<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404</id><updated>2011-12-29T17:38:18.620+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Melanie and Gabe in Vienna</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>55</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-2748781451088610506</id><published>2011-11-04T12:12:00.004+01:00</published><updated>2011-11-04T12:17:52.164+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Mostly final draft of spreadsheet, continued work on Anki</title><content type='html'>The final spreadsheet is &lt;a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmF3qqNY_M7NdFhBcndLZXdlMi1TSzMwRktmcElucUE"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;

I've changed my Anki tests to teach me the order of the locations, and where I should jump if I want to skip to a specific year.  I did this with two types of cards:
1.  Given one location, tell me the next several locations.  (Given bed, the next locations are nightstand, robe hanger, chair, bedroom door, piano, chair, desk)
2.  Given a year range (1000-1099), which locations are within that range?  (Bed, Nightstand)

For all the special jump locations (The first location in the 1800s, for example, or 1875-, etc.), I've started to learn the exact date/images.  (The first location after 1850 is #70, the front door to Billa, whose exact date/image is Flour/1854)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2748781451088610506?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2748781451088610506/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2748781451088610506' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2748781451088610506'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2748781451088610506'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2011/11/mostly-final-draft-of-spreadsheet.html' title='Mostly final draft of spreadsheet, continued work on Anki'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3510608919289376806</id><published>2011-11-02T18:12:00.004+01:00</published><updated>2011-11-02T18:20:09.982+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Anki Deck</title><content type='html'>&lt;div&gt;Aaaand, the Anki deck has begun.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I'm going to be actually putting this into my head via Anki, my favorite spaced repetition software.  It quizzes you daily and sets up a schedule for when you review each card, depending on how hard of a time you had remembering.  If the facts are relatively easy to memorize, then you end up spending *very* little time on each fact, so it behooves one to split the data up across a great number of flashcards, and learn a few of them per day.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I'm going to be learning this in a bunch of stages.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt;Stage 1: Learning my journey in order (Front side of card: #1-2, back side of card: "Bed and Nightstand")&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt;Stage 2: Learning the date image that goes with each stop on the journey (Front side of card: Picture of bed, Back side: Diskette (corresponds to 1071)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt;Stage 3: Given the date image and the location image (Bed+Diskette), learn the basic composer-related images (Front side: Bed+Diskette, Back Side: William Tell shoots apple off of someone's head, Danish pastry)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt;Stage 4: Decode the images into useful data (Front side: Bed+Diskette+William Tell+Danish Pastry, Back Side: William IX, Duke of Acquitaine, 1071 - 1126)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt;(Stage 5/6: Add additional images to each coded image to add more useful data, like important compositions, etc)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3510608919289376806?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3510608919289376806/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3510608919289376806' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3510608919289376806'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3510608919289376806'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2011/11/anki-deck.html' title='Anki Deck'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3864015457398502695</id><published>2011-11-02T16:49:00.001+01:00</published><updated>2011-11-02T16:49:58.184+01:00</updated><title type='text'>The Photos</title><content type='html'>Aaaand, the &lt;a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/111471306434809915667/Mnemonic198ComposersIn134Locations?authuser=0&amp;feat=directlink"&gt;photos&lt;/a&gt; are done, too.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3864015457398502695?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3864015457398502695/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3864015457398502695' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3864015457398502695'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3864015457398502695'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2011/11/photos.html' title='The Photos'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-6419781759549263551</id><published>2011-11-02T14:43:00.006+01:00</published><updated>2011-11-02T15:34:34.346+01:00</updated><title type='text'>The Spreadsheet: 189 Important Classical Composers, Their dates and their mnemonics</title><content type='html'>&lt;div&gt;OK!  Most of the framework is now complete! (Nice!)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;So I have a list of composers (which has swollen a bit, up to 189), and a list of 134 birth years (lots of composers are born on the same year, which saves me some work).  I've made mnemonics for every birth and death year, as well as every composer name.  I've plotted a 134 stop journey from my bed to Johannesgasse 4a (I have another whole journey inside of Johannesgasse 4a, out to Singerstraße 22, inside there, and then to Stephansdom.  Turns out I don't need it, but I imagine it will come in useful in the future for something)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;So now I just need to take all these images and string them together into a story.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Also it wouldn't be bad to learn a little bit about the composers that I have completely forgotten (or never knew in the first place).  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Here's the &lt;a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmF3qqNY_M7NdGF0TERGTmd6RzRwZm82VDZaR1ZPX3c"&gt;spreadsheet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-6419781759549263551?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/6419781759549263551/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=6419781759549263551' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6419781759549263551'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6419781759549263551'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2011/11/spreadsheet-189-important-classical.html' title='The Spreadsheet: 189 Important Classical Composers, Their dates and their mnemonics'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7597633882719665803</id><published>2011-10-31T20:56:00.001+01:00</published><updated>2011-10-31T21:06:14.351+01:00</updated><title type='text'>New Project: Memorize 150 composers in chronological order, along with
their birthdates</title><content type='html'>So now that I'm done with school, I've picked up a new hobby: memorizing stuff.  My latest project involves building a list of composers.  I'll document and explain how it works and my progress here.  You're welcome to join in!  It's a great way to learn a bunch of mnemonic techniques at once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This project takes advantage of 3 mnemonic techniques as well as spaced repetition to get it all into my head.  As you'll see, the hard part isn't really memorizing all this data, it's converting it ahead of time into a storable format: pictures and stories.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To memorize names, I will be converting each name into an image. Chopin -&gt; Shopping bag, Mozart -&gt; moats, etc.  The images must be as vivid as possible (a paper shopping bag from Trader Joe's, for example)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To memorize dates, I'll be using the Major system (insert wikipedia link here) which converts numbers into consonants.  I've been practicing this for a few weeks and now it's coming pretty naturally.  For Mozart (1756-1791), I convert 56 into L + Sh, and 91 into B + T.  So leash is 56 and bat is 91.  So now I link the name to the dates and I get a couple of castles with Moats filled with a bunch of Leashed Bats.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Now to make my chronological list, I'm going to use the method of loci, one of the oldest mnemonic techniques.  I need to design a mental journey with 150 stops.  I'm going to do this with the help of a camera, and I think I'll be taking the trip from my bed to the conservatory. If I don't get enough loci, I may leave the conservatory and go to the other building on Singerstrasse, and if THAT's not enough, I may go to Stephansdom.  But I found 50 locations just on the way from my bed to the front door, so I might be fine.  I've never made one this big, so we'll see how it goes.  The method of loci involves placing image markers along the route you've picked.  So my first location is my bed, my first composer is Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). Because so many composers have the same birth years, I'm going to link the location to the date first, then to any composers during that date.  Hildegard is alone for this date, so it's a little simpler.  Birth Year: 1098: S P F - so we'll go for high SPF sunscreen.  I'm in bed, I wake up and grab my high SPF sunscreen.  Name: hildegard -&gt; hilt guard (top part of sword handle).  I take the sunscreen and smear it on my hilt guard. Death Date: (My main goal is to do birthdates and names, but we'll do a death date here for fun) 1179 - th g p - The Gap - in my substory about my Hilt Guard, I grab my well-oiled Hilt Guard into The Gap and slay the well-attired staff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Last step, review and decoding.  I need to practice going through my route (1-5 would be Bed, nightstand, robe holder on wall, chair with clothes in front of bed, bedroom door), I need to practice the initial hooks (Bed - high SPF sunscreen), each substory (bed - spf - hilt guard - the gap) and decoding back to useful data (#1 - 1098 - Hildegard von Bingen - 1179). I'll do this in my favorite memory tool, Anki, which will quiz me at regular, manageable intervals and figure out how easy or difficult each part is and adjust accordingly.  Given that I have a week off, I might get the major body of the work done (150 coded stories like the sunscreen hilt guard one) this week, plug it into Anki, and get that into my head within a month or so. Once that framework is there, I'll be able to add to it without much trouble (if I want to add some facts about Hildegard, I can put them in at The Gap)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Wee!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
As I go, I'm going to make an excel file with the data I'm memorizing and the stories it codes into. Here's where you can join in; feel free to grab the file and make your own changes. While I'm going to be publishing a slideshow of my 150 stop journey, if you want to do this too, you'll probably want to make your own journey (though you're welcome to take the same journey, just start from your own bed, not mine!)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7597633882719665803?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7597633882719665803/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7597633882719665803' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7597633882719665803'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7597633882719665803'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-project-memorize-150-composers-in.html' title='New Project: Memorize 150 composers in chronological order, along with&#xA;their birthdates'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-6831998757688909028</id><published>2010-10-27T17:22:00.003+02:00</published><updated>2010-10-27T17:23:34.791+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Bob Telekom: How not to handle a billing mistake - a disaster story</title><content type='html'>Apologies for the forever without updates; maybe I'll start this up again someday.  For now, here's a customer service nightmare from our cell phone provider that I'm hoping will show up on google searches for Bob Telekom in Austria.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 I've been a Bob customer for about 1 year now.  They screwed up my request to keep my old phone numbers (AND my wife's request, actually), their pay-for-service policy is kind of irritating, I've noticed some billing glitches whereby I was charged €12 or so over the summer when I should have been charged €0, but overall, I was getting decent phone service for a good price.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 Three weeks ago, I called Bob at their €1,09/minute service line to request data service for myself and my wife.  The service representative seemed more or less fine, and the call was over in 3 minutes or so.  I enabled data on both of our phones, and October began swimmingly.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 Two weeks ago, my wife gets an SMS:  "Warning!  Your Bob bill is €91!"  My wife calls me, panicked.  She made a call or two in Germany, but nothing longer than a minute or two.  I look up her account online and see the €91 bill and I don't see data service enabled on that phone.  I call bob service and explain the situation, and my concern that perhaps data wasn't in fact enabled on her phone when I requested it to be.  The service representative told me that he could see nothing of the sort on his side, and that sometimes these glitches happen but they fix themselves rapidly and I probably won't even see it on my bill at the end of the month.  If I do, I can just call and those costs will be removed immediately.  I asked about the data service and he said that it was enabled and it must be a glitch on the website that's telling me it's not.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 The following day, my wife gets an SMS: "Warning!  Your bob bill is €162!"  I call bob service immediately.  The lady there explains that she's being charged €150 for data usage and there's no data service on the phone.  She enables data service so that the phone won't keep accruing costs and suggests I send bob a letter asap about the situation.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 An hour later, my wife gets an SMS: "Your bob bill is now €164 and we are locking your phone for security reasons".  She can no longer text or call out.  Two WEEKS later, I have called nearly every day and been told nearly 5 times that a manager would get in touch with me to discuss the situation (2 weeks, no manager).  The bill is now €0, but the phone is still locked.  I have been told that the phone would start working in: 'A week ago', 'A few hours', and 'A month or so'.  I finally told them to send me a NÜV Bestätigung so I can change to a new phone provider (BTW, Drei has some EXCELLENT offers going on right now!), and was told that I can't get one because her phone is locked.  When I explained that her phone being locked for the last 2 weeks was the whole reason I'm switching providers, the lady asked if I couldn't just wait 3-4 weeks longer for the phone to get unlocked so I could switch without losing my old phone number.   When I asked for the costs of this more or less useless service call to be refunded, she said that I've been calling the bob service line too many times in the past few weeks and that she wouldn't be willing to refund that call.  Maybe I could discuss that with the manager that would (ha!) call me.   
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
 We're switching to Drei today.  They're offering slightly better prices than bob, they have stores where you can talk to customer service representatives without paying €1,09/minute, and where ridiculous customer service disasters like this one surely couldn't possibly be this bad.  Also you can use your phone in Italy, Great Britain and a few other countries as if it were a local phone (no roaming fees).   Wish us luck.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-6831998757688909028?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/6831998757688909028/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=6831998757688909028' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6831998757688909028'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6831998757688909028'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2010/10/bob-telekom-how-not-to-handle-billing.html' title='Bob Telekom: How not to handle a billing mistake - a disaster story'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-9145527944209626245</id><published>2010-05-29T09:30:00.002+02:00</published><updated>2010-05-29T09:33:38.899+02:00</updated><title type='text'></title><content type='html'>Well we sure haven't updated THIS in a long time!

I guess noteworthy is that Gabe is now a tenor (flavor of tenor to be determined in time), Melanie just did a lovely job with Pierrot Lunaire at the Musikverein, and we're both going to be learning French this summer at Mills college in Northern California.

Oh yes, and Melanie's website has been launched.
&lt;a href="http://www.melaniehenleyheyn.com"&gt;Melanie Henley Heyn&lt;/a&gt;
www.MelanieHenleyHeyn.com

That's all for now!&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-9145527944209626245?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/9145527944209626245/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=9145527944209626245' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/9145527944209626245'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/9145527944209626245'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2010/05/well-we-sure-havent-updated-this-in.html' title=''/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-691243020836920798</id><published>2010-02-08T19:35:00.002+01:00</published><updated>2010-02-08T20:53:48.549+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Eating in Northern Italy</title><content type='html'>The planned itinerary: 2 days in Venice, 1 day in Ravenna with a stop in Padua, 2 days in Bologna, 2 days in Milan.   

The actual itinerary: 2 days in Venice, then a lunch in Padua, a dinner in Ferrara and a night in Ravenna, Ravenna by day and Bologna by night.  Modena by day and Bologna again by night. Friday started in Bologna, went to Modena, then to Spilamberto, then Parma, then a harried drive through a snowstorm to Milan. 2 exhausted weekend days in Milan and back home.   

Italy was lovely, cold, fun, tiring and delicious. We ate without relent, eating again and again when either the clock or our stomachs or our eyes gave the slightest clue that there might be something delicious around the corner that we could possibly cram into ourselves.  Which is not to say that we did nothing but eat; we did an absurd amount of things, up until we ran out of feet and wakefulness in Milan, but the thing that we never stopped doing was eating.   

Some highlights, on that front: 
In Venice, you can expect to find relatively mediocre food, for relatively high prices. That is, until you try the Fritelle. Crunchy, deep fried sweet balls of donut dough and cream or ricotta filling, these are so ridiculously good that the raisins they stick in them somehow only make them better, and I detest raisins. €1 each at the Majer bakeries in town, these are worth the train ticket to Venice.   

Ferrara is home to tortellini filled with sweet pumpkin in a sage and oil sauce.  This is delicious and well worth getting stuck in Ferrara waiting a couple of hours for your train.   

The Grom gelatoria chain is a bit overrated, according to our gelato- snobbery, but they make a lovely caramel and salt flavor.   Hot chocolate in northern Italy was the weird characteristic of tasting as if it's not all that hot, until you swallow too much of it. I think they make it with foamed milk.  It's very good, and somewhat dangerous.   

Bologna, we hear, has outstanding food on every corner. All we know is that we only ate at Osteria dell'Orsa, which was so ridiculously good (and cheap!) that we went back the following night. I suspect we will only learn about Bologna's other offerings if dell'Orsa is closed or we get sick of insanely good pasta, bruschetta and fresh desserts. Unfortunately most of Bologna's famed gelatorias close when it's freeIng cold outside for some reason, and we were  unable to try them all and compare them. La Sorbetteria Castiglione was pretty good in general.  They make an amazing crema di latte and an excellent pistacchio. Their dark chocolate is too dark and their various mixes of pine nuts and almonds and liquours and things are kind of too complicated to be amazing, but hey, they're still ice cream. Yum.   

Modena's Hosteria Giusti provides some of the best food either of us has ever had, consistently from the beginning to the end of the meal. Their saffron pasta with pork cheeks is worth a flight and a train to Modena.  They have 4 tables and typically a 2 month wait for reservations but we found an opening and took it (yay February!)   

Federica, of the Parmeggiano-Reggiano Consortium, is a wonderfully enthusiastic tour guide and lover of the cheese. The dairy at Caseificio Castelnovese produces the best panna cotta you will ever eat until you're sick. They sell it in single servings (ha!), half liters (aka single servings) and full liters (aka single servings). Their yogurt is also hella good.   

Balsamic vinegar of Modena is apparently not real balsamic vinegar unless it says "tradizionale" on the bottle and it comes only in 250ml glass bottles. The production process is fascinating and the results were somewhat surprising to us.  The flavor changes drastically over the aging process: 5-year old stuff (which is not allowed the "tradizionale" marker) is sweet and delicious (to me).  12-year old stuff is acidic and complex (and delicious, to Melanie).   25 year old stuff has a texture like molasses, and it's not as acidic tasting, with a crazy complicated mixture of sweet and sour and bitter.  We didn't get to try any 50 year old stuff, but it certainly exists.

Prosciutto di Parma is amazing.  With a wonderful, tender texture and delicious flavor that somehow has notes of Parmeggiano-Reggiano in it (maybe from the whey they mix into their feed, or maybe because both the cheese and the ham are in the end, products of the grasses and grains that grow in the Parma region).  If you go to Pane e Vino in the touristy Garibaldi square in Parma, they will give you a wooden platter called a Tagliere just covered with prosciutto and accoutrements.  Wonderful.

Gelato at Odeon Gelateria across from Milan's Duomo is really quite good.  Chocolate and pistachio are both excellent.  Avoid the semi-freddi; they have a weird texture - they taste..oddly warm and squishy (and too sweet!).  

