IYSO 2014 Adventures, EPISODE #4: Wittstock, Germany

Aix-en-Provence to Wittstock was a 24 hour bus ride, which wasn't bad!! The first seven hours or so, we were sleeping, waking up only for the rest stop times which, despite being extremely late or early, we still made one every few hours (which was required by law). Once we crossed the border into Germany, we discovered something interesting- the rest stops now cost money (70 euro cents to use the restroom, which wasn't a lot, it added up towards the end but it wasn't a huge deal, all in all). Also at the rest stops, we discovered our new obsession: German chocolate!!! :D Kinder eggs are amazing, anything Kinder related is wonderful, it's very creamy and sweet chocolate (not all the time, but in this case), but not overly so. GAH IT'S SO YUMMY!!!

*cough*

Anyways!

At about 11 pm., we arrived in our second host community and country: Wittstock, Germany. Same procedure as before- as soon as we totally unloaded the buses and got our luggage to it's designated spot, the chairman and our conductor called out names as the rest of us sat nearby and listened, waiting for our names to be called. Eventually, myself and three of others were called (we were the largest group of students to a host family in the entire community) and we went home with our host family. Our host parts, Sieglinde and Siegfried, were both older, but very sweet!! We soon discovered, both that night and more prominently the next morning, that Sieglinde didn't speak a lot of English (Siegfried spoke none), and none of us spoke German; however, we were able to communicate fairly easily, and they were so nice!! Sieglinde is an amazing cook, as well, which was awesome!!! Our concerts were at this beautiful church called Sankt-Marien-Kirche ("St. Marien's Church"), which was SO cool!!

We had three performances here in all - two were normal concerts (one Beethoven/Mozart and one Symphonic concert) and we also played for a church service in the church, which was awesome!!

Very early on, our host parents showed us around Wittstock, including showing us this church that they got married in!! 

We also found this beautiful courtyard... 

Myself and my Blue Lake host sisters!! We visited this super cool mini-church park, which was epic!! We found the mini counterpart of St. Marien's Church!!

The four of us and our friend, who we randomly met here, with mini St. Marien's. 

On our last day (which was also a free day), WE WENT TO BERLIN!!!! Berlin was absolutely fantastic!! Everywhere you looked was this amazing mix of history and modern life, creating this fantastic atmosphere!!

First stop in our Berlin adventure was to the Berlin Wall.

These poles (I know, this isn't a good picture of them) mark where the wall once stood.

My friend Jack and I in front of the Berlin Wall!! 

This cross used to be on top of the Church of Reconciliation, but when the church was destroyed by the GDR in 1985, the cross was rescued and kept in private ownership until the building of the memorial, when it was returned to the public.  

Chapel of Reconciliation.

Statue marking the reconciliation of Germany after the wall was demolished. 

Various statues and bells that were one a part of the Church of Reconciliation.

WE FOUND JARED PADALECKI!! ;) *wink wink nudge nudge*

After the Berlin Wall, we visited the heart of Berlin, starting with the Holocaust Memorial, also known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The concrete blocks (or stelae) were built so that, as you go further and further into the memorial, the blocks entirely envelop you, giving you an overwhelming feeling of sorrow.

After the Holocaust Memorial, we split up into smaller groups (I was in a group with two counselors and seven other girls), and we headed off to visit the Berlin Dome. On the way we found this awesome statue!! 

THE BERLIN DOME!! We found out later that there are actually several domes in Berlin, so we aren't sure which one this is... o.o either way, it was pretty awesome!! 

THIS BIKE TAXI!! I genuinely love this and I wish we could've ridden this, but oh well, it's still awesome!! 

The Brandenburg Gate!! This is my only picture of the gate, which also features Willow!! In retrospect, the amount of times pictures were photobombed by other Blue Lakers was insane o.o  

This awesome Roman statue!! 

When we got back, Sieglinde and her brother (who lived next door to us) took my friend Anne and I (Ruth and Em were napping back at the house) out for a walk around the neighborhood, which was the perfect, very peaceful end to the day. It was our last night in Wittstock, so it was nice to slow down and just chat with them about the different things we'd seen in Berlin and to hear them talk about their childhoods.

