Relaxing in Ciudad Real

Hi everyone. Well, I found a flat and moved in the same day, so now I'm quite settled. My flatmates are Ester and Alba, both spanish and I think both will study at the uni when it starts again. I'm not quite sure though, they speak so fast. Lol.

We went out for, well it was essentially Tapas, last night, and I got to meet some of their friends. It was good although I didn't want to be a pain so I didn't ask them to explain constantly what they were talking about, so I just listened for a bit. Eventually the conversation turned to something I did understand and some of their friends seemed surprised I could speak spanish...lol. I'm going to cook a NZ dinner on sunday night, for my flatmates, Alba's boyfriend (from Syria, speaks decent english) will probably come along, and Carmen and Julio, with whom I stayed until I found the flat. I'm a little nervous about this as my cooking, while usually edible, is sometimes a little hit and miss and I haven't made what I'm planning to cook before.

Esther is quite a cook though, and I have asked her to teach me how to make some traditional spanish fare. Tortilla, Arroz con leche...mmmm. I'll also make them pancakes one morning. Though maybe not this week.

I have been to the library (which is now right across the square from my building) and have borrowed A.I., which I just watched in spanish, and The Hobbit (book) in english. It's fun to read it again!

I have also made a start on my scrapbook. I'm very excited. I bought a fancy notebook with curly gold designs on the front and beautiful cream coloured pages. I printed out my blog entries on creamy paper and a few photos, about 1/4 size of normal printed ones, so they all fit easily. I have boarding passes and tickets to add where appropriate too. It's coming together quite nicely.

My guitar and I are rapidly becoming reaquainted too. No-one else plays much but I wouldn't mind if they did. I'm looking forward to uni starting, because 1)it's a little boring although it's nice to relax, 2) I'm going to learn italian!, and 3) I'll meet some other international students. The overseas community here is great, although I'll try to make a few spanish friends too but with my flatmates (who I'm sure will be good friends in time) it's not so urgent.

So, I'm going to stop writing now and book some tickets to Alicante! Some people from NZ are coming over to play scottish fiddle and I'm going to join them for a few days! I'M SO EXCITED!!!
I'll get to visit Alicante and see Gregor too. Yay!

Have a wonderful day :)

When in Rome...

...carry AT LEAST two drink bottles!! It is stinking, horribly, unbelieveably hot. In August, anyway. It was sooooo worth it though. Rome is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Just gorgeous. I don't care where else you go in europe, GO TO ROME!!!!!!

We took the train down from Modena, a town near Giulia's village. It was a quiet journey, but I got a photo of Firenze (even if it was only the train station!) and the scenery was very pretty, which is what I've come to expect of Italy. When we got to Rome we dropped off our bags (we were staying in a monastery RIGHT in the middle, only 75 euro for two people for a night - thanks to Giulia's dad :), and headed out to the Spanish steps. The Spanish embassy is just down the road. They were great, we had lunch there, then continued on to the Piazza de Popolo, and walked along the river to the Castel and the Vatican. It was a very short queue to get inside, only about 20mins (in the hot hot sun - bearable and certainly worth it). Inside we climbed up to the cupola on top of St Peter's Basilica. The view was amazing. After that we went for coffee (I heart espresso - the energy boost has never been more needed than after a day walking around Rome in August), went back to our room, changed, and headed out for dinner.
I had pasta which my guidebook said was typical of Rome but wasn't really that different, still good though, and Giulia had a 'Forest' pizza (mushrooms and wild boar sausage or something), I tried a little and it was very tasty. Did you know in italy they serve pizza whole, you order it as a meal and you have to cut it yourself? I had one in Naples (more on that later) and could only finish half. After dinner we walked around, Rome at night is even better, see my photos...indescribable, especially the Trevi Fountain. Some italian guy there started talking to us and asked me questions that were a little too personal and I was too tired to deal with it so I walked off. Giulia was a little annoyed, apparently in italy it's normal to ask such questions, but I didn't care if I was rude to him. I did apologise to Giulia for embarrassing her though.

The next day we met up with some more italians who had been in Spain too, who live near Napoli. We spent the day in Rome together - Pantheon, Colosseum, dinner by the river, yay! It was awesome to see them again. That night we drove back to Naples. The next day we walked around - it is a lovely place! Especially because it has a waterfront! It's been a while since I've seen the open ocean!
We were near a castle and one of my italian friends, a very flamboyantly gay one, told some spanish people not to buy a street vendor's imitation designer handbags. Now, this vendor was a tall, well-built black man - NOT someone I would want to mess with, and he (understandably) got quite upset that he'd potentially lost a sale. We had to walk past him again a few minutes later and he got very aggressive, pushing my italian friend around a little, and I was a bit scared that he would hit him. His mates pulled him away though. But Giulia was quite shaken.

