Happy Post-Chanukkah/Pre-Christmas!

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!


grr


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Pictures: (note the midgets in Santa suits juggling in front of the Chanukiah - awesome)

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