Koninginnedag!

The whole country is recovering from Queen's day (which was yesterday). For some, they're recovering from raging hangovers. For others, they're getting bailed out of jail. And for the politicians, they're trying to figure out why the hell some guy tried to drive his car into the Queen. But more on that later. Queen's day actually starts with Queen's night, which is the night before Koninginnedag. Not the night of Koninginnedag. So for Queen's night I started the party at school, where the student society was hosting Koninginnenacht drinks. Then I met up with Niels, Ana, and Ari, and we decided to hit up the Jordaan, but first we stopped at Niels' place in the Red Light District to drop off stuff and meet up with his brother Jens and their friend Casper. Then we headed over to the Jordaan, to the Noordermarkt. It was insane. So many people. And the cool thing too is that it was mostly Dutch people, which never happens in Amsterdam. So we drank and danced Queen's night away in the Jordaan, migrating around the Prinsengracht. Queen's day didn't begin bright and early, on account of the late Queen's night. Niels and I set out from his place, and headed over to the Nieuwemarkt to get some cash and some food. Two very important things to have. The we just walked. We walked over to Spui, and then Koningsplein, and then decided to go to the Vondelpark. Easier said than done. To get to the Vondelpark we had to leave the canal belt, and it was a huge traffic jam of people. We were on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat and it took us about 25 minutes just to get the one block over the bridge and onto Stadhouserskade. It was just this huge crush of people and everyone was pushing, and to make matters worst they had lined the bridge with stalls for food and stuff, so it was just like this tiny funnel full of people. But we made it through (finally) and into the Vondelpark. The Vondelpark was actually quite nice. It was a more chill atmosphere than the rest of the city. There was a lot of people of course, but they had set up games, or were playing music, or just sitting in the park. Lots of families and kids, so that made it less of a drunken idiot atmosphere than other areas of the city. So we sat in the park for a while, to refuel, and then set out towards Jordaan. We walked all the way down Rozengracht, and then through Dam square and back to Niels' place. It was so noisy, and there were so many people everywhere, and the streets were just covered in garbage. We hung out at Niels' for a while, and then Ana joined us and we went for dinner on the Zeedijk. This really nice Thai place that our dutch class went to in the fall. Then we went back to Niels', and Jens and Casper showed up, and then Ana and I decided to head home. I was so tired, from combined lack of sleep and walking around in the sun all day. But getting home was an experience in itself. There were people everywhere, and I was just glad I hadn't drunk anything but water all day because I almost ran into so many people who just walked out in front of my bike. And the streets were like an obstacle course because of all the garbage and broken glass and everything. Whoa. But I made it home in one piece, and went to bed. I've never had a better sleep. So nice. I read a news story today with the official Koningennedag numbers from the Amsterdam police. Apparently 196 people were arrested in Amsterdam this Koninginnedag. This year, police had announced they would be cracking down on boat revellers. In total, eight people on boats were arrested, including four captains who had drunk too much. Some 36 people fell in the canals. Of them, 27 were on boats which sank. But this doesn't count the people who fell into canals and hauled themselves out, cause we totally saw a guy do that outside of Niels'. I wouldn't want to fall in those canals though, cause they were dirty. Very very dirty. Floating garbage everywhere.
So in addition to Koningennedag being a big country-wide street party, there is an official royal aspect to it. Every year on Koningennedag the royal family makes a traditional return to the Het Loos palace in Appeldorn. This is what they were doing when the "attack" happened. A guy drove his car through the barricades, through a crowd of people (killing 4 and injuring 17 of them), and narrowly missed the big open bus carrying the royal family before hitting a monument. He was a middle-aged Dutch guy from Gelderland who'd recently lost his job and his house, and he has since died from the wounds he received in the crash. I doubt we'll ever know why he did it, but they're saying that this will mark a big change in the accessibility that the public has to the royal family and politicians here. It's not unusual for MPs and ministers to bike to work, and the royal family themselves also bike around town like normal Dutchies. Not the Queen, but the princes and princesses. All in all, public figures in the Netherlands are much less sheltered and unapproachable than they are in most other Western countries, but that's also because nothing like this has ever really happened before. Of course this is all the babblings of newspaper editorials and the like, so we'll see what really results of this all. If you haven't seen the video yet, here it is with subtitles in English of what the announcer is saying - it was all caught on camera by the official TV coverage of the royal family's Appeldoorn visit.

1 concert down, 4 to go.

