"That is Beardy"

Am I this guy?

This year, as a winter break activity, I've decided to grow a beard. In the past I've managed to make it about one week before shaving it off due to general discomfort (both physical and emotional) and itchiness. This time, however, I'm going to power through and just do it. I'm a grown-ass man and I've never actually grown facial hair for any length of time in my life. Perhaps it's because I look so painfully awkward in the initial stages. For instance, I like to refer to four days growth as my "axe murderer" look. Check out my mug shot in your local paper!

Or am I this guy?

Luckily for us novices there are plenty of resources like beards.org or this website that give plenty of tips on growing and caring for your beard. However, I've found that spending too much time researching this can be troubling. For instance, the photos section on beards.org tends to make me rethink my decision about growing facial hair entirely. Check out "Tony" or "J.J." for example. Why are they not wearing a shirt in their photos? Another favorite is this image found in the "sideburn styles" section of the second website:

Friendly indeed. Yes, I will have another beer - thanks for offering friend!

It's been about a week so far and I've reached the interminably itchy phase. I'm told that this will pass once it grows out - this is where I typically say "to hell with this"and shave - but my resolve is steadfast. It's coming in rather light but it's beginning to fill out somewhat. As additional support for my cause I've decided to consult our in house expert on beards: Chomsky our Gnome.

Now, I know it's hard to tell, but if you zoom in on this photo you can actually see my facial hair.

Who knows, maybe someday people might call me "beardy."

Cookie Time

It's 53 degrees and raining (thunderstorms actually) right now in Champaign. According to our local paper, last year on this day it was 19 degrees for a high and 1 degree for a low - and we had snow on the ground. What a difference a year makes, I guess. It's not exactly the type of weather that inspires thoughts of Chestnuts Roasting, or Sleigh Rides through a Winter Wonderland (despite what I hear on the PA systems in each store I enter this time of year), but what can a guy do?

So today, in an attempt to at least salvage some of our forlorn Christmas traditions that I mentioned in my last post, and being the baker in our family (see Kaia's attempt at zucchini bread here), I've resolved to bake some Christmas cookies. It's a truncated list compared to past years but there is a limited time frame before we leave town for Wisconsin:

Sugar cookies - from Grandma Sperry's recipe
Bourbon balls - with real bourbon (one for me, one for the cookies)
Ginger snaps
Wisconsin whopper cookies

We got started with the ginger snaps and the bourbon balls right away today:

We ended up with 6 dozen ginger snaps and 3 dozen bourbon balls in the end. Interestingly enough, all of the cookies we're making this year start out in ball format. Who knew there was a theme?

Tomorrow its on to the rest of the list. I'm almost feeling a twinge of Christmas spirit.

Epic. Christmas. Fail.

For my entire adult life, even when I was living by myself, I've always managed to do some decorating for Christmas. When I lived in a shabby one bedroom apartment in the shadow of "Plank Hill" in Eau Claire, next to a run down house and a pile of couches, I was not allowed to have a Christmas tree because my landlord did not want to invite the fire hazard. Even in this situation I still managed to put up some lights, a tiny fake tree, and a few other decorations. My second Christmas after I college I lived by myself in a house Spring Grove, Minnesota yet still managed to buy a tree at the local Kwik Trip, throw it in the back seat of my Subaru, and get it home only to spend over two hours attempting to put a "fresh cut" on the bottom with a pocket knife (my saw broke instantly during this endeavor), all before cramming it into a broken down 1980s era tree stand that I inherited from my parents. My lowest ebb was swearing at the tree and tossing it across the living room, landing it on the couch with a great crash. I may have kicked it. I don't recall. Either way I took a few minutes to "cool off" before finishing the job.

In light of my past experiences (most of which have been completely positive since Kaia and I have been living together) it is shocking to admit that we didn't do any Christmas decorating this year. Perhaps it was the 50 and 60 degree temperatures after Thanksgiving here in central Illinois, maybe it was the busyness of the end of the semester, or perhaps we just simply didn't notice the calendar - it's mid-December already. Whatever the case, there isn't a single indication of holiday cheer around our house this year. Our boxes of lights, ornaments, and decorations are still piled in the closet with no tree on which to hang them. The only real indication of the holidays at all are the Christmas cards hanging in our kitchen and the quart of eggnog on the door of the refrigerator.

