Wednesday, 24 June – Los Angeles - Toronto - Frankfurt
The only thing good about waking up at 4:00 AM was the light traffic by the time we hit the road at 4:40 AM. No guarantees there, even, with Pacific Coast Highway closed at Las Flores, just another big slide in an El Niño year. A 5:30 AM pickup at RAND got us to LAX in short order, we checked in at the Air Canada terminal, and then waited for our 8:00 AM flight to Toronto and then onward to Frankfurt. Hurray! Our first (and hopefully not the last) concert tour of Europe, to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria, with the combined Mansfield Chamber Singers (Ken Wells, Beverly Hills) and the St. Albans Choir (Jim Vail, Westwood). We’ve been looking forward to this after a few months of rehearsal…and we kept ourselves amused in the terminal translating (and I use that term loosely) some of our English-lyric songs into German, e.g., Ezekul sah das Rad, weithin in mitten des Himmels….
The flight to Toronto seemed to pass quickly enough. Then we had a somewhat incomprehensible trek through the airport – basically wound up standing in a line that we didn’t need to be in, due to the content-free response of a security guard blocking a door – but all in all, it didn’t matter too much, either we’d wait in line or at the terminal gate itself. We munched our Trader Joe’s trail mix while waiting to board, and hoped that our luggage really and truly was checked through to Frankfurt.
Thursday, 25 June – Frankfurt - Würzburg
Our luggage arrived with us – hurray! – at about 8:00 AM local time. After the usual customs drill, we got ourselves over to the Frankfurt airport’s Terminal 2 via the “skyline” and went on a fruitless search for an ATM that would accept Plus cards (a Cirrus attempt in Terminal 1 had already failed miserably). We finally just left our bags at the luggage storage (one didn’t have to pay up front), and went back to Terminal 1, since that was where the Bahnhof was anyway. There we finally found an ATM, got our DM350, and went to the station. We weren’t sure what we needed from the ticket machine just for a quick trip into the city and back, and so asked the information guy, who was probably used to confused tourists asking that same question. The Frankfurter Tageskarte was the ticket we needed, but the ATM had dispensed bills to us larger than the machine would accept, so we went into the train ticket office instead. I ordered them – seemed easy – and off we went to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. Well, not without a little excitement on the platform, first; we got down the escalator, the train was at the platform…
“Robert, hurry, there’s our train!” I said, running to the door.
“No, it might not be! We have to be sure!”, he answered.
Well, I *was* sure. All the trains going from the airport in the direction of the city stop at the main train station. But would he listen to me? No…
The doors slid shut, and the train pulled away, just as Robert looked up from the timetable and said, “That’s the one we want!”.
Too late…so we sat on the platform for about 15 minutes, waiting for the next train, while I worked hard at not saying “I told you so”, and failed. :)
From the Hauptbahnhof we walked around the sleazy surroundings, mostly populated by unfortunate Turks, it would seem, looking for the Scandic Savoy Hotel. We found it a few blocks away near the Münchner Straße; it looked pretty clean and decent, but we’d find out for ourselves on 11 July.
From there we walked to the much nicer Römerplatz. Although it was early in the day, a fair number of people were out and about. We took a peek at the Roman ruins, and visited both the Nikolaikirche and the Frankfurter Dom (the latter having been extensively rebuilt following WWII). Robert’s allergy started to bother him, and we were both tired, so we sat at an outside pub, enjoyed some beer, and generally rested.
We thought we might go into a nearby museum to see an exhibit on the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, but were too pooped to move, and instead slowly made our way back to the airport to meet our group, grabbing a würst brötchen on the way.
We found the folks from the direct Lufthansa flight, but the KLM crowd was delayed – a malfunction caused them to turn around and go back to Amsterdam (not that we were told that right away, of course; the flight arrivals board kept updating the time to be later and later, and at one point simply said “see attendant”, giving us a few minutes of worry that the plane had crashed!). So our not-quite-a-full-busload headed down the Autobahn to Würzburg, where we checked into the Hotel Residence on Juliuspromenade, freshened up, and then went on a tour of the Schloß. (I could tell that I wouldn’t want to do too much of the touring thing – it was already bothering me to hear English, English, English everywhere.) Dinner was at the Wittelsbacher Hof, somewhat late, allowing the KLM folks to finally catch up with us. From the patio overlooking the parking area, I held my beer up high to greet our fellow singers, who looked liked they could collectively use a drink!
We were quite tired afterwards, and even the effects of a late dinner and the cheers of soccer fans celebrating Germany’s World Cup win over Iran couldn’t keep us awake.
Friday, 26 June -- Würzburg
It seemed that no sooner had we closed our eyes that the alarm was going off – sigh. We pried ourselves awake, ate breakfast, and readied ourselves for the day. (But first, I took a peek at some dirndls in a dress shop across the street, pretty tempting!)
The group went en masse to Bamberg, where we enjoyed 2½ hours simply goofing off. Robert and I joined forces with Chris and Tami Haggstrom, eased away from the big mob, and went off in search of Rauchbier and lunch. A König Ludwig Dunkel sign caught our eye, however, leading us to abandon the quest for smoky beer, and instead we enjoyed a leisurely bratwurst lunch in that pub instead.