So we had our last orchestra concert today in Amsterdam, and next week the Enescu concerts begin. We've been offered a spot in a festival in Romania in September to perform our Enescu project, but the hang-up is that they don't want to give us any money towards travel or anything. So Simona's going to try and bully them, and then the next step is to apply for funding from organizations. But we have our 'official' invitation to the festival, so hopefully we can come up with the money and go to Bucharest! This past week was pretty crazy - 6 hours of orchestra every day plus rehearsals for Enescu and some valiant attempts at practicing. Big time fun. Friday was our run-out concert to Eindhoven, and the trip was kind of a disaster. They had two big tour busses for us, and we left the school at around 2:45 pm. We made it through the city traffic OK and got onto the ring road expressway. And that's when the fun started. Apparently there was a really bad accident outside of Utrecht that caused the traffic to just stop. And so we slowly inched our way down the highway around Amsterdam. One and a half hours after leaving the school, we were only in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost. We ended up missing our soundcheck altogether, and we barely even made it to Eindhoven in time for the concert! What should have taken about 90 minutes took us 5 hours!!!! It was completely insane. With the amount of time we spent on the bus we could have been in Germany! Or Belgium!
Yesterday was a free day, and I ended up going on an adventure to Kinderdijk with Aida and a friend of hers from the Conservatory in Enschede. Kinderdijk is a small village outside of Rotterdam that is a Unesco protected world heritage site, due to the 19 windmills it has dating from the 1500s. My favourite part about Kinderdijk (apart from the windmills) was that it was in the Gemeente Nieuw-Lekkerland. Which translates as like the township of New Yummyland. Loves it. Anyways, the windmills were very nice, but I must say that it took much longer to get to Kinderdijk then you could ever spend looking at those windmills. But it's one of those things you have to see in Holland, so now that's crossed off the list. Our concert today went quite well, and we had a pretty good turnout for the audience. Now all my classes and stuff are over, and I'm just rehearsing and practicing until my exam in June. Well, except for the 6 days I'm going to London.
Ah yes, I almost forgot my trip last weekend, to the Keukenhof. A big group of Couchsurfers got together and biked from Leiden through the flower field to the Keukenhof itself. It was pretty cool, though there is a limit to how many flowers you can look at in one day. But it was fun, and very pretty.

Britain's Got Talent

The reality TV show Britain's Got Talent is all over the news this week, on both sides of the pond. Why? Because Britain really does got talent. Hiding around the isles are these gems, like the winner of the first season of BGT, Paul Potts. The Welsh mobile phone salesman who sung a mean opera. If you haven't seen his original audition from two years ago, you must. He is the sweetest man, and he just blew the roof off that place. He's now released his second album, and is a big celebrity. The video of his audition is here.
This season everyone's talking about Susan Boyle, a middle-aged eccentric Scottish lady, who by her own accounts has never even been kissed. But she has a dream, and she's become an instant celebrity ever since her audition hit Youtube. Millions of people have watched her audition, and she's been doing interviews this week with all the major media outlets. And she hasn't even won yet - she's just made it to the semi-finals! If you haven't seen it already, watch Susan Boyle's audition here.
However, my favourite act to audition for BGT so far is the father/son team of Stavros Flatly. They can't sing (that I know of), but boy can they dance. And if you remember that whole Riverdance/Lord of the Dance craze, then this is particularily awesome. So, dear readers, I present to you STAVROS FLATLY!

I'm really updating a lot these days! Wowza. It probably won't last though.....

Sword Lobby

Apart from the mis-spelling of "Amendment" and "lobby", this amused me greatly. Apparently some people tried to attack a woman and her baby with a sword in Saskatoon. And of course it was on 20th Street W. I swear, my 'hood is ridonculous. But one of the users comments on CBC.ca really made me laugh. Here's the link to the story:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2009/04/17/sword-attack.html

And here's the comment that made me laugh:

Ah jeez, here we go... First we'll get the public outcry against swords, then the Sword Ammendment loby will start throwing around the usual rhetoric about how they have the "Right to Bear Blades", then the Concerned Parents Groups coming out about how there's too many swords in schools today, and that Sword Awareness Education should be taught in all public schools... that same old rigamarole every time you hear about a sword in the news.

What's this country coming to, anyways? In times of Canada past, even members of Parliament carried swords, and everyone was fine with it! Heck, the Governor General still gets a mace, right? I've got to say, all this media attention on swords is blowing the whole thing out of proportion, and if anything, will only encourage more people, young and old, to start thinking, "What if I'm out in public and I'm not carrying a sword? I could get hurt!" The last thing we need is every person on the subway or bus to start carrying concealed swords for "personal defense".