It kind of makes me feel a bit like this.

He Sees You When You're Peeing

Santa knows when you've been bad or good... he even watches you when you're in the bathroom. The above photo was taken in the restroom of the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, IL where my youth orchestra rehearses each weekend. The entire place is decked out for Christmas, including the restroom on the main floor next to our rehearsal space. There's no door on the stall so Santa gets a good view of everything. It's kind of creepy. Or whimsical. I guess it all depends on your perspective.

180 Miles

I've been on the road a lot this week. Between last Friday and today I've logged roughly 21 hours in the car. That's three trips up and back to the northern side of the greater Chicago area and two trips into and out of downtown. I'm exhausted. However, the long drive has provided me with some excellent self reflection time. Driving across the long, straight stretches on I-57 I can let my mind wander.

As my mind wandered through my past this week I was reminded of another time in my life when I spent a lot of time in the car: my second year of teaching (Fall of 2003-Spring of 2004). That was the year that I lived in Spring Grove (the first Norwegian community in Minnesota!) and commuted two hours every other weekend to Eau Claire to visit Kaia. I also drove twice a week to  La Crosse so I could donate plasma (I did this because I had nothing better to do and I could make some cash at the same time - back when gas was $1.50 per gallon) and played several gigs per month with dance band that traversed a large swath of Western Wisconsin. Lots of car time.

I have a distinct memory from this time, stumbling out of Biolife Plasma Services on a deep, dark Wisconsin winter night sometime in January of that year, my body pumped full of room temperature saline after spending an hour in the donation chair, shivering before I even left the building. I remember the cold bite of single digit air temperature as I walked across the parking lot to my forest green Subaru Outback and the dark stillness of the atmosphere. It took an eternity for my car to warm up as I drove out of the city limits into the vast expanse of a driftless winter night. I crossed over the Mississippi River into Minnesota and impenetrable darkness as the soft blue lights from my dashboard struggled against the arctic chill of the evening. Greg Brown was on my stereo keeping me company, singing "Lipstick on a thermos cup, lust and whiskey fill it up, and smoke blows from the chimney to the moon..." as I made my way through the night towards my little house in Spring Grove.

I don't miss living alone in a small town in southern Minnesota. Sometimes, however, I think back and remember how cozy it all felt. To be all by myself careening down those winding southern Minnesota roads in my Subaru, going up and down over the hills and bluffs of the Mississippi river, the moonlight shimmering on the snow covered fields. I felt like I was the only person on earth. Then I would arrive at home, greeted at the door by two cats, and crank up my ancient furnace as I settled in for a late supper of fish sticks and rice.

There's something nostalgic about it.

Thanksgiving and the Final Week

We are back in Champaign after a great Thanksgiving break. This year we celebrated three feasts in Wisconsin over three different days. It was fantastic to get out of Illinois for a while and visit the hills, trees, lakes, and rivers of Wisconsin. My advice: don't take these things for granted!

Our first feast came on Wednesday night with Kaia's dad and his wife Gail in Eau Claire:

Then we celebrated on Thanksgiving day at Kaia's grandparents' home in Stanley with thirty or so members of her family:

This is the table in the only place in the house large enough to fit everyone: the basement.

Me and my favorite part of the meal: the polish sausages

Then on Friday we hosted our seventh Thanksgiving in Eau Claire at Kaia's mom's house (we figured not everyone would want to drive to Champaign). 20 pounds of turkey, 12 pounds of mashed potatoes, a triple batch of stuffing, cranberries, ham, corn, carrots, and gravy were followed by an epic game of Jenga and Just Dance 2 for the Wii. It was a great time.

We came back to Champaign on Sunday afternoon and now it's back to work. Before the end of the semester, which is just one week away, I have another concert in Chicago, a final project and test for one of my classes, three student teacher observations and final evaluations, and a recital to organize. 

