Mostly practice...and the rest of the journey to Saarburg

Day one: Mostly ... practicing!    Surprised?  ;)

Random backround stuff:
The hotel I am staying in this year is the one where most of the faculty are:  Hotel Saar Galerie.  Last year, Korinne and I stayed in Hotel Am Markt, an absolutely adorable hotel with an Italian restaurant (highly rated, from what I understand) on the bottom floor.  Am Markt opens up to a cobblestone courtyard, where there are tons of tables and chairs, and it's nearly impossible to figure out which tables go with which restaurant!  This year, I live above a swimming pool, parking garage, and grocery store.  The store is called the Wasgau.  Everyone here at Hotel Saar Galerie is super nice, even if they don't speak tons of English and I speak very little German.  Seriously, my German is tragic right now.   I'm definitely still mixing up French, English, and a little German when I try to speak. Highly amusing.   The other day, I decided that speaking a new language is similar to improvising (music):  It's really easy to freeze up and second guess yourself, and that only makes things worse!  It's best to keep trying.  At least, that's what I tell myself...
So Hotel Saar Galerie:  a little less "adorable" and much more modern than Am Markt.  It's awesome that it has the grocery store at the bottom, though, and is also closer to the gymnasium, where all the rehearsals and lessons take place.  It's a very comfortable hotel, and even has a closet where my roommate Brittany and I can hang up our concert clothes!  Brittany, by the way, is a French horn player and super cool.  We are enjoying our roommate-time so far.

General overview of the first super easy day:
Randomly woke up at 5 am (hi, JetLag), and dozed on and off until 6:30, when I finally couldn't just stay in bed any more.  Moved super slowly to finally make it to breakfast by 7:15 and took my sweet time to get to the Gymnasium by 9:20.  Practice until 11:15 am, go get more music from Dr. C, rehearse from 11:30 until 12:30 with Heidi and Katherine, the two ladies I am accompanying this Friday on the faculty concert.  We will be playing 5 Nocturnes by Arnold Cooke.  I like them, a lot.  Super cool pieces, but I won't be buying the score anytime soon, as it's upwards of 100 dollars on amazon right now.

Lunches are at the Krankenhaus again this year, but they seem ... better, somehow.  Everyone walked over as a group since so many new people didn't know how to get there.  I was somehow nominated the official leader, which was amusing, but unlike most of my solo travels, I did not go the wrong way and have interesting adventures.

At 15:00, the singers had a run-through of all the staged works, and it was my job to 1) turn pages, and 2) see what the vocal coach set for tempos in case I was way off.  Apparently, I tend to play things somewhat leisurely, sometimes.  It was relatively painless, and neat to get to meet some of the students whom I would be accompanying these two weeks.

Small break, followed by a short rehearsal with a chamber group on some Telemann figured bass, then some more practicing.

I think that's all the practicing for today, honestly.  Elise, Caroline, and I are now about to walk to the old Castle Saarburg (it's ruins now), where I will hopefully take some pictures!  I have not taken any pictures yet, at all ... with the exception of one mobile camera photo of the MD-11 compared to the Boeing 737-800.  It's kinda ridiculous, so this problem will be fixed asap.

The rest of the week is much busier, with more chamber rehearsals, voice lessons, and hopefully lots of practicing!


Edit:
And the rest of the journey:
I forgot to add this earlier cause I was a bit in a hurry, but... most of the trip to Germany was uneventful.  The only slight snag was when they gate-checked my bag from Amsterdam to Luxembourg.  I know that the lady at the gate told me to pick up my bag at baggage claim... So we get of the small plane, and onto a bus to take us to the terminal in Luxembourg.  RIGHT as they were closing the doors, I realized that my bag was the only one still on the baggage cart!  In my defense, I had been uncontrollably dozing on the last two flights, so I was super groggy, but still ... I groggily went to the side door and tried to figure out how to open it, yelling, "Wait, I need to get my bag! Just leave me behind -- I didn't realize it was there!" but the bus started going. Some random other passenger noticed my plight, and yelled (in his decidedly manlier, boomier voice), "Stop the bus! Open the door!"  Ha, so of course I ran there and back to get my lonely carry-on luggage.  It's not necessarily a proud thing to have the distinction of being the sole person to hold up the two buses, but hey, I'm not going to complain if that was the only problem in the entire trip here!