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!!