We all need to face facts: swords are a part of urban life, made more dangerous by the tight confines of urban life. Movies like "Kill Bill", "Braveheart" and "the Princess Bride" romanticize the sword and give our youth shabby information on their propper care and use. In smaller towns like Saskatoon, swords are mostly used in more traditional roles, like hunting, and are more numerous than you'd expect.

On a final note, let me just say that this isn't about swords; it's about people. Lets all send our prayers to this woman, and remember to teach our children -- as I'm sure she'll teach her child -- that swords can be dangerous if used improperly.

Another Week, Another Project

We're starting up project week - aka orchestra week from hell. Rehearsals from 10-5 every day, and then I'll have other rehearsals and practicing to do on top of that. I'm also trying to shake this cold I've had for weeks. I got it on one of the first really sunny days here, where I went to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine, and ended up getting a cold (from the cold ocean breeze) and a sunburn (from the shiny sun). It was a bang-up day. But since then the weather has gotten quite nice - yesterday it was a scorching 21 degrees! It's cooling down a bit now, supposed to get some rain tonight and tomorrow. But it's supposed to be nicer again on the weekend, which I sincerely hope it will be, because I've heard rumblings about renting a boat on Sunday. Canal boat party! Anyways, I've just been practicing and rehearsing, yada yada yada. I had a lesson with Nobuko yesterday, and she said that in the competition in February she was the one on the judges panel rooting for me - which I can only take to mean that the others were all against me. They will pay! Anyways, apparently I move too much when I play. I think this is hilarious, because 6 years ago the major complaint teachers had with me was that I didn't move at all and that I needed to emote more. Ah well. You win some, you lose some. Today I did some spring cleaning, and I went all out on my room. It's now the cleanest it's been since I moved in. I cleaned and dusted and vacuumed and washed everything. It's amazing. Also, today I was offered a place in the Jeunesses Musicales World Youth Orchestra for a project in Spain during May and June, but I had to turn it down because it conflicts with my performance exam at school. Totally bogus! I could really use a month in Spain. But I suppose passing into next year is also something I could use. Currently I'm still trying to decide when I'm going to come back to Canada in the summer, though I'm now leaning towards late June. I gotta decide though, cause I gotta book my ticket!!! Any thoughts or suggestions?

Facebook is a Monumental Waste of Time. I love it.....

So for those of you who aren't on Facebook, it has all these annoying/awesome quizzes that you can take. Most of them are totally bogus, like which Star Trek the Next Generation character would you be (Lt. Cmd. Geordie LaForge), what your ideal job is (doctor/nurse), or what your political ideology is (very liberal). But this particular quiz I just took was totally genius, so I thought I would share it with all my non-Facebook friends. The quiz was "Which mode do you live in?", as in which musical mode. Music has modes, which anyone who had to suffer through musical theory knows. Certain modes are quite commonly recognizable, like Dorian which is basically a natural minor scale that goes whole step-whole step-half step (repeat). Used a lot in medieval music. Think Greensleeves. Anyways, apparently the mode I should be is Locrian Mode. And they described is as the following:

You live in crazy world, aka Locrian Mode. This is the most unstable of all the modes because its tonic triad contains a tritone. You probably have no friends because nobody can figure out your tonality. You can alter your tones to seem normal-ish, but when you reveal your true self all will go awry. Maybe that's what you want, though.

I love the part about altering my tones to seem normal-ish. Aw, so true. Anyways I was highly amused by this so I thought I'd share.

Bad Memory

I forgot something really ridiculously hilarious that I did, and it was only this weekend. I think I mentioned I went to the World Minimalist Music festival at the Muziekgebouw aan t'IJ. Maybe I didn't. But the hilarious part is that I went to this piece by Erik Satie, the Vexations, which is 20 hours long. Of course I did not stay for the whole 20 hours. It's a 1.5 minute piece of music that is repeated 840 times. Which equals 20 hours. Now that's what I call minimalist music. They had it in this room called the Klankspieltuin, which is usually full of fun music-y stuff for kids to do, but they had it all set up with armchairs, pillows, and beanbags, and you could just drift in and out over the 20 hours. They also had pianists rotating in and out, even though apparently one of the pianists really wanted to play the whole thing. But just logistically - wouldn't you have to go to the bathroom at least once in 20 hours??? Anyways, I went from 11:30 pm to 4 am. At a certain point I was so deliriously tired and also sort of delirious from listening to the same thing over and over it was like I was in a trance. It was definitely an interesting experience. Attached are pictures from my canal bike trip, and the view from the top of the carnival ride I went on!

I Can Fly!!!

