Saturday morning and we are off to the beach. Helen and Bec V G are coming down for lunch to check out the house for Bec's future accomodation while at uni and to go to the deaf games closing ceremony. Bec has been volunteering there this week as it's been on in Geelong.
Weather overcast but should pick up.
Only a few more days until I get to come and meet you at the airport. Enjoy your last days.
Lots of love MDB
xxxxxxxxx0xxxxxxxxx
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
"While You Were Out"
"MESSAGE: Dear Guest,
You have a message from your mother. She is difficult."
That would be so incredibly embarrassing if anyone understood it. XD
Thanks Mum. xox
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
We got your weather forecast
It hailed in Pt Lonnie this morning. No, really.
Planning a trip to the Waun Ponds indoor pool. Won't be the same without Kat.
M & B xxxxxx
Planning a trip to the Waun Ponds indoor pool. Won't be the same without Kat.
M & B xxxxxx
A rainy day at the seaside
A quiet day for the Bean and I as it rained off and on today. We slept late and then stayed in bed until noon - playing with the puppets, reading stories and singing. It was a hardship. This afternoon we raided the craft cupboard and found out just how much mess you can make with several packets of streamers. Bean discovered the delights of the old fashioned adding machine and I discovered the delights of steaming a can of sweetened condensed milk in the thermie varoma. It was a sweet day all up.
And you?
Miss you to the moon and back and all around the solar system.
Love the sticky duo and Dad. xxx
PS We had quinoa for tea. Sorry you missed it.
And you?
Miss you to the moon and back and all around the solar system.
Love the sticky duo and Dad. xxx
PS We had quinoa for tea. Sorry you missed it.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Love you heaps
Nothing could have made me happier than to wake up to your post below. I am so glad you are having this amazing time. I can't wait to see all your photos when you get home. How many have you taken so far? Make sure you give your camera to people to take pictures of you too.
Dad went back to work today. He wanted to drag the beach time out as long as possible so he went up to town at 6.00am this morning and will be returning tonight. Bean and I are planning to stay the week at Pt Lonsdale as all Bean's staff are one leave this week anyway - no point going home. Weather forecast for the week is pretty ordinary, but we'll find stuff to do. Today he is helping me write the summer edition of PD Postings which need to be finished by this afternoon and we have dropped a huge tub of duplo on the floor 3 times. You probably heard the crash of duplo on tiles from where you are. Sorry if we caused an avalanche and wiped out a quaint German village.
Glad you are having some protein. Tell Mr H I insisted. Also glad I got the extra thermals. Have you tried layering your gortex jacket over your tour jacket?
Love you lots. Take care, sing sweetly and have an amazing day.
Love MDB xxxx0xxxx
Dad went back to work today. He wanted to drag the beach time out as long as possible so he went up to town at 6.00am this morning and will be returning tonight. Bean and I are planning to stay the week at Pt Lonsdale as all Bean's staff are one leave this week anyway - no point going home. Weather forecast for the week is pretty ordinary, but we'll find stuff to do. Today he is helping me write the summer edition of PD Postings which need to be finished by this afternoon and we have dropped a huge tub of duplo on the floor 3 times. You probably heard the crash of duplo on tiles from where you are. Sorry if we caused an avalanche and wiped out a quaint German village.
Glad you are having some protein. Tell Mr H I insisted. Also glad I got the extra thermals. Have you tried layering your gortex jacket over your tour jacket?
Love you lots. Take care, sing sweetly and have an amazing day.
Love MDB xxxx0xxxx
Salzbug, Salzburg, salty salty Salzburg!
Guten Abent! (Good evening in German - it's 6.50pm here)
Before I start, please excuse any odd spelling/punctuation - this German keyboard is a little odd...
