I'm home now, for tonight and moast of tomorrow, anyway.  My sisters wanted to go school clothes shopping with me.  I wanted to wait until my summer class was over, but that doesn't happen until 1 or 2 days before Katie starts college, so that wouldn't exactly work... so I'm here now.  It's quite enjoyable; I bought a skirt and 3 shirts at Kohl's, all of which I really like.  It's taken a while, but that store is beginning to grow on me.  I think the problem was that I was looking in the Juniors section of the store, and of course I didn't find anything.  I should have known that before I started...  What happened today was that a couple of things in the Ladies section caught my eye, and all of a sudden I discovered the true beauty of the store.   Fun times.

I'm halfway through my class now, which is a bit of a relief.  It's been fun; I enjoy the class immensely, and the professor is simply delightful, but between class, work, and practicing, it's a plenty full load.  I'm glad that I have a couple of weeks after class ends and before school begins; I would hate to be running on empty when I'm supposed to be hitting the ground running...

Anyway, I survived the midterm and the small group presentation, so the onliy high-scoring assignments left are the paper and the final.  Just in time for All-State camp to start. *whew*  Next week is going to be interesting; there's one All-State camp from Tues.-Thurs., and another from Sat.-Mon.  For both camps, I am a counselor and the accompanist for the alto sectionals, which basically means that I'm going to be busy almost straight through from 9:00 a.m. (My class doesn't end until 10:00; I'm going to have to leave early a couple of days) to 12:15 a.m., when I have to do dorm checks.  I hope and pray that I have good kids... if not, it'll definitely be a learning experience, and a stressful one at that.  I'm not worried, but I am slightly apprehensive.  *sigh*  I'm going to have to do a little more praying before the camps start.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  Farewell for now!

My love and God's blessings,

Margie

Currently Listening Legends of Jazz: Showcase (CD/Dvd) (Dig) By Various Artists see related

More Europe!

Journal of Thursday, May 4th: Dresden, Germany

*I Got Rhythm: Practice!

-->Dresden, Germany: International School Music Room

I got to practice for 45 min. this morning!  It was amazing!  I think I almost have the arrangement learned; I just need a little work on the base line in a couple of places and on the transitions.  Hopefully I'll get to practice tomorrow morning, too.  The music room has a Kawai baby grand!   Slightly out of tune, but still good.  Ah... ~*~

*So Many Places, So Little Time: Wandering around Dresden

-->Dresden, Germany

Today we were allowed about  6 1/2 hrs. to sightsee and get lunch in Dresden.  It was amazing!  I'll try to write about a few of the places we saw, but I definitely won't remember all of them.

The first thing we saw was the courtyard of the Zwinger, a separate extension of the former royal palace, or Residenzschloss.  It was so beautiful!  Kelsey and I wandered around while Jon took pictures; the lighting was fantastic, so I'm hoping he got lots of good ones.  We moved from there to various places in the courtyard, to a square outside, to the bridge, with Kelsey and I still wandering around and Jon still taking pictures.  This actually continued for about 45 min. before we actually went inside anywhere.  Jon did his thing with the camera and Kelsey and I followed him around.  Good times.

The first place that we actually went inside was a porcelain museum in the Zwinger.  Oh man, oh man, I could have spent hours in there.  Jon and Kelsey had to practically drag me along after about 1/2 hr. to keep me from doing just that, in fact.  Most of the porcelain was Chinese or Japanese; the Chinese porcelain had more decorations of birds and dragons while the Japanese porcelain had more decorations of toads, fish, crabs, lobster, butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, and other insects and creatures of the sea.  It was so cool!!

After that, we wandered around taking pictures for a while before eating lunch at a café.  The food was very good; I got a toasted salami & mozzerella sandwich.  Mmm!  The fruit juice was plum, carrot, and lime.  Fantastic!  And afterwards we had German ice cream.  Wow...

Later on we went to visit the Katholichen Hofkirche, the Catholic cathedral.  We also saw the main building of the Residenzschloss, the castle, and took  tour of the operahouse.  It was all beautiful.  the churches in Germany have very ornate organs (this one was white), and the operahouse was beautiful!  Someday I'll come back to Dresden and see an opera there...  ~*~†~*~

Day 5!

That was so much fun, I think I might add another entry before I call it a night.  Be sure you read Tuesday's entry first!

