Prague, Day 1!

Last week I was having coffee with a group of friends after class and the topic of traveling came up. Someone jokingly suggested that we should just fly to Prague for the weekend. We all jumped at the idea and started planning to leave two days later. Friday came and six of us took the train to Copenhagen and then flew to Prague! It still amazes me that we were able to randomly decide to go to Prague for three days.
When we arrived, we took a bus and the subway to get to the hostel that most of the group was staying at. After they got settled we went walking around the area to find somewhere to eat. We decided (mainly due to extreme hunger) to go to a little Italian style place a few blocks from the hostel. It was really great, the food was good and they had cheap beer (well, all beer- or "pivo"- is really cheap in Prague). We took the picture above right before our food came.
After dinner, we decided to go to a jazz bar that we had seen on the walk to the hostel. It had a great atmosphere and the bartender was really friendly. He told us about how he has lived all over the world and that he speaks six languages fluently, and can get by in four more. We moved downstairs after a while to the stage area to see some live jazz. There were two bands playing that night, one was a funk band named Eggnoise. They were really great, the leader of the band played flute and soprano and alto sax. He had an old school soprano sax that looked like a baby sax. They had a really fun sound! The next band was a larger band called the Wunderbarband, which had more of a ska feel.
When we left the jazz club, we went back to the hostel so I could find the directions to my friend Nick's apartment. All I had was a cheap tourist map that didn't have anything near his apartment... so after a certain point I was basically flying blind trying to find his place at 11:45pm. This was even more true when I got to a point in the directions I had written down from Google. The directions told me to go through a tunnel that was only for cars. So I had to sidetrack and try and find my way around- and cut back to find one of the streets that I had written down since I didn't have a map of the area. After walking around trying to find my way back on track, I called Nick to get some directions, and found out that I was only about three blocks away. I was so close! We caught up for a bit and then went to a little bar near his apartment. It was a cozy bar that is right across from the visual arts school, so there were a lot of student artwork all over the walls.
A few things I noticed about Prague in general:
1. There is no such thing as a "No Smoking Section" in Prague. The restaurants, the bars.... everywhere.

2. Dogs are allowed into most bars. There was a dog in the jazz club, it followed one of the guys around for most of the night. In the bar near Nick's place, a dog came in and ran over and jumped up into chair near me like he owned the place.

3. This first night in Prague, as well as the others to follow, were very inexpensive. Dinner, 3 beers, a glass of top shelf scotch, and entry fee for the jazz club cost only $20!

Fat Tuesday

There is a traditional Swedish pastry called "semla" that is supposed to be eaten on fat Tuesday. Most of my friends had already tried them by now, but it was a new experience for me. After class a group of us went to a Conditori (Swedish pastry shop) for "selma och kaffe" (selma and coffee). The selma is a wheat bun filled with whipped cream that is not very sweet, as well as an almond paste center. It was great! And nice to just sit around and talk over some coffee for the whole afternoon. After the Conditori I went and practiced for a couple hours- so overall a very productive (and tasty) day!

Breakfast!

Okay, so this is the type of post that makes me roll my eyes when people talk about their blog. But here we go.....

I just had breakfast at 3pm, which makes me really happy. I love sleeping in. I also upgraded my breakfast for today- most of my breakfasts here have been either granola or eggs and toast. Today, I made a bacon and cheese omelet and toast. It was really good.... again, I know this is crazy, but it was a great start to my day- yes, I'm starting my day at 3:30pm. The rest of my day consists of reading for class and making dinner....

I also found out that walking down and back up five flights of stairs to check the mail is plenty of time to get REALLY cold when you only have on sweat pants and a T-shirt. Duh right?

Another trip to Malmö

Last week I went on another excursion to Malmö with my anthropology class. The walk was a little more interesting than the one to Copenhagen, we got to see some more buildings. The picture above is of the chapel in the Cathedral in Malmö. It is preserved as it was during the middle ages.

