Day Tripper

Today you are getting a two-fer!  I only took a couple of pictures from each of theses locations and figured it would be a bit more economical to save the "hypothetical" paper and all. 

On the bus ride from Alsace to Germany we stopped off for a little over an hour in the largest city of the region, Strasbourg, home of (among other things) the European Parliament.

Once in our next town of Landau, Germany (more on that in a future post) I took a day trip to Heidelberg with my host sister, Lena, and Mason, the other counselor staying at the same home.  Heidelberg is a large university town and so was very very bustling.  In fact, it has the longest street of shopping in all of Germany!!!! And for all you history buffs, they also have some castle and archetecture that are probably important or relevant or something.

Lift Thine Eyes to the Mountains

Resting atop the crest of one of the nearby mountains is the church of Mont St. Odile.  Click here for a more expanded description of our gal Odile, but in a nut shell she is the patroness of good eyesight, as she was born blind and miraculously healed after being baptised by the bishop of Regensburg.

After a quick lunch at the cafe on the hill we explored the beautiful church that overlooks the entire Alsace region.

There are always two women praying in two hour shifts twenty-four hours a day

St. Odile in all her glory.  You can't see it because I couldn't use a flash, but on each page of her book is a large eye.

A garden with a sun dial that tells the time in countries all over the world

Me and my host family!!!

Mosaic inside one of the chapels

Inside a very large, very old Linden tree

To commemorate when the Pope visited

GASP!

So many bottles of wine yet to be made! :)

On the way down from the top we went by the font of St. Odile, which has been said to cure blindness.  I placed the water over my eyes but unfortunately still need my glasses.  No worries, though, because they are super cute.

Fill a Glass with Golden Wine

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Alsace region is very well known for their wines (whites mostly), and my family took me to a winery just down the street from their house where I got to taste all of the different varieties that are typical for the area.  Oh were I not a soloist so I could have "tasted" more and more and more!

At the winery

Besides wine, one of the other local gastronomic specialties is something called tarte flambee, which is dough, creme freche and pork baked in an oven. We went with another host family and their campers one night to a local restaurant and chowed down on tooooo many of them.

Before

After

With Ellen!

The whole gang!!

The Movie in my Mind

Our second (and last) stop in France was the supremely picturesque Alsace region-- heretofore to be known as "where the wine comes from"!  The region is made up of several smaller villages, including Barr (where our concert was held) and Obernai (where my host family was located).

The crest of Obernai

The first day we walked around the town, which was so beautiful that I felt like it was straight out of a movie set!

The outer walls were built in 1282!!!!!

My host family lived on the outskirts of the town and across from their house was a large corn field situated between two other houses. Apparently every spring they sit in their front yard and toast a drink to the corn because, luckily, no one has mowed the field down and built a house on it.

View of the field from my window

The husbad was also in the process of making stone steps for the entrance of his studio (he is an artist) and the stone mason was over one morning carving out some of them.

The Elijah concert went very... ... ... interestingly to try and chose a polite word.  the conductor, Maestro Jean-Jacques Werner is a big name in the area from what I understand.  A tip to future singers: if you ever hear the words "I will follow you" from him it most likely means "I will drop beats, give you false entrances and conduct in patterns so fast even hummingbirds will have a hard time distinguishing three from four." Or perhaps something just got lost in the translation?

Unfortunately our concert was held in a gym. Waaah waaah

The nice thing is that I still feel I sang well and we were lucky enough to have the performance broadcast on the radio across the entire region, including Strasbourg.  Funilly enough the review in the local paper didn`t have a word to say about the choir, orchestra or anz of the soloists.  For all you Werner fans, though, don`t worry, they didn`t fail to mention the Maestro`s "magic baton."  And by magic I mean wonky.  Bitter soloist much? :)

As is often the case after a big performance, some of the other soloists and counselors decided to go out to a bar and have a little adult time away from the campers.  Following is the resulting revelry!!!

Mason, Emily, Sabrina, Zach (lookin all cray cray) and Ellen

Sabrina and John... Soprano and Tenor.  Get it high voices!!

YAAAAAAAY no campers!!

Representing U of M with the highest amount of dignity and class

Repeat after me

(So I had planned on getting a couple of posts from Alsace done in the last couple of days but that was put to a halt because of a couple of reasons: A. my own lap top decided that two days before leaving to Europe it was going to call it quits and so now I now longer have one.  RIP DELL INSPIRON!  B. My host sister's computer here in Germany is a Mac and I hardly even know how to use those in English, let alone auf Deutch. So enjoy this silly one I wrote before I left the states, and hopefully I can figure something out on the next stop of the tour.)




Wanting to express your inner minimalist? Check out aM laboratory's Tone Matrix and try to become the next Philip Glass.  Don't know who that is... then check this out as well:


He picked up Oscar and Grammy nominations for his hauntingly beautiful score for The Hours.

Also, anyone remember this trippy gem from vintage Sesame Street?