That night we had a bit of a party, the guy whose house we were staying at is coming back to Spain (yay!) and some more of his friends will come this time too, I met a couple of them. They seemed nice, although everybody talked in italian and after a couple of days of this I was a little bored, because I don't speak much italian. It is a nice language to listen to though.

Then the next day they dropped me off at the airport at 8am, and I flew back to Madrid. Now I'm back in the town where I'm studying and it's good to be back, even if it is 40 degrees today. Tomorrow I begin the search for a flat.
Wish me luck!

Music Music Munich... Bologna

Hi!! We've done lots more stuff since I last wrote! It's been a very exciting few days.

So, Friday-Sunday was the music festival in Domazlice. On Thursday I went to a learn-to-play-the-czech-bagpipes workshop, and there was one other beginner there. An American girl by the name of Stephanie. We got on very well, even though the workshop was a bit of a disaster(!!), and so I ended up hanging out with her and her tour group quite a bit. She'd won a Miss Czech-Slovak pageant and was sponsored to go on a tour for people with Czech ancestry as part of her prize. The americans were a lot of fun, actually! We went out for a few drinks and some dancing (normal nightclub type stuff) every night until I left. Note: If you ever go to Domzlice I can reccomend a bar with a mean Pina Colada. And now I have people to go and visit in Wisconsin and Phoenix!

The music festival itself was interesting, it was czech folk spiced up with a bit of modern rhythm and bass. Kinda cool! There were also some pipers from Scotland there (soem of the Royal Dragoon Guards I believe) and a scottish country dance group who did all sorts of scottish folk. they were from America though. The first night in the pub some of the scottish pipers turned up, heard american accents and asked if we were the dance group. They were good fun to chat to! One is going to Afghanistan in a couple of months, because he wants to fight for what he believes in. Very noble.

I also hung out with the daughter of one of Mike's friends, a czech girl called Elicka (Elishka) and some of her friends. She bought me a beer, (lovely girl) so the drinking age must be lower as she's 16. I hope she comes to NZ one day.

Anyway, after the festival (so much food! and drink! and sweets! I heart bratwurst..), or rather on Sunday morning, I took a couple of trains to Munich. It was a long hot day, but luckily my hostel in Munich was as close as they'd said and even though my booking hadn't registered properly they checked me in in time for me to go meet Mel (an old school friend) for 'coffee', which turned out to be a brief tour of the city centre, then a trip on the subway to see her apartment and a couple of beers in the beer garden near her place with her and her husband. It was a wonderful afternoon, the weather was perfect (read:sweltering) and I felt like I was dreaming after sitting on trains all day.

The trains in europe are quite good actually.

So, the next day (after a late night catching up on facebook in a very comfortable hostel) I jumped on another train to ITALY!!!! I'm there now, staying with a former flatmate from Spain. Her family is wonderful, they've made me so welcome. It was a bit unfortunate when I arrived thugh, as she went to the airport instead of the train station and I had forgotten to put her Italian cellphone number into my phone, so in the end I took a bus into town (with all my stuff lol) and looked her number up on facebook. When I finally rang her, two and a half hours after I arrived, they'd given up on the airport and had just arrived at the train station which I'd left half an hour before. Sigh! It was so hot and I was exhausted but these things happen and it was really good to see her again. And I got to see a bit of Bologna, as she lives about 30 mins drive away.

We did return to Bologna this morning, by train this time, to have a proper look around. It is so pretty! All these arches everywhere, and it's pretty empty. In august everybody goes to the beach I think, and September is the main shopping month. I can understand why. You sweat just standing still.
So we walked around for about three hours I think, we went into the main cathedral and as Giulia and I were both wearing sleeveless tops we had to put this stupid coatlike but very light gauze thing over our shoulders. I am not used to dress codes in churches, I felt very disgruntled, because despite being made of gauze they were uncomfortably hot.

And today for lunch we had Tortellini! Which originated in this area. It was sooo nice...Italian pasta in Italy. We'll eat pizza at some point too!

So that's me. Tomorrow we're off to Rome for a couple of days, then two nights in Naples, then I'm going back to Spain. I can't wait to get a flat and get my own room and not be travelling, but I'm not enjoying the heat! I do have a friend in Spain with a pool though. :)
Ciao!!

