World Cup

The city is a-buzz as the World Cup opening weekend is unfolding. It's so exciting to be here! Yesterday, I went to my friend Adele's house to watch England play against USA...which was especially fun since she's English. Our boys in blue played much MUCH better than expected, which was fantastic! The score was 1-1...so we might actually have a shot this year!

Today, Germany plays Australia at 8:30...and I have never seen so many German flags in my life....they're everywhere! It seems like every person out today is wearing black, red and yellow...and all the houses have German flags hanging from the window! I'm planning on going to the Altstadt tonight to watch the game with some friends, and I'll definitely be donning the appropriate colors. The real problem will be if the U.S. ends up playing Germany...eeeek!

Other than that...no new happenings. I can't BELIEVE I'm returning home for a visit in only 10 days! I also can't believe I've made it this far. I can't wait to see Mom and my puppy dog...and have a dip in the pool....ahhh. It's still only about 70 degrees here at the warmest!

Looking forward to another sunny week...

Sing Sing Sing

Yesterday I ventured to Cologne to have my first official voice lesson!! I met with Prof. Arthur Janzen, who is a Canadian tenor, teaching in Cologne for over 20 years. I was really nervous...I brought a Despina aria because I knew I could sing it in my sleep, and I figured that I couldn't go wrong with Mozart.

The lesson was a smash!!!! It was great to get back into the nitty gritty of just SINGING. the VOICE. Making SOUND with it. AND.....vocally....everything was totally smooth all the way through my register. I was even singing up to E flats.....which I've never actually been able to do in a lesson before, only on my own!! Then, Prof. Janzen told me that I had a nice voice, very workable and no major technical issues to work through...just keep working on solid support, etc etc etc. That was probably the best possible result I could have gotten....and now I just need to find some appropriate repertoire. He suggested Gounod...which was suprising, but hey, I'm down! Now what I could REALLY use is an accompanist so I can really rehearse this music!!!!

After the lesson I celebrated with a few beers in Cologne and stumbled my way back home to Duesseldorf. It was a great day.

Also, Eva's teachers from Yale are visiting us this week, and today we went back to Cologne to see the Dom and have lunch. Basically it was a way for me to have an entire day's worth of their time getting to know them and picking their brains about the Yale Opera program and how to proceed with my singing. And now, I want to go to Yale. The program is FREE....all you have to do is get in. Easy, right? WRONG. They only have a total of 16 singers in the program at a time. I have a lot of work to do but at least I have a goal to work towards!

I'm also falling in love more and more everyday with little Nepomuk. He really is the world's most adorable child. And he laughs and smiles at me everytime I look at him. We're in love. I had a really awful pang of sadness when I realized that he won't remember me at all :( I guess that's the way it goes.

SO MUCH HAPPENING!!!

Last Saturday, I walked around downtown Duesseldorf with my friend Liam....and apparently we missed the memo that it was "Dress Like a Complete Freak" Day, otherwise known as "Japan-Tag", a day to honor Japanese culture. However, more striking than the actual displays of Japanese related things were the masses of seemingly repressed teenagers that came out of their vampire caves to don some of the craziest outfits I've ever seen. I'm talking better than Halloween.

Perhaps the intent was to pay tribute to Manga characters....but it definitely didn't translate. Freak. Freaking. Show. So Liam and I walked around and openly made fun of people to their faces. It was really great....lots of laughs topped off with a necessary ice cream.

Other notable news....I found someone to take me on as a voice student! Prof. Arthur Janzen from the Hochschule fuer Musik in Cologne! He is a Canadian baritone who was recommended to me by a colleague of Eva's! Yay!! We scheduled a voice lesson for next Monday...so stay tuned....now I'm trying to decide what would be best to sing for him AND what to wear for this lesson.

Also....another excellent happening:

My friend Sarah, another American au pair here in D'dorf, has a host family that owns a club called "Ruda's Studios"...apparently one of the hippest clubs around. They do so well that they're only open on Tuesday and Saturday nights. So Sarah hooked me up with her host parents to discuss singing at the club a week or so ago, and they told me to show up at 6:30 for soundcheck as an "audition".

So I went. I came prepared with 5 pop songs and some gold high heels. I waited around for an hour....not really knowing what to do or who to talk to, and I didn't see anyone I had previously met before. Finally, I got up the guts to go talk to someone about my "audition" that I was supposed to have, and I was hurried on to the stage with the band while they were doing their soundcheck. After listing the songs I prepared, they were like, "Yeah, that's cool, but actually do you know 'Poker Face' and 'Tik Tok'? Those are much more fresh and something new and different for us."

Um.....Lady GaGa and Ke$ha? DUH! Luckily I listen to these two songs during every SINGLE work out session I've had for the past 9 months...

So I auditioned, and it was a success! They put me in both sets, and I got to ACTUALLY SING ONSTAGE that night when the club opened! And it was packed!!!!! People were dancing and singing back to me...I totally felt like a rockstar. And, even better, they told me to come back next week with another list of songs!!! This could be really cool for me....I could potentially end up getting a regular slot with this club....which could also lead to some other gigs in the area! Mayyyyybe even PAID gigs! I had such a blast.