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.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
From Kirchschlager to Jewish
Friday, May 2, 2008
Musings
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 & stands & moves & adapts. It's been a lot of fun, and while it's a work in progress, it's been coming along pretty well!
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.
That's alls I got for now. Have a good day -Gabe
Ok ok ok ok ok
Starting way back in March...
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 & 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.
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!
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 don't even need a jacket! I wear one anyways, because that's just too weird.
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).
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 & Kenneth, Chuck & Andrea, & 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
And there's your post. I hope you liked it.
Oh yeah, pictures (click on them to go to Flickr and see the rest of them):