Thanksgiving: Chicago and La Crosse

For the first part of our Thanksgiving break Kaia and I spent the weekend in the Chicago suburbs. I had a set of rehearsals and a concert on Sunday with my youth orchestra. We also spent some time with Kaia's Dad and his wife Gail at an Italian Restaurant in Naperville called Maggiano's. It was Gail's birthday so we were part of a party of twelve that included members of her family from the Chicago area. There also happened to be another group in the same room celebrating a birthday and somehow or other we ended up with noisemakers from their table. The following series ensued:

My mother is very proud of me.

After the concert on Sunday, which went very well, Kaia and I piled in the car and drove four and a half hours to La Crosse to spend a day and a half with my parents. We spent two nights and got to be a part of their latest home construction projects which included reglazing the tub in the bathroom and the final demolition of the concrete from their old garage. The glazer showed up at 7:50 AM and the concrete guys arrived fifteen minutes later so our second day was an early start for us.

Can you tell we're related? I didn't even pose this one - I just happened to sit down next to my Dad and Kaia took the picture.

Do I Have Everything?

Later this morning I will board a greyhound bus for Chicago. From downtown I will catch a Metra train to the suburbs. Tonight it's rehearsal in Crystal Lake followed by an early morning rehearsal tomorrow and a concert on Sunday. At the same time, Kaia will drive up tomorrow afternoon with the majority of my clothing for the next week, meet me in downtown, and from there we will proceed to Naperville for dinner with her father and his wife. Sunday we drive back up to Crystal Lake for a rehearsal and a concert, then we head on to La Crosse to begin our Thanksgiving vacation.

I think that's everything.

I've made lists for each bag I'm packing so I don't forget my tux, clean underwear, baton, score(s), video camera, or reading material. Incidentally these are all things that I've forgotten on past trips. My most memorable fail was forgetting to bring clean underwear to my grad school audition right here in Illinois. Every trip that I take seems to involve me forgetting something but I believe I've got it all this time.

It's a stressful start to an otherwise relaxing week. I'm sure the concert will be great - the orchestra is sounding very good these days - and I'm looking forward to a change of scenery. Hills and trees and lakes... here we come!

A Murder of Crows

Do you know what a large flock of crows is called? It's called a "murder."

Throughout the course of the past week I've been awakened each morning by the "caw-cawing" of crows from the trees around our house. The crows make a lot of noise from 5:30 AM to 6:45 AM when the sun finally comes up enough for them to fly away. Apparently this is a great roost so tonight when I heard them coming in for landing I took a video of them. It's was quite stunning.

Conducting and Crafting

Everything I needed to know about conducting applications I learned in 3rd grade art class. Sort of.

This week I spent time on Tuesday putting together some applications for summer conducting workshops and festivals. Much of the time spent was watching footage of my conducting experiences over the past several months and trying to find the best 3-4 minute clips to include in my video. Another portion of the time was spent packaging the video to make it look pleasing, informative, and professional. My tools for this were computer paper, a printer, and scissors. I felt like I was creating an art project, especially when I was trimming the paper to fit the DVD case and align the margins. I just needed a gluestick and some glitter to make it even more eye-catching - I'll have to add this next time.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this entire process is the fact that, among festivals, there is very little uniformity of materials. This is most likely due to the fact that each festival has a slightly different focus and conductors are utilized and given experiences in a different manner at each one. Every application called for roughly fifteen to twentyish minutes of conducting footage but there was also an interview segment for one and fifteen minutes of clarinet performance for another. This was particularly challenging, especially since the last time I prepared any type of "recital" was 1999-2000. Luckily I was able to put my chops back in order enough to work up a Brahms Sonata and a movement of the Mozart Concerto in time for the application deadline.

What I have learned from all of this, is that I need to be super prepared for the application side of this career that I have chosen. Now that I'm finishing up my master's degree it's time to start thinking about the next step. Not just the doctorate, but beyond. The next, next step is marketing and knowing the ins and outs of the application process. Workshops and festivals are a great way to work on many aspects of conducting if I get accepted, but the application process itself is a great way to practice the art (and crafts) of applying for jobs too.

My makeshift "TV Studio" for recording the interview portion of a conducting application. Note the cat in the lower right corner. There were several discarded takes due to feline interference. I even resorted to shutting one of the cats in the bathroom so she would stop walking in frame.

