Silber und Gold

Another lovely day - woke up before my alarm, got an offer for a sweet gig in October in KC oh my god my town has a professional new music ensemble and room for me!!!!, a soundSCAPE friend who lives in Switzerland may visit this weekend, the fog cleared enough for me to see the summit of Mt. Pilatus out my bedroom window, and rehearsal went smoothly. This Berio is FUN y'all.

The best part of the day, however, was getting to spend some time chatting with some of the other women in this ensemble, including one from my former school years whom I never really spent time talking to.  She was a much cooler kid than me (you know, when we were both masters students), and  IU is a big school.  I regret now that we didn't know each other then - it would have been lovely to have another comrade championing the unbeaten path of contemporary excellence. After bussing and taking the 10 flights of stairs up a hill to the Dreilinden Konservatorium building (a mansion-ish space where an excellent student group was rehearsing Mozart 40 and the practice rooms were all full...), a few of us sat to chat and then made dinner plans.

After reading more Good Omens, I met up with them at the KKL. While waiting, I was treated to a lovely jazzy rendition of the Chicken Dance by an accordion/sax/guitar trio. It's on video somewhere. . .We had dinner at one of the slightly-less-costly places, and ate gelato, and generally had a lovely evening. The mosquitos were few, the weather is still perfect for me (72 tops during the day, around 60 at night with the windows open!).

After fighting through the other tourists at the late night grocery in the Bahnhof, I came home with a cheap can of cider to accompany my wind-down for the night. The enjoyment of three days has already been immense, and I am ever more grateful to be here. I'm pretty sure my host family is tired of the endless thankings...but my host mom laid out breakfast things for me, and the yogurt/bread/nutella/orange juice/fruit is the best thing ever and super helpful as food is VERY EXPENSIVE OMG. Except that we found a place that sells its sandwiches at halb-price between 1:30 and 2 when it closes, a block from the Hochschule where we rehearse. So, 3CHF for a good baguette sandwich, which is crazy good for a city where a delicious macchiato is 4.50. Or is it 4,5?  I haven't been paying attention.