Blase

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.

The Time of Visitation

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&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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

Insanity.

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From Kirchschlager to Jewish

Last we left off, Michael and Alexis had just visited, and we were about to go through the Time of Great Busyness.

So!

Let the time of great Busyness commence!

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.

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.

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 :)

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. :(

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.

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.

And just like that, Melanie is Jewish. Shazzam.

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