Journal of Wednesday, May 3rd: Berlin, Germany

*9 Years Captive by the Secret Service: Checkpoint Charlie Museum

-->Berlin, Germany

Today we visited the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, one of the places where people could pass between East and West Berlin during World War II.  The tour consisted of a lecture/story about the time period and a self-guided tour (wandering?) through the rest of the building.

The man who gave the lecture, a German man of about 60, was a very interesting individual.  He seemed almost blithe in a rather bitter and cynical way, the sort of man about whom it was impossible to distinguish whether he was about to shoot you or to give you a peppermint stick and offer you a cup of tea.

The story itself was most engaging.  He and his friend concocted a scheme to help 2 of their friends escape from East Berlin to West Berlin.  After weeks of observation and planning, they successfully helped their 2 friends escape.  Together, the 4 of them smuggled over 100 people from East to West Berlin.  Eventually, though, he was caught and had to spend a total of 9 years in prison by the Secret Service.  The first 2 of these years he spent in solitary confinement, with the last 7 spent in another SS prison.  He ended by talking about how these same generals who gave the orders to kill the Jews are sitting today in the German government, in charge of, among other things, the aforementioned Holocaust memorials.  I found that fact unexpected, but not very surprising.  Ah, the great and tragic ironies of life.  Such the race they run, such the course they take.  ~*~

*A Sunny Day in Berlintown: Lunch!

-->Berlin, Germany

We were dropped off for lunch today at the same place as yesterday: in front of the Berlinerdom.  Since Jon, Kelsey, and I had seen the cathedral yesterday, we decided to visit some other places: there were 4 other museums in the area, after all.  Unforunately, they all cost money, and since we were feeling thrifty, we decided to just wander around and view everything from the outside.  This worked quite nicely, as the weather was beautiful!

 (This was an AWESOME street musician!  Seriously!  The best accordion playing I've heard in my life!)

 (And Jon says: "Margie, go stand on the bridge!  And don't look at me!  Pretend I'm not taking your picture!"  And Margie thinks, 'Easy for you to say...')

At one point, with about 45 min. to go, we decided to head down a couple of blocks and see a beautiful brick church in that direction.  However, in heading over there, we somehow lost sight of the church and ended up by an operahouse,  

a University, with a square (Platz) where Hitler once burned books,

and a little cathedral by the name of St. Hedwig's.

Jon got pictures of the operahouse (which you just saw) and a statue of books before we headed inside the Cathedral.  It was truly a beautiful little place, with a circular sanctuary containing a lower level  where there were rooms off to the sides to pray.

Right before we left, Kelsey needed to find a bathroom.  When we asked the lady selling trinkets, she replied that she didn't speak any English, but knew Spanish!  I just knew that someone in Germany had to speak it!  So my foreign language studies did not go to a complete waste, after all.  Of course, we couldn't find the place to which she was trying to direct us, nor would I have ever gotten "house without a curved roof" out of all that without Kelsey's help, but still.  I was happy.  ~*~

*Randomness: On the bus

-->Berlin, Germany to Dresden, Germany

Apparently, my pill containers are something of a sensation, as it was deemed necessary to pass them around the entire bus so everyone could see the contents within.  They have also apparently earned me the unofficial tour name of "Dr. Croft: Medicine Woman."  Fancy that!  ~*~

*Wilkommen am Dresden: Our first home stay

--> Dresden, Germany

I suppose I was rather nervous about meeting our first host family: what if they didn't speak any English?  If my Spanish skills weren't up to par, what could be expected of German? 

Thankfully for my troubled mind, our first host family ended up actually being from California.  They had only lived in Germany for about 3 months, so the 2 daughters knew little more German than I did.  There was Agota, who was 15, and Andrea (Ahn-DRAY-uh, not AN-dree-uh), who was 9.  The girls lived with their mother in the 2nd and 3rd floors of a fabulous apartment building.  It was rather like a triplex, but divided by floor rather than cutting the building into 2 or 3 sections from side to side.  Their dad worked a lot and was involved in a lot of international travel, so he wasn't home a lot.

