little hard but oh well. concert clocked in at 2h 40 mins, which i have to say is pretty ridiculously long, but really short for this festival! hopefully the other programme will be shorter. yeah right.
hung out down at the hotel bar for a while with kate, kat, assia, stanni, and jen post-show. nice thing about nice hotels is you can just chill at the hotel bar, and you keep running into more people from the orchestra as the night progresses. too tired for more than just one beer, but it was a nice beer, and relatively cheap by montreux standards (only about $5 for a bottle, not so horrific).
anyway should go and pack up my suitcase. tomorrow we fly to naples!
hours in transit: 0h.
hours flying: 0h.