There and Back Again

     Jet lag really isn't a pleasant thing. Right now I'm trying to type up this final blog post, but keep falling off into quasi-sleep. As one wise scholar once said, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” Bummer, guess that means I gonna be pretty poor by the end of today, cause I'm sure having a hard time staying awake. Although I could have ended the blog with last night's post, I thought today's events had enough in them to merit another final post. Staying up till 2 AM wasn't too hard. Some pool, YouTube, singing, and packing helped the time zip by until the bus arrived. At that point, my roommates and I bid farewell to our beloved room and left the Meininger Hotel. After loading all the luggage and taking a final roll call, the bus departed for the two hour drive back to Munich. The bus got really quiet really fast, for obvious reasons. For the light sleepers or especially energetic, however, we got to retrace our steps through the Austrian and German countryside. Even though we had only traveled that way once or twice before, at least for me, the drive was almost a nostalgic experience, knowing that we were leaving for good.

     We reached to airport a little after 4 AM and proceeded to pass through all the usual airport business. For better or for worse, I got a little bit of extra spice in my airport experience thanks to my cello. I knew going in that I would probably have to pay a 100 Euro fee to check my cello because it's an extra bag and bulky. Upon reaching the check-in point for extra luggage, however, I was informed by another attendant that the previous numbers were incorrect and that the charge was actually 300 Euros. *cue audible gulp* After speaking with her superiors, she confirmed that the charge was indeed triple what I was expecting, but, because I had already been told that the charge was only 100, she kept the price at the lower level. This was especially beneficial, seeing as I only had 150 Euros on me and didn't exactly plan on leaving my cello in Europe. After dealing with the instrument, pretty much everything else went smoothly. A few of us hung out at a fish restaurant, listening to stories of stolen golf carts and why one should not overeat at Guppy House. Thoroughly exhausted, the already short one-hour flight sped by all the quicker with the help of some much desired sleep.

     We jumped off at Frankfurt and walked to what seemed like the other end of the airport to catch our second flight to LAX. The 747 we were taking back home was not only a good plane, but actually an improvement over the previous flight to Austria. The TV's were more advanced, the seats were better designed, and the head cushion didn't feel like it was going to snap off. The flight flashed by, whether that was due to a few movies to pass the time or some sleep I have no idea, but before I knew it, we had landed in sunny California. The final, bittersweet ending that comes with all such trips had finally arrived. We made our way through the terminal, through customs, and through the baggage claim before saying our last goodbyes and walking to the curb where our adventure began.

     Returning home after a trip is a weird feeling. I'm happy to be home and back with my family, but walking around and expecting to see people you know you won't see, not hearing stupid things from Cameron each night when he was exhausted, not eating the same thing for breakfast each day, and not playing Rat Slap with vicious opponents (Ethan, I'm looking at you) kind of pulls the saturation out of normal life for a little bit. Thank God for Facebook. For those of you reading, this is really the last post of the trip. Thanks again for sticking with me, may you find adventures in the little (and the big) things of life.

-Philip

P.S. I'll be re-uploading all the photos from this trip to Facebook, hopefully those links will work better. I'll also be adding annotations to each one explaining what was happening since my constant picture taking was probably more comprehensive than my faltering memory when blogging. I'll add a link to this post when they are uploaded.

Pictures from Day 1: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101645123304334.839.100003765390828&type=3&l=f622b97603


Pictures from Day 2: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101689966633183.863.100003765390828&type=3&l=9e48b3e3ca

Omega

Austria: Day 7

     It's a rather amazing phenomena, seeing people who have never seen or heard of each other before becoming steadfast friends and inseparable companions. As amazing as it is, though, I'm watching a prime example of such a phenomena in front of me right now. About ten kids, who all came from different cities, from different schools from different backgrounds, but after a week of living, eating, and performing together, we've become a tight group. The dynamic friendships that I've seen on this trip are about as strong of the range of dynamics in the pieces that we've been playing. The people I've met this week will hopefully be friends for life. Enough of this wishy-washy talk of abstract ideas, on to today's events. As I wrote last night, we had a brutal 7:15 bus call this morning to go to the castle Neuschwanstein. It turned out, though, that a good chunk of the group, probably about twenty people, decided not to go because they wanted to buy souvenirs or just spend some extra time sleeping in. For those of us who were in adventurous moods, however, got up early and loaded onto the bus. It's a three hour bus ride out to the castle, so we entertained ourselves with some more Idiot Game (we got Cameron beatboxing to help keep time), One Word Stories, and other random stuff, as usual. About half an hour from our destination, we stopped at a small market and picked up some food to hold us over until lunch. Some Pringles, sodas, and chocolate named after chamber pieces (seriously, the chocolate was called “Cafe Musica” and the piece played was called “Cafe Music”).

