The Neue Nationalgalerie-bucket listing

On Thursday 5/9 Germany celebrated another May holiday, The Ascension. It is pretty great how this country celebrates all these religious holidays. We could all learn a lesson from that. We should all celebrate every single religious holiday on the calendar. The world would be a happier place.  Freizeit has finally become something that I appreciate. Not that I didn't enjoy it in America-but it takes getting used to having all these free days. I think I just landed in a Freizeit filled month.*** I am not sure but there may be one more holiday in May. I really need to check on that. Also I need to check if it is ok if I am using Friezeit with regards to holidays. I just am not sure...there are just so many rules that I don't know.
So to enjoy the holiday I met a friend at Potsdammer Platz to wander the antique market. We had a leisurely coffee first and then strolled the market. I didn't buy anything, but there were some definite treasures ...and definite trash. There was some beautiful antique jewelry, and we found some pretty great records too. I gave my professional recommendation to my friend to get this version of  Magic Flute:

!!COME ON!! 

It is probably one of my favorite recordings that I have ever heard of Die Zauberflöte. I have a lot of nostalgia for this recording. It was a must buy.
After looking at a Yellow Submarine Beatles Collectible it started to rain so my friend suggested a trip to The Neue Nationalgalerie and I said YES right away- after all it is on my bucket list, and I have heard nothing but great things. So we started our walk over there.
As we were divagating I had to stop dead in my tracks at the entrance to a shopping mall.
There in the entrance was a GIANT 3-D larger-than life size standing cutout of The Beatles cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band.  OF COURSE we had to go in and OF COURSE I needed a picture with it. I tried to look serious....In my head they all looked serious on the cover, but after reviewing the actual picture....duhhhh it was 1967.  I should have been conveying Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- not Eleanor Rigby.

  After my portrait sitting with John, Paul, George, and Ringo we discovered

I actually own that tray in the case 

 

that the mall has a whole Beatles mini-museum in it. There also was an Abbey Road cutout, clothes they wore, guitars, albums to listen to, a giant tv where you can watch performances, and tons of memorabilia. It was so super-cool and random. The display also brought me back to my high-school days of Beatlefest and traveling to Liverpool with the Chicago Youth Chorale. Warm-fuzzies.

 Onto the museum...................................

The Neunaitonal Musem was designed by Mies van der Rohe and built in 1968. You can see some of his more famous buildings including the ones in Chicago and Illinois here: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe  
The main part of the museum lies underground, but when we walked in there was a display of beautiful statues that are on temporary display from The Friedrichswerdersche Kirche which I had planned on going to until I found out that it is closed for renovations indefinitely. I am bummed because is looked like this:

It never made the bucket list.

But enough about neo-gothic masterpieces.....onto the museum(again) What follows are some of my favorite pieces from the museum. I picked several pieces that I was drawn to and excited to see. I wish I had all the titles for you but I was snapping like a fiend.
  A more complete album of all my favorites can be viewed on my FB page. Happy browsing blogg buddies!

 

Werner Tübke Lebenserinnerungen des Dr. jur. Schulze (III), 1965

Der geteilte Himmel-Picasso

Andy Warhol: Big Electric Chair, 1967

Joseph Kosuth-A Four Color Sentence 

*** turns out that TODAY 5/20 is another religious holiday in Berlin. Good times!!

This is not from the museum-though it should be.  THIS is how I felt when I discovered today was a holiday.

 

as i write this i am FREAKING out!

as i write this i am FREAKING out. i just got on my overnight train to Paris with my reservation clutched in hand only to find an elderly gentleman sitting on my bed.
collectively our entire train car peruses our tickets and discovers that i am on the right train, and in the right car, but on the wrong day. this was the day and time i asked for-but not the day printed on my reservation. i am supposed to be on this train TOMORROW.
ummmmmmmmmmmmmm

so right now i am sitting in an empty car waiting for the conductor to come around to deliver my fate. i have visions of me begging to stay on the train. making up wild stories about how i need to get to Paris by tomorrow morning...or of me being kicked off in Hanover, or some other random German city at 4 in the morning.

now i am just waiting. waiting for the next stop where i will move all of my stuff out of the car, and just hover like a weirdo to see if there are any seats i can slither into.
waiting to talk to the conductor when he passes by. i already witnessed him yelling at someone else...he does not appear to be in the best of moods.

i will stand if i have to-and it will not be fun. this train left at 807 and get in at 924...TOMORROW morning. stay tuned.

5 minutes later :)

he was the nicest conductor that i have ever met.

he gave me the bed right next to the one i was hiding on. i admit i played the opera singer card. it was instinct-just kicked in.  it almost always works. hey if it gets me free drinks in bars then why can't it work on the train? usually i have to sing for the drinks-but he was too nice for that. he even kissed my hand goodbye! where am i?
oh yeah i am on my way to paris!!! see you in the morning!

