Now it's March!

I've become aware again just how bad I am at blogging. Maybe I can accomplish more than one post this month. So, since arriving here, our group from the Dickinson in Bremen program took a five-day trip to Vienna, I've found a church where I practice regularly, taken several weeks of German class at a language school called the Aristotle Institute, become (re)acquainted with the European soccer scene and consequently the Irish pubs in Bremen, generally spent time with the other kids in the program here, and visited my organ teacher Christoph and his wife Gertrud for a weekend. I already posted the pictures from Vienna on Facebook, but as a quick recap, we ate way too much schnitzel, or food in general (at least I did), visited St. Stephen's cathedral, including a climb of both towers and a tour of the crypt, experienced some of the Viennese coffee culture, took a tour of the first district, visited the Mozart house and the Freud house, took a tour of the Parliament building complete with nationalistic blurring of the truth, a tour of what I guess you would call in English the museum of national treasures (bling), visited the Art History museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Belvedere Museum, the National Library, supposedly the happeningest bar in Vienna, and also a much less happening bar, where the friendly owner was very generous with his schnaps and cowboy hats. Since the Vienna trip, we've mostly been attending Sprachschule (German class) at various times of the day - I have it Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri from 9AM-1PM, giving me the afternoons free to practice. I practice in the Christuskirche, which is conveniently located just down the street train line from the Aristotle Institute. There's a nice, medium-sized von Beckerath organ there, as well as a wonderful acoustic, which makes practicing very enjoyable. What has made it slightly less enjoyable is the intense cold, which the church is notorious for. The organist from whom I got my key to the church said, "sure, he can practice until his fingers freeze off!" Yes, practicing the organ is a winter sport sometimes in Germany, but I drew inspiration from watching the Olympics on tv. I've also discovered a trick with the single space heater by the organ: by placing it directly under the organ bench, it acts as a seat-heater and is much more effective at keeping me warm. The church where I have lessons, the Stephanikirche, also has a very nice Beckerath organ. If you happen to be interested in what I'm working on, I've been learning the Prelude and Fugue on Alain by Duruflé, the second Fantaisie by Alain, finishing up the Prelude and Fugue in C major BWV 547, and will continue working on the sixth trio sonata in G major when I'm done with that. I'm also excited to be doing a little work on free hymn accompaniments, since Christoph is a fantastic improviser. He agreed to work with me for ten minutes each lesson on it, but when I told him how I'd been playing hymns in the US, he said, "well, maybe we should spend fifteen minutes every lesson." I visited him and his wife at their home in Rheda-Wiedenbrück last weekend. It was wonderful as usual, with great food and wine. I helped them shovel snow after yet another snowstorm - they've had much more than their usual share in north Germany this winter. We did a little shopping at the town market, and I had a lesson in a church in Wiedenbrück. On Sunday, we drove to a little town named Stadtlohn that has a huge catholic church, where Christoph gave an improvisation concert on a modern interpretation of the stations of the cross. The artwork was projected on a screen (the actual pieces were on exhibit elsewhere), the artist said a few words about each, and Christoph gave his interpretations of them, ending with a glorious finale that built from the stillness of the tomb to the glorious resurrection, incorporating the tune Lasst uns erfreuen. It was a fantastic experience. The picture that I'm posting with this is of my apartment building here in Luisental. That's it for now, thanks for reading, and I'll post more pictures on facebook.