     We reached the bus parking lot without incident and, to help save some time, took a separate bus up the winding mountain road to the the bridge overlooking the castle. Stunningly, a very small group of people decided to hike up the mountain and, even more shockingly, made it up the the bridge before we bus folk did. The view from the bridge was absolutely stunning, if not a little rickety and extremely windy. Oh, and it was freezing cold. After taking some phots at the bridge, we hiked down to the castle itself and got in line for the guided tour. The castle, which was another mansion built by King Ludwig II (same guy who built the mansion we saw on Tuesday), was not quite as extravagant as the previous mansion, though, in my opinion, the architecture was more beautiful and detailed. We got the climb legit spiral staircases, like, full on castle turrets. In addition, we saw a two-thousand pound chandelier and a two-million piece mosaic floor. The early morning was, in all of our opinions, definitely worth the experience of visiting the “Disneyland” castle. Instead of taking a bus down the mountain, the group was set to hike down the mountain road. However, my usual groupies and I decided to tag along with the group who hiked up the the bridge in record time. In addition to using their shortcut, some of us youngins ran down the hill, allowing us to make it down in about five minutes (for comparison, the guide said it would take around half an hour). After waiting for the rest of our clan to catch up, we snagged lunch at a nearby restaurant that was serving German standards, including bratwurst, schnitzel, and chicken. Following lunch, we went back to the bus for the trek home. More Rat Slap, some Go Fish, and Mao made the bus ride back go by in a flash. We got back to the hotel where we had about forty minutes before the bus for dinner left. In that time, Cameron and Ben successfully threw six strawberries, a mini baguette, and a tablet of Airborne out our window and, in one case, nearly hitting a car.

     When our time was up, we loaded up the bus and left again for our final dinner in Austria. The restaurant was similar to many of our previous meals, but with one key difference: we had live musicians and folk dancers performing for, and with, us. Although the music at the beginning was a little loud and seemed only to obstruct conversation, the dancing later in the evening was really fun and entertaining. We even got Weston (my pianist) up front for a few numbers. While we were eating, Professor Joon Sung Jun, a cello coach who came on the trip, gave us dating advice using bread rolls to illustrate his points. It was very amusing. With our final dinner concluded, we loaded (yet again) onto the bus for our final return to the Meininger Hotel. Now we're here, waiting until 2 AM for our bus ride to the airport. This trip has been one of epic proportions in all aspects. Thanks for any and all readers of this blog. I hope its been entertaining, enlightening, and maybe even slightly educational. I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to post more, so, if not, hope to see you all soon. Off to the next adventure.

-Philip

Cloudy with a Chance of Strawberries

4/13/12

     Wow, what a day. Looking back on it all, I'm actually impressed at how much all of us accomplished in such a short time, both as musicians and tourists. All the groups have improved so much and, though we're barely scratching the surface of another culture, it sure seems like we've seen a lot in our time here. After our leisure time at the hotel, some of us changed into our concert clothes (the others changed when we got to the concert hall) and we all loaded up again onto the bus. At the concert hall groups started a final dress rehearsal. While others were rehearsing, the rest of us practiced or played random stuff in the lobby for a while. After about half an hour of such activity, a few of us got together and started improvising on various chord progressions. It worked really well, and we quickly had a captive audience surrounding us.

     When all our time was up, those of us who were playing in the second half moved to the back of the hall to watch. The recital hall was almost entirely sold out and proved to be an excellent audience for all the groups. The concert was phenomenal and very well received by all. At the end of the concert, we performers all received certificates signed by the Mayor of Salzburg in appreciation for putting on the concert (it was a benefit concert, with half the proceeds going to a school for mentally handicapped children).

    With the concert concluded, the massive adrenaline rush that was keeping us all alive started to lose it potency. Because it was only a few blocks away, we walked to the restaurant where we would be eating. Once there, it turned out that there weren't enough seats to accommodate our eighty-person group. About ten of us had to occupy tables normally reserved for patrons of the bar which, unfortunately, was also closer CAMERON CAMERON CAMERON CAMERON CAMERON to the smoky interior of the bar. In addition to our clothes gradually taking on a smoky scent, our little table-in-the-wall was practically forgotten. We didn't even get drinks for about twenty-five minutes, and that only happened after we flagged down a waitress and requested it. As if that wasn't bad enough, they only brought us three drinks and water pitcher instead of four drinks and a water pitcher. Because of this, Alec drank straight out of the water pitcher. The food itself was actually kind of strange, we had a bland vegetable strudel with boiled potatoes and a chicken-base soup. Dessert appeared to be something like a lemon meringue square, but also had a slice of apple to somewhat redeem its dry, crumbly, and flavorless taste.

     The whole group was exhausted at dinner (never mind that it was almost midnight) and people were falling asleep in their seats. Finally, we boarded the bus to take us back to our beloved hotel. Upon returning, everyone marched up to their rooms and, aside from Cameron, fell asleep. Cameron was busying himself chucking a strawberry our the window. In a hilarious fashion (as is so suitably Cameron), his strawberry hit a light pole, splitting apart and showering the ground below with strawberry bits. A random woman was walking by and, seeing the strawberries, looked up confusedly towards the open window. After the commotion settled down, we finally got into bed and prepared ourselves for the dreaded 7:15 bus call the next morning. Hope you're all sleeping well in America, cause we sure will be tonight.