Following a stroll in the old city, we reboarded the buses and drove along to Zeilitzheim, home of our first concert of the tour. We sang in the courtyard of Schloß Zeilitzheim, really more of a large manor house, not a castle, for an audience of about 40. We were singing there through personal contacts of Jim Vail’s, apparently he had lived there several summers years ago. We goofed some; we had to restart the Mortensen O Magnum Mysterium, but the secular second half of the concert was very well received. We repeated Java Jive as our encore; alto Karen Hart changed “nickel” to “Deutschmark” in her solo and was a big hit!
We were back at the hotel late, and a disco band kept me up until 2:00 AM. Schade!
Saturday, 27 June – Würzburg
The alarm beeped politely shortly before 7:00 AM, but that didn’t keep us from being blasted away by our telephone wake-up call. Despite the shock, I spoke German to the operator, yikes.
We were up early to participate in an apparently mandatory tour of the Würzburg Residence. The palace was pretty inside, impressive considering the extent of bomb damage during World War II. We also strolled through the gardens, took our photo at the Rodan-esque fountain with Chris and Tami, and then slowly strolled back toward the hotel. We stopped en route with Karen Hart and Brian Kornfeld for some Kloster Andechs beer, then wound up eating Döner Kebap at a small place near the hotel. Yum.
Tami and I then hit the dress store across from the hotel, and each bought two dirndls, with me also nabbing a leather vest and a silk scarf. Too much $$ -- nearly DM1000!
Late afternoon, we donned our concert attire and bused the short distance to Stift Haug (we found out later that Hans Prugger, our friend in Munich, was born in Würzburg and baptized in Stift Haug). There, in the almost austere baroque church, we participated in a Catholic mass. Some of our group walked to the church, having missed the buses due to a mostly unannounced change in our call time, and Vail apparently got a little hot under the collar, but it blew over.
The mass was interesting, being in German. We had a sheet to follow, but it was difficult due to the great echo in the church. We sang the Thompson, parts of the Victoria mass, the Lauridsen, and the Bruckner Virga Jesse. The latter was awesome; the long pauses in the music allowed the sound to float up and out over the congregation. Mariélena Lara and I went to take communion, me for various reasons; more to make a point than anything else, I guessed. But from the altar rail we had a good listen to the Eben From Life to Life; the group did sound wonderful.
Afterwards we changed and went out to dinner with Chris and Tami. Chris was very quiet; I was worried that he was weirded out by my going to communion. He said not, but stayed quiet anyway, eventually talking more and generally feeling conflicted about actively participating in a service. It was hard to know what to say to that, considering I didn’t even know why I was doing what I was doing (habit?); mostly we advised them both to skip the Vienna mass if they felt strongly about it.
It started raining on us during dinner (we were outside), and once Robert got dumped on when the breeze shifted, we cruised back to the hotel. Met Ken en route, and went on a brief search and rescue for apple strudel, but didn’t find any…so instead just bummel’d on back to the hotel.
Sunday, 28 June – Würzburg to Karlovy Vary
Travel day…a nice relaxed morning, and we walked a bit along the river and took in the views. Tami and I both wore one of our new dirndls, and we were a big hit; we hammed it up quite a bit in front of the hotel while Robert, Chris, and others took photos of us.
We loaded up the buses, and headed down the road, out of Germany to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. “You know this bus has a repuation,” said Bob Oppelt – jokingly? – “this is supposed to be a cultural tour.” I told him he was free to ride the other bus, but I don’t think he heard me. :)
The first two hours were uneventful. Sally Reeder and Susie Weil worked on Come Clad in Fleece (Ken’s Come Clad in Peace, a setting of part of Maya Angelou’s “On the Pulse of the Morning”, could not be performed by us on this tour because not only would Angelou not give permission for us to do so, but her lawyers said he had to destroy all copies of the music. Sally’s opinion was that Ken simply needed new lyrics) and Sally read some of her travel notes (“the Thomas guide”, courtesy of her husband) over the bus loudspeaker. We stopped for lunch not far from the Czech border.
From then on, things were a little more lively. After entering the Czech Republic at Cheb (formerly Eger), and seeing the unattractive prostitutes lining the roadside, our busload started singing. Chris, Tami, Robert and I did Silver Springs, Midnight Blue, and Zombie Jamboree; others did older songs; all in all the time passed quickly, and we were soon in Karlovy Vary.
Karlovy Vary, or as it used to be known, Karlsbad, was a spa town largely untouched during World War II. It was gorgeous, with tall pastel and white buildings lining a river tucked into a little valley. Robert and I went off to find an ATM, visited the St. Mary Magdalene Church, and then enjoyed a beer at an outdoor café (1/2 liter was 75¢!). We window-shopped a little, then went back to the hotel for dinner with Chris and Tami. We finished up the evening in their BIG room; the guys played chess while Tami and I listened to music, watched (and laughed at) people from the balcony, and generally goofed off.
It was too bad we had only one night in Karlovy Vary, it was worth a longer visit. The next day at least we knew we’d have a few more hours to walk around.
