Amazingly, this morning we overslept. Up until this point, Cameron has woken up exactly at 6:30 which is the time I have my alarm set to. This morning, however, Cameron woke up ten minutes early. We both stayed in bed for a little while, waiting for the eventual alarm, but accidentally fell asleep and overslept by half an hour, eventually waking up at around 7:00 (meaning we weren't the first ones down for breakfast, alas...). Breakfast was as usual, including the marionette show and Austria's equivalent of Barney (this morning's episode was a sing along about “Cowboy Joe”). When we were leaving the hotel it turned out that a cellist, Alex Mansour, was missing. Although he was accidentally left at the hotel, he ended up being able to get a taxi to the rehearsal hall and everything worked out fine. We had another full morning of two practice hours and an hour of coaching with Mr. Jun, all of which were very productive.
After the morning activities, we had the choice of visiting Salzburgian Salt Mines, going on a tour of the Mozarteum, or just hanging out around the Musikum. My trio, another trio, and the respective parents decided to hang out, walk around the city, and shop. The first business of the afternoon, however, was lunch. We found a cute little cafe close by and ordered our drinks and food. While an explanation would be lengthy, suffice it to say that I spilled my tall glass of orange juice all over Alan (the cellist of the other trio), which knocked over a glass of water and a soda. The chaos was hilarious! We were able to clean up the mess, and the management was very understanding. Later, after a few people had gotten their food, Ashlyn (a violinist) was courteously waiting to eat until the rest of us had gotten our food as well. While she was waiting, the waitress walked by and, seeing that Ashlyn had barely touched her plate, thought that she didn't like the food. The final laugh of lunch involved the cheese grater, which Weston (my pianist) used up almost immediately after we had gotten it, prompting him to ask for a refill. The waitress reluctantly agreed. Alan's summary of the lunch experience, from the eyes of the waitress was, “Those stupid Americans. They spill our juice, don't eat their food, and waste all our cheese.”
After lunch, our ragtag band wandered the streets and checked out various shops in the nearby area. We visited a bakery where I bought a cinnamon roll for Alan in apology, a grocery store, a candy shop, a toy store, and a dollar store. We also found a random refrigerator in the street. We returned to the Musikum to get picked up for our dress rehearsal, where I wrote the majority of this post. The bus showed up and took us all off the Mozarteum for our dress rehearsal. The rehearsal went well and many of the groups were astounding. After the rehearsal, we loaded up the bus again and headed to dinner. Erkin, our bus driver, demonstrated his driving prowess when he pulled us through a road barely wider than the bus itself, as evidenced by branches scraping against both sides of the bus. We reached the restaurant, pulled out our cellos for Bachianas, and ate another delicious meal. Quite amusingly, we had chicken and very American french fries. In addition to some people sticking their fingers in the candle fire, our table played some more of the Idiot Game. Although we had to skip desert, our cello ensemble was able to pull off a pretty decent Bachianas, especially considering we'd looked at it together for a total of two hours prior. After the evening festivities concluded, we returned back to our Meininger Hotel, where I am currently finishing up this blog post. Hope you're all doing well in the States!
-Philip