Trip to Bavaria

Monday I didn't do much, wandered around and bought a few things. Mike's friend Martina wants to practice english so she came over for a couple of hours. I did some Eupho practice...
And Tuesday we went to her place, in a village about 15 minutes drive away, and she cooked us lunch! It was sooo nice...hollowed out zucchini filled with a stir-fried mixture of mushrooms, salami, onions, and paprika, baked in the oven for a bit...eaten with tartare sauce. Not something I'd think of but man it was good! After that we crossed the border into Germany, Bavaria actually, to look at train tickets for my trip to Munich. I got a good deal - 22 euro which is apparently quite cheap for a three hour train journey. We were in Furth im Wald, by the way. So we looked around a bit (they have the nicest apple doughnuts!!) and checked out the stage all set for the big dragon-hunting show next week.
Wednesday was awesome. We got up early, left the house at 6:30am, and drove for a couple of hours to a master Violin-maker's place. Mike picked up a violin, I don't know if it was in for repair or what, but anyway it was really interesting and he let us have a go at carving out the piece of wood for one he was in the process of maing. He also showed us the raw materials - plankes of wood- and he is going to start making a double bass! It looked pretty cool.
There are lots of instrument factories in the area only they were closed for the summer break so we just looked in the windows of the outlet store. Then it was across the border to Germany (again), Saxony this time, where we went to a musical instrument museum. It was ok, but there's only so many instruments you can look at before they start blending in to one another. I'd rather play them...Although this one had lots of string instruments with really pretty carvings. And a removable pianola. You line it up, sit in front and push the pedals. They used to use it in bars when the pianist left, so the public could 'play'. I wanted to move it one note up or down and see what it sounded like.

In the same town, is the factory where they make York Brass Instruments. For those who don't know, York sponsors a couple of top bands in England and their instruments are top-of-the-line. So we turned up, said 'we play brass, we're interested in the factory, do you have a showroom?" And they come back with one of the founders of York (long story involving take overs of other names and things, but he was one of the idea guys) and he says "I'll give you a tour of the factory, then you can try an instrument. What do you play?" SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The tour was interesting, did you know that to bend the pipes they freeze them to -200 degees celsius? Or that a cornet takes four hours to assemble, but a tuba takes three days? I felt a little uncomfortable actually, the factory floor was full of guys who obviously weren't used to seeing a young girl in bright pink jeans and jandals wander through, but I had to laugh when we got through to the packing/shipping office - it was full of women.
They make clarinets there too, and we got to see the black tubes of wood before they're treated and shaped, then they make the holes, then they attach little silver pins to secure the keys to.. there were people soldering keys and things together. It looked like quite a job but when you're making 40,000 clarinets a year I guess you haev to have a lot of keys. I also saw a woman carrying a flute but we didn't see where they made those. We did see the plating plant though, they have huge tanks because obviously, you need a large tank for a tuba.
Then the only thing left to do was try the instruments. Upstairs in the final check room there was a guy whose job it was to look over and play every single instrument - not for long I'd imagine but still. What an awesome job! The Tenor Horn they gave me to try was drool-material, although I've been playing the eupho here a bit because Mike's got one and I sort of wish I could have played one of those instead. But it had been so long since I'd even seen a tenor horn!

To be honest, when we left I felt a little uncomfortable. They were very friendly but I didn't think we deserved that sort of attention. I don't pretend to be an expert in brass, but I guess they're just trying to sell instruments.

Anyway, after that it was pretty much straight back to Domazlice. We stopped in at a camp where the guy who owns the house where we're staying was cooking, just to say hi, then hit the road again as some other music pal of Mike's had invited him to come hear a choir, rehearsing for the music festival here.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll write more when we've done more stuff!!

More of the Czech Republic..and Austria :)

Blog:

Wednesday evening Mike invited some friends over and we had a fire, on which we cooked sausages (you cut the ends so they 'flower' when they cook), toast which you then rub with garlic (reccommended!), and then potatoes cooked in the embers. I cooked some mushrooms and onion so it was sort of a czech-kiwi bbq-fire. The guests were a couple of guys who each brought their kids, we ended up playing badminton and soccer, and then Mike pulled out his euphonium..I had a go too. Apparently not many women play brass in the czech republic.

Thursday we went to Austria! We stopped by one of the guy's houses first though because Mike's house has...little in the way of a bathroom. Ie no shower. So it was nice to feel clean again! That particular house is awesome...they have several clarinets (he plays-very well, actually), a viola da gamba, a reed organ/harmonium thingy (that was fun actually), and a double bass!! And a piano. And SEVEN cats, four of them kittens. HEAVEN!!