Back to the Blog

I've apparently taken a hiatus from blogging for the past three months. In that span I actually sat down to write many quite a bit but each time became immediately distracted by something else. As a result, I've let things slip just a bit.

Part of my blog reticence (blogicence) in the past three months is due to the fact that life has been fairly (some might even say blissfully) uneventful here in Champaign and I don't feel as though there is anything truly "exciting" to report. We were not struck by debris from the satellite that careened toward earth in September and there have been no large scale protests or riots to speak of (only a small group of Occupy Champaign protesters). So there it is.

So let's consider this my attempt to get back onto the blog horse (blorse).

The above photo is from a recent trip to Homer Lake, a county forest preserve 20 miles east of Champaign-Urbana. Kaia and I spent a lovely afternoon there a couple of weekends ago when I had a rare Saturday off from conducting the MCYO. We spent our day hiking through the woods, enjoying the lovely fall weather, and making fun of the signs in the park. On our way back home we stopped at Curtis Orchard in town to pick up some apples so we could make sauce, pies, and otherwise enjoy locally grown, fresh picked fruit.

Unfortunately, since this is the only apple game in town, it's always tremendously crowded with angry parents yelling at crying children, and choked with fumes from the tour buses (yes tour buses) that pull up to let the masses out to enjoy their afternoon in the "countryside." It's a far cry from the idyllically crisp, quiet fall afternoons that we used to spend visiting apple orchards in Wisconsin. At Curtis Orchard there is no lingering - just get the apples and get the hell outta there and hopefully avoid being hip checked by a guy pulling a radio flier loaded with screaming children buried under piles of apples and merch while yelling at his spouse. The applesauce worth it though. It is the Shiz.

In other news, since moving into our new apartment I have brewed two batches of beer. Kaia and I are both trying to remember, despite the fact that we are in grad school and not supposed to do anything else but work on school things, that we actually are human beings with interests outside of our subject areas. My latest beer is a Wheaten Porter which is, as I type this, currently fermenting in our hall closet.

Hobbies like this remind me that there is something outside of studying scores every single minute of the day. And there is the added benefit of being able to drink the finished product.

That's all for now. It's back to studying for me!

Things to Remember

1998 was a big year for me. That spring I finished my first year of college, toured across the state of Wisconsin in the summer as a band member of the famed "KIDS from Wisconsin," and I also rented my very first apartment with two other roommates. I was beginning to feel like an adult - finally out of the nest and on my own (sort of).

As we spend this week packing boxes and preparing to move into a much nicer apartment in Champaign (no pigs!), I'm reminded of the experience of my first rental and how it taught me two very important lessons that I will never forget.

Lesson #1: Always make sure that you have lights and hot water:

When I arrived with U-Haul trailer in the afternoon of a cloudy June day at 211 Fulton Street in Eau Claire I was excited. I couldn't wait to unload my furniture, set up my room, and spend the first night in my own apartment. I was the first of three to move in and, at least for the summer, I had the place pretty much to myself. It was therefore to my considerable dismay when I flipped on the light switch in living room that the lights didn't come on. I went all over the house turning on all of the lights and nothing happened. There was no electricity.

Immediately I felt a sense of despair and the excitement of the new apartment wore off. Later in my adult life, after I purchased my first home, I learned this is called "buyer's remorse." What was going on? It was then that I realized that we needed to actually call the electric company (NSP back then) and let them know that we were actually occupying the apartment. At the time I didn't know that my roommate had already taken care of this and that the problem would eventually be solved - something was wrong with the meter as I found out later. In the meantime I would spend two full days without electricity and without hot water. Oh yeah I also learned, as it turns out, the electric company is also the gas company.

Which brings me to Lesson #2: Make sure you can communicate with the outside world from your apartment.

Back in those days nobody had cellphones. As a result I couldn't let NSP know about my problem until the next morning - at a pay phone next to the McDonald's on Water Street. You see, not only did I forget to set up the electricity, I also forgot to set up a phone line in the apartment. I couldn't call NSP from my apartment to let them know there was a problem because I didn't have a phone line.