Monday, 29 June – Karlovy Vary to Prague
We had the morning free until nearly noon, which gave us the chance to have a leisurely breakfast and then strike out on a walk. We (Chris, Tami, Robert and I) strolled uphill, passing the Russian consultate en route, to visit the St. Peter & Paul Russian Orthodox Church. It was beautiful, a pale blue and white building topped with gleaming, golden onion domes shining in the sunlight. The interior was quite nice as well, with beeswax candles crackling. The church had obviously been restored fairly recently.
We came back down the hill, and sat at a riverside café enjoying some Pilsner Urquell for about an hour. We searched out a bakery looking for a light meal, and eventually found one. We couldn’t read the signs or understand the person behind the counter, but managed to get a few things that were pretty decent.
Dorothy had told us about an “organized” mini-concert planned for 2:00 PM “at the Colonnade”. There was some confusion as to where exactly, but a critical mass managed to get together and migrate to a suitable site. It was supposed to be somewhat impromptu, but the handful of St. Albans folk who showed seemed to assume that they were in charge, and Vivian Hay conducted. It was fun, but she and Bob Oppelt were pretty irritating (I thought) and almost took the fun out of it. I’m trying to remember that the goal is to enjoy myself, but overall the other people are a conservative lot and not exactly my cup of tea. In any case, once the “group” broke up, Chris, Tami, Robert, Frank, Karen and I hung back and did Zombie Jamboree, and that was great!
The bus ride to Prague took about two hours. A couple of St. Albans people switched over to our bus, then were apparently perturbed by our singing for most of the ride. Oh well! Again, we were just having a good time, and I thought the singing was pretty mellow compared to yesterday’s bus journey. (One woman told me at the end of the ride, “I’d have joined in, but I only know hymns.” I offered to sing Amazing Grace for her to the tune of the theme from Gilligan’s Island, but she didn’t seem too interested. Or amused.)
Our hotel in Prague was on the outskirts, and the building itself looked like it might have been a Soviet monument or consulate. (Robert’s vote was for the University of Moscow.) The rooms were nice, though. We were just a bit too far from the center to walk into town, so we decided to go on the morning’s three-hour tour that would get us to the city center, and we’d then have the rest of the day on our own.
I did wish the St. Alban’s people would collectively lighten up. There were a few folks who were friendly, but by and large they seem rather disapproving (or at least, the women were). It seems a shame, but given most seem to have their minds made up already, it wasn’t clear we could do anything about it. Susie overheard one woman complain disdainfully that she “had to listen to three hours of pop music” in the bus. (That was dumb – it was only two hours, and most were “old standards” that Sally and Susie were singing!) Well, we hoped she’d go back on the other bus. And ultimately, I was pretty sure that our two groups would not be collaborating again any time soon following this tour.
Tuesday, 30 June – Prague
Today was entirely free, at least music-wise, as we had a three-hour tour in the morning of the Prague castle area, and the afternoon and evening to ourselves. The tour consisted of a bus ride up to the castle, an exploration of the castle area and St. Vita’s Church, and a long walk back down to the old town square. The weather was warm and the walking was tiring; when the tour ended, the “fab four” immediately parked ourselves in the square at a café for a beer and, almost an afterthought, lunch.
Following that pick-me-up, the four of us walked around. Robert went
into the Pinkas synagogue at the Old Jewish Cemetery to check out the
names on the wall to see if any Weisslers, Hayns, or Heins showed up
(no), while I wound up discussing religion with Chris and Tami again. I
instigated it, but I probably should have kept my mouth shut; all that
happened was I felt lousy for the rest of the afternoon. That’ll teach
me! I needed to adopt Robert’s attitude in general. :)
(The synagogue’s walls contained the names, organized by family, of all the Jews deported from Prague by the Nazis. The Communists had the synagogue’s walls whitewashed during their hold on the Czech Republic, but following the country’s liberation, the names were being painstakingly restored. When we visited in 1994, only about half of the names had been restored; by this visit, the restoration was complete.)
We met up with Robert outside the synagogue and cemetery, and shortly afterwards we split off from Chris and Tami, they going back to the hotel, while we returned to the Mala Strana to find the restaurant on the Vltava River we remembered from four years earlier. Neither of us were hungry, though, so we drank another beer, watched the boats cruise past, and nearly fell asleep. We eventually headed back to the subway, after refinding our old hotel, the U Pava, and grabbed some gyros for dinner.
Back at the hotel, we watched a little television, and Robert was conked out by 8:00 PM.
Tomorrow, Theresienstadt.
Wednesday, 1 July – Prague
While much of the group went on another organized tour in the morning, we went on a very different tour, to Theresienstadt, home of a “transit camp” during World War II and where Robert’s great-great-grandmother Augusta died.
A mini-bus picked up us, the Leavitts, Susie Weil, Dorothy Yungman and her daughter Rebecca at the hotel. After meeting up with about ten others in the Jewish Quarter, we headed out on the 60 km drive to what’s now called Terezin. Our guide was a survivor of both Terezin and Auschwitz, who told us about the history of the city and the camp.
