Friday, July 20, 2012

Sick in Eutin

Well, it happened :( I got the sniffles. I'm not sure if it due to the drastic change in the weather every five minutes or if I was having a bit too much fun while Calvin was here visiting. My guess is the weather. Duh.

Perfect timing too, because Calvin left yesterday morning and I started really feeling awful yesterday afternoon. Perfect timing also, actually not really, because we have our vocal chamber music concert this Sunday and I need to be well enough to sing on it. And sing well! This past Sunday was the instrumental chamber concert and there was a review on it in the paper today. I don't want to get a bad review due to the sniffles! On the concert I will be singing "Mein Herr Marquis" which is Adele's laughing song from Die Fledermaus, and the Flower Duet from Lakme. Both pieces I've sung before, although I haven't sung the laughing song in quite a while so that is the one I am more concerned about. But I had a coaching with the musical director Urs Theuss today that went as well as it could. I "sang" through (more like coughed and squeaked through) it one time and then we sat down and had a discussion on text and translation. We finished the session by speaking the text and Urs correcting me where necessary. Productive in it's own way for sure, and we will meet again tomorrow and I hope that it is better!

So as we can all imagine things are very different in Germany from in the United States. I think I've said this a few times before but.....the strangest thing so far is the Kleenex. It is cheaper in the market to buy a package of 15 travel size Kleenexes than it is to buy one big box. This I know because I have gone through practically all 15 packages in the past two days (mucous monster). But it is a serious price difference. I'm not bothered by it at all, it has been very convenient for the bike riding situation, more like confused or just baffled, if you will, as to why this is? Another thing that is different is the stores have 10 or 12 different flavors of fisherman's friend cough drops. I have grown to love these cough drops and will be bringing some back with me for future use. Although they make me sneeze 3-5 times every time I eat one.

Everyone here in Eutin is sad that Calvin had to leave, especially me :( I had so much fun exploring and playing while he was here I hardly had time to blog (sorry :) I'll try to be better) Even the Neue Eutiner Festspiele was sad that he was leaving. On more than one occasion Jana, she is the instrumental coordinator for the Festspiele, asked him to stay because there are four percussion parts in Die Blume von Hawaii and there were only three percussionists brought over from America. But sadly he has other commitments and opportunities in Lawrence that he needed to get back to, but wouldn't that have been awesome!?!

Back to being sick in Eutin....I have adopted my grandparents method: Step 1. designate quarantined area, in this case my bed. Step 2. Get brown paper bag. Step 3. place bag next to quarantined area to make easy disposal of used tissues. Step 4. Empty bag as needed. This solution has worked very well, and now you all have a picture of what my room looks like right now.

I also noticed while buying Kleenex and fisherman's friend that the stores don't have chicken noodle soup. Again duh chicken is called haehnchen, but this threw me for a loop while was in a state of panic at being sick in the first place. But I found something that looked like broth with noodles and a meat product, and it was tasty so I guess I was successful :)

Ok off to get some rest......zzzzzz

 

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