On my second day at the apartment (after a romantic candlelit evening for one - candles purchased at Shopko) I awoke, took the coldest shower of my life (remember - no hot water), and then got in my car and drove around looking for a pay phone. I finally found one on Water Street and called NSP. After waiting on the line for a while, I talked to someone about my problem. They explained that my roommate had already set up the gas and electric so there must have been a problem with the meter - they would send someone out the next day. So I spent another night in the dark. (I decided not to shower the next morning until I had power).

Finally, after two days, electricity and gas was restored and everything was fine - just in time for me to leave for Milwaukee and KIDS. I even got myself a phone line too - after calling the phone company from the Water Street pay phone.

These days I've moved enough to know the ropes. Get your ducks in a row before you move. Today Kaia and I both spent time on the phone (cellphones) making some final arrangements for our new place including internet, water/sewer, electricity/gas, etc. Now all that remains is packing. I wish I would have thought of all of this in 1998 but I guess sometimes the best teacher in life is experience.

Cleanse

Last weekend Kaia and I took a trip to Eau Claire to visit family. Our official reason for heading up north was to attend a wedding party thrown by Kaia's father and his wife, who were married in Door County in February. It was wonderful to see the family and so many people I haven't seen in a long time. Additionally it was nice to get out of Champaign and see some lakes and rivers, hills and trees.

Being a new visitor to Eau Claire after living there for so many years always makes me want to squeeze in as much as possible, however short the visit. Last weekend we were in town for four full days - which means I needed to fit in as much as two full weeks worth of activities. Here is a sample of three:

1. Tube the river? You'd better believe it. How about twice? Okay! Even after getting horribly sunburned the first day? Yep!
2. Go to the Joynt? How about three nights in a row!
3. Eat three meals a day? Screw that - four to five meals per day!

You get the picture. Don't do something once - go back and do it again and again.

As we drove the excruciating seven hours back to Champaign, I pondered on all of the excesses of my weekend. I had eaten too much, had too much to drink, and WAY too much sun. By the end of the drive I decided to go on a "cleanse diet" for the following week. This diet included avoiding red meats, refined sugars, alcohol, and other things that are generally considered "bad." I put myself on the Zand "Quick Cleanse" supplement regimen - which I had left over from a previous cleanse (I got it as a 2 for 1 special about a year ago).

Today I am on the last day of my diet and I can officially say that I feel better. I've lost some weight - cutting out ice cream and beer were two crucial factors - and I'm feeling healthier. I'm also proud to say that we haven't actually modified our diet that much this week. Being poor graduate students, we tend to not eat much meat to begin with. We already eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, especially in the summer when we get food from our CSA and our local farmer's market.

The only thing I've really missed this week (besides the beer with dinner) is ice cream and other sweets - like Fair Trade Dark Chocolate. The above photo is our dessert from Friday - using no refined sugars! We took fresh strawberries and marinated them in honey. Then I whipped up a batch of drop biscuits from scratch (no sugar), covered them with the berries, topped it off with fresh whipped cream, and drizzled the entire thing with honey. OMG delicious.

Of course, tomorrow I will eat chocolate and probably have a beer. But it's good to know that I can be really healthy for a week!

Dog Days

It is, once again, the eve of a terrible, crushing heat-wave in the middle of the country. Excessive heat warnings have gone up, beginning Sunday through at least Thursday of next week. Here is the icon for the forecast for next week:



That makes me hot just looking at it. Luckily we have air conditioning in our apartment at good old Ashton Woods. As an added bonus, today someone came by and vacuumed our common areas for the first time since October! Let's hear it for maintenance! There are still, however, squares (1 x 1 foot) of dead bugs on the walls in our common hallways from the light fixture removal and replacement project last month. These will probably be cleaned up sometime in December - not our problem.

We are currently in the countdown phase to moving out (only 14 days to go) and being homeless for two weeks. Hopefully the heat will break by the time we're carrying our boxes and furniture down two flights of stairs and across the parking lot to our PODS brand moving/storage facility. Kaia has hired workers to help with some of the heavier furniture.