Well, it's bad. I know. I'm a bad blogger. But life hasn't been that exciting. Really. I swear. So anyways, it's just been your plain old practice, rehearse, sleep, eat, repeat kind of deal. The weather has been getting nicer here in the past week. Spring has sprung. Friday was a really nice day - it was 16 degrees! Some people from school and I went and rented a "canal bike" (aka pedal boat) and tooled around the canals for an hour and a half. There were lots of Amsterdammers out having boat parties too. It's the thing to do here during nice weather. Well, it's the thing to do if you're rich and have a boat. We made do in our pedal boat. Then yesterday they had a big carnival set up in the Dam square, complete with Ferris wheel and other exciting rides. So I just had to go on one! The one I really wanted to go on looked like so much fun, but it cost 8 euros! I mean, it looked fun. Just not 8 euros fun. So I went on a different one that only cost 4 euros, but it was still fun. It swung you up really high on these swings, and at the top they even slowed it a bit so you could take a picture. Which I did. It was amazing how much stuff they managed to fit onto that one city block. Anyways, I've finally decided on my summer plans. I'm going to be going to Domaine Forget string session in July-August for four weeks, and then going to TO and hanging until Tomchelle's wedding on the 23rd. The sticker is - I need to make some money. Like, bad. I'm so very broke. So if anybody knows gigs or whatever in TO I can get in on, I'd be very grateful!

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.

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!

The Rumours of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Things were pretty crazy when I got back from Vienna, what with rehearsals and mad last-minute practicing for the competition. But then I had to most ridiculous day ever on Monday. I was at school practicing, and had a lesson, but since it was the first day of the spring vacation the school closed at 4. Crazy, I know. So at 4 I headed over to the gym to get in a little working out, since it's also supposed to help with stress relief. I finished at about 6 and hopped on my bike to go home. It was dark and rainy, but that's not very unusual for Amsterdam. I was taking my usual route home, and lo and behold I get hit by a car! It was totally ridiculous. I was on the main street and the car was coming up on one of the side streets, and I saw him coming so I was keeping an eye on him. He started to slow down as he approached the intersection so I thought "great, he's going to yield like he's supposed to" and I keep on going. Then as soon as I'm in the intersection he just speeds up and runs right into me! I was completely in shock - shock that I had actually just been hit by a car. But luckily for me, I'm used to getting in all kinds of accidents so I got out relatively unscathed. Over the years I've learned how to fall properly :) Just some bruises (hip and shoulder), scrapes (shoulder), and a super swollen toe. I'm not sure how I banged just my one toe, but I did and now I have to walk funny for 2 weeks. But the absolute best part is that I was pretty OK, my bike was OK, and my viola was OK. So I got back on my bike and proceeded on my way. And I shit you not, about 4 blocks later a frikkin scooter trying to run a light runs right into my front wheel. By this time I was just in total disbelief. And after very bitchily pointing out that he was totally in the wrong I got his details (so that he could pay to have my bike fixed) and locked my totally kaput bike up to a pole. I then hobbled over to catch the tram home.
The next day was the first round of the viola competition, and I'm not sure if getting hit by a car helped or hampered my chances. If anything, it gave me something to keep my mind off the 'big day'. I actually played quite well. I was really happy with my performance, but unfortunately didn't make it through to the 2nd round. The level was really high, but I can't really say how I compared since I didn't hear anyone but me play. I'm not sure if it's particularly kosher to say either, but I was kind of happy not to move on. It's sort of stupid, but the 2nd round was at 10 am and I was already so overtired and just sore...... I ended up spending yesterday in bed, popping pain killers and watching downloaded tv. I think was actually more sore yesterday than on Tuesday, but today I'm definitely feeling better. Although I seem to have sprung another bruise! Very strange indeed, but who can say whether it was from the car or just from me. The viola festival is still going, even though the competition is over, so i'll be busy for another couple of days with that. Saturday night is the big final concert where we're all playing a piece for solo viola (Nobuko, natuurlijk) and and orchestra of violas (the rest of us - including violists from most of the major orchestras in the Netherlands) by a composer from Haarlem. The first rehearsal is tomorrow morning, so we shall see how this crazy viola piece works out.