-Sheephead

Golden Arches

      Here we are, already on our penultimate day in Europe. Although the days all feel lengthy and exhausting, the trip has gone by in a flash. Our busy itinerary has kept us up into late hours, so all of us are gradually getting more tired. This morning, we overslept again, getting down to breakfast at (gasp!) 7:30. Right before we left for morning's rehearsal, Cameron demonstrated his unique and hilarious ingenuity when he accidentally threw a euro coin out our open window. If you remember the scene from Pixar's “Up” where Russell throws his Wilderness Explorer GPS out the window, it happened exactly like that. So funny!

     For our rehearsal, both my trio and the Shostakovich trio were banished to the the Hostelek (a piano shop?) because the faculty thought we didn't need another coaching (so the coaches could work with some other groups), which we took to be quite high praise. Since we didn't have a coach, our trios decided to play for each other and give some comments. It was really fun and very helpful. After our rehearsal time was over, we hung out with the other trio, waiting the the bus to show up. The bus, however, ended up being twenty minutes late, so we just played on the pianos (and a harpsichord!) for a while to pass the time. After getting picked up, we played Egyptian Rat Slap (the official card game for classical musicians) until we reached the drop-off point for lunch.

     A few of us adventurous folks had a craving to try Austrian McDonald's, so we found the magical golden arches and ventured inside. The restaurant was packed with people, so Ashlyn and I run upstairs to snag a table in the kiddy section. While waiting for the food, Alec Hon (brother of Allan, and also a cellist) made a chair out of giant Lego-like blocks for himself. The food itself was actually quite good. But then again, I haven't been to an American McDonald's in a while, so I don't really have a good reference to compare it to. Regardless, the meal fulfilled its purpose and made all of us quite happy. We stopped in a few nearby shops before heading back to the bus and saw a few interesting places, such as “Red Bull World” and “Scholosserei Bieber”. In addition, we passed by a few groups of street musicians who actually were quite decent. The bus (and another epic game of Rat Slap) took us back to the hotel, where we are now. Tonight's concert is coming up fast and everyone is excited to perform. We'll be leaving for our final sound check in about half an hour.

-Philip

https://picasaweb.google.com/109511667393649244721/Austria41212

Americans

4/12/2012

    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

Mansions, Jets, and Picnics

4/10/12

     This morning was much more enjoyable than yesterday. Not only did we three all wake up at a reasonable 6 AM, but I discovered an awesome dark chocolate and oatmeal mix that tasted amazing and kept breakfast feeling fresh. We got our first taste of the Mozarteum this morning with a few hours of practice and a masterclass. Our masterclass teacher, Professor Kern, who was intelligent, funny, and understandable. All three groups that played were fantastic, though a loud air humidifier turned on during the last group's lesson, providing a consistently annoying ambiance. As soon as the masterclasses ended, it was a mad rush to change into casual clothes and get to the bus. All the faculty was worried because we had a scheduled boat ride that would leave without us if we were late. Fortunately, everyone was able to get changed and get some food from chaperones and parents. We zipped along the highway to a large sea where our boat was still waiting. The large, motorized boat took us to one of several islands where, once we arrived, we took a small hike up to the third mansion of King Ludwig II. As we came to the central walkway leading up to the palace, two military-grade jets flew literally right over us; pretty epic stuff. Absurdly extravagant described just about every aspect of the mansion. Each room seemed to outdo the last. Highlights included a room with twenty-two-hundred candles, a ten-thousand (if I remember correctly) liter bathtub, and a food elevator that takes half an hour to raise once. Suffice it to say that we all were blown away. After the official tour, we had an hour and a half on our own to explore and relax. A few of us sneaked into the attached museum a few minutes before it closed, then rested our feet outside and fed some local deer.

     As the sun was setting, we hiked back to the dock and, because the boat was running late, a few of us played the Idiot Game and learned how to speak Gibberish. Once the boat arrived, we continued to entertain ourselves through a One Word Story, which had something to do with a penguin who eats lions. Upon docking, a short bus ride took us to dinner, where we started another One Word Story, this one dealing with smoking schoolchildren and aquatic bees. The food was great (even Weston and Ariel Mizumoto's vegetarian dishes were exemplary by their own standards) as usual, and another round of amazing German ice cream concluded the meal. In the time between dinner and leaving, our table played several logic games, like Click Click Bang Bang, Black Magic, and Picnic. A discussion of homeschooling and music occupied the bus ride home.

    Once we got back to the hotel, the cellos had a brief Bachianas rehearsal which was really good. Fifteen minutes of rehearsal and it was already sounding pretty epic. We got word from Susan that we would be able to perform at Thursday night's dinner for the rest of the JCM group, meaning it would be a casual, stress-free environment, but we would still get a chance to play with a unique group. After that rehearsal, we all went to bed. Our room had its usual shenanigans and craziness, including watching more women weightlifting, Grey's Anatomy (in English!), and another random TV show.

-Philip

https://picasaweb.google.com/109511667393649244721/Austria41012

Apologies

     I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Between having wifi only in the lobby and getting back to our hotel after 11:00 each day, it's been hard to find time to record what we've been doing. I'm finishing up my entry for Day 3 right now, hopefully I'll get Day 4 up today as well. Thanks for reading!