Luini Panzerotti, also near the Duomo in Milan is spectacular, making fresh fresh fresh savory and sweet pastries sort of resembling calzones and giant hamentashen, respectively, but much much awesomer.  

Lastly, the Mozzarella bar Óbiká in Milan serves up various forms of DOC Mozzarella, some of which we've never ever seen.  The dripping-with-cream liquid mess that is Stracciatella di Burrata is wonderful and weird.  They have a location in New York, but I can't attest to the freshness of the stuff, which I assume doesn't last very long.

Now I'm going to go make some burgers and stick them on a salad, because as wonderful and perfect as Italian cuisine is, we've had enough of it to last a good while.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-691243020836920798?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/691243020836920798/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=691243020836920798' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/691243020836920798'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/691243020836920798'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2010/02/eating-in-northern-italy.html' title='Eating in Northern Italy'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1079049857068867305</id><published>2008-10-24T09:48:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2008-10-24T09:48:36.348+02:00</updated><title type='text'>A spare hour on the beach...back to Vienna on Saturday I go, where it's a little cooler nowadays -Gabe</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/5465075/16777224"&gt;&lt;img src="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/5465075/16777224_blog" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p align="right" &gt;&lt;a href="http://www.shozu.com/portal/?utm_source=upload&amp;amp;utm_medium=graphic&amp;amp;utm_campaign=upload_graphic/" target="_blank" &gt;&lt;img src="http://www.shozu.com/resources/messages/logo_blog.gif" alt="Posted by ShoZu" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1079049857068867305?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1079049857068867305/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1079049857068867305' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1079049857068867305'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1079049857068867305'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/10/spare-hour-on-beachback-to-vienna-on.html' title='A spare hour on the beach...back to Vienna on Saturday I go, where it&amp;#39;s a little cooler nowadays -Gabe'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4600904664325468402</id><published>2008-10-22T01:26:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2008-10-22T01:26:03.676+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Gabe</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/5465075/16777221"&gt;&lt;img src="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/5465075/16777221_blog" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Has a new toy&lt;p align="right" &gt;&lt;a href="http://www.shozu.com/portal/?utm_source=upload&amp;amp;utm_medium=graphic&amp;amp;utm_campaign=upload_graphic/" target="_blank" &gt;&lt;img src="http://www.shozu.com/resources/messages/logo_blog.gif" alt="Posted by ShoZu" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4600904664325468402?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4600904664325468402/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4600904664325468402' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4600904664325468402'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4600904664325468402'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/10/gabe.html' title='Gabe'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-2572115033560435599</id><published>2008-07-26T22:04:00.003+02:00</published><updated>2008-07-26T22:24:09.348+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Boop</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jasenjaz.com/coltello%20copy.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.jasenjaz.com/coltello%20copy.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Alrighty, my essay/blog post about cinque terre is now done, and I added a few notes to the translation in places where google translate just gets whacky (though I really do like that section about my camera).  Our 1-month course is ending rapidly, and we're getting ready to say goodbye to the people we met and friends we've made.  Sad!  We start up a new course on august 4th, though we're not sure where (I might switch colleges, since I'm only here for 2 weeks in august and there's a college here that offers intensive 2-week classes)
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Tomorrow, we're going to the lake nearby with a friend or two, and we'll hopefully get to see the weird boat race on land that just happens to occur the last sunday of July.  Crazy video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqhI89YipTw
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While I've learned a lot of Italian, I haven't learned as much as I'm hoping to by the end of this process, which makes it weird to have classes ending right now; we're getting ready for exams and stuff and it's just a bit weird, since I'm certainly not done with what I set out to do.
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Today we had a lazy day around the house.  Fabio, Loan and their family are here now, which I was a little worried about initially (7 people in 1 house with 1 bathroom!) but has turned out to be great.  Fabio's daughter Alice is a real sweetheart and has taken to following me around the kitchen and telling me how to say everything in the kitchen.  Every time I say the word 'coltello' (Knife) ("Non colTRELLO, colTELLO!  colTELLO!") I'll think of her.  Spent an hour today talking about career and work and all sorts of things with Fabio in Italian and English (he in english, which he's trying to learn, me in italian), which was super cool.
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What else, what else...looks like we're going to Rome next weekend.  A quote from the owner of the B&amp;B we're staying at: "I thank you very much, and I tell you that your holyday in Rome will be unforgettable,because Rome is wonderful!!  Giovanna"  aww
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Meredith and Bryan were thinking of dropping by on my last weekend here, but looks like that's fallen through, so we'll just have to go to Florence or something and have a REALLY GOOD TIME WITHOUT THEM.  And stuff.  
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That's all!  Hope all's well with ya'll
-Gabe&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2572115033560435599?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2572115033560435599/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2572115033560435599' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2572115033560435599'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2572115033560435599'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/07/boop.html' title='Boop'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1838833639197656152</id><published>2008-07-22T22:42:00.006+02:00</published><updated>2008-07-26T22:04:19.995+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Cinque Terre (In Italiano!)</title><content type='html'>Prima, ancora una &lt;a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgabeandmelanie.blogspot.com&amp;hl=it&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;sl=it&amp;sl=it&amp;tl=en&amp;tl=en"&gt;link a Google Translate!&lt;/a&gt;
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Questa fine settimana, abbiamo viaggiato alle Cinque Terre, cinque città che sono qualche le bellissime città nel mondo.  Alle Cinque Terre, quale cose sono nate come Pesto, Focaccia, il famoso Vino Bianco delle Cinque Terre, e Sciacchetrà (come 'Port' - un vino rinforzato e dolce).  Le città sono tutti al mar (Quattro delle cinque hanno una spiaggia), e sono, come ho detto, bellissime!  Purtroppo, non vi posso dare le foto, perche la mia macchina fotografia è senza carica, e la mia macchina di carica è nella posta perché l'ho lasciata negli Stati Uniti (Ops!)  Invece vi do alcune foto dal Internet!  La prima città che abbiamo visitato era Vernazza, #4/5: (Wow nice translation; i left my camera charger at home, so i only got pics of half the trip and can't upload them)
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&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.photoatlas.com/photo/i-chinque_terre-Vernazza.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.photoatlas.com/photo/i-chinque_terre-Vernazza.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
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Vernazza è una bellissima città con un naturalistico porto, che è molto importante per trafficare il vino bianco delle Cinque Terre da molti secoli.   Come ho detto, stiamo andati li prima, e abbiamo dovuto trovare un albergo o una camera per affittare.  Questo era purtroppo impossibile, perché c'era una festa importante questo fine settimana, e non c'erano camere libere.  Per ciò, dopo un'ora di cercare a Vernazza e solamente abbiamo trovato una camera cara (expensive, not dear) e libera per Domenica, stiamo andati a Monterosso al Mar, città #5/5 delle Cinque Terre.
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&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jndstravelog.com/Europe/CinqueTerre2005/Images/Monterosso.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.jndstravelog.com/Europe/CinqueTerre2005/Images/Monterosso.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
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Monterosso è anche bellissima, ma non ci abbiamo visto niente, perché abbiamo domandato alla donna chi lavorava nella officina turistica se c'erano camere libere, e lei ha detto 'Assolutamente no!'.  Mannaggia!  Stiamo andati a Riomaggiore, città #1/5:
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&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cache.virtualtourist.com/1042073-Riomaggiore-Riomaggiore.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://cache.virtualtourist.com/1042073-Riomaggiore-Riomaggiore.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
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Finalmente, abbiamo trovato una camera - forse l'ultima camera nelle cinque terre.  Al fine, abbiamo speso 200% più del nostro bilancio, ma avevamo un letto per noi, e questo era più importante del nostro bilancio (more important than..)!  Abbiamo mangiato nel Ristorante Marina Piccola, dove ci sono le ottime cozze del questo mondo.  Dopo Marina Piccola non posso mangiare ancora un'altra cozza.  Dopo siamo andati al Bar Centrale a Riomaggiore, dove abbiamo bevuto Mojitos e mangiato un po' di gelato.  Cosi è finito il primo giorno.
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Domenica mattina siamo camminati da Riomaggiore a Manarola.  Li c'è un sentiero dei vigneti, che è molto bello.  Dopo abbiamo preso il treno per Vernazza, e li abbiamo lasciato le nostre valigie e pranzato al Ristorante Taverna del Capitano, dove c'è una dolce buonissima - semi-freddo panna con salsa di fragole.  mmm!  Dopo pranzo siamo andati sulla spiaggia di Monterosso.  Abbiamo nuotato per un mezz'ora e corso alla Barca per ritornare a Vernazza (eravamo stati tardi!)  La gita per Vernazza era bella e non ha fatto troppo nausea, e siamo tornati a Vernazza con abbastanza tempo per fare le doccie e cambiarci prima cena.
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Cena era sopra un grande colle a Vernazza, dove è possibile vedere tutta la città e il mar.  Bellissimo!  Li, abbiamo avuto buono cibo, ottime viste del tramonto sul mar e brava conversazione con 4 Americani.  Due di questi ci hanno invitato a suo appartamento, che era nel questo colle e aveva un terrasse dove è ancora possibile vedere tutta la città.  Forse la prossima volta, che saremo alle Cinque Terre, resteremo li!  
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Siamo tornati al ristorante e ci seduti, per aspettare i fuochi artificiale, che ci erano per una grande festa della santa patrona di Vernazza, Santa Margherita.  Erano buonissimi!  Poi abbiamo mangiato troppo (veramente troppo!) gelato al centro di Vernazza, e siamo andati al letto.
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Lunedì mattina ci siamo alzati presto, e perché avevamo abbastanza tempo, siamo andati al café Il Pirata, dove ci sono paste buonissime.  Abbiamo mangiato un perfetto cannoli, due panzerotti freschi e caldi (come donuts, ma meglio!), e una granite di fragole.  Con questo collezione (breakfast) siamo partiti a Perugia per lezione, e così è terminato una gira buonissima!&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1838833639197656152?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1838833639197656152/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1838833639197656152' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1838833639197656152'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1838833639197656152'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/07/cinque-terre-in-italiano.html' title='Cinque Terre (In Italiano!)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3393610848958789067</id><published>2008-07-11T22:00:00.005+02:00</published><updated>2008-07-11T22:23:46.694+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Week 1</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.geocities.com/assisifestival/perugia.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.geocities.com/assisifestival/perugia.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
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Well our first week in Italian is over (we ended it a little early since it's just the first week and we did pretty well), and we haven't killed each other or ourselves yet, so things are going pretty well!  :)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The google translation of the post below is way better than anything I could come up with, but I'll stick my direct translation there for your amusement.  I have attempted to retain any errors in the Italian, but have not unfortunately introduced new errors due to Google Translate.  For more humor value, please click the link down there.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We're going to Assisi tomorrow, because, why not? it's 25 minutes away by train.  Pictures and report forthcoming.
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Our classes and teachers are very good, the city is beautiful, and pretty much the only source of stress is the language itself, which is plenty stressful, but overall, I'd say things are going really well.  Italian is coming much faster than German came; I think I(/we) have a much better idea of how languages work now, and I think I'll probably come out of this summer with a pretty good working knowledge of Italian.  A great help in that direction is the satellite TV system, which provides a good 1-2 hours a night so far of Italian-dubbed american TV/film.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Currently the Umbria Jazz festival ("OOM-bree-a JETS") is going on in Perugia, which means all over town, inside and outside, for money and for free, there are jazz concerts going on most of the day and all of the night.  We went to the center of town and followed around a marching band from New Orleans and then listened to a set from the Roosevelt High School jazz band next to the city's 800 year old fountain.  Pretty awesome. 
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That's all I got!  Send poorly translated comments! (or if you send them before monday for me, I shall read them in English)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3393610848958789067?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3393610848958789067/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3393610848958789067' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3393610848958789067'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3393610848958789067'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/07/week-1.html' title='Week 1'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-973129744299728892</id><published>2008-07-07T08:40:00.007+02:00</published><updated>2008-07-11T22:26:01.753+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Ops!  Non ho Inglese!</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://marketingarena.it/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/muto.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://marketingarena.it/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/muto.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;br&gt;

Prima, ecco un link a &lt;a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgabeandmelanie.blogspot.com&amp;hl=it&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;sl=it&amp;sl=it&amp;tl=en&amp;tl=en"&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;
Dopo, mi scusa!  Non ho fatto mio Blog, quando posso scrivere Inglese, e il mio Italiano è molto male adesso.  Allora, faccio una Traduzione a Sabato.  Puoi aspettare a Sabato, o puoi usare Google Translate.
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Sono adesso in Perugia, dove è troppo bello.  Da qui, posso vedere a qualch'una direzione, e la sarà una vista dalla cartolina postale.  È ridicolo bello.  
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Siamo insieme in una bella casa con Fabio e la sua familia, ma non abbiamo trovato la sua familia, perche siete adesso al mar.   Anche è Fabio adesso al mar, e siamo soliti fino a domani.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Informazione importante:&lt;/span&gt;
-Nostro indirizzo postale è:&lt;br&gt;
Gabriel Wyner/Melanie Henley Heyn&lt;br&gt;
Via Brunamonti 19&lt;br&gt;
06123 Perugia&lt;br&gt;
Italy&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;
-Nostro numero telefonico è lo stesso:&lt;br&gt;
818 935 5039
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;
-Sono qui 7/1 - 8/19, e Melanie è qui fino al 8/31.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;
-Parliamo, Sentiamo, Scriviamo, Leggiamo solo in Italiano eccetto Sabato (e forse Venerdì sera)
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Basta!  Ecco delle Fotografie:
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First, here a link to google translate.
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Then, excuse me!  I haven't done my Blog, when I can write English, and my Italian is very bad now.  So, I do a translation on Sunday.  You can wait on Sunday, or you can use Google Translate.
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I am here in Perugia, where it is too pretty.  From here, I can look at some direction, and there will be a view from the post card.  It is ridiculous pretty.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;

We are here together in a pretty house with Fabio and his family, but we haven't met his family, because you are now at the ocean.  Also Fabio is now at the ocean, and we are alone until tuesday.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;

Important information:  Our postal adress is:&lt;Br&gt;
Gabriel Wyner/Melanie Henley Heyn&lt;Br&gt;
Via Brunamonti 19&lt;Br&gt;
06123 Perugia&lt;Br&gt;
Italy&lt;Br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;

Our telephone number is the same:&lt;Br&gt;
818 935 5039&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;


I am here July 1 - Aug 19, and Melanie is here until Aug 31.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;

We speak, hear, write and read only in Italian except Saturday (and maybe Friday night)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;Br&gt;

Enough!  Here the photographs:
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underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-973129744299728892?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/973129744299728892/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=973129744299728892' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/973129744299728892'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/973129744299728892'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/07/ops-non-ho-inglese.html' title='Ops!  Non ho Inglese!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3267/2644785995_b2079c8436_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3735771775301373671</id><published>2008-06-05T18:22:00.002+02:00</published><updated>2008-06-05T19:03:49.503+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Blase</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jonco48.com/blog/water.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.jonco48.com/blog/water.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

I went in to the doctor today for some ultrasounds of my stomach and surrounding organs (everything's fine).  The doctor was a gruff elderly Austrian lady, and she asked me what was up and then took ultrasounds.  Then she told me to clean up and eat breakfast and drink some water, and we'll do more scans when my blase was full.  I didn't quite pick up everything she said, and asked her if I should go eat my breakfast, and she said yeah, eat my breakfast and drink my water, which she left out on a table for me.  She left the room, and I said "What's a Blase?" (Pronounced BLAH-zeh), but noone answered because I said this to myself.  I figured she needed my stomach and things to be full so she could get a look to see what they look like when they're full or something.

So I went to the waiting room with my water and my breakfast, which was packed in my Mr. Bento (which turns out to actually be one of my favorite possessions in the world), and my water, which was in a very large 1.5-2L plastic pitcher.  And then I studied my music history notes (test's in a few days) and ate my breakfast and drank my water and waited.  There was an elderly man who was there before me with another pitcher of water and I guess no breakfast, since he had no Mr Bento and all.  Anyway I waited, and waited, and started noticing the time, since I had somewhere to go at noon (I got there at 9:30), and after drinking half the water in boredom, and going to the restroom, and then drinking the rest of the water, it was getting late, so after going to the bathroom again, I went to the receptionist and asked her whether I could come back at 1pm, to which she responded "We've been just waiting for you to tell us whether your blase is full.  We can't do the scan until you tell us it's full."  At which point i realised that Blase is the german word for bladder.  I told her I would have to drink some more and went back to the waiting room with a third liter of water.

Later, I was joking with the doctor about the whole situation, and told her "I even thought, 'Why are they giving me all this water'".  She responded, gruffly, "The water is for your Blase."