Yesterday was salt mines, freezing time in Salzburg and a concert in a castle. Hardly uneventful. The salt mines were very cool - located about 20 minutes from Salzburg itself, they've been there for centuries and only ended commercial production in the 80's. We went on a tour into them, and aside from Alex licking the walls of the mine to see if the rock tasted salty (he assures us it just tasted like dirt) was riding down the slides between levels. The slides are like a pair of wooden rails that you sit on top of and slide down - quite quickly in the case of the 44m long one! All up, a very interesting and rather cool morning.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in Salzburg, enduring freezing cold (it really was the coldest weather we've experienced so far) while the snow fell heavily. Pretty? Yes. So cold you didn't want to be outside for more than about five minutes? Definitely. Still, we had a good look around town, visited the massive cathedral there (we've been at a cathedral five days out of six so far, but they're all still really impressive.) and some of us tried ice-skating. I didn't, but I'm planning on giving it a shot in Paris.
After our day out, we went back to the hostel for dinner and then back into town for a concert in Hohensalzburg (Salzburg Castle), which is located quite spectacularly on top of a cliff and can only be reached by a cute little funicular railway. The concert was a string quartet, and although we did have to wake Chris up twice, we all enjoyed it a lot. (Well, aside from Chris. He just enjoyed his nap.)
Today was travelling between Salzburg and Munich. On the way we stopped at Dachau concentration camp, where we spent two hours or so. It was pretty amazing in a sad way, but well worth the visit.
Tomorrow we leave for Cologne, and get closer to our next concert at the Selm school in Selm. Selmgymnasium (its name in German) is our German sister school, and so we'll be performing there. I'm hoping to play the latin jazz solo I've got ('One For Mum'), and barbershop quartet is singing Find the Cost of Freedom. We don't think Selm will be as enthusiastic as Matzen, but we are excited because Massi from school is on exchange there and so there's going to be a familiar face in the audience.
The snow and an Austrian soft drink called Almdudler have become the staples of the trip; without fail every time either one comes out we're delighted, especially now that the snow is more frequent and now that Wolfgang has a whole crate of Almdudler which he sells cheaply. Yesterday before we went into the salt mines, we were meant to be having a look around a mock Celtic village that had been built next to the mines, but we decided we'd rather play in the fresh snow which had fallen overnight and was perfect when we got there. Shazz is sick of it, but the rest of us have learnt to throw on an extra layer of thermals and get out there. It's very pretty and I'm yet to find a sight that's more jaw-droppingly impressive than an Austrian mountain covered with snow, with all the trees white. It's very, very pretty.
In other news, food is good at the hostels. Breakfast and dinner are all-you-can-eat buffets and so I'm having a lot of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast and seconds every dinner. It's not home-cooked stuff, but it's pretty good for hostel food and there certainly is a lot of it! Lunch is varying; some days we buy it in whichever town we're in whilst out sightseeing, meaning it's anything from one very large pretzel to a sit-down meal. Today and yesterday Wolfgang made us hot dogs, which was fine yesterday because Hayhow told me in advance and let me get lunch from a bakery near the hostel, but today I asked for some and he told me "I thought vegetarians didn't eat hot dogs", to which I pointed out that you told me I needed to get some protein because normally at home I'd be having tofu and soy stuff and lentils which there isn't any of here and that there didn't seem to be anything else to eat, so there wasn't much of an option. Hooray for protein bars!
I also seem to be picking up bits of German - I can now buy lunch in German, as well as greet people and ask if they speak English. Fortunately 99% of people do, so I don't really even need to know that much, but it's nice to know it anyway.
I'd post photos, but I'm using an internet cafe terminal at the hostel and I can't find a USB port anywhere... Hopefully in Cologne I'll be able to put some up.
Love,
Jo xox
Before I start, please excuse any odd spelling/punctuation - this German keyboard is a little odd...
