In Full Swing!

Hallo! Wie gehts?

 That is about the extent that my German has improved since the last time writing.:) Okay, maybe a bit more than that. I am three lessons in now, and am loving learning! It is coming slowly but it is fun to be learning.

 So I guess today is when “real life” officially begins. Although we had a few introduction classes last week, this week is the first of our real schedule. But I need to back up and fill you on in an incredible weekend that we had.

 Last week they kept us extremely busy (hence, no writing or pictures…). We had classes back to back, and then Thursday morning we left early for our first “educational field trip”. I wasn’t thrilled when he titled it that, but it was so much more! I won’t go into full detail, but among the things we filled our time with included Bach’s house, Liszt’s house, Mendelssohn’s house, Goethe’s house, the Wartburg castle (beautiful view!), a boys choir concert in the Thomaskirche (where Bach wrote and worked), and an orchestra concert by the Gewandhaus orchestra in the Gewandhaus theater. Those may not mean much to many of you, but they are all extremely significant in the “music” world (which apparently I’m supposed to start being a part of now that I’m half way through college with a music degree…scary realization). We stayed in hostels along the way and I truly had the time of my life. We traveled by train, and even though there was a lot of walking, and a lot of history to take in, we had SO much fun. I couldn’t ask for better people to be here with. I am loving getting to know EVERY one of them, which is such a blessing! We had some sketchy hostel meals, which I probably played with more than I ate, but one night we stayed at a studio for opera singers where they come to stay, and they had a barbeque for us. It was so much fun to hang out in the back yard and relax like we would in America again.

 By far my favorite memory of the trip was our night in Leipzig. We were fortunate enough to be there when the Gewandhaus orchestra was giving a free concert outside in this big area. They were playing a couple of my favorite works and we were all thrilled to be there for it! Of course, in Germany what you always have to remember (this will be foreign to you Californians but very familiar to you Iowans) is that at any given moment it COULD rain. In fact, it probably will…it’s just a matter of when and for how long. So we arrived at the concert area outdoors about 15 minutes before the concert was scheduled to begin. As we were standing there, of course, it began to sprinkle. People took out their umbrellas, which kind of ruined the view and feel of this beautiful outdoor stage set up. But we stood still nonetheless, hoping the cloud would pass and the concert would begin as usual. Well a few minutes later it began to rain much harder. After about 10 minutes, they made an announcement that they were going to move the concert inside to the Gewandhaus theater, but that it only held so many, so it was first come first serve. The second the announcement was over, everyone turns around and starts SPRINTING in the opposite direction. The rain was getting harder, there are umbrellas flailing every which way (yeah, real safe) as people were slipping and running on the cobblestone to get in those doors! Well as courteous Americans, we decided to let everyone go ahead of us and we would wait and see if there were any seats left.> ….not!! We thought this was awesome! We all joined the crowd and pushed and shoved our way past the people as we ran towards the building. I’m telling you – this scene was HILARIOUS. Well to make a long story short, we get up to the theater and are standing in this HUGE mob. I have never seen anything like it. I’d say the most important thing I learned all weekend is that classical music fans are VISCIOUS. They would slowly open the doors and let a few people in, and then close them and the crowd would smash together even more. I could hardly breathe I was so close to these Germans! I don’t think I was even standing anymore; my feet were just lifted off of the group as I leaned and floated through the crowd. It was absolute madness and was seriously hysterical. These 70 and 80 year old people WANTED to hear their Brahms, and they were not more willing to give it up than we were☺ Well, in conclusion, we DID get in, got great seats, and enjoyed an absolutely BEAUTIFUL concert that was worth every second of smelling sweaty, wet people around me.

 This week I think we will get more of a feel of how things will actually be while we are here. Although we do not have nearly as many classes as we do on campus, there is so much to take in here that I have definitely never felt bored in the least. We are just beginning to unpack, which is interesting in itself. We have a cute chest in our room, but no hangers, drawers, or really storage at all. So, we will get creative! I am excited to just finally not be living out of suitcases and have something that feels like home. I will definitely put pictures up when things are settled enough to show☺

 I think this is long enough, but will try to write when there’s more to report. I love hearing from those of you who have emailed and commented. I REALLY appreciate it. Ties to home are always wonderful. Thinking of you all!

***PICTURES: I tried to upload individual pictures to this album, but you have to do it one by one and i simply don't have the time to do that. So here is a link to the album I made for facebook, but hopefully this will do! Let me know if it works alright! ***