A familiar face

Imagine my delight when Phil Carmichael appeared at our rehearsal yesterday afternoon! With all the things going on in my head right now, words can't express how happy it made me to hang out with him again. It felt just like old times. He'll be around for the next rest of our stay since he's studying in Mannheim this year.

Brynne got smashed again and wasn't rolling of bed yesterday morning, so instead Raphael, Elina, Misel, Emily and I went to the Stadtgalerie to see a Claude Monet exhibit. It wasn't as big as the Roy Liechtenstein collection at the Kunsthaus Bregenz that I saw last year, but it was very beautiful. What amazed me was that the curators were able to put together sets of 3-5 paintings that were likely done very closely together. Everything was grouped by period and subject matter. It was special to see these masterworks up close and in person.

Afterwords we had lunch in the Schloßplatz before heading to the Liederhalle for a lecture concert on the Mozart Requiem. I'm SO glad it's over -__-" Robert Levin seems to not comprehend the concept of a lecture concert, and things just turn into 'lecture.' The presence of the choir and orchestra felt completely unnecessary since he can just whirl out all the choral and orchestral parts on the piano anyhow. Ugh...

Anyhow, after that miserable concert I felt a bit of fun was in order and well deserved so a bunch of us went to the Hospitalhof and made merry! There was salsa dancing, great conversation and it was just a great time. Even some of the usually shy and quieter people got involved and had a great time. Ariel led the group in some salsa line dancing and it was a lot of fun. Since a large group of the 'grumpy' people left early on, it made the environment so much better. I had a great time but Misel and I decided to leave a little early since we were tired. We did pop into one of the gay bars to check out the karaoke night, but it was really smokey and gross so we bailed out of there ASAP. There was a huge bunch of people hanging out in the breakfast room of the hotel so I stayed up and chatted with them for a while.

This morning I took it nice and slow. I ran a few errands and did speed shopping. Kev - remember that last conversation we had and you asked me if I bought that something? Well I picked it up, and I bought an outfit for Jacqueline's wedding too. ^__^ No more shopping for me...

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to Ludwigsburg with Michael Carty.