Adventures in Austria.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3735771775301373671?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3735771775301373671/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3735771775301373671' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3735771775301373671'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3735771775301373671'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/06/blase.html' title='Blase'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7978824856921665959</id><published>2008-06-04T14:56:00.002+02:00</published><updated>2008-06-04T15:27:07.078+02:00</updated><title type='text'>The Time of Visitation</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.conceptionabbey.org/images/murals/Visitation.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.conceptionabbey.org/images/murals/Visitation.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Following Melanie's Jewish escapades, we began to get lots and lots of visitors.  Krysta and Kenneth arrived in mid May with lots of Reese's peanut butter cups, snickers and peanut m&amp;ms (thank you!).  Also they were nice to have around.  We did touristy things, ate sausages (well Kenneth and I did), and generally had a great time.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
During their visit, and the two weeks after, we were gearing up to our big performances of Così fan Tutte.  Rehearsals had moved into the Odeon Theater, a very very pretty, church-like venue, and we were getting our final few dress rehearsals in before the big day(s).  Shortly before our first performance, Chuck and Andrea (Melanie's parents) arrived from their travels across Europe.  There was much merriment had by all.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
For me, Così was a great, difficult, great experience.  It was nice, if a little weird, to perform with Melanie on Monday (one [necessarily, I think] distances oneself while preparing and doing something as nerve-wracking and demanding as an opera role), and Monday night was a really good performance.  For me, though, I spent much of the time trying to get laughs and it wasn't really natural or fun.  After a couple of days of thinking and recovering, Wednesday night was just what I wanted it to be.  I had fun, I actually got the laughs I had been trying to force from Monday's audience, and a good time was had by all.  I spent a lot of Monday making sure I was doing everything right, and Wednesday I just enjoyed myself.  (Melanie would rightly point out, a second performance can make a big difference all on its own, just from the repetition).  Anyway, it was a great experience, and I learned a lot.  Looking forward to the next time.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
On Wednesday afternoon, Noah arrived from London to visit for a few days.  We went to Schönbrunn gardens to relax a bit before the show, drank heavily after the show, and spent the next few days tiredly doing touristy things with Chuck and Andrea.  'Twas lots of fun (I believe Noah might still be travelling, currently in China now!)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Since the opera, things have been somewhat slow.  To me it feels a little like graduating; things go slowly and awkwardly and there's a touch of postpartum depression going around.  This will last for, say, a week or two, since then the Summer of Insanity begins, which will end in late October.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The Summer of Insanity begins on June 13th, when I fly to Los Angeles for Josh's wedding.  After a very busy time at home, I fly to Italy to study Italian in Perugia for 2 months.  This will be cut short because I need to be in Vienna in late August to rehearse for Rigoletto chorus, which will put me touring throughout Japan for 5 weeks in September and early October.  As soon as I get back, I fly back to Los Angeles to have a big meeting of the parents to discuss our own wedding, and then I fly back and start catching up on the month+ of school that I've missed.  Oh yeah, and Melanie will be in Venuzuela, performing Così fan Tutte in June.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Insanity.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

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src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7978824856921665959?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7978824856921665959/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7978824856921665959' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7978824856921665959'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7978824856921665959'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/06/time-of-visitation.html' title='The Time of Visitation'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/2550254989_af0c7a19b4_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7367813023303969394</id><published>2008-06-04T14:35:00.002+02:00</published><updated>2008-06-04T14:55:11.595+02:00</updated><title type='text'>From Kirchschlager to Jewish</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.newhopepa.com/events/2005/072505_NICE_JEWISH_lg.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.newhopepa.com/events/2005/072505_NICE_JEWISH_lg.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Last we left off, Michael and Alexis had just visited, and we were about to go through the Time of Great Busyness.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
So!
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Let the time of great Busyness commence!
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
After Michael and Alexis left, we had a masterclass with Angelika Kirchschlager in a very neat hall of the Musikverein.  She was very nice and had helpful things to say.  We then had free food.  Excellent.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
This was followed with the week leading to Melanie converting to Judaism in Bratislava.  We (well, more she than I) spent most days going to rehearsals of Così in the afternoon, and the mornings and evenings learning hebrew and a huge array of facts about Judaism.  We went to temple on friday night and saturday morning, crammed judaism all saturday night, and left early in the morning to Bratislava, Slovakia.  Bratislava is a very soviet little town, with lots of broken down buildings, a huge collection of gigantic identical depressing apartment complexes, and a somewhat cute old town.  We were in the old town.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The Beit Din is a council of three rabbis which is assembled to judge whether a given person is Worthy to Take On the Yoke of Judaism and all that.  There are a ridiculous list of questions that they could potentially ask, but the main thing they're trying to assess is what you feel about the whole becoming Jewish thing, whether you're trying to exploit legal loopholes (If you convert to Judaism while on a tourist visa in Germany, they can't deport you once your 6 months are up, for example), and whether you're weird and creepy.  Also whether you know much about the religion you're trying to convert to.  Oh, and whether you can stumble through hebrew, which Melanie did a very good job of :)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The Beit Din deemed her Worthy to Take On the Yoke etc etc and she took a couple of dunks in the Mikveh, a ritual bath consisting of rainwater (which in Bratislava apparently is sulfurous) and that is jealously guarded by the orthodox rabbis that wish to assert their ownership of it.  Melanie forgot to take her contacts out (you're supposed to be immersed in water everywhere, which means no touching the bottom of the pool or jewelry or anything), so she took them out mid-way through and went back under, which must have been funny to look at but unfortunately I was not allowed to see. :(
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
To celebrate, we ate at the pretty good jewish restaurant in the hotel in which the Mikveh was housed, and Melanie ordered a steak, which came back bleeding in a mushroom cream sauce.  Nice.  The Rabbis were thankfully still interviewing other candidates.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
On the Friday afterwards, our congregation invited Melanie and the other 3 new converts from our temple to go open the ark.  Much merryment was had by all, and then we had pizza.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
And just like that, Melanie is Jewish.  Shazzam.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

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src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/2551074144_8934205ff0_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2551074332" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3034/2551074332_87b5e8ebe5_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2551074492" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/2551074492_c9b755663f_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7367813023303969394?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7367813023303969394/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7367813023303969394' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7367813023303969394'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7367813023303969394'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/06/from-kirchschlager-to-jewish.html' title='From Kirchschlager to Jewish'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3108/2551071422_d6cfa52a32_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4338920179169114169</id><published>2008-05-02T19:45:00.003+02:00</published><updated>2008-05-02T20:22:25.801+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Musings</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.patentmonkey.com/PM/Portals/0/ThinkingMonkey.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.patentmonkey.com/PM/Portals/0/ThinkingMonkey.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/lunchjarsimage/sljae1.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/lunchjarsimage/sljae1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
On Bento Boxes:  I want a Mr. Bento from the Zojirushi company.  Bad.  At the Japanese kindergarten, all the kids had little bento boxes with 3-5 different food items in tiny little cute boxes, all fitting inside one big box, which went into a fabric bag.  This is an awesome concept.  One of the girls showed me hers.  Her mom sewed her fabric bag.  awww.  Anyway, Mr. Bento is a vacuum insulated bento jar, with 2 insulated compartments that stay either cold or hot for 6 hours, and then 2 more bowls that are at room temperature.  It means you can have a lunch with hot soup, hot pasta, cold salad and say, pie for dessert, all in one neat looking silver thermos thingy.  Want.

&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
On Così fan Tutte:  Aside from being stressful, it's really neat working on a Big Role like Guglielmo.  I'm on stage for probably about 1.5 hours, I have a whole character arc, and I get to come up with a whole concept of how this guy thinks &amp; stands &amp; moves &amp; adapts.  It's been a lot of fun, and while it's a work in progress, it's been coming along pretty well! &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

On Exercise:  I'm weight training again, since I wish to avoid being a girly man, so that means 3000 calories a day (Incidentally, you might think 3000 calories a day is fun, but you would be incorrect.  2500 calories a day is fun.  3000 calories a day is 500 calories more than fun per day.)  Also I've discovered EDT aka "Escalating Density Training" aka 'days 1-7: Hey this is cool, days 8+: Holygod what am I doing to myself?'.  EDT is based on a clever idea where you pick 2 exercises, set a stopwatch for 15 minutes, and do as many repetitions of those two exercises you can in 15 minutes.  Then you have to beat yourself the next time you do it.  So the first time you relax and think about how cool it is not to have to worry about sets or reps, and then the next time you realize that you don't get to relax anymore, and then the next time (or sometimes even the second time), it sounds like you're being chased by a bear and will actually die from exhaustion until the timer goes off, if you ask Melanie.  Anyway, fun.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

That's alls I got for now.  Have a good day -Gabe&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4338920179169114169?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4338920179169114169/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4338920179169114169' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4338920179169114169'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4338920179169114169'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/05/musings.html' title='Musings'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4216513185566152561</id><published>2008-05-02T13:54:00.004+02:00</published><updated>2008-05-02T19:45:41.134+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Ok ok ok ok ok</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.germes-online.com/direct/dbimage/50037517/Automobile_Suspension_Spring.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.germes-online.com/direct/dbimage/50037517/Automobile_Suspension_Spring.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Well fine, I'll post things for your amusement.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
Starting way back in March...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Went back home for Easter (As did Melanie, to the east coast), but not before I spent a good 3 days doing various things with our Temple (they were running a big European reform jew conference thingy).  Home was fun and fairly short.  Saw family, ate things, saw Emily &amp; Nick, went to the long beach aquarium(kind of sucks), fixed my stupid digital recorder thingy, ate more things, and left for New York and then Vienna.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Arriving back in Vienna, I spent a few days helping my friend Chris teach Japanese kids English.  For the record, Japanese kids are cute, and have awesome lunch boxes that are infinitely superior to the lunch boxes of non-Japanese kids, and also they are obsessed with riding on your shoulders.   Other early April events involved setting up Sofia's birthday party, a recital(Melanie) of Brahms and Barber songs, lots of dessert making, and Spring!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Spring in Vienna is really quite beautiful, and the reason people make such a big deal about Spring is that Winter kind of sucks a whole lot and then suddenly it's Spring.  Anyway, I can use my comfy snazzy LA jacket most of the time now, and some days, I &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;don't even need a jacket!&lt;/span&gt;  I wear one anyways, because that's just too weird.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

April has been getting increasingly challenging since it began, as we're getting close to our Opera, Cosi fan Tutte, which means it's important that we be as stressed as possible.  This has been great fun (/sarcasm).  On April 14th, I began my Work-O-Matic plan, which so far has meant I've only missed 4 days of practicing and 2 days of exercise since then.  This also has been great fun (/sarcasm).  My friend Michael and his friend Alexis (I suppose my new friend Alexis, I should say) came to visit, and we had lots of fun (/not sarcasm), chatted through the evenings and had lots of passover kosher food (yay).  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Currently, each week is going to be an insane work fest up through the opera.  Somehow we'll need to figure out our summer plans in Italy, be hosts to Krysta &amp; Kenneth, Chuck &amp; Andrea, &amp; my friend Noah, sing a masterclass at the Musikverein (tomorrow!), sing an opera or two, and continue to be healthy and happy and all that.  Wish us luck
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
And there's your post.  I hope you liked it.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Oh yeah, pictures (click on them to go to Flickr and see the rest of them):
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&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Spring! 3/31 - 4/15&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;h4&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458451659" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2303/2458451659_be785575be_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458451761" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2143/2458451761_79ed5e95e9_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459286482" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3128/2459286482_a68d8b63fc_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458452055" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3068/2458452055_bda5f1145b_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459286834" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2069/2459286834_71a1d01369_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458452413" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/2458452413_3fa63aec52_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459287178" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3078/2459287178_d98ac31585_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458452731" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2323/2458452731_5c525ceacc_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459287494" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2390/2459287494_49c8772207_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt; 



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&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Cosi fan Michael &amp; Alexis&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;h4&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458459843" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/2458459843_802b999ec8_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459294692" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3290/2459294692_dd7dc21578_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459294810" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2397/2459294810_78b953b91d_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458460219" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/2458460219_b2d0a9af89_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458460361" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3068/2458460361_062719b230_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459295084" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3276/2459295084_f7ef1b71c3_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458460563" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2189/2458460563_61a1655030_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2459295280" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/2459295280_7076d42f10_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2458460729" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2022/2458460729_2ce52bd71f_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4216513185566152561?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4216513185566152561/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4216513185566152561' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4216513185566152561'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4216513185566152561'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/05/ok-ok-ok-ok-ok.html' title='Ok ok ok ok ok'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2459278572_bb2c755a26_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3715202783236574336</id><published>2008-03-03T09:11:00.001+01:00</published><updated>2008-03-03T09:11:23.808+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Tutoring Website</title><content type='html'>Hi All!  I made my first-draft, snazzy tutoring website website  &lt;br&gt;yesterday at &lt;a href="http://www.gabrielwyner.com/tutor"&gt;http://www.gabrielwyner.com/tutor&lt;/a&gt; .  If you catch any  &lt;br&gt;mistakes or have any suggestions before potential clients start  &lt;br&gt;looking at it, let me know!  Also, if you&amp;#39;ve tutored before and have  &lt;br&gt;any suggestions for a relatively new tutor, also let me know!  How to  &lt;br&gt;set up prices would be helpful information (Do you do the first one  &lt;br&gt;free? Discounted?  30 min consult free?  How do you incorporate  &lt;br&gt;transport time into your prices without freaking out potential  &lt;br&gt;clients? [Offering in-home tutoring in addition to you-come-to-my- &lt;br&gt;place tutoring])  (I suspect all of the tutoring jobs are weekly sort  &lt;br&gt;of jobs, except for the diction coach one, which people (mostly  &lt;br&gt;students) would probably only need an hour or two of for a given piece)&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#39;s all for now!&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3715202783236574336?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3715202783236574336/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3715202783236574336' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3715202783236574336'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3715202783236574336'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/03/tutoring-website.html' title='Tutoring Website'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4883507916131323218</id><published>2008-03-02T12:49:00.005+01:00</published><updated>2008-03-02T13:07:13.693+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Sick Day!</title><content type='html'>We're sick, or at least Melanie's sick and I'm sitting in bed for emotional support (and a day in bed seems to be a good idea when you're probably going to get sick tomorrow).  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/061015/061015_pancakes_hmed7p.hmedium.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/061015/061015_pancakes_hmed7p.hmedium.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Let it be known that buttermilk pancakes are delicious, and an awesome thing to do when you have buttermilk but are our of milk.  I claim that these pancakes are so damn good, that maple syrup simply distracts from their deliciousness.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Whisk a bowl of:&lt;br&gt;
1 cup buttermilk, 1 egg white&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Make a small bowl of:&lt;br&gt;
2 T melted butter, 1 egg yolk and add to bowl #1.  Whisk.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Add this bowl to a bowl of:&lt;br&gt;
1 c flour, 1/4t baking soda, 1/2t baking powder, 1/2t salt, 2t sugar.  Whisk.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Cook. 2-4 min per side, until golden brownlicious.&lt;br&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4883507916131323218?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4883507916131323218/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4883507916131323218' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4883507916131323218'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4883507916131323218'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/03/sick-day.html' title='Sick Day!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1938953416852157579</id><published>2008-02-28T20:32:00.002+01:00</published><updated>2008-02-28T20:53:54.895+01:00</updated><title type='text'>The Last Few Weeks of February</title><content type='html'>So February is almost over, and we're wiped.  We're working our asses off on Così fan tutte, which the Kons has decided to stage, like, right now, so we're cramming every day, trying to get the next scene memorized in time for staging.  At the same time, we're preparing for a recital next Saturday, with a couple of dress rehearsals this week and next week leading up to it, where we have lots to sing as well (and lots to memorize).  Insanity.  We have about enough energy every evening to stare at our computers mindlessly until we realize it's late and we need to be asleep 30 minutes ago.  And that, my friends, is what the end of February '08 looks like from out here.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We saw lots o' operas the week we got back: Aida, Così fan tutte and Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci.  Aida gets a high draw score, since the women were good, and the tenor was *so bad* that he unfortunately doesn't allow Aida placing in the win category.  Così fan tutte was excellent, with an excellent cast, an excellent conductor (Muti), no cuts, and an adequate staging.  Really really great (and long!).  Cavalleria was not so good, and Pagliacci was good, so I guess we'll give one point into the win category and one low-draw.   So, that's 2 wins and 2 draws for the Wiener Staatsoper: 10-4-4.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I gonna get me a &lt;a href="http://www.tombihn.com/"&gt;Tom Bihn backpack&lt;/a&gt;.  I'm actually excited about buying a &lt;i&gt;backpack&lt;/i&gt;.  Nerd.  On an unrelated note, you know when you wake up and your eyebrow or eyeball is spasming for no reason and it's really weird?  You ever get that in the muscles of your lower lip?  I used to be able to say me neither; it's been a weird day.
&lt;br&gt;
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.AlbumPhoto { background: #f5f5f5; margin-bottom: 10px; }
.AlbumPhoto p { float: left; padding: 4px 4px 12px 4px; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #fff; margin: 8px; }
.AlbumPhoto span { float: left; padding: 4px 4px 12px 4px; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #fff; margin: 8px; }
.AlbumPhoto img { border: none; }
&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2298898568" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/2298898568_53fed291f4_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2298103351" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3056/2298103351_f61d5b10db_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2298899028" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3034/2298899028_6c7c37d45d_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2298104033" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/2298104033_fbe6e7c581_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2298104179" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/2298104179_d5eb6797e2_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1938953416852157579?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1938953416852157579/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1938953416852157579' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1938953416852157579'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1938953416852157579'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/last-few-weeks-of-february.html' title='The Last Few Weeks of February'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/2298898568_53fed291f4_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7285603778649898417</id><published>2008-02-28T20:10:00.004+01:00</published><updated>2008-03-02T13:02:42.422+01:00</updated><title type='text'>People who look at this site</title><content type='html'>In creepy big-brother fashion, here's Google's site tracking info:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
In the last month, of the people viewing the blog for more than a minute,&lt;br&gt;
6 were from Pennsylvania, 2 were from New Jersey, 2 from California, 2 from Vienna (not me!), 2 from Granada, Spain, 1 from Serbia (?) and 1 from Denmark (?).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