Wien: alles andere Tagen

Well I'm back home safe in Amsterdam, and recovering from Vienna. Really the only recovery necessary is the fact that I had to get up so darned early to go to the airport this morning so I'm a wee bit tired. But back to Wien. On Sunday we went out for a bit of sightseeing. Moody really wanted to take me to the Nachmarkt, but it ended up being all shut up. Hard to say whether it was the fact if was Sunday, or if it was just closed for the season, but everything was closed. So we ended up wandering through the rain to a little cafe where the waiter was rude and the food was ok. Ah, Vienna. Then we went our separate ways - Moody went back to his place to get some practicing in and I went exploring. I was on a mission to find as many composer's houses as I could. I started with the Mozarthaus, where he lived for 2 years when he composed the Marriage of Figaro. Then I went to the Johann Strauss haus, where Johann the younger lived and the very apartment where he composed the Blue Danube. Then I wandered over to the "Schubert commemorative rooms". Because though he didn't actually live there, he died in that apartment (it was his brother's place). But by then I was cold and wet and needed to practice so I headed back to Moody's place to dry out, warm up, and practice a bit myself. That night we headed to the Wiener Staatsoper to see Salome. We got last minute standing room tickets, and it was really great. I wouldn't want to stand for a long opera, but Salome was a very manageable 1.5 hours. Moody started talking to Emannuel (the guy standing next to him), and so we invited him out for a drink after with us. We went to this old cafe that was started by a Czech couple after the war. It was a very cool old bar, fairly unchanged by the years. These types of places are quite common in Vienna, where they really like to preserve things as the way they have been for hundreds of years. Tradition! Moody and I commented several times that it's a strange concept for us North Americans, since even if you live in an old building ideally it has been gutted and completely remodelled and renovated to be totally modern. But in Vienna they like to keep things just as they were for the last 100 years or so. It's good and bad - it's nice that these traditions are so important to them, but at the same time it seems like sometimes they are just being crushed by the weight of all this tradition because it doesn't allow them to explore new options.
On Monday I had my Verbier audition, so that kind of dominated the plans for the day. It went well (I thought), but I suppose I will just have to wait and see. We did go for a walk around town and then I went and wandered around Schloss Belvedere. It's a big old Baroque palace that now holds a really nice art gallery, which features A LOT of Klimt. We had originally planned to go see the Küchl-Quartett on Monday night, but both Moody and I felt like a night in so we just hung out and then met up with our new friend Emmanuel for a drink. Hilariously enough, he had gone to the Küchl-Quartett concert. Then on Tuesday we hung around in the morning until we were really starving, and then we went to an Irish pub in the centre to celebrate Moody's deportation. He's had no end of beauraucratic hassles in Austria, and now that his residence permit is finally ready they won't give it to him because they took longer than 3 months to process it (thus making him an illegal resident in Europe). So he has to leave the Euro-zone and then come back. Crazy. He was originally thinking of going to Zagreb (Croatia) but then a friend of his who's a diplomat told him that the Eastern non-Euro countries will charge you up to 400 Euros to enter if they see that you're past your three months. So he's going to London instead because at least in London we know how the beauraucracy works because it's so similar to Canada. Anyways, we went and ate some nice British Isles pub food in preparation for his trip to the homeland. Then we went to the Küchl-Quartett concert at the Musikverein. The Concertgebouw orchestra was playing in the big hall, and their concert was totally sold out so there was a billion people there. The Küchl-Quartett concert was very interesting - they're the principal players of the Vienna Phil, and they play very much in the traditional Viennese style. It was great for the first half of the program (Haydn and Mozart), but not so much for the second half (Shostakovich). They just played the Shosti too......nice. It was both boring and annoying, because they would really shy away from the grating harmonies and try and make them sound as pretty as they could. This is definitely an instance where the Viennese traditions don't allow them to explore new horizons. Anyways after the concert Moody and I were wandering through Stephansplatz on our way to the opera bar when who should we run into but Emmanuel! He was with a colleague of his, heading out for a drink after their meetings. So they joined us to the opera bar for a last night out on the Wiener town. Then this morning I got up at an ungodly early hour to catch the train to the airport. I got to have a nap this afternoon, but it was very necessary because I had a trio rehearsal and then a rehearsal for this Icelandic music day concert I'm playing on Saturday. Now I'm just preparing for the competition next week. No rest for the wicked.