Packing has begun. We've packed many of the non-essential items and have already made one Goodwill run - a car full of clothes and dusty glassware. Goodbye tiny liqueur glasses that we've only used once in the past five years - it was a good run. Our plan is to pack everything except for some clothes, our camping equipment, our cats (they go to a kennel), our plants, and blast out of here on the morning of July 30th for a two week camping/crashing on our friends' couches tour of the upper Midwest - "impoverished grad student edition."

In the meantime as we continue to pack and I find myself asking questions like, do I really need this video cassette of the final episode of "Who's the Boss," "Growing Pains," "The Cosby Show," and "Cheers?"

Cremona, Stressa, and the Long Flight Home

On Saturday morning I awoke early and went for a quiet stroll along the streets of Venice Mestra. For some reason or other I couldn't sleep so I decided to get up around 5:30 AM, figuring I could sleep on the bus (5-6 hours of bus riding from Venice to Cremona to Stressa). It was a lovely, cool, quiet morning, and the streets were empty except for a few people out for a morning walk or jog.

After breakfast at the hotel we boarded the bus and made our way to Cremona, home to Stradivarius and Amati, famous for the tradition of high quality, hand-made violins dating back to the 16th century. While in Cremona we strolled around an open-air market - I bought peaches from a local vendor (yum) - then visited the city hall to hear a short performance on a 17th century Strad and toured the collection of string instruments. Following this we had time for lunch and then it was back on the bus.


From here we drove to Stresa, a tourist resort town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, nestled at the base the Alps in the north of Italy. This town is famous for its hotels, one of which - the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees - used to host Ernest Hemingway during his visits. He liked the hotel so much he actually set part of Farewell to Arms there. In addition to its opulence, Stresa is also the sight of the famous 1937 "Stresa Conference" where British and French heads of state met with Mussolini in an attempt to forge an alliance against Germany to prevent the escalation of hostilities leading into WWII. This conference took place at the Borromeo Palace on Isolde Bella, an island just offshore(a ten minute boat ride) from the town.

We spent a lovely evening in the town. I wandered through the shops, along the lakefront, and spent a bit of time watching the town from the window of my hotel room five stories above the street level. Dinner was delicious - a great way to celebrate the success of our trip.

The next morning I woke up early and went for a stroll along the lake front in the early morning sunlight:


While on my walk I passed a group of Italian boys - late teens/early twenties - dressed in khaki pants and button down shirts with sweaters draped jauntily around their shoulders. They were joking around, laughing, giggling, hanging on each other, sitting on a park bench near the lake. They had clearly been up all night long. They had a look of drowsy contentment on their faces that one only can find on the faces of those who are in the company of good friends creating lasting memories. It made me think of staying up all night in London with my friends fifteen years ago.

My stroll concluded at the hotel where I wolfed down breakfast and then headed to a boat that would take us out Isole Bella and the Borromeo Palace. Here we had free time to stroll about the grounds for a couple of hours:

After enjoying a nice quiet morning on the island, we boarded our bus and took off for the Milan airport. From here it was a mere eleven hours of airports, planes, lines. We arrived in Chicago on time and picked up our baggage within minutes of passing through customs (quite a contrast to Rome). Once I made it through I said goodbye to the kids and chaperones, boarded the blue line train for downtown, then got on a Megabus to Champaign (I don't recommend this after flying internationally). I arrived at 1 AM Monday morning in Champaign where Kaia picked me up in the middle of a tempest and we made our way home.

Verona and Venice

There is nothing like a good night's rest! I awoke Thursday morning feeling like a million bucks (or 692,892.01 Euro according to the current exchange rate), ready for a travel day to Venice with a stop in Verona. We took one last group photo at the concert venue from the night before and then headed out.

Verona is a wonderful little medieval town. It is full of charm and character and each year it hosts an opera festival at the old Roman ampitheater, which happened to be our first stop once we arrived. We then had a chance to see the legendary House of Juliet, including the balcony and courtyard. It's very touristy, but a unique experience, so it is a must for any visit to the city. Despite tradition, I did not grab the boob of the statue of the fair maiden like this guy:

From here I wandered all over town, using my handy-dandy Rick Steves guidebook, stopping to take in some of the sights including this view of the river:

After wolfing down a gelato, I met back up with the group and we boarded the bus to head to Venice. We didn't have much time once we got to Venice Mestre, or the mainland of Venice, so we pretty much just hung out at the hotel and a little town square a few blocks away.