In Terezin itself, we visited a small museum. While Robert went through the displays, Susie and I went with our guide to the museum office, where we looked up family in the listings of persons transported from Terezin. Susie was looking for her uncle, but he wasn’t there (the listings covered only Jews from Bohemia and Moravia, and he had been from Bratislava in Slovakia). She did think she found her grandfather, though; I looked for Augusta, but did not find her as by that time she had come from Germany. I did, though, find about ten Heins; no clue if they were related, but I took down the information anyway.
After the museum we went along to the crematorium, cemetery, and finally the Kleine Festung (“small fortress”) that had become a prison during the war. It had the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign over the gate; within the prison’s walls we had a look at typical rooms where prisoners stayed (awful) vs. the facilities built solely for show, to fool/impress the International Red Cross.
On the way back to Prague, our guide told us his own story, being interned in Theresienstadt, on to Auschwitz with his wife. For much of the time he was unable to see her and didn’t know if she had survived. Ultimately, both were liberated and their marriage lasted 50 years. Amazing.
Back to reality…got back to the hotel, had a quick bite, and went off to our concert venue. This concert was at the Church of St. Simon and Jude, now simply a concert hall. Although the concert was misadvertised as including organ works, we had a decent audience, including the two Czech composers, Eben and Ropak, whose work we performed. Chris had to sing the tenor solo on Java Jive since Rick Roudebush was ill, and did great despite reversing the lyrics a little bit. Karen Hart had a bug nearly fly into her mouth as she started her solo on the Victoria mass, but got past that ok. The Brahms fell apart again; afterwards Ken told us he was thinking of giving up and letting Vail conduct it. Hmm!
Following the concert, and getting a nice view of the castle and bridges at night, about half of us returned to the hotel for a bite and a drink. We talked to Ken about music for next Spring; sounds as if he’s not too interested in my arrangements, he started to refer to them as being “in progress” but then caught himself – I must have had a strange look on my face or something. Oh well – and I actually thought two of them were pretty good. Getting permission to perform them was another issue, though; that would likely be harder to sort out than it would be getting Ken interested.
Thursday, 2 July – Prague to Linz (via Freistadt)
Another hearty breakfast, and we were off fairly early towards Linz. The bus was a little quieter than on previous days, and we enjoyed seeing the Czech countryside roll by. The border crossing into Austria was without incident, although slow (turned out most of the guards had gone to lunch and left us sitting there). It was somewhat of a relief to see signs all in German again.
Our late lunch stop was in Freistadt, an old walled town dating to the 14th century. We were absolutely stuffed by the big meal served us in the Zum Goldener Hirsch restaurant, accompanied by some Freistädter dark beer. We had a couple of hours following that to walk around, see the old walls, climb a tower to look over the town, take photos, etc. (A momentary panic ensued when some of us came down from the tower to find the door locked; luckily our “guide” came back and let us out!)
Linz lay only about 30 minutes from Freistadt, and we were ensconced in our Novotel room by 6:00 PM. Robert and I went on into the city center with Paul and Corinne Butler, Frank Silvey, and Mariélena Lara. None of us felt much like eating, so we had a drink and some echte Linzer Torte (or so they claimed) at a café on the Hauptplatz. The others then went to an organ concert, while Robert and I walked just a bit more. We found the church we’d perform in, the Ursulinenkirche, with our poster displayed out front – hurray! The church was closed but it looked as if it would be a nice venue.
Friday, 3 July – Linz
Robert and I opted out of the morning city tour and instead went in on our own. First stop was the Alter Dom, whose rather plain exterior was quite a contrast with the ornate baroque interior. We also visited the Karmelitenkirche and the Ursulinenkirche, where we’d sing in the evening. I got a couple of postcards of the church, and had Robert take a photo of me near the poster outside.
We returned to the hotel to catch the 11:00 AM tour to St. Florian’s Abbey. The abbey lay only about 12 km from town and as usual commanded a great view of the surrounding countryside. A guide for us was not immediately available so we were able to walk about on our own, finding a marker for Anton Bruckner just inside one of the church entrances. His actual tomb lay in the crypt beneath the church’s great organ.
It started raining on us, but our guide arrived and we began our tour of the abbey. The abbey was named for St. Florian, who was martyred in the fourth century (as the story goes), thrown into a river with a millstone around his neck. The river, however, didn’t want to keep the body, and deposited him on the riverbank. He subsequently became the patron saint of water, putting out fires, stopping floods, etc….with his role in putting out fires leading to the questionable prayer, “Dear St. Florian, spare my house and instead take my neighbor’s!”. We toured various rooms in the abbey that were reminiscent of the Würzburg Residence.
We returned to the hotel intending to have a late lunch nearby, or in the hotel, but we were again too late (our young group tour leader, Danielle, struck again – she’s a little clueless – telling us we could eat in the hotel when we returned, but then apparently telling the hotel that nobody would be eating there. Thanks!). So we took the streetcar into town again with Karen & Brian and the Gilloglys, and found a small pizza Imbiß that was just the ticket.