Happy Music, Coffee,Wagner, and Ghost-Cowboys from Texas

Before I got to Germany I was told to be prepared to not find practice rooms ANYWHERE. And that can be a bit of a problem for a musician who needs to uh....practice. 
So why don't I just practice in my flat? 
WELL Germany and Austria have something which is called Ruhezeit. Rest hours. Generally they are from 1-3pm. I am not sure what the exact law in Berlin is-but I have been warned by many different people that I better watch my volume if I don't want to get in trouble.
Instead of my flat I have been working out of a music school called HAPPY MUSIC, and I am very thankful to have been told about it. The staff is very friendly and the rates are reasonable. However the owner did laugh at me when I asked if they were open on Sundays.  Silly American.

                      Happy Music

Geisbergstraße 9, 10777 Berlin

030 78892257 ‎ · happy-music-berlin.de

I was really excited to practice today because I had a great coaching last week at the Deutscher Oper with John Dawson. He basically changed my life, and now I can sing Donna Elvira with more ease than ever before. I am still working on the runs a bit- but it is amazing what a little tweak can do to change everything. He helped me with "Ah fuggi il traditor" from Don Giovanni and you can hear a rare recording of it here:

Eleanor Steber sings "Ah fuggi il traditor" 

On my way to practice some crazy Donna Elvira I bought some coffee from the only coffee shop that I have found that brews coffee strong enough for me. The owners love me now because I stumbled through my remedial german to tell them that they have the best coffee in Berlin.  Cafe X Zeit. And LUCKILY it is right next to Happy Music!  http://www.cafexzeit.de/

So my bucket list is not completed, or even written out. Though I do have one going in my head. And it will be in this blog before the week is up!

One of things I wanted to do was explore Richard-Wagner Platz. Not because I heard about anything cool there-but because it is called Richard-Wagner Platz. So I decided to check it out on the way to the gym. I truly expected to be greeted by a knight in shining armor, or a dragon as I came off the escalator-but no such luck. It wasn't even remotely pretty. But there was THIS building:

 I am still not entirely sure what this building is for. I think it might hold political offices. I am doing some reading on it, but not finding much on the building. But it is just is the perfect example of Berlin because THIS is what is right next to it. The Walgreens of Berlin. Interesting bedfellows. So much of that here. Modern meets the beasts of old. It can be startling!

Speaking of startling...I have to say that many of the U-bahn stops are works of art in themselves. It is actually mind-blowing for me to see all of the beauty and work that went into the SUBWAY STOPS. 

Let us compare shall we:

 

Red-Line Clark and Division(sniff I miss you)

 ew wait don't sniff 

VS. 

Richard-Wagner Platz 

 I know people think I am crazy in the U-bahn because I am taking pictures of the walls. But I don't care. Yes I will enjoy your multi-colored mosaic U-bahn stops. Art is everywhere in this city and I love it.

 So I made it to my gym after my little stop-over at the platz only to discover that Town Old Texas has been sprucing up for the spring!  In April I posted this picture on FaceBook when I discovered Town Old Texas lurking in the field behind my gym----next to the Burger King. I thought it was simply hilarious. 

 

 Town OLD Texas. 

When I first saw T.O.T. I definitely thought that it was abandoned, and that maybe it was an old tourist trap, or that perhaps it was a haunted house/ghost town.  
Nope.

Turns out it is a 60 year old cowboy club. 

And they are keeping it REAL. 

 

 

 This is how it looked today. Notice anything different? I suuuurly did. Anyone who knows me knows that the Confederate Flag makes me sick to my stomach. They might be staying true to history, but I still don't want to see it. I actually think that is the Texas Rebel Flag but I cannot tell. Not sure what the blue portion is next to the the Confederate part is. Also I don't have the time or ability to read through their entire webpage-but if you have the time or skills maybe you can let me know if they really are a racist town of ghost-cowboys. 

Giddyup.  

http://www.old-texas-town.de/

One month in Deutschland

I have time to kill. And it is strange.

When I first arrived in Berlin I hit the ground running. So much to do. Mailings, find a phone, find a home, find a gym, find some friends, find some auditions, and just BE in this country. 

Mailings-check

Phone-after many problems-check

Home-check-though I consider it more shelter than comfort.

Gym-check-though I cannot believe there is a tanning bed in it.

Auditions-check-though I want more- thankfully 2 more are coming up! I think when I have it in me I will write a bit more about those....crazy opera-opinions gone wild.

Friends-working on it.

Which leads to 

BE

So far some days are easier than others. This city is unbelievable with so much to see and do. It can be the ugliest and the most beautiful place. I am not used to being alone all the time in a country where I do not speak the language very well at all. The privilege of seeing everything is so overwhelming, and it makes me want to share the experiences with someone.

And now that someone is YOU blogosphere interweb world.

I have 2 months left and I want to make every single day count. Tomorrow comes a list of things I want to see and do. My Berlin bucket list.  But here is a little taste:

Berliner Dom