So, in case you were curious, I'M LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW THROUGH YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/90/69/23296990.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/90/69/23296990.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
Also, California, you're way behind.  Time to get cracking.&lt;br&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7285603778649898417?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7285603778649898417/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7285603778649898417' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7285603778649898417'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7285603778649898417'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/people-who-look-at-this-site.html' title='People who look at this site'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3709547533582245631</id><published>2008-02-28T19:51:00.003+01:00</published><updated>2008-03-02T13:05:56.242+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Béchamel</title><content type='html'>I have just figured out how to make a mushroom sauce out of a Béchamel base.  This is a special day indeed.  I have sought long and hard for this sauce, and at 6:00pm, February the 28th, I now know that if you want an awesome, awesome mushroom sort of sauce, you do everything I used to do (Saute mushrooms in butter or olive oil, with onions and garlic and salt and pepper and stuff), and then,&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
In a separate pan, you make the magical béchamel base, which is a couple of tablespoons of butter, cooked till frothy, and then a couple of tablespoons of flour, cooked till golden, and then a couple of cups of milk and/or chicken stock, added slowly, then boiled for a while  (during which you add the yummy mushroom goodness and maybe a bay leaf if you want it to taste a little more like gravy) until thickened and reduced.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;Awesome&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://z.about.com/d/create/1/0/g/_/-/-/bechamelsauce.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://z.about.com/d/create/1/0/g/_/-/-/bechamelsauce.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
In the olden days of yore, I tried to make this sauce with chicken broth and lots and lots of cheese, which never came out right.  But those olden days are behind me, and a new age begins today.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3709547533582245631?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3709547533582245631/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3709547533582245631' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3709547533582245631'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3709547533582245631'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/bchamel.html' title='Béchamel'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-8376267981289057781</id><published>2008-02-13T14:22:00.005+01:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T15:37:42.212+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Espain: The End!  Feb 10-11: Girona, lessons learned</title><content type='html'>On Feb 10th we got up at 5:30am to leave in time for our plane.  After assorted busses and planes, we got to our Bed &amp; Breakfast, Bells Oficis, run by Javier, a super-nice spaniard who speaks more English than he thinks he does.  &lt;br&gt;
Bells Oficis is a lower-end sort of hostal, in that the rooms share a bathroom and there's no heating, but Javi's made a really comfortable, pretty place with a good breakfast and smiles all around (and a good price :) ). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We left our bags there, and went into Girona, which is a *very* pretty, medieval town, where you can walk through pathways of archways that support the buildings above you.  We made a poor lunch decision (yum! cold tapas!), went to the extensive Jewish museum, where Gabe ran out of energy entirely, went to the hotel, passed out, went out again for dinner to a great seafood place, La Riba, and then went back to bed and read books and such.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

The next day was spent barely making our bus, then barely making our plane, then waiting a long time for the bus to Vienna, and then getting home.  A great success.  &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;

&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;So!  Lessons learned:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Whatever people say, Spain has great food (people mostly say that Spain has good food, but some people go and come back complaining).  That doesn't mean there aren't crappy places, but as long as you're going on recommendations, you can find pretty consistently good food.  Also, the bread is fantastic.  I dont know why, but even mini-market bread products and processed grossness at bus stations are full of delicious, crispy, chewy, awesome bread.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Spanish Busses are cheap and get you all over the country, but there is noone except for someone *working for the bus company* that actually knows the schedule accurately.  We found inaccurate schedules from the bus company websites, from tourist offices, and even from schedules posted at bus stations.  Also, if you get carsick, sit in the front.  Bleh.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-If you're American, don't use Quick-Checkin with RyanAir.  Quick Check-In is great, because the alternative costs €8 more and you get the last, worst seats on the plane, and you might get bumped off the plane if they oversell it and it sucks not to do quick check-in.  So we were big fans of quick check-in when we left for our first flight to Girona.  On our second flight (back to Girona from Granada), the gate attendants freaked out when we handed them an American passport. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
"You cant do that!  You can't use quick check in!  Only for Europeans!  If you were at another airport, they wouldn't even let you on the flight!"  oops!  Well, we already used quick check-in for our third flight, and we liked it, and we weren't really even sure that they were right, since we have European residence permits.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Well, folks, you can't.  Our next flight, they saw our passports and told us we can't get on the flight, and we'd need to run downstairs and check in.  We made it, sweaty and panting, but only barely.  Nope, Americans are not allowed to use quick check-in.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Pick your Sundays carefully.  A small town like Girona is going to be mostly closed on Sunday.  Oops (Though it's not like we had energy to go do things anyways).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Flamenco concerts are an important part of a Spain trip, particularly if you're going to Seville or Granada.  Book them in advance.  In Seville, one was sold out and the other was closed for the month.  In Granada, they only put on a show if they have enough reservations (and ours was basically sold out).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-The 'vacation from your vacation' part of a vacation is an important part, and it belongs in the middle.  We were pretty wiped out by Feb 6th, and kind of over-museumed/architectured.  If we did something like Barcelona Feb 1-4, Ronda 5-7, Granada 8-11, that would be been even better. Girona at the end was a little weird, because although it's a good place for a vacation from your vacation, by that point, an even better place for that would have been sleeping in our own bed at home.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Go to Ronda and Barcelona at some point in your life.  Perhaps repeatedly.  Both deserve multiple days in a trip.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Oh yeah, when you go somewhere and the food is good, remember to buy local spices.  Im having a very hard time finding the Guindilla peppers that flavored some of my favorite dishes there, and it would have been a cinch to get them there.  Lame.  (Also, I could have bought a Paella pan cheap there, and didn't think of it.)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Thats all folks!  I hope all this was somewhat entertaining :)&lt;br&gt;
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We went to the beach for dinner, in search for the famous Paella place known as Ayo's, but found a huge line of closed restaurants, with the exception of an Irish pub, 2 places that were no longer serving food, and a chinese place called "Oriental".&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

"Oriental" was relatively packed.  The waiter/owner asserted this was because it was the Chinese New Year, and because he has the best food in town.  We sat down next to a group of elderly English people.   We got a tray of dips and shrimp crackers to go with them, which were very good, and then we heard, from the table next to us, "You know, its always about you, Mary. Me! Me! Me!  That's all it's ever about! ...", to which Mary replied "Well you, Susan, are a shit", and then things went downhill from there.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We got the impression that these people were lifelong friends who went to Spain together, and would no longer be lifelong friends after this evening.  To this was added some of the worst food we've ever had, a table of Dutch people making fun of the waiter/owner's accent, and we ended that night by leaving a big tip for what was clearly not a good day as the owner of the "Oriental" restaurant, and went to bed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
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Our second day in Nerja was much better.  We went horseback riding with a hairdresser turned cowboy named Errol, who was lots of fun, and got very sore looking at the pretty mountain scenery, which resembled California.  We then walked over to the beach, found an *open* Ayo's Paella restaurant, and had some pretty good Paella.  After some quality, if windy, beach time, we went back to the hotel, got our bags, and left for Granada.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Granada was pretty cool.  Our hotel, Casa Federico, was very hip, somewhat overpriced, and very poorly managed.  They didn't provide breakfast even though our reservation confirmation said they would, the whole night was filled with the ringing doorbell that the night receptionist wasn't waking up to answer, and the next day, they *weren't there in the middle of the day* when we wanted to go to our room.  Lame.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Anyway, Granada was pretty cool.  We went to the Alhambra complex - a fortress, a muslim palace, and lots of gardens, which were all very neat.  Large chunks of the Nasrid Palace were closed, but overall it was still very cool.  We went back down to town, and went to the Arabic Baths.  This is a place where you enter a dark, candle-lit room full of steam, mostly silence, 7 baths of different temperatures, and a load of masseuses, then you get a 15 minute massage and soak your troubles away for an hour and a half, taking breaks for sweet tea, candies and water.  A+ gold star.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Our night was rounded off with some arabic tapas and a Flamenco concert, which was amazing/inspiring/great.  The music and dancing are equally and insanely intense, and we just had a great time.  If you have a chance to see some good Flamenco, take it.  It's worth every penny.  After the concert we walked back to town (the busses stop running by that time at night), went by some neat views of the Alhambra at night, and went to bed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2339774721646666852?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2339774721646666852/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2339774721646666852' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2339774721646666852'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2339774721646666852'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/espain-feb-7-9-nerja-and-granada.html' title='Espain, Feb 7-9, Nerja and Granada'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2151/2262063993_acca9cc3a3_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7165919288907608680</id><published>2008-02-13T10:50:00.004+01:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T15:16:16.618+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Espain, Feb 6-7, Arcos and Ronda</title><content type='html'>We got on the early bus to Arcos de la Frontera, one of RIck Steves' "Back Doors" of Spain.  Its a beautiful medieval town, all white, with narrow, narrow streets, 2 churches, and a cliff-top view over a huge valley.  We went to the convent, where they have a 1-way mirror and a lazy susan, and you ring the bell and say "Cookies? (Or "Patas??")", and they say "5 Euros", and you put 5 euros on the tray, and they rotate the tray 180° and on the other side is a box of delicious, blessed pine-nut nun-cookies.  Mm.  Down the street, there is a bakery that serves Sultanas, giant macaroons that so good, that people who dislike macaroons would find them one of the best things in the world (I tend to dislike macaroons).  We went to the end of town, looked at the view, went to our restaurant for lunch.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

This restaurant, apart from having really fantastic food (I will note that fine dining in Arcos is like 1/3 the price of fine dining in a big city, with the same quality of food), had the best menu translation we have yet seen.  I need to go back to Arcos just to take pictures of the 2 pages of the menu I missed with my camera (I forgot to take pictures of the back of each page).  I had some Rabbit in Sauce, which was delicious, but not nearly as amusing as the "Lomitos of deer to the from Cadiz one" under the Meets section that Melanie ordered.  Next time I shall endeavor to order the "ATTACKED OF ELVERS!" or the "ATTACKED OF FANTASY OF MUSHROOMS WITH HAM IBERIAN!!".  Those seemed more like meals for later in the day.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We took a bus to Ronda that afternoon, and met some nice Irish people who were heading to the same Hotel, so we shared a taxi.  They've been travelling a lot for quite some time, and have been avid users of Homeexchange.com, where you stay in someone's house while they stay in yours.  This is very neat.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Anyway, Ronda is the best city I've ever been to, and Hotel San Gabriel is fantastic.  I could stay there for weeks.  Ronda is a magical town in southern spain situated on top of a canyon, divided in half by a 120m deep chasm, through which a river flows and cascades down in a waterfall towards the valley 750m below.  We got there in time for the sunset, which you can see from several beautiful viewing gazebos on the side of the cliff overlooking the valley, and at the moment the sun set, a flock of hundreds or thousands of birds flew up from the cliff face, and made no sound other than the flapping of hundreds or thousands of wings.  Ronda is a magical place.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Hotel San Gabriel is a really pretty place, with comfy beds, hundreds of books in every language spread everywhere, a little movie theater with comfy seats and a dvd collection, and the best breakfast of home-baked breads and marmalades we'd had in Spain.  We came into town with a local tapas bar suggestion (Bodega San Francisco), which was seconded by our hotel owner, and proceeded to feast on some of the best food we've ever had.  After trying a couple ham sandwiches, chicken, pork and shrimp skewers and some butter-fried-shrimp-rice, we mistakenly ordered 2 raciones (raciones are main-course sized versions of tapas) and got a gigantic, 2-person salad and an unholy pile of battered shrimp.  These too were consumed in a frenzy of deliciousness.  The bill? €22.  Awesome.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Our next day involved the aforementioned breakfast @ San Gabriel and a hike through the cliffside trails.  If you have the chance to go to Ronda, take it.  It's just great.&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7165919288907608680?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7165919288907608680/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7165919288907608680' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7165919288907608680'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7165919288907608680'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/espain-feb-6-7-arcos-and-ronda.html' title='Espain, Feb 6-7, Arcos and Ronda'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2261953401_4e9206d7a3_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4825872909492952316</id><published>2008-02-13T09:53:00.004+01:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T15:14:59.441+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Ehhhspain: Feb 4-5 Seville</title><content type='html'>With Barcelona thoroughly unfinished, we headed off to the airport to get to our ClickAir flight (which was maybe cheaper than RyanAir, offers direct Vienna to Barcelona flights, and has preassigned seating, though seats have not so much legroom.  Hm!)  We flew into Malaga, a town that reminds me of Orange County during rush hour (both times we encountered Malaga, it was during rush hour), visited a huge supermarket for food, and got on a train to Seville. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;

We arrived pretty late (around 11pm), and were greeted at the bus stop into town by a trumpet + drum band, playing slightly out of tune but intensely spanish music.  The bus into town came, we got up, and it left.  Without us.  In Seville, we learned, the busses will only stop for you if you wave and yell and jump in front of them.  So we got to our hotel somewhat later.  It was somewhat quaint, somewhat far from the center of town, and had somewhat less hot water available than required for one person to shower in the morning.    &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;

Seville gave a first impression that was not quite as neat as Barcelona's.  Our area of town was pretty dead at night, which is a little weird for Spain (at least compared to Barcelona).  We woke the next morning to get to our (maybe) guided tour with Concepcion Delgado, who by all accounts is the best walking tour guide ever.  I'd agree, except we didn't get to take a guided tour with her because noone else showed up for it.  She spent a half hour with us, advising us on how best to spend our short time in Seville, gave us her phone number should we need anything, and tried to book us for a flamenco concert, but it was already sold out.   &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;

Our breakfast was a pastry and "hot chocolate" at this hot chocolate place.  We had been looking for hot chocolate, and every café we went to, they'd say "No hot chocolate, only ColaCao".  (ColaCao is a powdered hot chocolate that tastes like, well, exactly what you'd expect from hot chocolate).  Then we found out why.  Spanish hot chocolate is a cup of chocolate.  Bars.  Melted.  It would be a cool dessert at a restaurant, served in an expresso cup with a tiny spoon, but when faced with a big steaming cup of thick, viscous, dark chocolate, one doesn't quite know what to do.  Eventually I just took a big breath and started drinking, because if you just sipped it, you'd be there all day.  Weird.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

So we went to Seville's cathedral, whose builders' creed, "let those who come after us take us for madmen" came through loud and clear.  It's really very big.  But it doesn't produce the feeling of awe that the Sagrada Familia or Eglesia del Santa Maria produce; it's almost too big; you can't really see all of it at once, so you break it into boxes of relatively normal cathedral size.  We took the entire audiotour - every painting, statue, side-chapel, everything.  We figured that just once, we should do the entire audioguide of some cathedral.  It was both cool and exhausting.  Columbus is buried there, in a huge bronze coffin on the shoulders of four giant statues representing the kingdoms of Spain.  At the end of the exhausting audio tour, you get to walk up 45 stories to the top of the Giralda tower they incorporated into the Cathedral from the old mosque that was there.  The views were really neat, and at the top are huge bells, which we decided wouldn't possibly go off when there were tourists up there, and then, of course, the bells went off, which we discovered were really very loud and headache inducing.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Off to lunch and to the Alcazaba, a beautiful Arabic palace that unfortunately blends way too much in with the memories of Granada's Alhambra to really remember it distinctly, except to say that it was very beautiful.  Theres a nice photo tour(not ours) over here: http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/spain/seville/alcazar/alcazarindex.html&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We stayed till closing time, met one of the cats of the palace, who gets petted by probably thousands of people a day, and I think lives in cat heaven currently (for those cats that enjoy getting pet, at least), lost our guide book, ran back in and discovered that somehow security is so on top of things that they had our guide book right there,  took a too-long Siesta [at ~1 hour you get *way* more tired than you were when you started], headed off to the bus station to get tomorrow's schedule, walked back past some huge building, and Carmen's cigarette factory(now the Seville University), and went to the tapas section of town, where we bar hopped until we got to the place that served us 4 plates consisting entirely of mayonnaise ("Tropical Cocktail": Mayonnaise stew with lettuce and shrimp in it.  Yum), at which point we were no longer desirous of more tapas.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