On our way to Austria we drove past the Budweiser brewery. I don't remember the name of the town but it was similar to Budweiserville so I'll call it that. We stopped at the main square and had a look round, also visited a music shop where Mike bought an old flugel-type horn thingy for about NZ$50. It's really cool.

Then it was over the border. That was the first time I've crossed a border by land.. in NZ you can't drive across any borders, obviously, and here in Europe I've always flown before. I was disappointed actually. There was no passport control at all, we just drove through. The Austrian countryside seemed a bit more hilly than the Czech but maybe that was just me looking for any kind of difference. So we drove through to Kremsmunster, where Mike's friend Rudolph lives, and we had a couple of hours to spare so we went to a musical instrument museum. I was a bit blase about this but it was SO AWESOME!! The first bit was a huge room FULL of brass instruments. Sigh. There was some really interesting stuff there, actually, some of them looked like mutants. You know, "I'll just grow an extra valve here, that'd look cool", or "I know! I need another bell!"
Then there was an exhibition on Schubert, which I couldn't read because it was all in German, and after that there were TWO rooms chock-a-block with Pianos, some from as early as 1812 and a good number of them YOU ARE ALLOWED TO PLAY!! I played one from America from 1899 (even the strings were from that time), and one from Vienna from 1820 or thereabouts I think..I also got to play some of the normally unplayable ones because the lady who was on reception was kind enough to give us a brief tour. I also think she was a little bored. But I was buzzing when we left.

Rudolph's place was cute, we spent one night there in a sleepout out the back. There were four guys talking Czech bagpipes in a mixture of Czech, English, and German, so I listened for a while, then one pulled out a fiddle too. The music had overtones of Scottish tunes but it was quite different. Still, it was interesting. They made us a traditional dish of dumplings and mushrooms for dinner, which was REALLY good. They were very kind to us.

Friday morning we visited the Monastery before leaving Kremsmunster. The church there I rank among the most beautiful I've ever seen. I haven't seen the whole world but most of the places we've gone to we've visited some kind of church or cathedral, and this one's special. It was more the atmosphere than the decorations to be honest, although maybe I just enjoyed the absence of graphic sculptures showing people's faces twisted in pain. It was more focussed on paintings.

Back in the Czech Republic (still no passport control :()we stopped at another Monastery, only the attraction here was the Museum of the Post Office. It was very interesting, because they had the displays in english too!! I was very happy. Did you know the post was originally set up to carry official messages only? And that private correspondence was only permitted from the 1700's? Or that postmasters used to collate the news received and produce leaflets, which were the forerunners of modern newspapers? Which is why so many papers contain the word 'Post' in their title? Or, my favourite fact, the Posthorn was used to warn the station that was being approached, of how many horses they needed to prepare and how much mail they had to handle?

That night there was a rehearsal for some kind of folk performance the next day. Mike plays bagpipes in this group. I went along out of interest, also to the performance the next day. There was dancing and singing too. I recognised some of the dancing stuff but some was little strange. Like when the guys got these metre-long stiff plaits and 'whipped' the women as part of the dance. It was kind of disturbing actually.
The performance was for a reunion in a nearby village. People who used to live there came back for a day and yeah, village reunion.

Saturday we hung out with some neighbours for a bit and they gave us this gorgeous cake...so I asked how to make it, and was pleasantly surprised when they invited me back that evening to bake it with them as they needed to make some more anyway. It was a sort of sponge-but-not-really with pieces of fruit pressed onto the surface, then topped with a butter-sugar-flour crumble...yummy...

Then we went back to the village reunion, after it had cooled down a bit (it was so hot!) to see what was going on. Mike went to the local pub (which is only open Fridays and Saturdays!) for a drink before we left so I drove there. It was strange, driving on the right. But the roads were back-country, empty...so we didn't see many other cars. And no huge farm vehicles either for which I was grateful. Those roads are quite narrow.

Sunday we stopped by Peter and Katagina's place for a shower again before hitting the road for Domaszlice. The trip was mostly uneventful, except for when it started raining so hard we could barely see the road right in front of us, so we had to pull over and wait for a few minutes. It was hailing too.
So here I am! We're staying in another friend's place, they have a 'guest' part of the house with it's own kitchen and bathroom so it's quite a nice setup. When we got here a posthorn Mike had ordered had arrived, so now we have eight? musical intruments. Tuba, Eupho, Baritone, Flugelthing, Posthorn, Piano, bagpipes, violin...And a Swedish Shepherd's Horn is waiting at the post office :P.