Kelsey and I got to spend most of the time hanging out with Agota and her friend Linda, who actually spoke German, but went to the same international school as Agota and Andrea.  Thus Linda was able to translate for us when we went anywhere.  I enjoyed our evening of hanging out with the girls; first we went to the mall, then wandered around a square in Dresden.  It was interesting and a little bit sad for me, because the girls were very much teenagers, and while I truly enjoyed spending time with them, the only 2 clothing stores they liked were the ones that I didn't particularly care for, their idea of a good time was going drinking and clubbing, and the like (In their defense, they only got one drink each, and the club wasn't open that day, anyway).  While I didn't have a bad time, it was definitely a little bit outside my comfort zone.  I get along with their mom really well, though...  ~*~†~*~

Day 4!!

Currently Listening The Memory of Trees By Enya see related

Dr. Reuter's 6-day piano camp is over.  It was crazy.  It was a good time.  It was a crazy good time.  Did I mention it was crazy?

This was my first experience being a counselor, and it was definitely an interesting, enlightening, and very rewarding experience.  I got to deal with everything from lost (stolen?) keys to bedbugs (yes, I said bedbugs) to moving 8 girls (who were in an 8-person suite) into 3 different rooms because of the bedbugs to a 1:30 a.m. chat about roommate issues to running around Waverly getting ingredients to make cookies to not only having the security office's number programmed into my phone, but giving the security office my phone number so they could reach me if necessary!  I didn't know things could be this crazy; it was just 9 girls at piano camp!!!  All the same, it was a lot of fun.  I didn't get a lot of sleep (I was also trying to practice and study for/go to a class), but I enjoyed myself immensely, and would very much like to be the counselor again next year.  Yay being in a position that I'm supposed to be Mom!

On that happy note, I think I might do something really crazy and continue my Europe journal!!

Journal of Tuesday, May 2nd: Berlin, Germany

*What Price Can You Put on the Lives of 6 Million Jews?: The last Holocaust Memorial

-->Berlin, Germany

We went on a 3-hour tour of central Berlin today.  The city has so much history!  And so many sights to see!  There are something like 408 museums in Berlin, along with scores of movie theatres (including the biggest movie screen in Europe: 1,000 m. x 1,000 m.), 3 opera houses (the only city in Europe to have that many besides Paris), and the Berlin Philharmonic.  According to our tour guide, it would take about a year to see everything.  Since we didn't have quite that much time, most of our tour was centered around World War II and the Berlin Wall.  there are a few portions of the original Berlin Wall still

standing, but these are few far between, with most of what is left doomed to fall sooner or later from all of the 'souvenirs' taken out of it.  The main thing that remains is a line of stones in the road or on the sidewalk marking the winding path that the wall took separating East and West Berlin.  All of the World War II history was rather sobering; a memory of dark times.  Perhaps the most sobering thing was the Holocaust Memorial.  Unlike the other 45,000 (Exaggeration?) memorials put up by Germany to commemorate the tragedy, this memorial marked no piece of land significant to the Holocaust.  Rather, it is significant because it is in a prominent location, and because it was the last memorial erected.  The memorial itself is made entirely of stone: small square pieces of stone cover the ground while scores of rather large stone blocks protrude at odd heights from it.   The ground sloped downward as one walked into the memorial, intended by the architect to create a feeling of gloom as one passed through the stones.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to actually walk into the memorial, but it was clear that the architect achieved his goal.  Apparently, the German government was reluctant to put up the memorial because it was expensive (several million euro) and because they had already constructed so many (Ah, the eternally tight-wadded Germans...).  The answer given by those in favor of the project was something to the effect of, "What price can you put on the lives of 6 million Jews?"  And that ended the discussion.  ~*~

*[Insert Glorious Mass Here]: The Berlinerdom

-->Berlin, Germany

Unfortunately for myself and all my future memories of this particular event, I was too tired to write about this on the appropriate evening, so the details are a little muddy...  Anyway, I'll try my best.  The main thing that I can remember about the cathedral is that it was beautiful.  Really beautiful.  I'll have to look at the pictures to remind myself when I read this.  3 stories high of utter magnificence.  In the sanctuary there were paintings of the 4 Gospel authors on the 4 corners of the ceiling.  The very top was a gorgeous, ornately decorated dome.  There were statues of various Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli.  Upstairs there were several examples of models, designs, colors, and paintings used to create the building.  One of the models had windows on both sides, so Jon had me run around to the other side so he could take a picture.   At the very top of the (long!) staircase was a balcony, circling all the way around the dome, from which was a magnificent view.  There was a little telescope that could be used for 10 cents, but we decided against in for reasons of time and thrift.  In the basement there were coffins of royal family members, many of them unborn or unnamed children.  It was solemn, as gravesites usually are.  In shart contrast, there was also a gift shop on the same floor.  I purchase a postcard of and a booklet about the organ  (Yes, that's a real picture.) for my roommate Amanda.  If I know her like I think I do, she'll go nuts.  The organ was pretty much awesome.  ~*~