Dinner that night followed a short acoustic rehearsal in the church, and the concert was at 8:00 PM. We seemed to go flat a lot, and the Bruckner Virga Jesse in particular was pretty bad, sinking a full step or more. On the plus side, the Brahms held together, for the first time.
After the concert, a few of us went out to the Kaffee Glockenspiel on the Hauptplatz for a beer. The Asian waiter gave Frank Silvey a bad time for moving an ashtray, but otherwise we enjoyed our drinks. (I meant to try a drink Paul had told me about earlier – a “diesel”, meaning dark beer and coke – but instead stuck to the real thing.) As we left the café, we broke out singing Zombie Jamboree on the cobbled streets at the streetcar stop, under the lights…it was a big hit with the small group of people waiting for the train along with us. We followed up with Java Jive as we boarded the train. We were pretty much in full voice at the next stop when Ken Wells, the Gilloglys, Sally Reeder, etc. got on the train. Ken looked embarrassed and basically moved as far away from us as he could, but Jim joined us, and we reprised Zombie before moving on to Ken’s arrangement of Hoagy Carmichael’s The Nearness of You. [We later heard from Sally that Ken’s only comment about our singing was, “Oh God, I hope they don’t sing The Nearness of You.”] We finished up Nearness just as we stepped off the train at the Wifi stop. We had a small but enthusiastic audience. It may not have been the technically best performance, but the spontaneity and relaxed atmosphere were so wonderful – I had the feeling I’d remember that particular performance as one of the highlights of the trip.
Saturday, 4 July – Linz to Vienna via Melk
A last uninspired breakfast (well, it was fine, really) at the Novotel accompanied by a little legal talk, and we were off to Vienna, hitting Stift Melk en route. Ken was being a little piggy in the morning; apparently we’re having too much fun, or we’re not serious enough, or else he’s jealous – whatever!
Quiet bus to start out. This being Independence Day, we (Chris, Tami, Robert and I – who else?) were figuring on singing the Schoolhouse Rock We, The People (aka the preamble to the Constitution, more or less) at some point. Sally read more of the Thomas guide to the bus; Peg was working on lyrics for the four of us to sing at the last night’s dinner, set to the theme from the Sound of Music, while I tried my best to write in my trip journal as we bounced down the road.
Stift Melk was as I remembered it from 11 years ago, except this time, it wasn’t raining, we had a tour in English, and the interior of the church was not covered in scaffolding. Again, the intense combination of red marble, gold leaf, and baroque painting and sculpture was almost overwhelming. Fett, fliegende babies were everywhere!
From Melk, after lunch in the Stiftsrestaurant, it was but a short drive into Vienna. There we checked into the Parkhotel Schönbrunn, near Schloß Schönbrunn and reportedly a guesthouse of the emperor. Our fifth floor room was the largest room we’d had on the trip, and had a very nice balcony with a view out to the south (Robert said; I’m geographically impaired). We had a driving tour of Vienna in the late afternoon, with a joker of a tour guide who had many funny, biting comments about the sights (e.g., the plaque of Stalin, which the Austrians didn’t want, but insisted on keeping once the Russians asked them to remove it; the war memorial statue of a Russian soldier, paid for by the Austrians but then given to Austria as a “gift” when the Russians left in 1955…). He also spoke much of the artist Hundertwasser, his eclectic style and fixation with toilets. Last, but not least, we saw the dark exterior of the massive, gothic St. Stephan’s Cathedral, complete with horse-drawn carriages lined up in front for the tourists. It was hard to believe that we were going to sing there the next morning as part of a mass.
Dinner was provided in a nice local restaurant – Wienerschnitzel, of course! -- where we shared fun conversation with the Gilloglys, Brian and Karen, and Heinrich re: Monty Python. As it was Independence Day, a small clump of the group was singing Yankee Doodle and It’s a Grand Old Flag, which gave Chris, Tami, and I our opportunity to sing the Constitution preamble. As Chris later said, it almost sounded rehearsed! And we actually got a compliment from Jim Vail – he asked if we were the Andrews Sisters (sorry, Chris!) and said we sounded good. :) More than we ever get from Ken! Tami guessed that Vail didn’t know it was her making comments about sitting and diaphragms the first night in Prague…
Back at the hotel, we watched Germany vs. Croatia in their World Cup match. Croatia won 3-0. All the Slavs in Pedro must have been jumping with joy!
Sunday, 5 July – Vienna
An early wake-up call got us downstairs for breakfast, in full concert dress, at 6:45 AM. That was certainly the best I’ve ever looked in order to drink a cup of unexceptional coffee. At 7:45 we were on the bus headed for St. Stephan’s Cathedral. We rehearsed across the square in a small room on the fifth floor of a nondescript building, and then had a brief acoustic rehearsal in the church at 9:00 before the mass began at 9:30.
The church was a massive gothic structure and from the choir area, to the right (as one looked at it) of the altar, I had a pretty good view down a long aisle. We sang well except for the Lauridsen (sigh). I could actually understand the priest this time, too, and mostly follow along. No communion this time, though.