That night concluded with getting lost looking for the Flamenco bar, getting stopped by a Spaniard on a bike: "&lt;something in spanish&gt;" "..." "Ingles? Alleman?" "Si" "Are you looking for la Carbonera?" "Yes (Thank God! He will show us where to go!)" "Do you know where it is?" "No, we're lost" "Oh.  Me too.  Maybe I'll see you there. Bye."&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We got there eventually, spent an hour or so nursing a beer and getting smoked at, and left; there was no flamenco that would happen, it seemed.  Thus ended Seville.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4825872909492952316?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4825872909492952316/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4825872909492952316' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4825872909492952316'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4825872909492952316'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/ehhhspain-feb-4-5-seville.html' title='Ehhhspain: Feb 4-5 Seville'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2070/2262698096_b70bc32018_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-8833860369458021083</id><published>2008-02-12T22:25:00.002+01:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T15:10:26.412+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Spain!  Feb 1-4 (Barcelona)</title><content type='html'>Spain!&lt;br&gt;
We got back from Spain yesterday, and since there are an awful lot of pictures, I guess we'll break these posts up into chunks.  This shall be the first chunk, covering our adventures through Barcelona.  The moral of the story shall be put in the last post (but to summarize, Spain was really great!)&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;February the First:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
Our day began with an only slightly reduced amount of sleep (we did pretty good, for us!), and then bus 59A to bus 13A to a bus to Bratislava airport to our flight to Girona to our bus to Barcelona to a train to the central tourism office to a train to our hotel.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Highlights and observations from the day:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-SlovakLines busses to Bratislava provide you with Slovakian crossword(maybe?) puzzles.  These you can't even guess what to do with.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-On the way from Vienna to Bratislava, there are all these trees with some sort of *bright green* parasite balls or vine or something.  These are weird.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-There are also a couple of cute, very old Austrian cities on the way with old city walls and stuff.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-RyanAir is a crazy, crazy airline.  Seating is done by who can squish their way ahead in line, and anyone who does web-check-in automatically gets to the head of the line.  We did web check-in.  Worked like a charm.  We got exit-row.  This time. (There were 3 RyanAir flights on this trip)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Spanish busses are slightly more cramped than RyanAir&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-A lot of spanish girls look very much alike.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-Our hotel concierge lady gave us a dinner recommendation to a place down the street.  This place was really very fantastic.  I had Noodles with Baby Eels, because I was feeling adventurous.  Noodles with Baby Eels means that you get noodles, and mixed in with the yellow noodles are white and grey noodles, except those noodles are little baby eels.  Surprisingly, as soon as you get over the fact that eating baby eels as if they were noodles is kind of gross, the dish was really great.  I am on the hunt for the elusive red Guindilla chili, which I realize only now that I am an idiot not to have purchased it in Spain.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;February the Second: Old Barcelona Day&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
We spent the day touring the old parts of Barcelona - the old town, the cathedral (which has a neat courtyard full of ducks, who apparently were (and are) used as an alarm.  Our guidebook waxes poetic at this point: "They honk to this very day"), a tapas bar (the spanish use really yummy wine vinegars instead of balsamic vinegar + olive oil.  This is, well, really yummy.  Also, creme brulée crepes are yummy).  We went to a concert of medieval spanish music.  There was one musician who played a one-handed flute and a drum at the same time, beating out ridiculously complicated, fast rhythms in changing meeters while playing also complicated, fast melodies on her flute.  Very neat.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;February the Third/Fourth: New(ish) Barcelona Day&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
We spent this day touring Modernist architecture, starting with a tour of the Palace of Catalan Music (which is just beautiful inside, but doesn't allow pictures, except for the couple not-great ones I snapped secretly), moving down La Rambla, the 3rd-street-promenade of Barcelona except with live rooster shops instead of ice cream shops, going to home of "The Best Sandwich in the Entire World" according to the New York Times (unfortunately expectations were a little too high), the Opera house (pretty), and then...Gaudi!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Gaudi is the neatest architect ever.  We saw 2 Gaudi sites on the third and one on the fourth.  On the third it was pouring, pouring rain, but that was ok because Gaudi is the best architect ever.  We went to La Sagrada Familia, his famous unfinished church (Will be done around 2030; Spain trip is planned for whenever it's ready), and to Casa Batllo, his whacky marine house with the most inane of audioguides.  Sagrada Familia was really very inspiring and amazing, and the idea that it's going to get *taller* is kind of insane.  We took lots of pictures but you really must go there to get a feel for it.  We went up into the towers, which have pathways between them and insane sea-shell-inspired spiral staircases and let you get a sense of what the outside of the building looks like up-close.  We got soaked with rain but it was mucho worth it.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Casa Batllo is a really neat house, except that the audioguide spends so much time telling you how neat and amazing it is that you almost stop believing it.  Here's a quote: "You are now entering...the most extravagant and fantastic room...you have *ever* *been* *in*." or, in case you didn't know, "Imagination is the psychic faculty to see new forms..in your *own* *mind*"  Lame.  (But Casa Batllo was very much not lame.)&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
The next morning, we went to Park Güell, Gaudi's flirt with landscaping.  We took a bus, then hiked up a hill for 30 minutes (we later realized there's another way up involving escalators.  oops).  The park is tourist central, with a ridiculous number of people sprawling themselves over the beautiful architecture and making thumbs-up gestures or what-not for photos.  [soapbox]I never really got the point of avoiding areas where tourists go, since I too would be a tourist, but I get it now.  Tourists are really annoying!  [/soapbox] Anyway the Park was beautiful, and then you realize that the plaza is actually on top of a hall of columns, and next to one of the most amazing feats of architecture I've ever seen.  He has a pathway under a wave of rocks, and you actually feel like you're inside of a moving wave.  Except it's made of rocks.  Madness.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Barcelona was really fantastic.  It's a wonderful city, pretty easy to get to, great food, blah blah blah.  A+ gold star.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Only going to show 20 photos per post, in the interests of bandwidth kindness to, well, Andrea.  Click on that first photo of the trees to get you to the beginning of the Barcelona photoset.&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260717117" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2325/2260717117_98e3bda584_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261511388" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2054/2261511388_2706bfcf72_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261511518" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2261511518_a145887fdb_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260717609" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2109/2260717609_4e1acde1ed_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261511956" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2395/2261511956_d9ea071294_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260718191" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2291/2260718191_dc456c3656_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260718373" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2076/2260718373_55f84e86c9_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261512664" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2021/2261512664_dbfbb06006_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261512840" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2152/2261512840_3610aa1894_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260718991" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2409/2260718991_1d7a40fe5a_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260719195" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2420/2260719195_3e8a7d2a82_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260719291" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2369/2260719291_8371a83ac6_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261513522" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2014/2261513522_db3de8b0ac_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261513736" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2408/2261513736_e130527a38_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261513998" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2086/2261513998_b8ae1cb4e3_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261514206" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2178/2261514206_20809d2675_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260720433" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2415/2260720433_684627e902_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260720697" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2391/2260720697_fa7069d9b0_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2261514980" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2220/2261514980_b5cd56fbef_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2260721293" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2227/2260721293_b986851de1_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-8833860369458021083?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/8833860369458021083/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=8833860369458021083' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8833860369458021083'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8833860369458021083'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/02/spain-feb-1-4-barcelona.html' title='Spain!  Feb 1-4 (Barcelona)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2325/2260717117_98e3bda584_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1380493195813430255</id><published>2008-01-27T13:49:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2008-01-27T13:54:40.360+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Pictures!</title><content type='html'>Pictures are arranged in 2 groups: Chapters One through Three, and Chapters Four through Six.  Chapters One through Six are 2 posts down.  The albums here show only the first 12 pictures - for the rest, you must go onto flickr&lt;br&gt;

&lt;style&gt;
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.AlbumPhoto span { float: left; padding: 4px 4px 12px 4px; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #fff; margin: 8px; }
.AlbumPhoto img { border: none; }
&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Chapters One through Three&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;h4&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222101285" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2222101285_cb001f5e6c_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222101425" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2054/2222101425_691f1fe1ec_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222101711" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2228/2222101711_a2f193a836_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222101813" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2273/2222101813_1fe284c6c5_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102039" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/2222102039_1424b90f05_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102193" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2295/2222102193_8af902f0b3_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222894492" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2267/2222894492_72084d814f_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102399" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2356/2222102399_ce86f23f2a_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102497" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2182/2222102497_4e6d5fbdfc_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102575" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2405/2222102575_fb69ff3932_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102765" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2278/2222102765_77374a7831_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222102861" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2152/2222102861_3bc86a7fe5_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt; 
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;style&gt;
.Album { width: 400px; background: #000000px; background: $000000px;0000px; background: 000000px;0000px; padding: 5px;}
.AlbumHeader { text-align:center; padding-left:0px; }
.AlbumHeader h3 { font: normal 24px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #FF0084; text-align: center; }
.AlbumHeader h4 { font: 16px Caflisch Script,cursive; color: #660033; text-align: center; }
.AlbumPhoto { background: #f5f5f5; margin-bottom: 10px; }
.AlbumPhoto p { float: left; padding: 4px 4px 12px 4px; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #fff; margin: 8px; }
.AlbumPhoto span { float: left; padding: 4px 4px 12px 4px; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #fff; margin: 8px; }
.AlbumPhoto img { border: none; }
&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Chapters Four through Six&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;h4&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222212415" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2364/2222212415_d256a20d83_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222212521" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2366/2222212521_c9b20b0bc9_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222212661" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2119/2222212661_4239bf0aef_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222212799" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2009/2222212799_1dc7323bb0_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2223004778" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2223004778_799f3eed06_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222213085" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/2222213085_0d0e64dd3c_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2223005086" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2409/2223005086_368a314617_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2223005236" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2262/2223005236_96f6e99d1a_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2223005374" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2310/2223005374_28edd4d43d_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2223005550" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2258/2223005550_d2b00fd249_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222213917" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2225/2222213917_5eeb26e061_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/2222214079" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2363/2222214079_0790074a78_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1380493195813430255?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1380493195813430255/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1380493195813430255' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1380493195813430255'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1380493195813430255'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/01/pictures.html' title='Pictures!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2222101285_cb001f5e6c_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7421175304539912743</id><published>2008-01-27T11:21:00.001+01:00</published><updated>2008-01-27T13:49:35.533+01:00</updated><title type='text'>How to get an Austrian student visa for &gt;6 months: Part Two (or Three)</title><content type='html'>Melanie now has her visa, so it is now possible to explain how to get an Austrian Visa once again:
&lt;br&gt;
Summary of Steps 1-6 (as mentioned in Part One):&lt;br&gt;
-Go to Los Angeles Austrian consulate&lt;br&gt;
-Fail&lt;br&gt;
-Go to Austria.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
[Step 7 of Part Two begins a little after Gabe has gone through several extremely enjoyable steps, described in Part One]&lt;br&gt;
7.  Collect required documents.
&lt;br&gt;8.  Go to US Consulate during business hours of US Consulate.
&lt;br&gt;9.  Failure.  Business hours are not the same as 'Hours when you can get an official paper saying that you PROOOOMMISSE(!!!) you don't have a criminal record'
&lt;br&gt;10.  Go back to US Consulate during aforementioned hours.  Get stupid paper.
&lt;br&gt;11.  Find out that you already have the Gebührungen document that they said Gabe needed.  Sweet.
&lt;br&gt;12.  Go to 8th district house of burocracy.  Get number, wait, turn in papers, wait.
&lt;br&gt;13.  Name is called.  Go into office.  Failure.  "You need a Versicherungsdatenauszug from your health insurance.  It looks like this."  "What? Why?  My fiancée didn't need one."  "Well I don't know why not, but you do.  Also you need a new stamp on your passport." "Why?  I've been here for a little over 2 months out of the three allowed." "Exactly - you haven't left the country recently enough" "But I can't leave the country soon, or else I won't be able to come back in, since my 3 months will be over" "Oh sure you can!" (You can't, technically) "Uh...ok" [Readers may note that Melanie's passport has the same stamp date as mine]
&lt;br&gt;14.  Go get Versicherungsdatenauszug
&lt;br&gt;15.  Debate going to Bratislava and trying to get a new stamp.  Decide to hope for the best on upcoming trip back to the states
&lt;br&gt;16.  Gabe goes in to get completed Visa, which is a schüler (high-school) visa.  Gabe asks about this: "Why is my Visa a high-school visa and my fiancée's a college visa? We're going to the same school." "Well you're going to the Konservatorium.  That gives you a high-school visa." "And her?" "Uh..she should have one too.  I'll look into that" [Readers may note that Melanie's completed visa is still a college visa, and mine is a high-school visa.  We'll see what happens next year when we try and reneww]
&lt;br&gt;17.  Go to US.  Go back to Vienna through Frankfurt.  Frankfurt passport control looks at passport, makes stamping sound, gives passport back.
&lt;br&gt;18.  Arrive in Vienna, look at passport.  Wait.  There's no frankfurt stamp.  The guy made a stamping sound but didn't actually stamp anything.  No really, it's not there.
&lt;br&gt;19.  Go through hallways towards passport control, but there is no passport control on this side of the airport because its a domestic flight.  Enter baggage claim and find nice security lady.
&lt;br&gt;20.  Security lady says "Follow me".  Security lady takes Melanie illegally through the departure terminal, to the front of passport control, where she technically *leaves* Vienna, then takes her through a security backdoor into the arrivals terminal and gets her passport stamped again, entering Vienna.  "Wir haben sie getrickt!" (We tricked them!) says the security lady.
&lt;br&gt;21.  Get home, find letter in the mail: "Your visa is ready.  Please come in and bring supporting documents to pick it up"
&lt;br&gt;22.  Go get Visa.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
-The End-&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7421175304539912743?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7421175304539912743/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7421175304539912743' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7421175304539912743'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7421175304539912743'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-get-austrian-student-visa-for-6.html' title='How to get an Austrian student visa for &gt;6 months: Part Two (or Three)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-2995992645321322513</id><published>2008-01-27T09:58:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2008-01-27T11:19:21.275+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Happy Post-Christmas/New Years, Pre-Semester break</title><content type='html'>Well! Hi! Happy near year!
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
It seems that last we left off, there were midgets in Santa outfits, juggling in front of the Chanukiah at Stephansplatz. So! Since then came our trip back to the states + a few weeks at the end of the semester. It begins:
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
CHAPTER THE FIRST: Pre-christmas
&lt;br&gt;Pre-christmas was full of shopping the Christkindlmarkts at Spittelberg and Karlsplatz. Christkindlmarkts, or 'The Christ Baby Angel™ Markets' are big outdoor markets, somewhat resembling a fair, with wooden stalls and stuff, where people sell art and weird food and tibetan singing bowls and all sorts of cool stuff. It's kind of ideal for christmas shopping. To fight the ridiculously biting cold, the austrians have Punch (or Punsch!), which is hot alcoholic sweet spiced apple-y stuff. You can either carry around a mug the whole time and get it refilled, or they will provide you mugs with deposit. A good tradition all around.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
CHAPTER THE SECOND: The Magic of Air India
&lt;br&gt;On our way over here in September, we flew this retarded itinerary involving multiple airlines, dragging hundreds of pounds of luggage through heathrow airport in a mad rush to re-check-in with airline #2, and prettymuch uncanny amounts of stress, time, and crappiness. "Never again!" we said. Well "never again" is a silly thing to say when your roundtrip ticket leaves on Sept. 4th and returns on December 22nd. We flew British Airways to heathrow, were delayed 2 hours since there was thick fog over Heathrow, had our luggage take a good 50 minutes to arrive, and took what was a too-long, 4-hour connection and shrunk it to a panicked ~1 hour of *again*, running through the miles and miles of heathrow airport and trying to check in all over again to our Air India flight. Lame.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Air india is a special airline. I hold it dear in my heart. When you walk onto the plane, you think "Urine? Does it really smell like urine?" and the airplane says "Yes, yes I do.". And by the time you think "I can't believe this plane smells of urine", your nose has adjusted and it smells like nothing at all. And then comes the good part. Noone flies Air India, at least not the London-NYC route. If you dont believe me, you can look at the pictures. The plane is like 10% full. You get *your choice* of row to sleep in. Your row can be next to the left window, the right window, or in the center. I chose a 4-seat middle row to lie down and sleep comfortably for a couple hours. It was awesome. Also, they provide really good indian food, and really weird indian snacks (CHAKLI! and MASALA CHANA! Yum!). Oh yeah, and I went around collecting headsets from the empty seats, and after picking up and testing 6 headsets, I concluded that the only one with a working left speaker was the one that had a RUBBER BAND, bending the wire in such a manner as to fix the short in the line. Also, the call-stewardess buttons on many of the seats have electrical problems, so that every 3 seconds or so, you hear a "BING!" from the call system. You stop hearing it for the most part right away, but every few hours you think "Wait, has that been binging every 3 seconds the WHOLE time??" and you smile. Air India is a special airline.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
CHAPTER THE THIRD: Pennsylvania
&lt;br&gt;I stayed in PA with Chuck and Andrea, Melanie's parents for a couple days before leaving to go back home (Melanie came to LA a week later than I). PA was pretty and snowy, and I had my first Christmas, which was a day early, since I wasn't around for the day of christmas. I have a stocking with my name and a dreidel sewn onto it. This is extremely sweet. (Thank you!). 
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
CHAPTER THE FOURTH: Los Angeles
&lt;br&gt;I went home on a comfy, uneventful Jetblue flight. Home was a nice mix of sushi, family, presents, reading, post-christmas shopping and kitty cats. I cooked a lot, we installed a TV into a wall, I read a lot (His Dark Materials, the trilogy from which The Golden Compass is the first book, is *excellent*. Read it.), we saw some friends, and then it was all over and we went back to cold, but much warmer than it was during Christmas, Vienna.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
CHAPTER THE FIFTH: Vienna
&lt;br&gt;The flight over was a United flight to Heathrow, and an Austrian hopper to Vienna. This was my second United flight as a premier member, and it was similarly awesome. Checking in with bags takes all of 5 minutes, security takes all of 5 minutes, and then you get to get on the plane first and sit in nice, leg-room enhanced seats and feel superior to everyone. Fantastic.  Flight was relatively uneventful, except that big umbrellas are really a pain to travel with (I bought one in the states, since the dollar is now a form of monopoly money.  I would recommend finding some way of fitting an umbrella you wish to transport into your checked luggage.)  I arrived and went straight to rehearsal from the airport, since I didn't have my apartment keys. Less than fantastic. The following week was a jetlagged blur, and we were back in the swing of things. We've finished our history and Russian tests/classes, and now we're in dress rehearsals for our scenes performances coming up this Wednesday and Thursday, and then
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;CHAPTER THE SIXTH: Spain
&lt;br&gt;We're going to Spain! Woota! We found some €20 roundtrip tickets to Barcelona (Ryanair), and because of that, we're spending a whole lot more than that on an 11-day trip to Espain. The last week and a half has been prettymuch filled with itinerary planning and hotel reserving and all of that insanity. We've probably put in about 40-50 hours going through websites and books and such. I think the point of travelling is to get a vacation from the stress of planning a vacation. Anyway, our itinerary looks like this:
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Feb 1: Vienna to Bratislava bus, Bratislava to Girona plane, Girona to Barcelona Bus, Barcelona public transit to hotel. Crash.
&lt;br&gt;Feb 2,3: Barcelona!
&lt;br&gt;Feb 4: Barcelona morning, Afternoon plane to Málaga, Night bus to Seville
&lt;br&gt;Feb 5: Seville on Carnéval! Crazyness, hopefully
&lt;br&gt;Feb 6: Early morning bus to Arcos de la Frontera. Check out city till afternoon, then afternoon bus to Ronda. Stay in Ronda
&lt;br&gt;Feb 7: Ronda during the day, afternoon bus to Nerja (Mediterranian beach! Wish us sun and a heat wave)
&lt;br&gt;Feb 8: Nerja during the day, afternoon bus to Granada
&lt;br&gt;Feb 9: Granada day, tour Alhambra
&lt;br&gt;Feb 10: Early plane to Girona, spend day in Girona
&lt;br&gt;Feb 11: Off to Bratislava/Vienna
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Lodgings have been figured out for about half of the trip.  It's currently raining and gusting violently, so perhaps I'll get to try out my new wind-proof umbrella, if I leave the house today, which is unlikely, since it's Sunday, and everything is closed.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Cheers!&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
(Music notes:  Don Giovanni @ Staatsoper[8-4-2] sucked, Dialogues of the Carmelites @ Theater an der Wien[2-0-0] was great, though that theater's subtitle system somehow convinces you that you really do need glasses, even though you really don't want them, and the next two days, your eyes have trouble focusing because you strained so much to read the damned things, but no, you don't in fact need glasses, your eyes are perfect perfect perfect la la la la)&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
There are kind of a lot of pictures (55 or so), so I'm gonna put up two small albums here, but there are more where those came from on Flickr.  Email me if you have any troubles finding them.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2995992645321322513?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2995992645321322513/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2995992645321322513' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2995992645321322513'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2995992645321322513'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-post-christmasnew-years-pre.html' title='Happy Post-Christmas/New Years, Pre-Semester break'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-2187059320695261883</id><published>2007-12-17T09:34:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2007-12-17T10:37:14.010+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Happy Post-Chanukkah/Pre-Christmas!</title><content type='html'>Good thing for construction being very loud and waking me up and getting me out of bed early early in the morning, or else I'd never post here without prompting!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