The next morning, we sadly said our goodbyes to Sieglinde and Siegfried, and, after lots of hugs and the entire orchestra singing "Lord Bless You and Keep You" to the host families, we boarded the buses again, this time to our next host community, Landau, Germany.

To the man who taught us how to fly....

An incredibly heartbreaking announcement has very recently been made... the fantastic and incredibly gifted Robin Williams passed away today.

Robin,

We're going to miss you, plain and simple. You've made us laugh and cry, and lightened the world with your incredible talent. Through your work when I was young, you taught me how to fly, and to always search for Neverland. You taught me to never give up and follow my dreams, to make friends and stay positive. You have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and will continue to be. We cannot and will not forget you! You brightened the world, and you will continue to do so for years and generations to come.

Rest in peace, old friend, and thank you.

Sincerely,

Sydney

IYSO 2014 Adventures, EPISODE #3: Aix-en-Provence, France

SO THERE WE WERE: utterly discombobulated due to lack of sleep and the ever increasing jet lag, exasperated from being in the airport for so long, but!! Despite all of this, we were also on buses (one all-girls bus, one all-guys bus), heading from Paris to the south of France to our first host community, Aix-en-Provence. Pretty much as soon as we got onboard, our counselors announced a mandatory quiet time (basically, from the time we entered the bus to the time we exited to the next rest stop, it was nap time), which was AMAZING- for the first hour or so, everyone (including myself) slept.

The french countryside...

The countryside was so pretty!! However, it hadn't really hit that we were in another country until our first rest stop: my friend Jack and I went to order food from this very nice woman, and we, not thinking, ordered in English, which was a language she wasn't fluent in by any means. I'd heard about language barriers multiple times, but this was the first time I'd experienced it. Without a doubt, it wouldn't be the last time, either!!

After we'd eaten, we wandered outside to discover this strange adult fitness center, or, as we interpreted it to be, a giant playground.

Finally, our free time was up, and we boarded the buses again. We'd have a few more stops (and getting lost, which took about two hours to sort out and get back on track) before arriving at our first host community at 3 o'clock the following morning. Our conductor and the chairman of the community began to call out names, and eventually my name was called, along with two other girls (Risa and Margo). Our host mom smiled at us, kissed our cheeks, and whisked us away to her car and eventually to her house atop a hill in a nearby town. Because there wasn't enough room in her house, there was also room in her art studio for two of us to sleep, so Margo and I took the studio and Risa stayed in the house with our host mother. We made an agreement, despite the fact it was quickly approaching 4 in the morning at this point, for everyone to wake up around 9 so we could have enough time to have breakfast with our host mom. 

Well....

we tried....

Margo and I both woke up at the same time the next morning, but it wasn't 9... oh, no...it was 12:30, GAH WE MISSED BREAKFAST!! O.O OUR POOR HOST MOM WAS PROBABLY ALONE AND WONDERING WHERE WE WERE AND WHAT SHE SHOULD DO!! So, panicking, we jumped out of bed, got dressed, and ran to the main house in time to meet our host mother, Jean, coming out of her house to wake US up. She was totally okay with the fact we'd slept so long, as Risa was also still asleep. While Jean prepared brunch, Margo and I woke Risa up (we all agreed that, though it was a bad situation, at least we'd all slept in to almost the exact same time, which helped make it a little less awkward, both between the three of us and with our host mom, and we shared some laughs over it all).

After we ate, the four of us packed into Jean's tiny car and sped off towards Aix-en-Provence. Aix-en-Provence was SO beautiful!! The architecture was so fantastic and old, it was like being in a book - it didn't feel real, but it was also impossible to refute. 

After wandering around for a few hours, Jean left to go to a book convention, so Risa and Margo and I wandered around a nearby library and drank coffee and talked, which was really nice!! Margo and I didn't know Risa as well (Margo and I were in a cabin together during Intensive Week, and Risa joined later - her and two others were our exchange students from Germany who toured with us the entire time), so it was nice to sit down with her and swap adventures from Intensive Week and before. After we all got home, we sat down to dinner and talked and laughed for hours. The next morning, we had our first overseas Blue Lake rehearsal, so after breakfast (yes, we woke up in time for breakfast), we had to leave early enough to visit a castle (I didn't get any pictures of it, but Catherine de Medici stayed there briefly at some point during her life) and for Jean to go to a doctor's appointment for her hand. Once this was all said and done, we left Aix-en-Provence to a town called La Roque-d'Antheron, which is where our rehearsals and performances were. Because we were slightly early, the four of us went to a nearby cafe and relaxed for a bit before having to go to our rehearsal space, the Salles de Fetes. 