Following the mass and after changing clothes, we went to lunch on the Kärtner Straße with Chris, Tami, and Heinrich. I had an excellent Kaffee Melange mit Schlag and then we half ran through the heavy drizzle to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. After 1½ hours there, Chris, Tami and I hopped into the Naturhistorisches Museum to see the Neandertal and dinosaur exhibits, and caught up with Robert shortly afterwards.
We then intended to get to the IMAX theatre to see the Everest film at 6:00 PM. We got back down to the U4 subway at Karlsplatz, then confusion reigned as to which direction to go. We all ran onto the train headed for Heiligenstadt (ok, so I led the charge), then Robert said, “No! This is the wrong direction!”. Everyone ran off the train except me, who got stuck in the car when the doors closed. I waved goodbye, no doubt looking really shocked, and heard Chris say, “We’ll wait for you here!” as the train pulled out.
So…up one stop, cross the tracks, wait for another train…and we were soon all back together, my three cohorts getting onto my train as I was now headed in the right direction, and we went collectively back to Schönbrunn. From there we ran to the IMAX, more or less – the guys had Tami and I outpaced, for sure – to find the film sold out. Rats! So we went back to Hietzinger Straße (our hotel stop, Robert keeps calling it “heat seeking missile”), found an ATM, had a really nice dinner nearby, re-hit the ATM to cover our losses, and finally went on back to the hotel.
Peg had written lyrics set to the theme from the Sound of Music, and she’d asked the four of us if we would sing at the last tour dinner, so we spent a few hours after dinner in our spacious room :) working on the arrangement. (Ok, so it was mostly Chris and Tami’s work.) The song turned out to be a little on the “deceptively simple” side, but we got over halfway through it, with only a pitchpipe to help us, before we all faded out. Chris, Tami and I went off in search of a piano, but found it in the smoke-filled bar surrounded by too many people, and decided to bail on it until the morning.
Monday, 6 July – Vienna
Robert was up early to do a little birdwatching from the balcony. After breakfast together, he went to the Tiergarten, while I stayed at the hotel to try my hand at arranging the end of our Sound of Music, just in case we needed it. (Chris had said he would do it, but it was fun to tinker anyway.) I listened to Etan McElroy play the piano in the bar a bit as well (little did I know that would be the last time I heard him play; he passed away just a week later of cancer) then took the U4 into the city center and walked the Kärtner Straße a little, buying a linen blouse and spending a lot of time in a bookstore.
I’d told some people about meeting at the Hotel Sacher at noon for another impromptu performance, but it was a little windy, and didn’t seem worth it. When I got there myself I found Chris and Tami copying out the parts to the arrangement they’d finished that morning – it looked really good. (I’m so impressed.) Robert arrived shortly afterwards, and instead of singing, we went to lunch, enjoying some Europizza and more good beer. I also got teased more about being a “wafer-taker”. Sigh.
I picked up some Sacher Torte at the Hotel Sacher after lunch, then went back to the hotel with Chris and Tami while Robert went to the Westbahnhof to get our train tickets to Munich for the next day. Chris got the music xeroxed, then we parked ourselves at an outdoor café and waited for Robert to return so we could rehearse the piece a bit.
The last concert of the tour was at the English-congregation United Methodist Church. The venue was a bit of a letdown after singing in St. Stephan’s, but on the bright side, the acoustics were a little easier to deal with, not so much echo. We actually managed not to muff anything badly; overall the concert went well. (Karen did blank out on her line in Java Jive, but only we noticed – I thought it was on purpose and sounded great!)
Our guide Danielle whisked us out of the church pretty quickly following the concert so we could get back to the hotel and then wait 30 minutes for dinner. That was fine with us, though, we needed a little more rehearsal of our Sound of Music. Dinner was in one of the ballrooms of the hotel, and as most of us stayed in concert dress, it was very elegant. We shared our dinner table with Chris, Tami, Karen, Brian…lots of people were circulating, taking photos and generally really enjoying themselves. Brian and Chris were sharing stories about working in recording studios; I talked briefly with Peg to coordinate when we’d sing for everyone. Dinner (veal) was excellent, but with the main course served after 9:30 PM, a little hard to work through. In any case, the beer and wine got us relaxed, and after a nice speech from John, the clueful in-country tour leader, Peg announced us, and we were on!
The halls are alive with the sound of music
as we earnestly strive to perform on key
When we harmonize in these lofty venues
The echoes revise our harmonies.
With Jim or Ken on the podium
we swell to fortissimo
or shrink to a hum
In baroque or rococo
We now say farewell to our choral touring
It sure has been fun singing songs with you
Our memories we know will be long enduring
St Albans, and Mansfield too
Wa wa wa woo…
For some reason, I think we were all a little jittery, but we pulled it off…
The gag of me being out of tune on the word “harmony” and syncing up when the others pointed at me got a good laugh, as did our blasting out “fortissimo!”, and we got a really good round of applause.
More comments at the microphone followed, mostly Bob Oppelt of St. Albans thanking other insufferable SA people – hmm, wasn’t going to get into that, suffice it to say there’s a few I wouldn’t miss – and some nice verbose remarks by Ken, and briefer remarks by Jim Vail.