grr&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Anyway, last Saturday, Melanie's mom's cousins, Bert and Jessica, came to visit for a week.  We had dinner at our place on Saturday, dinner at erm..Müllerbeisl? something like that on Sunday, and dinner at I dont know where on Thursday.   They were a blast, and I'd love to have them again, but I think they've finished Vienna.  There is no more.  Jessica managed to plan out their trip to the 15 minute mark, which meant that they've done WAY more touristy things in Vienna in their 5 days than we have in our ~4 months + 1 week + 1 week of tourism.  If you have any questions about something in Vienna unrelated to school or landlord/tenant relations, I will be happy to forward it to them.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Vienna rewarded their busy schedule with crappy, rainy weather for most of the week, but it was snowing (finally!) on Thursday morning, and hopefully they got some as a parting gift as they went off to I think Prague.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We had two big performing events this week, a masterclass with pianist Malcolm Martineau on Tuesday and a Christmas benefit concert for kids with down-syndrome on Thursday.  I got sick with a nasty cold/sinus infection on Monday night - awesome.  So no singing for me on Tuesday, and I did a pretty good job of keeping my head above water on Thursday.  Mr. Martineau was great (and he's hopefully coming back a couple times in the next year so I'll get to sing for him sometime it seems).  I think the first thing he said was "You don't need to be together with your pianist or the beat."  He's of the inspiring sort that strives to create something new with every performance, all the time, which is good to hear every once in a while.  After countless hours of lessons and coachings where people tell you how to improve in little, important, but nitpicky ways, it's important to remember that the goal is to take all of those tiny details and forget them, and Mr. Martineau provides a strong voice in that direction.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We went to a crazy Christmas-tree-decorating party at Laurel's house (a friend of Shigemi Matsumoto's).  There was much singing and much too much eating.  We were pressured into singing improvised duets.  If anyone has any suggestions of two duets with piano parts that Melanie can memorize without too much difficulty, it would be of great help to us in situations like these.  I may have picked up my first math student at the party.  Yep, looks like I might start teaching math out here.  Weird.  Apparently parents our here are in rabid search for tutors for their kids, and I, with my extensive teaching experience (help me! I dont know a *thing* about teaching!), am the man for the job.  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I do believe that's all.  Oh yeah, we went to a really great but *ridiculously* cold Bach concert at Karlskirche last night with Katja and Sarah.  They passed out thick blankets.  No really.  Blankets.  Hundreds of them.  We took 6.  People were in fur coats, fut hats, gloves, and covered in thick blankets.  We were not appropriately dressed for the concert, because appropriately dressed would have meant being at home with the heater on, and by all means avoiding that church.  (The church was the same temperature as the outside, where there was ice on the ground.  Not snow, ice!).  Then we went out for spare ribs and a heated indoor space.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We'll be in the states starting this 30-hour-long-Saturday and ending on a 15 hour Tuesday/Wednesday in January (we go back on different days).  My cell will be with me at my old number, 818 633 4223.  Mel's is no more (so call or send text messages if you want me to pass them on to Mel).
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Pictures: (note the midgets in Santa suits juggling in front of the Chanukiah - awesome)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2187059320695261883?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2187059320695261883/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2187059320695261883' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2187059320695261883'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2187059320695261883'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/12/happy-post-chanukkahpre-christmas.html' title='Happy Post-Chanukkah/Pre-Christmas!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2072/2116889001_640900f2e0_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-5880969844806290420</id><published>2007-12-07T22:19:00.001+01:00</published><updated>2007-12-07T22:19:57.280+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Ow, my brain</title><content type='html'>Maybe not on topic for news of Vienna, but ow, my brain:&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/ladle/"&gt;http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/ladle/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;It's Friday, and apparently the crew across the street figured out how to build a building using bombs. &amp;nbsp;Melanie's either figured out how to sleep through wars, or she's faking it. &amp;nbsp;I spent my extra-early morning listening for how people pronounce "R" in a very good recording of Handel's Semele (Sam Ramey, Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne). &amp;nbsp;Apparently, there's just no consensus to formal English whatsoever, even if you only listen to &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;singer.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;From my mornings pleasantries (for those interested?), it seems that Madeleine Marshall's English Diction for Singers has it right most of the time where she would get rid of an R alltogether; words like "mirror", "horror", and "terror" all sound weird when they END with a rolled R (which &amp;nbsp;Horne, who seems to have the best English, [and sometimes Battle, too] does sporatically). &amp;nbsp;So that leaves how one handles an R in between vowels (miRRor, cuRRent), following or proceeding consonant clusters (LingRing, moRtality, gRave, tRemble), and leading (River, Rage). &amp;nbsp;Marilyn Horne does it the best so far, but I gots to listen to a few others before coming up with a grand unified theory of R. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;--Later that day...--&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We went to Melanie's voice teacher's teacher's studio's Klassenabend (Studio recital night). &amp;nbsp;Lots of really great singing. &amp;nbsp;Inspiring to see.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Also, I got my visa today. &amp;nbsp;Here are the remaining steps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;18. &amp;nbsp;Go to central Finanzamt for Gebührungen. &amp;nbsp;Meet nice lady there. &amp;nbsp;She calculates that my Gebührung will be €187,00 or so. &amp;nbsp;Wait, I think, didn't I &lt;i&gt;pay&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;around €187 when I first did my rental contract? &amp;nbsp;Wait, I say, didn't I pay around €187,00 with my rental contract? &amp;nbsp;Why yes, she says, your receipt is right here. &amp;nbsp;Uh, I say, what do I give the people at the 8th district house of burocracy? &amp;nbsp;Why, she says, you give them the paper you have there. &amp;nbsp;But, I say, I &lt;i&gt;did&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;give that to them. &amp;nbsp;Oh, she says, they missed it then; give it to them again. &amp;nbsp;Thanks, I say.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;19. &amp;nbsp;Go to 8th district house of burocracy, find original nice lady. &amp;nbsp;"Hi! &amp;nbsp;I have the stuff you requested! &amp;nbsp;Here's my identification paper" &amp;nbsp;"It's after 10am." "What?" &amp;nbsp;"This paper says you can only give me the papers from 8am to 10am." &amp;nbsp;"What?" &amp;nbsp;"You are here outside of paper-giving hours." &amp;nbsp;"... &amp;nbsp;Well ... &amp;nbsp;I guess ... I'll just go home then ..." "... &amp;nbsp;... well OK you can just give me the papers now. &amp;nbsp;I'll call you when your visa is ready."&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;*Score: Gabe:1, Nice Lady:0 for awesome guilt trip level 5*&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;20. &amp;nbsp;Get call from nice lady: My visa is ready to be picked up! &amp;nbsp;Come in before 12pm&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;21. &amp;nbsp;Today: &amp;nbsp;11:20am - On my way to 8th district house of burocracy!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;11:40am - On my way to school... &amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;11:41am - Shit why am I on my way to school?! I'm gonna be late!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;11:45am - Backtracking on subway&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;11:55am - Running to 8th district house of burocracy&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;11:58am - Run into nice lady's office. &amp;nbsp;Nice lady is on phone. &amp;nbsp;Smile at her, panting.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Can I help you?" says nice lady's mean co-worker?&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*gesticulates wildly at nice lady, panting* "Uh, she..uh..she was my.. uh..."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"What?" says mean lady with look of "What is &lt;i&gt;wrong&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;with you?"&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*goodbye german* "I..uh...confirmation... uh... ... &amp;nbsp;I... visa ... visa pick up?" say I&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"... &amp;nbsp;give me your passport and wait outside." &amp;nbsp;says mean lady.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Sure!" say I&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;	&lt;/span&gt;12:20pm - "MSDfhsdmfmd Wyner fmsdf shdshjffhuy" says the loudspeaker&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*walks into mean lady's office*&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"I didn't call you. &amp;nbsp;You arent supposed to be here. &amp;nbsp;Go to the cashier."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Oh, ok. Thanks"&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*go to cashier. &amp;nbsp;There's a lady who I assume to be mean there*&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Uh.."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"I already have your passport, and just need the €100 fee."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Uh.. I heard... uh... is there some thingy that US...uh...I dont know how you say it, citizens? &amp;nbsp;That people who come from the US dont have €100 fee or something? &amp;nbsp;You know?"&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"... Since Jan 1st, 2006, everyone has to pay the same."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"Oh. &amp;nbsp;Ok."&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;"You can ask questions for free!" She smiles. &amp;nbsp;Yay! It's a nice lady!&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*pay for and receive visa*&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*leave 8th district house of burocracy*&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*realize I left my umbrella there*&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"&gt;		&lt;/span&gt;*go back, find that door is locked (It's after 12pm). &amp;nbsp;Give up on umbrella, go home*&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;--The End (of Part 1)*--&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;*Part 2, entitled "How to get an Austrian Visa if you're Melanie Henley Heyn and have the exact same application and supporting documents as Gabriel Wyner but completely different burocratic requirements for no explainable reason" will be posted as soon as Melanie gets her visa, which will likely (and hopefully) be in about a month from now.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br class="webkit-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-5880969844806290420?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/5880969844806290420/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=5880969844806290420' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5880969844806290420'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5880969844806290420'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/12/ow-my-brain.html' title='Ow, my brain'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-5630277807548810505</id><published>2007-12-05T14:02:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2007-12-13T11:23:49.616+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Nov 17 to Dec 5</title><content type='html'>Happy Chanukkah!&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
Last night, we pulled out our how-to-be-Jewish book, lit our first two candles, and had chinese sweet and sour chicken for dinner.  Hurray!  In the past few weeks, we got to go to a concert by the touring Duquesne University Chamber Singers (And meet the famed Mrs. Jordanoff and Ben Murray, people Melanie knew from PA but I did not), and see the inside of Karlskirche, a really neat, large church that tends to charge admission to see inside.  We sang Happy Birthday to my mother over Skype (Happy Birthday, mom!), and we had a few Thanksgivings and met some of the expat community.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
In Music land, we went to Tiefland at the Volksoper (Not so hot, 0-1-0 Volksoper), L'Elisir D'Amore (traditional staging, funny, great acting, great singing, just great, 7-3-2 Staatsoper), most of the final dress rehearsal to Boris Godunov (Feruccio Furlanetto is pimptacular, and an insanely complicated opera in Russian about Russian history is very difficult to understand without subtitles, but we'll probably see it for real next week, and so it gets a premature good rating, 8-3-2 Staatsoper).  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We saw three concerts at the Musikverein, one including Berg's 7 Early Songs (Good singer, bad together-ness with orchestra, 0-1-0 Musikverein), one with Strauss's 4 Last Songs (Good singer, good orchestra, not alltogether blown away, but still 1-1-0 Musikverein), and one of a weird benefit concert for a Japanese choir where they sang Wiener/Japanese songs with a famous Japanese soprano (weird) and then Beethoven's 9th (good! 2-1-0 Musikverein).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Melanie sang a concert with the students in her studio and did an excellent job, I have an audition today for a baroque opera that goes up November 2008, and I have a masterclass next week with Malcolm Martineau, where I shall sing Schubert's "An Silvia" (woot), and we both have a Christmas benefit concert for kids with Down Syndrome next week (our first paid gig in Wien!).  In school, we're hacking away at getting our scenes staged (6 for Mel, 4 for me), and learning rep for our Lied/Oratorio class.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Last weekend, Meredith came over from Berlin and we had a blast.  We went to a concert, to a couple of cafés, went through a few packs of second-hand cafe smoke, ate foods, had some Christmas punch (Wien is full of little advent markets with hot punch stands everywhere), went to the zoo (Vienna's zoo is *GREAT*.  A+ gold star.  Highly recommended), and generally had a great weekend.  Yay Meredith!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

We're going home (both of them) in 2.5 weeks.  Come say hi!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