Wien: erster Tag

It's been a while I know. Busy like a beaver, as they say. I had a good trip to Groningen last weekend, and played a very fun concert on Tuesday in the Oosterport with a string orchestra + jazz combo. Fun times. I caught the train back to Amsterdam on Tuesday after the concert since I had to be back in A'dam for a class at 10 am on Wednesday morning. I caught the train that runs straight from Groningen to Schiphol airport (which is just one stop from mine), and sat back with my magazine and iPod. I glanced outside and noticed it had started snowing, and thought nothing of it. Then the train stopped at Amsersfoort, and everybody mysteriously got off. Then I noticed the sign outside said that the train was going back to Groningen. So because it snowed 1 cm, it got all the trains off schedule and instead of going to Schiphol it was just turning around at Amersfoort. So annoying. So I had to jump on a stop-trein (one of those slow commuter trains that stops at every station) to Amsterdam Centraal, and then catch another train to my stop. It was very annoying. Nobuko Imai also came again this week to give some lessons, and since I'm missing two weeks worth of lessons with my own teacher due to my travelling schedule I got two lessons booked with her - 1 hour on Thursday and 1 hour on Friday. But luckily for me (and unluckily for them) the person with the lesson after me on Thursday didn't show up, so Nobuko just gave me a two hour lesson. It was pretty sweet. And she gave me the strings off her viola. Not quite literally, but close. She was convinced that I could produce a bigger sound with different strings and so she dug around in her case and found some of her used strings to try out on my viola. She assured me she only used them for a few days, and gave me 3 out of 4 new strings. And she was right - I can produce a bigger sound! Bully for me. Today I got up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am to go to the airport to catch my flight to Vienna. My flight wasn't until 7:15, and getting there at 6:15 would have been fine, but so many years of flying Air Canada and getting hassled and treated like shit all the time has made me fearful of flying, so I decided to go almost 2 hours early just because. It puts my mind at ease, even though at Schiphol nobody bats their eyes twice and me and my viola. It was also funny because I didn't have to go through passport control (because I was travelling within the EU), but I still got to shop duty-free and got breakfast on my flight (because I guess it's still technically international). I was actually a little surprised when they said they would be coming around with breakfast, since I'm now used to flights in Canada up to 5 hours where they give you jack and make you pay $10 for a crusty old sandwich. God I love Europe. Anyways, my trip to Vienna is slightly business and slightly pleasure. On Monday I have an audition for the Verbier Festival Orchestra, but since my old pal Moody (fellow Canadian violist) is going to school in Vienna now I'm also taking a sort of mini-break to stay with him and do some sight-seeing. Today we walked around, and then took a tour of the Vienna State Opera House. It was pretty cool - and we're going to try to go see Salome tomorrow night. They sell standing room only tickets they day of for only 4 euros! And they have this big section where there's just these boards to lean against (for all the standers). It's a pretty sweet deal considering how expensive the normal seats are there, though I'd probably think twice about going to see something like Wagner if I had to stand the whole time...... Then we got some street meat from a vendor (I had a Frankfurter, he had a Currywurst), sat in a park, then went to a cafe for coffee and Sachertorte. Yum. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. We're pondering an overnighter to Zagreb (Croatia) on Monday after my audition. Mostly because Moody has to leave the EU for min 24 hours due to some slight deportation issues, but that's a story for another time. Gute Nacht und gutes Glück.

Nothing To Report

I have nothing new to report, but I'm a little bored since I've been sick in bed since Thursday. Saturday I ventured out to school for a rehearsal, but it was actually quite exhausting. I used up all my energy during the rehearsal, and so during my bike ride home I was sort of in a trance-like state.... Today I was supposed to have a rehearsal but it got cancelled, and since I'm still not feeling well I've decided to take another sick day. I firmly believe that the best thing is rest, especially since this was definitely caused by my over tiredness and over working during the last 2 weeks. However usually a few days in bed and lots of vitamin C takes care of this for me. But not this time apparently. I'm feeling OK now, aside from general tiredness and the fact that I'm so stuffed up is ridiculous. Anyways, I digress. I just had a few things to share. I got this book out of the public library on Saturday called "The Trudeau Vector". It caught my eye because of the title, and it's a medical mystery/conspiracy at a Canadian arctic scientific research base. There was a really funny line in it, where the lone Inuit staffer there was explaining his culture to the protagonist: "We thought that death made storms, that killing a spider would cause rain, that Pierre Trudeau was a shit." It made me laugh :) And secondly, the picture. It's me, trying to break into a nunnery. It's from December, when I met up with someone else from Saskatchewan through Couchsurfing. She's been living in Hong Kong for the last 15 years or so, and she was travelling through during the Christmas holidays. We were both so astonished to be meeting another Saskatchewanite, since the chances of that are statistically quite slim. I took her to the Begijnhof convent in Amsterdam, and she took this picture of me trying to break into the English Reformed Church in the middle of the courtyard. Enjoy, and send me your good energies - I need to get better soon or else!!!

