Lieder ohne Worte

I just spent a good part of my Sunday morning trying to get this to work and I finally appear to have encountered success with the Yahoo! media player. This is the piece that I played in my piano recital not too long ago. I recorded it in the "auditorium" at my school with iPod Voice Notes. So the sound quality is pretty terrible, but if you ignore the noise that happens when there is a particularly loud note, it's not too bad. After a while I also figured out that I had to lower the piano bench all the way down when recording because otherwise it squeaked whenever I moved. So, without further ado, my best attempts at recording music without the use of music-recording equipment!

Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words Op.53 No. 3

Just for fun, here's an unrelated photo for you to enjoy, one of my first attempts at editing with Picnik. This was taken on the day I was in Geneva and then came back to Fribourg with three of my exchange-student buddies. It was raining, so the tour of Fribourg wasn't terribly successful. But I did get this nice picture of Jean Tinguely's Jo Siffert fountain. Translated, my caption says "Fribourg is my city, even in the rain!"

By the way, I just went back and changed the audio player from the other post where I tried embedding a piano recording. The original one had stopped working for some reason, and it had never worked in Internet Explorer, so feel free to go back and have another listen.

Château de Chillon and Montreux

Last Wednesday we had no classes in the afternoon for some reason related to the TM / MA, the big project that all non-exchange-student third-years have to do. Being an exchange student, I have always been able to enjoy the time that everyone else spent working on this project in the form of free time. So this Wednesday afternoon I met Katie at Montreux and we headed over to the Château de Chillon. I'll spare you the suspense and show you the photo. It was pretty cool because I remembered that this was one of the sites on the list of world sites from my 9th-grade geography class. And here I am, just a few hours away on the train. We decided not to go inside because it cost money. Also the weather was cooperating for the first time in a couple of weeks and had decided not to rain, so we had to enjoy the sun while it lasted.

See those two ducks in the water to the right of the castle? They decided to come join us on the beach (from which the photo was taken). Also, there was a little boy that came with his mother and his beach toys to play there too. Granted, it was a very small beach with very little sand and very many little rocks that were painful to walk on with bare feet, but imagine living near this castle as a kid and then just coming to play with your bucket and shovel next to this view!

The ducks. I was surprised that they came so close but Katie pointed out that people probably fed them, which is probably true because this is a tourist site. I'd like to take this opportunity to discourage you readers from ever feeding wildlife wherever you go, whether it's a tourist site or in the woods or wherever you might encounter them. It's a terrible idea, and far from being good for the animals, it builds up their dependence on humans and can be very unhealthy for them.

So we spent a couple of hours on this little beach enjoying the lovely weather and then Katie had to leave because she needed to get back in time to take the last bus home at 7-something. I, however, still had a couple of hours before I needed to leave, so I went back to Montreux and walked around there for a while. It's a beautiful city. I got the impression that it was very aesthetically conscious. There are flowers everywhere, and I ran into all kinds of aesthetically pleasing objects, some of which I photographed. I have developed an appreciation for murals / graffiti this year. There have been some really cool ones I've run into in different cities. Here's one that appears to bill Montreux as more than just a Swiss city: "Montreux, Europe." At least that's my interpretation. And Montreux totally deserves this distinction, as far as I'm concerned. Not that I have seen any non-Swiss European cities, except for the ones in Liechtenstein, which weren't terribly interesting and not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as Montreux.

A couple of green things I found while walking around : a beautiful garden and a surprise waterfall! There's a sidewalk that goes just over this waterfall, so I heard running water and then all of a sudden, this was underneath where I was standing. Pretty cool. 

Des choux: I wonder if they can fly? With a special shout-out to Xuan.

And the waterfall. Too bad I don't have one of those fancy cameras where you can lengthen the exposure to give the water that effect.

Things like this are why I have the city-exploring philosophy that I have come up with this year:

1. Wait for awesome weather.

2. Using your general subscription train ticket paid for by Rotary, hop on a train to go to a city you've never been to before.

3. Upon arrival, look for the sign in the train stations that points you toward the "city."

4. Take a totally random walking path, directed towards whatever catches your attention.

5. If you feel like you're getting into a boring residential area, turn around, or...

6. If you are tired, find a bus / tram stop and get on the next bus / tram. Get off if you feel yourself getting more lost or if you see something cool out of the window that you want to go check out.