The next morning, Friday, we awoke, had breakfast, took the bus to a water taxi, and then made our way into Venice proper. Here was the view from the boat on the way into town:

Venice is a great city to get lost in. And it's easy to do. And get lost is what I did. I had a general plan for sights to see throughout the day: La Fenice (the opera house), San Marco, the bell tower, the Accademia, the Rialto bridge, the Frari church, and the Doge's Palace. We had most of the day free to roam about the town, so I headed in the general direction of each sight, getting somewhat lost along the way and thoroughly enjoying myself. It was very fun to wander down quiet side streets, away from the crowds, and discover little piazzas. Here are some of the photos from my wanderings:

I saw everything on my list and more. It was a wonderful day. The capstone to the day was a trip up the bell tower in Piazza San Marco for some views of the city and dinner at Trovatore restaurant. The food was okay but I was so hungry after wandering all over town I wolfed my dinner and finished the dinners of two of the chaperones. "The is the best goddamn pork cutlet I've ever had in my life."

We took the water taxi back to our hotel that night and I visited the town square in Venice Mestre for a beer at a little cafe and to check out the "night running event" that was going on. It was some kind of race that began and ended in the square. The course was short and the runners ran laps. Every so often a motorcycle would pass me, followed by a bicycle with an orange flag, then some faster runners, then some slower runners. After forty minutes it was all over and they were announcing winners. I headed to bed drowsy and happy to have spent a day well in Venice.

Lucca, Pisa, and a Concert

On Wednesday morning I woke up with my alarm for the first time on the trip (I had normally been waking up earlier than my alarm because I was so excited to see the sites). This day however, I was feeling a bit under the weather - perhaps the enormous amounts of walking, late nights, early mornings, and copious amounts of Italian sun were beginning to take their toll. Either way I was happy to have a low key day ahead of me.

We began our Wednesday morning with a trip to Lucca and a couple hours of free time to roam about the city. Lucca is a medieval town with a still intact city wall that, long past its defensive uses, has been turned into a biking and walking trail around the perimeter of the old town. Bikes are cheap to rent - 2.50 euros per hour - but since I wasn't feeling great I simply strolled around town to the Roman Ampitheater and several of the churches. At one point while walking around on the ramparts I found myself in the middle of filming for a TV commercial.


After leaving Lucca we headed for lunch in the countryside. We stopped at a small winery/olive oilery called Fattoria Il Poggio in the Montecarlo region of Tuscany for a simply gorgeous meal in the idyllic rolling hills and surrounding farms. It was a hot afternoon but there was a nice breeze as we sat and ate together at one large table under a long awning in the shade of the trees. Our meal was fresh homemade pasta, cheese, ham, fresh baked bread, artichoke hearts (roasted), peppers (roasted), olives, fresh olive oil, and wine. Well, the kids didn't drink the wine, but the adults got to sample. To finish off the meal we had homemade biscotti and grappa from the vineyard. This was absolutely delicious (my mouth is watering as I write this).

After the meal (and a nap on the bus) we arrived in Pisa to see the Field of Miracles. It was a hot day but the sky was a deep blue and the buildings were a beautiful color against this backdrop. I managed to get into the baptistry, which is one of the most amazing acoustical spaces of the 13th and 14th century. While inside I sang a few notes and was shushed by one of the security guards. Undeterred I started whistling. After a few minutes I made a hasty exit - when I noticed they were eying me with suspicion. I just wanted to hear what it sounded like - really.


Our next stop was Montecatini and a performance at the site of an old Roman bath. This was our final concert for the tour in an beautiful outdoor venue. As we finished our sound-check hundreds of people (I'm not exaggerating) began streaming into the performance area. It was almost a mad dash for seats. By 9 PM the place was packed with all of the seats full and people standing around the periphery. The performance went very well and we were greeting with a standing ovation and shouts of "BRAVI, BRAVI!!!" from the audience. After the concert people approached me and the students, showering them with praise. It was fantastic. We even received compliments when we returned to the venue the next morning for a group photo. It was a great way to wrap up our performances.