The Review

So the morning after my last post, bright and early at 6:30 am, I caught the train to Groningen to start rehearsing with the chamber orchestra there - Camerata Ardesko. I was there for two days (one night spent on the floor of a Conservatory student house) before heading back to Amsterdam for my Schleswig-Holstein audition on Saturday morning in Den Haag. Of course I was foiled by construction on the route I had mapped out to the Conservatory in Den Haag from the train station. It's actually quite close to the station, but I swear this entire country is always under construction! Every day on my ride to school a new area of my route is under construction and I have to . So, needless to say I was a bit later getting to the Conservatory before my audition that I had planned.....it went OK, but auditions are a funny thing. You practice for hours, and you end up playing for about 5 minutes. And you ALWAYS play worse than you know you can. Gah, auditions. Such a frustrating exercise. Anyways, then on Sunday I played another concert with the Trajectum chamber orchestra from Utrecht, but this time in Amsterdam. Then on Monday morning it was off to Groningen again. It's about a 2.5 hour train ride from Amsterdam, which is of course considered extremely far away. But I have really come to enjoy the train ride - bring a book, sit back with my iPod and relax. It passes so quickly I hardly even notice......I'm so used to travelling much longer distances. One summer I took the Greyound back and forth from Saskatoon to Calgary about 3 times, and those 8 hours just seemed to fly by - so a 2.5 hour train ride to Groningen is a piece of cake! Anyway, while in Groningen the second time I couchsurfed with a family there - Jolanda, Jan and their son Ruben.
I was there from Mon-Thurs, and during my days I hung out with Jolanda and Ruben, and then rehearsed with Camerata Ardesko in the evenings. Ruben is almost 4, and playing with him was a very good opportunity to practice my Dutch since it's the only language he speaks. We had some good times, Ruben and I. He's really into playing the violin, so I even let him play my viola.....it was highly exciting for him. Thursday was the concert, but the concert was in the Grote Kerk in Naarden - which is actually quite close to Amsterdam. So they hired two vans to transport us and our instruments to Naarden from Groningen, but when we were loading them in Groningen the sliding side door on one of them literally fell off when we went to close it. So, the rental place had to be called, and they had to bring a replacement van, and then we had to re-load all our stuff into it, blah blah blah. Needless to say we were late for our soundcheck.
It was a pretty fancy shindig - a private concert bankrolled by the big bank ABN-AMRO for their richest clients. In order to get an invitation to the concert you had to have over 500 000 Euros in your private bank account with ABN-AMRO. So, lots of really rich people. The concert went quite well, and then they had a reception after and we mingled with the audience a bit. Though as these things always go, the musicians were in a corner joking amongst themselves and trying to drink as much free alcohol as could be possible imbibed before getting back into the van, and our interaction with the audience basically consisted of every so often someone coming up to tell us that they enjoyed the concert. Good times. The vans dropped the 4 of us who were heading back to Amsterdam off at Hilversum station, and we caught one of the last trains into Amsterdam. But unfortunately I missed the last train from Amsterdam Centraal to my house, and because I always bike I have no idea how the night buses work or even which one goes to my house so I ended up crashing at Noelle's - she's a cellist on exchange to my school from Sarah Lawrence in the US, and not only was she playing the concert but she also lived not too far from the station and had a spare mattress. Score! But next morning I dutifully got up and went to school to practice, because from Sat-Wed I had an audition every second day. It was horrible. Wargh! But it's over now. It's all over........except for my Verbier audition in February. Saturday was my Britten-Pears orchestra audition, again in Den Haag. Then on Monday I auditioned for PMF (the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan), and on Wed I auditioned for the Concertgebouw. The last was my hilarious long-shot. I really didn't have enough time to prepare properly to actually stand a chance, but I just want to get in the swing of doing auditions. It's a completely different skill-set from actual performing, and since I want to get a job when I graduate I better start practicing auditions now! Anyhoo, I somehow kept myself going through all that craziness, but promptly on Wednesday evening after my last audition I got sick. I think the adrenaline kept my immune system going, and then as soon as the stress was gone it just gave out. So I ended up spending Thursday and Friday in bed, trying to sweat my fever out. Good times. Though last night I did manage to haul my arse out of bed to go see Laurence Power play the Bartok Viola Concerto with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. It was well worth the 10 euros admission - great stuff. Anyways, I'm still kinda sick, so I'm trying to rest up. Have to keep up my strength for all the very busy and important things I am doing!

Hoe? Wat? Waar?

The holidays are over! It went by too soon........so sad. But also sort of nice to be back at the grind. It's quite a grind though. I'm sort of "commuting" to Groningen to rehearse with a chamber orchestra there for a concert next week, I have an audition this Saturday for the Schleswig-Holstein music festival, then on Sunday I'm playing a concert with Trajectum (the chamber orchestra in Utrecht I sub in). Then it's back to Groningen for rehearsals leading up to the private concert on Thursday next week - it's for the 100 wealthiest clients of the big bank ABN-AMRO. Then I have another audition next Saturday for the Britten-Pears orchestra. Then two days later I have an audition for the Pacific Music Festival, and two days after that is the first round audition for the Concertgebouw! Yeesh.......that's a crazy couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll keep my sanity through it. Check back with me in a couple weeks :S Hope everyone had a happy holidays en een gelukkige nieuw jaar.