7. If you can't find anything interesting, make it a point to find the city's H&M and go try on clothes until you have to catch the train back. Note: This also works if the weather turns nasty. Another great alternative to H&M is a bookstore like Payot or Stauffacher.

7. Always, always, always, remember how to find your way back to the train station.

8. Don't forget your camera.

9. This can also be fun with a friend or two. Or you can go ahead and bring all the Rotary exchange students along. Also a valid way to spend time alone.

Now you guys can see what I'm going to miss when I have to come home at the end of the year. Not to mention all of these awesome Swiss people I've met...

And as a parting image, this is why I love Montreux in the spring:

Liechtensteini Cacti

The Great European Chocolate Exchange

I don't get mail frequently, and when I do it's always really exciting. Except for when it's a bill from the doctor's office. But that only happened a couple of times, and then I shipped those bills off to Germany so the insurance people could take care of them. Anyway, today was three times as exciting as most days when I get mail because I got three things in the mail! Here they are:

A letter from my grandpa, a postcard from Florida, and a BOX from BELGIUM! When I saw the box, I was confused at first because I wasn't expecting any boxes. But then I looked at the stamp and it was from Belgium and I immediately remembered about the chocolate exchange. Before I get into this, I'd like to mention that the postcard from Florida isn't from anyone I actually know, it's part of a cool internet project that involves sending postcards to random people in the world and getting postcards from other random people in the world. Strangely enough, this random person signed the card as "Mimi B.," which is a version of my mother's name, although I highly doubt my mother secretly send me this card because I am positive she is not in Tampa right now. So this postcard thing is called Postcrossing and if you like postcards or other countries, you should check it out. The only costs are the postcards and stamps you send out.

Back to the chocolate exchange. Laura and I are both outbounds from the same Kansas Rotary District; she went to Belgium this year and I went to Switzerland. As most of you know, Belgium and Switzerland are the two European countries most renowned for their superb chocolate. In fact, there is even a chocolate factory in Fribourg called Villars that manufactures chocolate of the Villars brand. One day I found out that Laura's Belgian town also houses a chocolate factory and I proposed to her that we send each other samples of the chocolate made in our respective factories so we could compare between the two. And so the Great European Chocolate Exchange was born. I sent her some Villars chocolate in the mail a while ago, and then today I received her package of Belgian chocolate. This is what I saw when I first opened the box:

Apparently these are the two kinds of chocolate manufactured in Laura's town. The Kinder brand is apparently owned by Ferrero, the same company that created the Raffaello chocolate pictured below. So it's not exactly Belgian chocolate, but it was made in Belgium so it sort of is.

Here's a closer view of the loot.

Of course I had to try out the chocolate. That's the whole point, right? I have to let all of you readers out there know whether Belgian or Swiss chocolate is better. This is, after all, a competition, if not a "battle," as Laura literally referred to it in the note she wrote me. Speaking of notes, Laura's friend Tara also left me a note inside the package. She's Canadian. I have never met her. It was a nice note, though.

And here's my review. I tried the Italian one first because I was afraid of opening the Kinder package. Once it's open, I have to work hard to make it last a reasonable amount of time. The Italian chocolates have an almond in the middle surrounded by chocolate and are covered on the outside with shredded coconut. I must say, I was a little biased because coconut, in my opinion, is just about the best thing you can combine with chocolate. So these were like little Almond Joys, except the coconut was on the outside instead of the inside. And these were so much better. Like a thousand times better. I would use this equation to describe them: Raffaello = 1000 x Almond Joy. Meaning it would take you 1000 Almond Joys to equal the greatness of one Raffaello. Approximately.

Then for the Kinder ones: a chocolate outside filled with a milk and nuts sort of mixture. Also very good, but I'm sure that you can buy these in Switzerland because there are about 50 different kinds of Kinder chocolates. I am convinced, however, that these Kinder Schoko-Bons are special because they are Belgian, which is obvious, since the writing on the package is in French and Dutch instead of in German, French and Italian.

I think this is a battle that ends at a stalemate. Villars chocolate is amazing, of course, and I like to be loyal to my town, but the Belgian chocolate was good too. I do think it's cool that Villars manufactures their own brand, but they are both so good that they both have to be winners in my book. The conclusion: Belgian and Swiss chocolate are both better than American chocolate, which is why I'm going to try to take as much back with me as I can to share with all of you (and of course a little bit for myself). Unless, of course, you'd like to come visit me here in the next two months before I leave for Germany to try out Swiss chocolate in the correct geographical context. Somehow I think it is unlikely that you will. Plus Rotary probably wouldn't allow it. So be sure to come by and see me between my return to the States (July 29) and when I leave for KU (sometime in the middle-ish of August). While supplies last.