Then with the evening seemingly over…we heard a few of our quartet supporters call for hearing us again! And to our complete surprise, we heard Ken, of all people, say, “how about Zombie Jamboree?”. Tami popped up pretty quick to see if he looked serious, and he was, so…up we went!
“Get near the mike so they can hear you,” Chris urged. Arrrrggghhh, I thought, but he was right. We called Frank Silvey up to join us, and before starting, I told the assembly, “I don’t know if there’s anyone here who hasn’t heard us sing this – we’ve sung it just about everywhere, with the best performance probably in a streetcar in Linz at close to midnight.” “I was there!” popped up Ken (not mentioning that he tried to hide). And a one, two three…it was such a cool performance, not perfect, but relaxed, and so fun! I looked out while singing and just seemed to see a sea of flashing cameras and video recorders. I could hear each voice in the quintet so well, and had the feeling that I didn’t want it all to end.
But all things do end, and too soon, it seemed not only the song but the evening was over. The folks flying home the next day had a 3:00 AM wake-up call, Chris and Tami included, and had to pack, etc. So after a semi-private performance of Midnight Blue for Linda Curea and her hubby, a few more photos (including a shocked (embarrassed?) Chris sandwiched between Tami and I), Vail coming over to say he liked our singing, and getting Peg to sign our music, we said our goodbyes in the hotel lobby, and went back a little reluctantly to our room. And cancelled our wake-up call. I went to sleep reliving Zombie Jamboree over and over in my mind.
Tuesday, 7 July – Vienna to Munich (Pullach)
Tami had teased us yesterday saying she’d call us at 4:00 AM to say goodbye, but if the phone rang, we certainly did not hear it. But I dreamed the alarm went off and woke up at about 4:00 anyway. I thought about getting up to wave goodbye to people, but instead went back to sleep.
A last continental breakfast, and we were out of the hotel ourselves by 8:00 AM, seeing Rick Roudebush (heading to Budapest at 9:00), Vince of St. Albans, and Jim Vail in the lobby. We said those last few goodbyes and got ourselves over to the Westbahnhof with 30 minutes to spare, but as the train was already on the track (no repeat of the Innsbruck West incident from our honeymoon this day!) we boarded. I used up the last of our small coins on postcards and candy.
Our train was the 8:50 EC 64 “Mozart” destined for Paris via Linz, Salzburg, Munich, Stuttgart, etc. As usual, second class was pretty darn comfy. And the rail beds were smooth enough that I could catch up with my journal writing without having my handwriting look like bad-penmanship-Greek.
Robert slept on the train to start while I wrote and wrote, watched scenery, thought about how much I’ve enjoyed this trip thus far and the company of our friends, and wrote some more. 4½ hours to Munich, not bad. It seemed a little hard to switch gears for the last few days of the trip, the quiet time was helpful. Although mostly what I thought about was whether we could go to Italy next fall, and if we could talk Chris and Tami into going with us for part or all of it.
We arrived in Munich at about 1:30 PM, at a platform adjacent to where we nearly died laughing at an Italian train 14½ years ago. Robert got some money changed, bought our tickets to Göppingen for Thursday, and rang up Hans and Lisa Prugger in Pullach. Shortly afterwards we were on the S7 headed to Pullach (well, after we reminded ourselves how the Streifenkarten worked – we probably overpaid).
Hans met us at the Pullach platform and drove us the short distance to their house on Gistlstraße, where Lisa greeted us. The house we remembered so well had a new addition – a Wintergarten (solarium) where there used to be a patio. And the sleeping arrangements changed, with Robert and I in separate rooms. However, we didn’t mind, as this was such a short visit, and we were so very happy to see them both.
But oh, did my brain hurt keeping up with the German conversation. I’d been lazy until this day, but then had to concentrate hard to keep up. They offered to speak English but I voted for German, for the practice. Their daughter Franzi visited with her 2½ year old daughter Therese – and she’s expecting another child at year’s end!; she speaks no English at all I believe. We enjoyed cake and coffee in the Wintergarten and later (sans Lisa, Franzi, and Therese), took a nice walk along the Isar with Hans, and had a splendid dinner at a nearby Greek restaurant (great moussaka!). The shot of Ouzo before dinner warmed me up, and the ½ liter of beer that followed nearly put me away.
Robert and I thought again today how nice it would be if MCS could sing in Pullach on our next European tour (supposedly in 2000). Despite hating volunteer work, I thought I might try to get myself on the next tour committee, to see if I could have any influence on the venues.
Wednesday, 8 July – Pullach
It was a very rainy day…off and on it rained, all day long. We biked to the train station, then took the S7 into the city with Hans. Robert looked for a family history organization, but the address we had was wrong. [Later we found out it was next door – phooey!] We shopped a little on the Marienplatz, seeing the big Glockenspiel go off for a change, and finding a Deutsche Telekom cycling jersey and hat in a sports shop just off the main drag.
We met Florian Prugger at his office off Max-Weber-Platz, and went
off to a nice café for about an hour. We hadn’t seen him since
our honeymoon. He looked good, but sad; problems with his marriage, his
son’s illness (leukemia), and too much work looked to me as if they’d
definitely taken a toll. Still, our time together was fun, plus Florian
introduced me to Kaiserschmarren for dessert [I like to think of them
as 'gehackte crepes'].