*Technical Note

-->My Mind: A very frightening place

I've realized/decided something.  I've realized that there is only one paragraph in each of my entries and decided that this is a very bad thing.  So it's going to stop.

Now.

That is all. ~*~

*Wachet Auf, Everyone!: Our first concert

-->Berlin, Germany (I think)

Our very first concert was in a cathedral.  Or rather, it was in the Wilhelm Memorial Church right next to the semi-ruins of a cathedral, which had been turned into a small gift shop.  It seems that Germans don't balk at any opportunity to make money.  But then, neither do Americans, so what can I say?

Everyone was suffering from either jet lag or hangovers this evening, so the rehearsal was a mess.  I was rather worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it together by the concert, so I volunteered to stay behind and watch the sound equipment while the rest of the choir went to dinner back at the hotel.  That provided me a good 45 min. to practice, which gave me the security I needed to play at least decently for the concert.

Somehow everyone pulled it together by showtime, and the performance went very well.  Afterwards, a little girl came up to all the instrumentalists and asked for our autographs.  It was so cute!

All in all, it was a very good, very packed day, which brings this ridiculously long entry to a close.  Gute Nacht!  ~*~†~*~

And there was evening and there was morning the 3rd day.

Currently Listening A Day Without Rain By Enya 3: Only Time see related

Gee, I'm really bad at this blogging thing...  now you all know what my diary looks like...

I love my church.  Not just my church back home, although they're wonderful, my church here in Waverly, too.  Truly, this small and endearing church from little old Waverly has turned out to be one of the most wonderful chance blessings of my freshman year.  I say chance not meaning by chance, but rather perchance; I didn't come to school expecting to play for a church, but like a few other opportunities from this past year that I was a bit reticent to pursue, it has opened the door for some of the most rich and fulfilling relationships and experiences of my first year of college.

The congregation is very warm and supportive, both emotionally and instrumentally.  As different holidays came along, I received little care packages and notes of encouragement.  When I was going to Europe, different people would come up to me with $10 or $15, and the congregation even took a special offering one Sunday, unbeknownst to me, for my trip.  I don't think there's been a single service where someone hasn't come up to me and expressed appreciation for my musical service to God and the congregation.  When they heard that I was planning on staying in Waverly over the summer, they offered me a place to stay in the basement of the parsonage, free of charge, for the entire summer. 

The pastor and his family have been absolutely wonderful, as well.  They, of course, were the ones who offered up their home as a place for me to take up temporary residence.  They've let me use water and electricity, eat their food, drive their cars, and generally make myself at home, with the only requests that I babysit their kids per occasion, and that I fill the car with gas when I use it.  Even more than that, they've given me a family. Pastor Jon is an RN as well as a minister, enjoys a good joke (He almost always has one for the beginning of the service), and is always teasing his kids.  Heidi is a (now) part-time (formerly full-time) secretary at a new doctor's office in Shell Rock.  She's also a wonderful mother and a delightful person to be around.  For me, she's kind of a cross between a mom, aunt, RA, and sister, and my relationship with her is becoming more and more important to me as I make the slow, gradual transition between childhood and adulthood.  Hannah is almost 7, has just finished Kindergarten, and has all the youthful charm and yes, attitude that goes along with her age.  It's rather eye-opening and humbling to see her go through her periodic little crises about how no one loves her, respects her, etc., etc. and think, 'Wow, I was like that, too...' or 'That's kind of selfish, but I feel that way sometimes...'  Ethan is going on 3, and is at that age where he is just cute.  He's a little love bug; he'll periodically wrap his arms around my legs and say, "I wuv you, Majee." 

And all that out of a little church job that I agreed to try out.  Funny how that works, isn't it?

Currently Listening Come Away with Me By Norah Jones see related