Country No. 5

Yesterday, I went to Liechtenstein. It is officially the fifth country I have ever been to, following the United States (obviously), Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Switzerland. The weather for this outing was cold and rainy. I was a little disappointed because I thought Liechtenstein would be all cool and old-looking, but then all the houses were really new and boring-looking, almost the cookie-cutter style that we Americans are so familiar with. I did not take any pictures of these houses to share with you, but be assured that you are not missing anything.

There were a couple of highlights of the day that I did, however, photograph, the first being the train that we took from Sargans to Buchs. The seats were so colorful and it made me so happy!

Quinn and Jessica in Switzerland's coolest train. Quinn is from Arkansas and Jessica is from Australia.

The second highlight of the day was the castle. This is apparently the residence of the prince of Liechtenstein. We hiked all the way up there and then ate our bread, cheese, salami, spicy mustard, chocolate, etc. on some benches just below the castle.

Here's most of the group before the hike up the Schlossweg.

A view of the castle from afar. I especially like these particular trees.

And Liechtenstein is so small that between all the bus rides and walking around that we did, I ended up seeing the same places several times during the day. So now I have seen pretty much all there is to see of Liechtenstein and will probably not return in the near future. That is, unless the prince invites us back over for tea or something.

I'll give Wordless Wednesday a try.

I'm looking forward to the flight home.

But only because I will be wearing my Rotary blazer in the airports and will get some perplexed looks from a lot of people and amused smiles from others. Walking around somewhere with this garment on tends to attract a lot of attention and it's kind of funny. Katie and I had some experience with this phenomenon in Lausanne. Some random tourist-y guy took our picture as we walked past him in the train station. And while we were waiting for the train we got some funny looks from people. There was also a guitar-bearing, dreadlocks-sporting dude that approached us, but we ran away.

The front.

The back.

If not for the promise of future blazer / airport fun, I'd probably hang around in Switzerland a bit longer. Really, I can't decide whether I'm happy or sad to be leaving in three months. I'm excited to see everyone and to start a new adventure as a member of the "Jayhawk family," as it is called in so many promotional letters and e-mails. But I'm really going to miss Switzerland. I've made some amazing friends here, and it really does feel like home. Last weekend after my orchestra concert, I was riding the train back to Fribourg and had my first realization that since the orchestra season was over, I had just played music with those people for the last time and might not see them again before I leave.

I also realized that even as much as I sometimes miss the convenience of being able to drive a car, I am going to miss public transportation a lot upon my return. There's something really neat about being able to travel across the country at pretty much anytime of day and then just watch the scenery go by without having to worry about driving. You can also meet some very interesting people in the bus or the train. Once I and another Rotary exchange student met a Buddhist monk from Cambodia in the train who tried to explain Buddhism to us in broken German and English. And taking the train or the bus with friends is a lot of fun as well. Unfortunately the States are on such a large scale that it would be virtually impossible to construct a transportation infrastructure as widespread and at such a high quality level as the Swiss one. Of course public transportation does exist in the States, and there are some great metro systems in some cities, but it's just not the same.

In fact, I'm a bit afraid for everyone on the road when I come back. I may have to spend a weekend in the parking lot and side streets to regain my skills. I haven't been behind the wheel in exactly 9 months. (Today is the 9-month anniversary of my arrival.) So watch out, Kansas drivers!

La Fête des Mères

Happy Mother's Day, everyone! Especially those of you who are mothers, with a special shout-out to mine in particular.

These roses were on the table and I photographed them this morning before I left for my choral adventure in La Chaux-de-Fonds. My real mother is overseas and my host mother was away for my host cousin's confirmation today, so it was sort of a motherless day for me, but nevertheless a good one.

To make a long story short, as the cliché goes, I played in an orchestra concert yesterday afternoon in Murten (a benefit concert for Terre des Hommes), then took the train back to Fribourg, took a bus to Marly, arrived a bit late for the pre-concert choir warm-up, then sang Fauré's "Cantique de Jean Racine," followed by the Requiem.