I thought I’d buy some shoes – the holes in those I was wearing were driving me crazy in the rain – but could only find really expensive ones, so gave up, and returned to Pullach. We went into Lisa’s music school to look at a problem with her pc, looked like a blown power supply. We had a (mercifully) light supper, then went off to see 6 Tage, 7 Nächte (6 Days, 7 Nights) in Solln. It was a silly movie with Harrison Ford and Anne Heche, but I’d see him in anything, and the German was relatively easy to follow. (And the dubbers really did a good job finding someone to sound like Harrison Ford in German!) Nice theatre in Solln, by the way – a little more expensive than at home, but with very nice, assigned seats.
Oh, almost forgot (how could I?) our afternoon photo session. With me in my green Dirndl and a few accessories from Lisa, and Robert in Hans’ Lederhosen, we became “Liesl und Bertl” and took some photos in the garden. We hoped they’d be good enough for our annual holiday gazette…if not too goofy!
Thursday, 9 July – Pullach to Weilheim
Where does the time go? The morning seemed to fly by…a little breakfast, some music (including a hysterical song, Mein Kleiner Grüner Kaktus, by the Comedian Harmonists, and some zither folk songs), and we were headed off to the Pullach train platform. Lisa had left a little earlier for work, so Hans did the honors. Such a sweet man – he looked so sad as we left, it was difficult to leave.
We had about 30 minutes to kill in the Hauptbahnhof, so we ate a quick lunch at an Imbiß (Leberkase, yum) before boarding the train to Göppingen.
Friday, 10 July – Weilheim
Ooh, the wine last night took a toll, as we slept until nearly 10:00 AM. Oops!
The day was both a little lazy, and busy…lazy because we felt relaxed, yet busy as we walked a lot and kept up (or tried to keep up) with Bettina as she did her routine for the children (music lessons, karate, etc.).
Our evening’s entertainment was watching the video (in German) Comedian Harmonists, about a male singing group in Germany, pre-WWII, very funny, who eventually fell afoul of the Nazis and broke up. Our favorite song of theirs must be Mein Kleiner Grüner Kaktus, which we had heard at the Pruggers’; I’d have to look for some of their music once home!
Saturday, 11 July – Weilheim to Frankfurt
We arose much earlier, about 7:00 AM, although I was so out of it that Robert had to give me a good shake to wake up.
The Rieds were going to the Bodensee that afternoon, but were able to spend much of the day with us anyway, Torsten not working for a change. Although the kids weren’t too into it – Katja kept mumbling “Ich habe kein Lust” – we all went off to see the baroque gardens at Schloß Ludwigsburg. Despite the rain showers, holes in my shoes, and Katja’s periodic hiding, we had a very nice time, with good looks at owls and waterfowl in the garden’s Tiergarten and aviary.
A good lunch at Wienerwald (no joke) followed, and the Rieds dropped us off at the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof. On the way into Stuttgart we saw what must have been the world’s largest Mercedes Benz showroom (no surprise, since Stuttgart is where the corporate headquarters is located) – it must have been five stories and about a city block in size. Anyway, Robert bought us tickets on the 16:51 ICE to Frankfurt, but the train was so crowded we wound up sitting in the aisle at the ends of the cars (and not even together) until Mannheim, where we both managed to snag a seat for the remainder of the journey.
Our hotel in Frankfurt, the Swedish-owned Scandic Savoy, was but a short walk from the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, a good thing as my feet had about had it in my “holy” shoes. We arrived in the hotel in time to catch the last 90 minutes of the Tour de France prologue coverage on the German ARD channel. The Germans were really behind Team Deutsche Telekom and their young hero, Jan Ullrich; they appear to have two to four hours live coverage scheduled each day! And we'd be lucky to get a 30-minute recap at midnight at home. Oh well.
The day ended with one last beer vom Faß in the hotel bar, and watching a little of the World Cup, Holland vs. Croatia for third place. (Croatia was ahead 2-1 when I fell asleep, not in the hotel bar. :) )
Sunday, 12 July – Frankfurt to home
Shower and breakfast, a short walk in the rain to the Hbf, S8 train to the airport, dump some currency buying candy, marvel at the inefficiency of the huge Frankfurt airport...wondered why the special “Flights to Berlin” signs were still up…the usual jumble of thoughts on a going-home day. I was sad that the trip was over, but certainly ready to be home again.
But what a trip it was. Bettina asked me what I considered the highlight; my first thought was singing in Stephansdom in Vienna (being called a “wafer-taker” not withstanding!). But even better, I’d have to say singing on the streetcar in Linz, watching Chris and Tami working on music in Vienna at Herbert von Karajan Platz near the Hotel Sacher, our quartet singing at the tour’s last night dinner, Tami and I acting silly in our Würzburg-purchased dirndls, seeing Robert in Lederhosen…waving a sad goodbye to Hans as the S-bahn pulled out of Pullach, enjoying the company of the Rieds in Weilheim…simply too many wonderful things to have one experience stand out.
It was, as Robert would say, Ausgezeichnet!