Pretty building near the cafe....

Risa, Margo, and I!! 

After rehearsal, all of the Blue Lakers boarded our buses and were transported to our performance venue, the breathtakingly beautiful Abbaye de Silvacane (which was a 14th century church). The first night we played our Symphonic concert (Cheatham, Barber, Copland, and Brahms), which went fairly well!!

The beautiful Abbaye de Silvacane!!

Inside the Abbaye...

After the performance, I met up with my friend Mel, who I'd met last summer when I attended Blue Lake as a regular camper. Mel's family and Jean had worked it out that after this concert, I'd go home with Mel, spend the night with her, and the next morning she'd bring me back to La Roque-d'Antheron for tomorrow's rehearsal and second performance. This entire plan worked out perfectly, and after saying goodbye to Jean, I spent some quality time with my dear friend and her family, who were all very wonderful!! The next morning, I said goodbye to Mel and was returned to Salles de Fetes in time for our second and last rehearsal in France.

What we didn't know, though, was how horribly, terribly bad an evening to go.

And we learned, my friends... we learned. o.o 

This night of nights began with a terrible, horrible revelation- the Abbaye had an echo. This echo, which we knew from yesterday was exactly 12 seconds by the time the sound totally ceased, hadn't really affected us during the Symphonic Concert, but, for lack of better phrasing, our Mozart/Beethoven concert COMPLETELY went to hell. At one point during the second movement of Beethoven, everyone was so lost and confused, we ALL stopped playing at the exact same time, producing this horrible, terrible awkward silence. Thank the Lord though, we picked it up again almost immediately, and we finally finished the concert with a relatively good finale. Our audience was amazingly kind, they gave us a standing ovation and everything. After the applause died and we gave gifts to the important members of the community (we did this at every concert to show our appreciation), round two of chaos erupted. We were told that we had to be out of the Abbaye entirely, equipment, music, everything, within fifteen minutes of the concert ending, as we had to get to our next rest stop (we were loading the buses and leaving for our next community, Wittstock, Germany, this very night) in time to pick up the next drivers. 

Well, it was a nice plan in theory.

I was one of the students on librarian crew, which means at the beginning and end of every rehearsal and performance, myself and five other students clean up a specific section's music folders, make sure everything is accountable, and report to our head counselor (who was also my cabin counselor, the awesome Willow) that everything was there. We didn't really have a way to get new music if someone lost theirs, AND all the markings for the music from the past year were in everyone's original copies, so making sure everything was present was vital. Before we even left for Europe, Willow announced to the rest of the orchestra that ONLY the librarian crew was to handle music- we couldn't afford to lose it or damage it, and it was easiest to collect in order and if left on the stands. We never had a problem with this, and we'd worked out our system to a tee by the time we left for Europe. However, because things were so crazy and we were working with such a short time frame, a few other people started randomly grabbing and stacking folders while the librarian crew was putting their instruments away, resulting in this motley pile of mixed music. We got it all sorted out, only to discover three folders were missing. Panicked, we ran to Willow and Willow and myself ran back to the Abbaye to look around more to see if we could locate them, maybe they'd been dropped somewhere?! No such luck, alas.... We rejoined the other Blue Lakers, who were waiting outside the buses, all of us dejected and miserable. Emotions were abound- we were saying goodbye to our host families, it was midnight, we were exhausted, and we couldn't load onto the buses as our drivers were still helping load the instruments. As we waited around though, a glimmer of happiness shone through at last- Willow and another counselor started yelling my name, and when I'd found them, they happily announced they'd located the missing folders, WE WERE BACK IN BUSINESS!!! :D 

FINALLY!! Once the instruments and collected music was loaded, we were allowed to board the buses, and we all bid our farewells to France and departed to our next great adventure and country: Germany.