I think that this was the home of the mayor or some high ranking political official in Malmö. The wooden doors in the upper floors were used to store grain and goods, pulled up by some type of crane.
This is a family seal that is on one of the oldest buildings in Malmö. It is interesting because apparently for a large part of the middle ages, the woman didn't take her husband's family name. So this represents the family crests of both the husband and wife who lived in this house. They were wealthy merchants, but the text above the crests talks about how everyone is the same in death. Hence the skull in the middle of the text. They seemed to understand that wealth isn't everything.
The red building in the background is the Malmö train station. The river, as you can see, is just barely starting to melt. We walked along the river for most of our walking tour.

Lesson in Malmö

Today I got up early- well 9am- to walk to the music building. After standing around waiting for someone to let me in because my key card STILL doesn't work, I got my bass all packed up and started the trip to Malmö. I managed to get on the right train to get to Malmö Central station. I also got many funny looks as I walked through the station with my giant bass strapped to my back as if it were just a little guitar. I must have looked incredibly funny, waddling around trying to avoid slipping on the ice and falling face first to the sidewalk.
Once in Malmö, I got a little turned around with my directions, but was able to get back on track eventually. I arrived at the concert hall (konserthus) half an hour before our scheduled time, but Kjetil was able to meet me there around the time I got there so I didn't have to stand out in the cold for too long.
The lesson was really great, Kjetil seems to have a lot of advice both on solo and orchestral playing. We worked through the first movement of the Vanhal as well as two excerpts. We also talked a lot about orchestral playing and how to prepare for orchestral auditions. I'm excited to get back in the swing of things with a teacher, and later this month I'll be going up to Gothenberg to take a lesson with Charlie DeRamus and hopefully see the Gothenberg Symphony.

Very fun and productive day!

Today was a really great day- I got a lot accomplished and feel almost back to normal!

I had planned on getting up at 9am so I could shower and have breakfast, so when I woke up at 12:15pm it was a mad scramble to make it to my 1pm class on time. But I made it, and the class (Intro to the Contemporary Middle East) seems like it will be a lot of fun! The class is made up of three sections of lectures each with a seminar at the end, so it will be broken up into thirds. The professors seem very interesting and informed on the current situations throughout the Middle East. The class ended early and I went to a little coffee shop near the music building for lunch. While having lunch, I saw a perfect twin of my friend Kevin Gonyo- exactly like him, but Swedish... it was pretty odd.

After lunch, I went to the music building to practice. It was so good to have the whole afternoon to work on music. I practiced my concerto as well as the two orchestral pieces my new teacher wants me to learn: Brahms Symphony #1 and Mozart Symphony #35. I love learning new music, figuring out the complicated sections and working up the tempos. My schedule is free enough this semester that I'll be able to devote a lot of time to my personal practice. My teacher is also very organized and wants to set out musical and technical goals for the semester, which is great.

When I finished practicing I walked home through the snow and made myself a cup of tea and relaxed on my couch, reading the letter from Jenae that came in the mail today. It was pretty close to my ideal day...

Bummer of a Weekend

This past weekend I got pretty sick, which resulted in me staying in my room for three days in bed. It made me pretty homesick to be so far from home and feel so lousy. But now I am on the mend, only a little bit of a runny nose remains so hopefully I'll be back at %100 by the end of the week.

I turned in my enrollment form yesterday so now I am officially enrolled in classes! My class schedule is pretty great, the first half of the semester (interesting aside: "semester" means "holiday" in Swedish , so everyone uses the word "term" instead to avoid confusion) I only have class on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Which leaves me a lot of time to practice, a fact that is very exciting. The second half of the semester, I have class only on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The weather here has been crazy! Everyone told me that it didn't snow much here in Skåne, or that when it did snow, it didn't stay on the ground for long. Well there has been snow on the ground since I got here! Yesterday it snowed ALL day, and with the wind it made it painful to walk anywhere. When I walked back from the music building after practicing last night, I got caked in snow. When I came into the kitchen from outside, one of the guys from my corridor laughed and said "You look like a snowman!". And I did. There was snow plastered to my jacket, my scarf, and my hat. There was even snow piled up on the top of my backpack!