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src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-5630277807548810505?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/5630277807548810505/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=5630277807548810505' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5630277807548810505'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5630277807548810505'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/12/nov-17-to-dec-5.html' title='Nov 17 to Dec 5'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2352/2089046418_bcc84ebf65_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-8761354988542762078</id><published>2007-11-18T15:17:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2007-11-18T15:27:59.034+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Sunday!!</title><content type='html'>It's Sunday, our one day of weekend after a long week.  I am now a Qigong master, having stood in place for an hour and a half on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Qigong is much harder than it looks; it looks like a group of people standing still, but you don't see the fact that everyone has been holding their arms up in the air for 45 minutes and their back is in agony and all.  &lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Anyway, we did end up seeing Un Ballo in Maschera and Pique Dame.  The former was pretty mediocre, which unfortunately means really boring.  The thing about the Staatsoper is that when something is bad, it's so bad that it's still entertaining, but when it's just fine, it's just agony standing there for 3 hours (having stood for an hour and a half right beforehand in Qigong didn't help, either).  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I thought Pique Dame was great (Melanie thought it was good, so now we're even on Arabella, where opinions were reversed).  A review can be found &lt;a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&amp;amp;sid=aV3Fch7lEC8A&amp;amp;refer=muse"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.  I agree with it on most points. &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anja_Silja"&gt;Anja Silja&lt;/a&gt; was fucking awesome.  She's 67 now, and the extent to which she can act, both with her voice and with everything else is insanity.   We had horrible standing room places off to the side of the gallery, so we couldn't see stage left, and when she first came onstage, we couldnt see her and I was hooked anyway.  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We had Celeriac Croquettes for breakfast.  They were &lt;i&gt;awesome&lt;/i&gt;.  This would be a good place to talk about Biohof Adamah.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Biohof Adamah is an organic Austrian farm that sells crates of fruit and vegetables.  For €30/week, we get a crate of fruits, vegetables, crazy meats and cheeses delivered to our door on Thursdays.  Its our favorite thing ever.  This week, for example, we got a big head of some sort of lettuce, 2 Kohlrabi (&lt;i&gt;awesome&lt;/i&gt; root vegetables that, to quote Lewis Lawyer, look like Sputnik, unless he was referring to fennel, I dont remember.  Anyway, they taste really good and sweet and make a Puttanesca sauce &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; good), a mess of carrots, a celeriac (celery root, a 1.5 pound weird looking knob), ~8 small onions, a bundle of fresh marjoram, ~8 apples (we get a different type of apple pretty much every week and they're all great [and different!]), ~6 of the best oranges I've ever had, a whole basket of &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medlar"&gt;Medlar&lt;/a&gt;[Which Melanie thinks taste like apple sauce, and I think taste like apricot and glue paste mixed, but can be turned into something resembling lemon curd, says Wikipedia].  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The meat/cheese packet has a big chunk of stinky, swiss-looking stuff, another chunk of different, stinky swiss-looking stuff, some salami-type stuff, and some honey/sunflower(?) flavored ham, I think.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;All this stuff is ridiculously high quality stuff, which makes cooking at home yummy, nutritious, and very diverse, since the ingredients from week to week vary wildly (and the question of "What the hell is THAT and what do I do with it?!" is a fun one to answer every week).  A+ Gold star.  Anyway, celeriac/celery root looks like crazyness, tastes like awesome, and if you cut it up into 2" chunks, boil it for 20 minutes, mash it, mix it with a half cup of milk or cream, a half cup of parmesan, a quarter cup of parsley, some salt and pepper, an egg, and some flour, form it into hamburger patties, refridgerate for an hour, cover it with bread crumbs and brown it with lots of butter, it tastes friggin great.  I also made some stuffed turkey cutlets.  We'll see how those turn out.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;In order, pictures of Medlar, Celeriac and Kohlrabi:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLIxMBDZI/AAAAAAAAABk/ih5upKNLoQs/s1600-h/240px-Medlar_pomes_and_leaves-1.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLIxMBDZI/AAAAAAAAABk/ih5upKNLoQs/s320/240px-Medlar_pomes_and_leaves-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5134186189217140114" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLIxMBDaI/AAAAAAAAABs/3lksljl7Esc/s1600-h/23032250-1.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLIxMBDaI/AAAAAAAAABs/3lksljl7Esc/s320/23032250-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5134186189217140130" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLJhMBDbI/AAAAAAAAAB0/FRncu-drnC0/s1600-h/images.jpeg"&gt;&lt;img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLJhMBDbI/AAAAAAAAAB0/FRncu-drnC0/s320/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5134186202102042034" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-8761354988542762078?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/8761354988542762078/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=8761354988542762078' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8761354988542762078'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8761354988542762078'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/11/sunday.html' title='Sunday!!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/R0BLIxMBDZI/AAAAAAAAABk/ih5upKNLoQs/s72-c/240px-Medlar_pomes_and_leaves-1.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1732504114590003847</id><published>2007-11-15T10:39:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2007-11-15T11:04:43.693+01:00</updated><title type='text'>How to get an Austrian student visa for &gt;6 months:</title><content type='html'>1.  Go to Austrian consulate in Los Angeles.&lt;br&gt;
2.  Leave, since its obviously closed.  It has Austrian hours, so its only open from 9-11:30.  Not on wednesdays or weekends.  Or austrian holidays.  Or US holidays.
&lt;br&gt;3.  Come back, get the forms.
&lt;br&gt;4.  Fill out the forms, get everything in order.
&lt;br&gt;5.  Come back, give to lady.  Lady points out that the Austrian consulate in LA is not equipped to handle &gt;6 month stays, which are no longer "Student Visas", but instead "Student Residence Permits".  She can mail in the forms, but says its no different from just going to austria and doing it there.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
...ok...
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;6.  Go to austria
&lt;br&gt;7.  Collect required items.
&lt;br&gt;8.  Go to 5th district house of burocracy.  They don't know what I'm talking about.
&lt;br&gt;8.5.  Go to US Consulate in Austria.  Get official notarized document saying I swear I have no police record.
&lt;br&gt;9.  Go to central distract house of burocracy.  This guy charges me €3 for the form.  Oh wait, it's not the form, it's the certificate I already have.  Thanks, asshole.  He tells me to go to the house of burocracy in the 11th district.  He has a form that says "closed wednesdays".  I say "Is it closed on wednesdays?" "No" "Are you SURE its not closed on WEDNESDAYS?" "Yes, it's open every day of the week"
&lt;br&gt;10.  Wednesday.  Wake up early to go to House of Burocracy in the 11th district (don't worry, it's 45 minutes away).  "Do you have an appointment?" "No" "Sorry, we're closed on wednesdays, unless you have an appointment" "Can I ask you a question about residence permits?" "No"

&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Let me point out at this point that austrian hours, (which are (sometimes) 8-11:30 on weekdays, closed one or two of those days, open on one of those days a little later into the afternoon) mean that you can only go to one place per day, since by the time you're done there, even if you failed, everywhere else is closed.

&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;11.  Go to 5th district house of burocracy, knowing that I will fail, but going anyway.  They magically know what I'm talking about, and tell me to go to 8th district house of burocracy.  
&lt;br&gt;12.  Go to 8th district house of burocracy (Thursday).  Find the correct form(!)  Take a number.  Leave, go check out E-Pianos, come back in an hour, wait 30 minutes.  Go in when my number is called.  Give my stuff to super nice lady.  She says I need to make a copy of my passport page with the stamp on it.  Okiedokie.  Get change from super mean lady, make copy, come back.  Nice lady says to wait.
&lt;br&gt;13.  Wait for an hour
&lt;br&gt;14.  Name is called, go in, talk to another nice lady who gives me a list of missing documents.  I apparently need a proof of enrollment, a more-current bank statement, and a Vergebührung from my rental contract, which I should get from the Finanzamt.  "What's a finanzamt?" "It's a house of burocracy ('Amthaus')" "Is that the same as my district house of burocracy?" "No." "Do you know where it is?" "No, look in the telephone book")
&lt;br&gt;15.  Failure.  Go to LA for a week.  Get notified I might have problems getting back into Austria.  Get on the plane anyway.  No problems.  Nice.
&lt;br&gt;15.5.  Make money transfer into our Austrian bank.  If you haven't heard, the US dollar is now worse than the canadian dollar.  Our government sucks balls.
&lt;br&gt;16.  Go to district Finanzamt.  "Hi!!  I need a Vergebührung of my Rental contract!" "You're in the wrong place" "What?  This paper from the 8th district house of burocracy says I should go to a Finanzamt" "Yeah, but you need to go to the central Finanzamt for Gebührungen" ")@($*@#$&amp;)($*((!*@()!!!!!!"
&lt;br&gt;17.  Today would be a good day to go the the central Finanzamt for Gebührungen.  They're open in the afternoon on thursdays.  Oh wait, today we're celebrating the sainthood of Leopold the third.  Failure.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1732504114590003847?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1732504114590003847/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1732504114590003847' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1732504114590003847'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1732504114590003847'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-get-austrian-student-visa-for-6.html' title='How to get an Austrian student visa for &gt;6 months:'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-9155146316051888644</id><published>2007-11-15T08:42:00.000+01:00</published><updated>2007-11-15T11:06:07.384+01:00</updated><title type='text'>Not yet a month!</title><content type='html'>Well I &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;almost&lt;/span&gt; let a month go by without updating, but it isn't in fact Nov 19th yet, so I totally win.  Ha.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

So! What's been going on since the last update...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Well I spent a week trying to get my student visa papers submitted before I left to visit LA.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I failed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I got a whole set of weights and a chin-up bar and a big yellow ball, with which I can now do a real home workout routine!  This is more exciting than perhaps it should be, but I'm very much looking forward to not having to drive 45 mins to a gym (and not resorting to silly, makeshift workouts at home, either).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I visited home (in Los Angeles)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I ate a lot of sushi&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Melanie ate a lot of cookies at Katja's house&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Melanie counted my €66 of change (oops)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I made plans to abduct a certain kitty as soon as I can afford to have a kitty (here's hoping that's in the 5-year plan :P )&lt;br&gt;
I packed ~160 lbs of luggage from the storage room at home&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I came back with the United elite status level of Premier Member, which gave me my very own empty check-in terminal, my very own empty security line, my very own bulkhead-3-feet-of-legroom-aisle-seat, and the feeling that I am definitely, totally better than everyone else who is not as elite as I am.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We found an ad for a used E-Piano the day we were planning on going out and buying one retail, saw it and bought it from a really nice australian girl.  ("Na, spricht ihr auch Englisch?" "Ja, wir sind Amerikaner" "Oh, I'm Australian.  Why are we speaking German?")&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We sang a concert (Me - "See the Raging Flames Arise", Mel - "To This We've Come") where all the new opera students sing and are judged by their peers and teachers.  We kicked ass.  I recorded Melanie's Papers aria.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We babysat little Sofia for Katja and hung out, downing a bottle of Sturm (New wine, which tastes much like hard apple cider, except with grapes.  Awesome) after Sofia went to sleep.  Sofia is cute.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
With the help of our new E-Piano, we're practicing up a storm, which (amazingly) helps us both improve and learn our music.  Neat!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The wind blew and blew and blew and completely disrobed our nice yellow tree.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We spent a day of frivolity at Nick Martin's wishes and on his dime.  It was frivolous indeed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
It snowed!  And then I took pictures!  And then it rained.  Its still kind of raining&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I failed AGAIN at getting a student visa.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The construction company operating outside our window realized that snow makes construction hard, and doubled the size of the workforce (and added a huge crane-mounted light that makes it possible to start working earlier and finish later [in weird, eerie light, as in some sort of sci-fi movie]).  Dear God, I hope they're rushing to be done for the winter, because that would make the fact that I was awake at 7 today worthwhile.  So far the ranking of construction operations, from irritating to horribly shitty goes: Sawing, messing around with metal rebar, Jackhammering, whatever else they do that's irritating, **CONCRETE + CONCRETE PUMP TRUCK**, ***&lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;HAMMERING BY HAND ON METAL&lt;/span&gt;***, ****&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;DROPPING ROCKS AND DIRT AND GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE INTO A HUGE METAL BIN BUT MAKING SURE TO HONK THE HORN FIRST SO YOU KNOW ITS COMING THANKS&lt;/span&gt;****.  That last one is thankfully over, but there are 2 more that are enough to get me out of bed, and today is concrete day.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Shows we've seen since last time...Arabella (mostly good!  I would have put it in the draw category, but Melanie liked it sufficiently to tip it into the win category, ummmmm.... Melanie saw Electra (good! crazy!)...I guess that's it.  We've been kind of busy.  Staatsoper is up to 5-3-1.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Today is that most-important holiday, Heiliger Leopold, when Leopold III (1073-1136) was all..saintified and stuff. The nice thing about obscure catholic holidays is that you totally don't need to be in church for them.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

&lt;br&gt;
So, upcoming stuff:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
If we're really good opera students we're gonna go to Un Ballo in Maschera tonight and to Pique Dame on Saturday.  I'm taking a 3-day intro Chi Kong (Qigong) class these next, well, 3 days.  I'm not really going to be dressed for going out to the opera tonight, but we'll see.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Meredith is going to be visiting in a few weeks. Yay!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
We're gonna be figuring out how to do thanksgiving away from home, without the day off. :P&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I'm gonna update my website with performance dates and maybe a german translation, for those of you who don't speak english.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
That's all I got.  Pictures:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-9155146316051888644?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/9155146316051888644/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=9155146316051888644' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/9155146316051888644'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/9155146316051888644'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/11/not-yet-month.html' title='Not yet a month!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2404/2030847315_1267ff928a_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3692724285346513517</id><published>2007-10-19T22:05:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-10-19T22:28:09.287+02:00</updated><title type='text'>New Photos, Update, Etc</title><content type='html'>Hi all!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Below are some pictures from the last few weeks.  Notable events are a couple of dinners at Katja &amp; Gregorio's place, the arrival of our books, Melanie's birthday, a visit from Shawn &amp; Sarah (Our first house-guests!), a few operas [Dead Man Walking (Excellent!), Othello (Great!), Manon Lescaut (Sucked!!  Staatsoper Win-Lose-Draw score is 3-2-1, since Dead Man Walking was at the Theater an der Wien) (Theater an der Wien has a score 1-0-0 for now, and its looking like a really good season, so stay tuned for which operahouse wins this year).  &lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;This weekend we (4) went to Schönbrunn, walked up to the Gloriette there, and went to the Haus der Musik, a funky neato interactive sound museum.    For Melanie's birthday we went to Mörwald, a very very posh restaurant that seeks to be on the cutting edge of Viennese cuisine, and split their 8-course tasting menu, which was, well, very very posh, and very very cutting edge of Viennese cuisine.  My mushrooms were indeed the most pickled mushrooms I have ever encountered.  They actually sent my facial muscles into spasm.  This was painful.  Much fun was had.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
In other news, there's still lots of school, we're doing 5.5 opera scenes each in January (on average), we're preparing probably about 30-40 minutes of Lieder/Oratorio/Chamber Music, and learning our roles of Fiordilielmo (on average) for next May's Così performance.  We're having some lameness with our landlord and loud noises from the heating system at night, but will know more on Monday, and as soon as it's all fixed, I may put the (very exciting, indeed) story up here.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I'm coming back to Los Angeles next Friday to visit the fam for a week, and pick up 150 lbs of luggage or so.  Halfway through the trip I become an elite frequent flier on United for the first time, and get ***special elite priviledges***.  Yay.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
I think that's all.  Post comments, email us, phone us (818) 935 5039, send us letters!