Black Angels

I don't have anything new to say. But I thought I'd share the video of our performance of Black Angels. The video quality itself isn't that great, but the sound quality is (the recording guy video'd it on his hand-held camera, but synched it with the quality audio recording). To read up on the piece, you can check this out. The video is hosted by Google video, here. Enjoy!

Prettige Kerstdagen!

Well, not so much has happened since my last post. I'm on holidays, so I've been creating some diversions for myself. Sleeping. Gym. Researching for my Master's project. But no "normal" Christmas activities to be found. It's weird too, because it didn't feel so Christmas-y to me here, partly because it's been such balmy weather! I'm used to freezing my ass off at Christmas time - that's what makes it festive! But it's been anywhere between +5-10C here, so it feels kind of like fall weather to me. It's probably just me though, since I grew up in a sick and twisted atmosphere.....known as Saskatchewan...... I'm getting together this afternoon with some of us ex-pats from the Conservatory who are still hanging around town. We're all kind of bored and lonely, because our social life (aka the school) is closed. :) Just a group of us who are too far from home to go for Xmas - America, Canada, Australia....the non-European continents. Then tomorrow I'm going to a Couchsurfing Boxing Day dinner. But not your traditional fare - it's going to be some sort of vegan Asian food. Starting a new Christmas tradition! Funny tidbit - there's no such thing as boxing day here. There's the Eerste Kerstmas Dag (1st Christmas Day) which is Christmas Day, and the Tweede Kerstmas Dag (Second Christmas Day) which is Boxing Day. Prettige Kerstdagen allemaal!

Holiday!

What an exhausting week! The orchestra concert went quite well, and was a lot of fun. And as is usually the case with tours, we had a bus party after the concert on Sunday. And the best part was that the school bought us beer, wine, and munchies to consume on the bus. They really know how to placate the music student masses! Yesterday was Melissa's end exam, and our performance of Black Angels. It was really amazing to perform, and I must confess I'm a little sad that we don't have a chance to perform it again. And after Melissa's exam we went out with her parents for dinner and then went to the Waterhole (a dive bar at the Liedseplein). Greg's band performed a set at the open mic night there, and then we hung out and partied it up. Then Raf, Jimmy, Olaf, Mel, and I all headed back to Melissa's place in Amsterdam North and had a slumber party! Today I've been catching up on things that have fallen by the way-side a bit. Already planning my schedule for January and February....... I'm looking forward to the holidays, but I have a lot of work to do! It's unfortunate that the school is going to be closed for 2 weeks, from December 22-Jan 5th. I can practice at home, but it's just not the same.... And speaking of home, I just found out today that I'm going to be moving in February to Amsterdam North. My landlady is buying an apartment there, so we're moving on up. It's actually closer to school than I am now, so that will be nice. And it's a really nice neighbourhood with a big park nearby. And I'll ride the ferry every day!

Mijn Sinterklaas-gedichte

For my Dutch class part of our homework for this week was to write a Sinterklaas poem. So here it is, for your perusal (the translation follows the Dutch).

Op de avond van Sinterklaas
Eten wij broodjes en kaas.
De mannen hebben lange baarden,
Maar geen appelen voor the paarden.
Dan horen wij een geluid klop:
Kijk! Daar draait de deur knop!
Het was de zwarte man, naam Piet,
Hij heeft zijn zak niet.
In plaats daar van brangt hij ons niets
Uitgezondered nieuwe lichten voor mijn fiets.
Piet ons aan te keuken een haas
Maar wij veel liever onze kaas.

Translation (approximate):
On the evening of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas)
We eat broodjes and cheese (broodjes are a Dutch roll that you can get with various fillings)
The men have long beards
But no apples for the horses (Sinterklaas comes on horseback)
Then we hear a loud knock
Look! There turns the door knob!
It was the black man, named Piet (Sinterklaas' "friend" Zwarte Pieter)
He has his sack niet (not)
In its place he brings nothing
Except new lights for my bike
Piet wants to cook us a hare
But we much prefer our cheese.

Isn't is wonderful?????? I wasn't really going for sense-making, to be quite honest I was just trying to find words that rhymed. Hence Sinterklaas rhymed with kaas. I think my teacher was quite impressed with that one ;) Tot ziens!