Today we all took a charter bus from our school to La Chaux-de-Fonds for the Écolades, a cultural sort of festival for students in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. The concert hall there doesn't look like much but apparently the acoustics are so good that multiple CDs are recorded there. We spent the time before our concert watching another choir sing, going to an artsy sort of museum, and generally walking around in the dismal rain. The concert went extremely well. Maybe it was the acoustics, maybe we were better prepared after having already sung a concert the day before, or maybe it was just a little bit of choral magic, but the sound was terrific. I realized that it's very physically demanding to be in the choir in a concert like this. Normally I would be playing in the orchestra but I sang this time around. It is a challenge to keep a high level of concentration and not move around too much. At the end of the day, I had sore feet and a sore throat.

Musically-inclined people are a nice bunch of folks. This café was on the 14th floor of a building. We took the elevator up and the stairs down. It was a bit dizzying. Below: my iced tea from above!

Episode VI: Return of the Blog

Oh, hey. You still there? Well, I'm back to the blogosphere, at least for a short time, to give you another update. This post is dedicated to my mother, who keeps gently reminding me to post again. (Happy early Mother's Day, by the way!) I'm not going to bother with photos because my camera is in the other room and I'm too lazy to go get it right now. Maybe next time, which based on current patterns will be around the beginning of June.

So this pre-weekend (Thursday onwards) did not start off well. Thursday would have been a totally exciting day because it was the day of the Fribourg-Fribourg leg of the Tour de Romandie, which is the Swiss Tour de France. I did go see the start of the race after lunch and took some pictures, which you might get to see later. I guess these cyclists are some of the same who ride in the Tour de France, but I wouldn't really know. The biggest effect this event had was that it forced all of the bus stops to move to temporary bus stops about a block away from the normal route. This was only slightly annoying because I didn't have to use any of the displaced bus stops. Unfortunately, I began to feel worse and worse as the day wore on and ended up with a nasty stomach flu sort of thing at night, which I should have expected since some of my host family had been sick earlier in the week.

The next day I obviously didn't go to school but I did make it to the orchestra rehearsal in the evening (the Vorhauptprobe, which I guess would translate as the dress-dress-rehearsal). I think musicians are really special people. They just tend to be nicer, smarter, and, in the case of Swiss people, who are normally pretty closed-off, more outgoing than everyone else. This was proven when I was asked about twenty different times how I was feeling and if I was better. Out of all musicians, I would have to say organists are the smartest and most creative, based on the sample population of organists that I know. I think it has to do with the playing-with-both-hands-and-both-feet thing. But that's a whole 'nother post.

Thanks to a few well-placed doses of Coca Cola, I was pretty much healed by Friday evening, which left my weekend plans intact. These involved a Rotex version of Geneva, complete with UN tour, random walking around, Calvin's church, a park full of political party tents, food, and giant chess games, the flower clock, and the jet d'eau. Most of this I had experienced by myself or with my first host family already, but it was fun to go with about 40 inbounds and Rotexlers to see it all again. Unfortunately, it was raining.

A few of my exchange student friends came back with me to Fribourg that night and we ate dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant, which I was a little surprised to find. I don't know the restaurants of Fribourg very well, because I usually eat at home or nourish myself straight from the shelves of Migros and Coop (and occasionally Denner). Then we picked up some ingredients from the undersized, overpriced grocery store in the train station because all the other grocery stores had closed at 4pm, and went back to my host family's place and made cookies. This was a great idea, except that we were so tired from walking around Geneva all day that we were about ready to fall asleep and had trouble staying up even to wait for the cookies to finish cooking. It was a bit pathetic. So the cookies were finally eaten in the pre-noon hours.

On Sunday afternoon we went into Fribourg. The plan had been to walk around and see what there was to see (which, in Fribourg, isn't much), but it was raining, so the tour was stopped a bit short for a trip to an ice cream place, where we cooled off even more from the ever-chillier weather with a frozen treat and then waited until I had to be at the concert place for the sound check. Afterwards was the concert, which I thought went pretty well. A couple of other exchange students who live in Fribourg came too, which was nice. I was a little disappointed that none of the Swiss people I invited (including my host family) ended up coming. Maybe the rain just made them want to stay home.

So with that, I wish you all rain-free and sun-filled spring days that you can enjoy outside, even if you don't have the option of walking around in Fribourg.