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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3692724285346513517?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3692724285346513517/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3692724285346513517' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3692724285346513517'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3692724285346513517'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-photos-update-etc.html' title='New Photos, Update, Etc'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2016/1621552913_d9d21ba5a4_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-4377944836737305765</id><published>2007-10-05T22:52:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-10-05T22:52:36.791+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Wiener Staatsoper 2-1-1</title><content type='html'>&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RwakFcIvtNI/AAAAAAAAABU/ZZePp0R59so/s1600-h/IMG_4970-756793.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RwakFcIvtNI/AAAAAAAAABU/ZZePp0R59so/s320/IMG_4970-756793.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117958439912322258" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RwakF8IvtOI/AAAAAAAAABc/jjxqcczOtW0/s1600-h/IMG_4968-759095.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RwakF8IvtOI/AAAAAAAAABc/jjxqcczOtW0/s320/IMG_4968-759095.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117958448502256866" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;The score is now 2-1-1, with Tosca being counted as a draw.  The  &lt;br&gt;tenor kind of wasn&amp;#39;t doing too hot, the soprano was really good, and  &lt;br&gt;the only thing we agree on regarding the baritone playing Scarpia is  &lt;br&gt;that he was really, ridiculously, impressively loud - louder than a  &lt;br&gt;huge chorus and string (and horn maybe?) section playing HIS melody  &lt;br&gt;in UNISON.  Nuts.  He also looked like a silly man in a red cape if  &lt;br&gt;you ask me.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#39;re prettymuch in the full swing of things here, which is to say  &lt;br&gt;insanely busy.  Here&amp;#39;s next week:&lt;br&gt;Monday&lt;br&gt;10-11 Opera coaching&lt;br&gt;12-13 Opera coaching 2&lt;br&gt;17-19 Lieder class&lt;p&gt;Tuesday:&lt;br&gt;12:30-14 Opera history&lt;br&gt;14-18 Opera class&lt;p&gt;Wednesday:&lt;br&gt;10:30-12 Dance&lt;br&gt;12-1 German diction coaching&lt;br&gt;2-3 Lied coaching&lt;p&gt;Thursday:&lt;br&gt;11-12 Voice Lesson&lt;br&gt;14-18 Opera class&lt;p&gt;Friday:&lt;br&gt;11-12 Lied coaching x2&lt;p&gt;Saturday (yes, saturday :P)&lt;br&gt;10-13 Opera class&lt;p&gt;See? Busy.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-4377944836737305765?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/4377944836737305765/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=4377944836737305765' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4377944836737305765'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/4377944836737305765'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/10/wiener-staatsoper-2-1-1.html' title='Wiener Staatsoper 2-1-1'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RwakFcIvtNI/AAAAAAAAABU/ZZePp0R59so/s72-c/IMG_4970-756793.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3130144720211977525</id><published>2007-09-27T20:22:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-27T20:22:48.102+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Fun at ¡Salud! Tex-Mex Cantina</title><content type='html'>&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-MIvtKI/AAAAAAAAAA8/xNJu4zHK8xI/s1600-h/IMG_4886-768103.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-MIvtKI/AAAAAAAAAA8/xNJu4zHK8xI/s320/IMG_4886-768103.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114951151056303266" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-cIvtLI/AAAAAAAAABE/UHqAOdzsem4/s1600-h/IMG_4889-769379.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-cIvtLI/AAAAAAAAABE/UHqAOdzsem4/s320/IMG_4889-769379.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114951155351270578" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-sIvtMI/AAAAAAAAABM/3Hf1IdwjxSQ/s1600-h/IMG_4888-770512.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-sIvtMI/AAAAAAAAABM/3Hf1IdwjxSQ/s320/IMG_4888-770512.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114951159646237890" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;We went to a &amp;quot;Mexican&amp;quot; restaurant, which is apparently Viennese for  &lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;Salty&amp;quot;.  Can you spot the comical errors/interesting facts featured  &lt;br&gt;in the menu?&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3130144720211977525?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3130144720211977525/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3130144720211977525' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3130144720211977525'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3130144720211977525'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/fun-at-salud-tex-mex-cantina.html' title='Fun at ¡Salud! Tex-Mex Cantina'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Rvv0-MIvtKI/AAAAAAAAAA8/xNJu4zHK8xI/s72-c/IMG_4886-768103.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-5229740424022316123</id><published>2007-09-20T19:11:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-20T19:11:34.173+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Vienna Staatsoper WLT: 2-1-0</title><content type='html'>The score for the Vienna Staatsoper is currently 2 wins, 1 loss and 0 ties.  The WLT scores will be tabulated for every show we see here.&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;SPAN class="Apple-style-span"&gt;We saw I Puritani last night.  We got really good student seats (4th row orchestra).  We think it was the most stereotypical opera we've ever seen.  The tenor was nasally, the coloratura couldnt hit the high notes (neither could the tenor, actually), the baritone stood and gestured with one hand until he was done with that hand and switched to the other, there was one good asian bass.  &lt;/SPAN&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;SPAN class="Apple-style-span"&gt;The lighting was terrible...once someone sang a whole section of an aria in pitch black because they accidentally put the spotlight on the guy to the left of him.  If you can imagine fake-play-acting a swordfight, such that you're PRETENDING to ACT OUT a swordfight, you have some idea what the swordfight between the tenor and the baritone was like, except the one in the opera was in slow motion.  For whatever reason, everyone (This is an opera about the Puritans and George Cromwell) was dressed as Samurai.  &lt;/SPAN&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;DIV&gt;&lt;SPAN class="Apple-style-span"&gt;But aside from being just bad, it was totally weird.  The coloratura, after kind of failing to sing her first act aria, got so much applause that she broke character, walked forward and bowed.  Three times.  This happened in the second act as well.  The audience went &lt;I&gt;nuts&lt;/I&gt;.  We eventually got an explanation, which makes the story less entertaining, so you'll have to ask us personally if you want it.  Anyway, it was nuts.  Vienna Staatsoper score is set at 2-1-0.&lt;/SPAN&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;/DIV&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-5229740424022316123?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/5229740424022316123/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=5229740424022316123' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5229740424022316123'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/5229740424022316123'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/vienna-staatsoper-wlt-2-1-0.html' title='Vienna Staatsoper WLT: 2-1-0'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3985796731016586155</id><published>2007-09-16T23:17:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-16T23:18:11.897+02:00</updated><title type='text'>IMG_4780.JPG</title><content type='html'>&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Ru2dlJHrnGI/AAAAAAAAAA0/9SIEHnMQxNE/s1600-h/IMG_4780-791899.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Ru2dlJHrnGI/AAAAAAAAAA0/9SIEHnMQxNE/s320/IMG_4780-791899.jpg"  border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110914413564238946" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;We saw Werther tonight in the 6th row, orchestra for €12 each  &lt;br&gt;(Student tickets = awesome).  Here&amp;#39;s one of my photos:&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3985796731016586155?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3985796731016586155/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3985796731016586155' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3985796731016586155'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3985796731016586155'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/img4780jpg.html' title='IMG_4780.JPG'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/Ru2dlJHrnGI/AAAAAAAAAA0/9SIEHnMQxNE/s72-c/IMG_4780-791899.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-6429157209493210196</id><published>2007-09-13T17:39:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-13T21:08:24.629+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Various! (Vienna, Week 1)</title><content type='html'>Some photos of various happenings during our first week.  &lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
Stuff we've accomplished:&lt;br&gt;
-Saw the pope&lt;br&gt;
-Went to Shabbat &amp; Rosh Hashana Services (AND saw the pope!)&lt;br&gt;
-Bought furniture&lt;br&gt;
-Bought ficus, carried it through town in the rain and the wind&lt;br&gt;
-Bought and then killed Basil plant&lt;br&gt;
-Enrolled in school&lt;br&gt;
-Dined with folks from school&lt;br&gt;
-Failed to get health insurance&lt;br&gt;
-Got special enrolled-student confirmation papers&lt;br&gt;
-Succeeded in applying for health insurance&lt;br&gt;
-Got special enrolled-student under the age of 26 ID badge (Gabe only, alas)&lt;br&gt;
-Got semester-long cheapie subway pass with above ID badge&lt;br&gt;
-Got our laminated floors redone, got bedroom wood floor refinished, got water damage on walls repainted&lt;br&gt;
-Got our ATM pin numbers&lt;br&gt;
-Found out our debit cards have a $0 limit, and are just ATM cards&lt;br&gt;
-Bought the best baklava we've had at the Naschmarkt outdoor market&lt;br&gt;
-Cooked various things&lt;br&gt;
-Got Skype &amp; iChat more or less working&lt;br&gt;
-Saw Simon Boccanegra at the Staatsoper for €3.50 each (Standing room).  Fantastic.  (And totally worth standing for 3 hours, weirdly!)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-6429157209493210196?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/6429157209493210196/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=6429157209493210196' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6429157209493210196'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6429157209493210196'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/various-vienna-week-1.html' title='Various! (Vienna, Week 1)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1083/1372859836_6e64c79c13_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-758218090478984646</id><published>2007-09-13T17:12:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-13T17:13:53.267+02:00</updated><title type='text'>A Tour of our Apartment! (Week 1)</title><content type='html'>We bought furniture from an *awesome* second-hand furniture/clothes/everything place down the street, so now we're almost set up the way we like!  Explanations are in the photos.

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(Week 1)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1010/1371653171_051217381e_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7390946298618180913</id><published>2007-09-10T08:43:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T09:00:30.490+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Hurrah! Posts!! (Contact info, etc)</title><content type='html'>Hi everyone!  I've finally put up the pictures from Pennsylvania (With a few pics on the Los Angeles and the Vienna sides of PA).  We're doing pretty well getting used to everything out here, and are planning on going out to get some big pieces of furniture today (2nd hand furniture shop + IKEA).  Classes start in a week or so, giving us another week to get situated and do paperwork (and maybe some touristy things).  
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Contact info: &lt;br&gt;
We've ironed out most of the bugs we were having with Skype, so if you'd like to reach us, call (818) 935 5039 (Studio City local) or (917) 720-6203 (New York Local).  That should reach our voicemail (or if we're online at the time, it'll ring us and we can pick up).  If you want to check and see if we're online, we're using both Skype (user name sirionn) and AIM/iChat (usernames sirionn and operasiren).  To get a Skype client, go to http://www.skype.com, register, download the client, log in and add sirionn as a friend.  If you have a mac, you already have iChat, so open that and add sirionn and operasiren to your buddy list and we can talk or videoconference for free (with better quality than Skype).  We can also videoconference via Skype, but haven't tried that yet.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
If you need to reach us ASAP, our local cell phone is +43 676 390 5638  (I think the +43 corresponds to 011 43 when calling from the US)
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Our mailing address is &lt;br&gt;
Kohlgasse 44/22&lt;br&gt;
A-1050 Wien&lt;br&gt;
Austria&lt;br&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7390946298618180913?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7390946298618180913/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7390946298618180913' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7390946298618180913'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7390946298618180913'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/hurrah-posts-contact-info-etc.html' title='Hurrah! Posts!! (Contact info, etc)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-3910673999902052940</id><published>2007-09-10T08:39:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T09:58:13.136+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Sunday to Monday (PA - NYC - LHR - VIE)</title><content type='html'>Sunday: Breakfast with Alice, Brette, Paul, Rachel, Cathy &amp; Pete &amp; Andrea, re-packing, Monday: Off to NYC.  Went to Museum of Modern Art &amp; then Airport (Air India -&gt; LHR, British Airways -&gt; VIE).  Tuesday: Still in the air, then to train, then to elevator up to apartment...
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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-3910673999902052940?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/3910673999902052940/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=3910673999902052940' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3910673999902052940'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/3910673999902052940'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunday-to-monday-pa-nyc-lhr-vie.html' title='Sunday to Monday (PA - NYC - LHR - VIE)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1211/1353340783_7952825708_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-8377866351368468857</id><published>2007-09-10T08:37:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:39:12.078+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Thursday Night - Saturday Night in PA</title><content type='html'>Thursday Night: Recital + Party at Andreas (avec Kelley &amp; Karen!)
Friday &amp; Saturday: Went up to Journey's End Camp for Folk Song Weekend.  Sang songs, milked cows, watched a dog play tetherball.

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&lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-8377866351368468857?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/8377866351368468857/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=8377866351368468857' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8377866351368468857'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8377866351368468857'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/thursday-night-saturday-night-in-pa.html' title='Thursday Night - Saturday Night in PA'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1152/1354202500_f1f70f8909_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-2980236142797283094</id><published>2007-09-10T08:10:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:18:28.963+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Sunday to Thursday Afternoon in PA</title><content type='html'>Sunday: Back to NYC for rehearsal, Monday: Skinner's Falls again, Tuesday: Took photos of Andrea's recipe box &amp; not much else, Wednesday: Carmela (our accompanist) comes in to stay the night, Thursday Day: Went to Narrowsburg &amp; rehearsed at the theater &lt;br&gt;&lt;style&gt;
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&lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-2980236142797283094?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/2980236142797283094/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=2980236142797283094' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2980236142797283094'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/2980236142797283094'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunday-to-thursday-afternoon-in-pa.html' title='Sunday to Thursday Afternoon in PA'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1349/1351520129_1da69cd270_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-8364631468301149078</id><published>2007-09-10T08:05:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:19:29.711+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Friday and Saturday in PA</title><content type='html'>Friday: Skinner's Falls &amp; Surrounding area, Saturday: Lynn's Funeral + Wing-Ding, Dinner at Marilyn &amp; Jerry's
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 &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-8364631468301149078?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/8364631468301149078/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=8364631468301149078' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8364631468301149078'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/8364631468301149078'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/friday-and-saturday-in-pa.html' title='Friday and Saturday in PA'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1277/1351455251_8ba07523f7_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-6543526627411557783</id><published>2007-09-10T08:02:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:20:07.270+02:00</updated><title type='text'>PA back to NYC (Tuesday Night through Thursday Night)</title><content type='html'>We spent the night in PA and then spent the whole day doing nothing at all, then went back to the city for rehearsal the next day.&lt;br&gt;&lt;style&gt;
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&lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-6543526627411557783?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/6543526627411557783/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=6543526627411557783' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6543526627411557783'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/6543526627411557783'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/pa-back-to-nyc-tuesday-night-through.html' title='PA back to NYC (Tuesday Night through Thursday Night)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1274/1352285868_c6fa1476f5_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-879031232561809630</id><published>2007-09-10T07:59:00.000+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:20:34.224+02:00</updated><title type='text'>LAX to SFO to JFK to Melanie's House (Tuesday 5am to 11pm)</title><content type='html'>We took a snazzy Virgin America flight LAX-SFO-JFK.  Picked up by Andrea, got Turkish desserts, picked up Meredith, drove to PA.&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-879031232561809630?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/879031232561809630/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=879031232561809630' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/879031232561809630'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/879031232561809630'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/lax-to-sfo-to-jfk-to-melanies-house.html' title='LAX to SFO to JFK to Melanie&apos;s House (Tuesday 5am to 11pm)'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1370/1351356719_cced05af89_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-445642436584005176</id><published>2007-09-10T07:50:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T08:22:30.802+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Moving Out</title><content type='html'>"Moving out" went from Saturday morning after our recital until 4:15am on Tuesday morning, at which point we took a shower and left for LAX at 4:30am.  The amount of stuff packed away was insane.  Thanks to Dad &amp; Josh for helping.
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&lt;/style&gt;   &lt;div class="Album"&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumHeader"&gt;&lt;h4&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;div class="AlbumPhoto"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/1351334027" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1344/1351334027_fc1a55355f_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/1351334525" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1198/1351334525_281e4392da_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/1351335031" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1375/1351335031_4986ffe97b_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/1351335647" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/1351335647_aaff6b963c_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90459870@N00/1351336181" target="_blank" class="flickrImage"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1284/1351336181_17a05db484_s.jpg&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br clear=all&gt; &lt;p align="right"&gt;&lt;font style="font-size:10px;color:#AABBCC;"&gt;Generated by &lt;a href="http://webdev.yuan.cc/famaker.php" target="_blank" style="color:#AABBCC;text-decoration: underline;"&gt;Flickr Album Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-445642436584005176?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/445642436584005176/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=445642436584005176' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/445642436584005176'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/445642436584005176'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/09/moving-out.html' title='Moving Out'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1344/1351334027_fc1a55355f_t.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-1027365055799367908</id><published>2007-08-10T03:32:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-09-10T07:33:00.959+02:00</updated><title type='text'>Our Apartment on Kohlgasse!</title><content type='html'>&lt;center&gt;&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;Here are some pictures (courtesy of the wonderful Bryan Rothfuss) of our place on Kohlgasse:&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJuF6z0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/3WcOJkl7SUM/s1600-h/DSCN2357_1-742011.jpg"&gt;
&lt;img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJuF6z0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/3WcOJkl7SUM/s320/DSCN2357_1-742011.jpg" width="320"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;Kohlgasse is a nice quiet street with a huge construction project going on across from our Apartment (you can see the cranes on the left).  Once its done, it'll be a nice quiet street without a huge construction project going on.
&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJ-F6z1I/AAAAAAAAAAU/irPusj4E4GA/s1600-h/DSCN2358_1-743312.jpg"&gt;
&lt;img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJ-F6z1I/AAAAAAAAAAU/irPusj4E4GA/s320/DSCN2358_1-743312.jpg" width="320"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
It's a relatively new building, with big ol' windows
&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJ-F6z2I/AAAAAAAAAAc/op-SsZlzi3A/s1600-h/DSCN2342_1-743773.jpg"&gt;
&lt;img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJ-F6z2I/AAAAAAAAAAc/op-SsZlzi3A/s320/DSCN2342_1-743773.jpg" width="320"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
The Bedroom is small &amp; cozy, with 2 of the big ol' windows
&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAKOF6z3I/AAAAAAAAAAk/2YSvQJjZfng/s1600-h/DSCN2338_1-744332.jpg"&gt;
&lt;img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAKOF6z3I/AAAAAAAAAAk/2YSvQJjZfng/s320/DSCN2338_1-744332.jpg" width="320"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
The living room is pretty big, with 3 BOWs.  The funky light on the ceiling is ours (the others were taken by the previous tenant)
&lt;p class="mobile-photo"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAKOF6z4I/AAAAAAAAAAs/oBbbYki_JK4/s1600-h/DSCN2340_1-744670.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAKOF6z4I/AAAAAAAAAAs/oBbbYki_JK4/s320/DSCN2340_1-744670.jpg" width="320"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;Lil' stove &amp; oven, part of our lil' kitchenette.
&lt;/center&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-1027365055799367908?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/1027365055799367908/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=1027365055799367908' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1027365055799367908'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/1027365055799367908'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/08/test.html' title='Our Apartment on Kohlgasse!'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gc2kGzEg-Dw/RrvAJuF6z0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/3WcOJkl7SUM/s72-c/DSCN2357_1-742011.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894171789890061404.post-7778297240237211673</id><published>2007-07-30T21:36:00.001+02:00</published><updated>2007-07-30T21:40:29.070+02:00</updated><title type='text'>First Post</title><content type='html'>Hi everyone!  We're going to be keeping some sort of blog-type thing up with pictures and stuffs.  For now, it's just an empty blog, but shortly we'll upload pictures of our apartment.

Hurrah!


Assorted infos:
We're leaving for the east coast on Aug. 21st, and to Vienna on Sept. 4th
We have a benefit recital on Aug. 18th in LA, and another one, probably on Aug. 30th in Pennsylvania&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/894171789890061404-7778297240237211673?l=gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/feeds/7778297240237211673/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=894171789890061404&amp;postID=7778297240237211673' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7778297240237211673'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/894171789890061404/posts/default/7778297240237211673'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gabeandmelanie.blogspot.com/2007/07/first-post.html' title='First Post'/><author><name>Gabe &amp;amp; Melanie</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076254386530463810</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry></feed>
