Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Life, or Something LIke It





It's still been pretty quiet. Just keeping busy with practicing and rehearsing. Nothing too exciting. I did take a little day trip to Utrecht last week. I've been a few times, but always at night and I've just gone directly from the train station to my rehearsal and back again. So I actually went during the day this time, and got to see some of the sights. I even went to the Rietveld-Schroderhuis, designed by Gerrit Rietveld in the 1920s and is a Unescu protected heritage sight - it's the only building in the world that faithfully adheres to the De Stijl style inside and out. It looks especially futuristic and out of place compared to all the other traditional brick pre-war Dutch buildings in the neighbourhood. Even after almost 100 years it still looks modern. Also, on Sunday it was the end of book week in the Netherlands. During book week, if you bought a book worth more that 11.50 you got a free book called "En Tafel Vol Vlinders", and with said book you got to ride the trains to anywhere in the Netherlands for free. And I like free things. So I ended up hopping a train to Den Helder, on the northern coast of Noord Holland. Then, because it's kind of a boring little place, I hopped the ferry to Texel Island. Apparently it's really nice in the summer, but on this particular day it was pretty cold and windy. Hopefully I'll be able to go back and visit the islands during some balmier weather - take my bike, explore a bit. Sounds fun. So yeah, that's my update. Very exciting.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

So Apparently It's March



March just sort of crept up on me by surprise there. I somehow always forget that February doesn't have 31 days. Selective amnesia I guess. The viola festival went very well, the end concert was quite fun. So many violists all in one place! The fun thing about a large group of violists is that we're all so chill that we can just hang out and have fun. I knew there was a reason I wasn't a violinist. Luckily I didn't really have anything on my schedule for the next week, because I was a bit tired and worn out. And seeing as how I didn't get my February break I decided to take it easy. But I still had some rehearsals and classes to attend. This Sunday I'm playing the Schubert Octet for winds and strings in a concert at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam - the oldest building in the city. It's apparently also hella cold to play in, since it's a large unheated stone church from the 15th century. So I will have to practice my layering skillz. This week as well the St. Lawrence String Quartet is in town doing concerts in the Netherlands. I met up with Chris and Scott on Monday morning for some coffee, and I'm going to hit up their concert on Friday night at the Concertgebouw. Other than that nothing too exciting is going on. Life's a little quieter now, which is fine by me. I'm still dreaming of a getaway to Tenerife......apparently we have some holidays in April. If that's the case I may go somewhere. If not Tenerife, maybe London. I've been craving some English-speaking-country-ness in my life. Plus you can get super duper cheap flights to London. Like, ridiculously cheap. But we shall see. The picture above is of me with Ruben, the 4 year old son of the family I stayed with when I was in Groningen. I always like hanging out with kids, because at heart I'm still a kid. I even still talk about what I'm going to do "when I grow up". Which if I have it my way, will be NEVER!