Yesterday was salt mines, freezing time in Salzburg and a concert in a castle. Hardly uneventful. The salt mines were very cool - located about 20 minutes from Salzburg itself, they've been there for centuries and only ended commercial production in the 80's. We went on a tour into them, and aside from Alex licking the walls of the mine to see if the rock tasted salty (he assures us it just tasted like dirt) was riding down the slides between levels. The slides are like a pair of wooden rails that you sit on top of and slide down - quite quickly in the case of the 44m long one! All up, a very interesting and rather cool morning.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in Salzburg, enduring freezing cold (it really was the coldest weather we've experienced so far) while the snow fell heavily. Pretty? Yes. So cold you didn't want to be outside for more than about five minutes? Definitely. Still, we had a good look around town, visited the massive cathedral there (we've been at a cathedral five days out of six so far, but they're all still really impressive.) and some of us tried ice-skating. I didn't, but I'm planning on giving it a shot in Paris.
After our day out, we went back to the hostel for dinner and then back into town for a concert in Hohensalzburg (Salzburg Castle), which is located quite spectacularly on top of a cliff and can only be reached by a cute little funicular railway. The concert was a string quartet, and although we did have to wake Chris up twice, we all enjoyed it a lot. (Well, aside from Chris. He just enjoyed his nap.)
Today was travelling between Salzburg and Munich. On the way we stopped at Dachau concentration camp, where we spent two hours or so. It was pretty amazing in a sad way, but well worth the visit.
Tomorrow we leave for Cologne, and get closer to our next concert at the Selm school in Selm. Selmgymnasium (its name in German) is our German sister school, and so we'll be performing there. I'm hoping to play the latin jazz solo I've got ('One For Mum'), and barbershop quartet is singing Find the Cost of Freedom. We don't think Selm will be as enthusiastic as Matzen, but we are excited because Massi from school is on exchange there and so there's going to be a familiar face in the audience.
The snow and an Austrian soft drink called Almdudler have become the staples of the trip; without fail every time either one comes out we're delighted, especially now that the snow is more frequent and now that Wolfgang has a whole crate of Almdudler which he sells cheaply. Yesterday before we went into the salt mines, we were meant to be having a look around a mock Celtic village that had been built next to the mines, but we decided we'd rather play in the fresh snow which had fallen overnight and was perfect when we got there. Shazz is sick of it, but the rest of us have learnt to throw on an extra layer of thermals and get out there. It's very pretty and I'm yet to find a sight that's more jaw-droppingly impressive than an Austrian mountain covered with snow, with all the trees white. It's very, very pretty.
In other news, food is good at the hostels. Breakfast and dinner are all-you-can-eat buffets and so I'm having a lot of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast and seconds every dinner. It's not home-cooked stuff, but it's pretty good for hostel food and there certainly is a lot of it! Lunch is varying; some days we buy it in whichever town we're in whilst out sightseeing, meaning it's anything from one very large pretzel to a sit-down meal. Today and yesterday Wolfgang made us hot dogs, which was fine yesterday because Hayhow told me in advance and let me get lunch from a bakery near the hostel, but today I asked for some and he told me "I thought vegetarians didn't eat hot dogs", to which I pointed out that you told me I needed to get some protein because normally at home I'd be having tofu and soy stuff and lentils which there isn't any of here and that there didn't seem to be anything else to eat, so there wasn't much of an option. Hooray for protein bars!
I also seem to be picking up bits of German - I can now buy lunch in German, as well as greet people and ask if they speak English. Fortunately 99% of people do, so I don't really even need to know that much, but it's nice to know it anyway.
I'd post photos, but I'm using an internet cafe terminal at the hostel and I can't find a USB port anywhere... Hopefully in Cologne I'll be able to put some up.
Love,
Jo xox
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Greetings from sunny Pt Lonsdale
Well clearly it's a bit warmer here than in Vienna. After our sea voyage yesterday to Sorrento we decided to get a bit wetter today and went off to the water park. More splashing and Dad even tried some water sliding. I stuck to the rubber rings on the lazy river ride. Your brother wanted to try everything of course. We've all come home tired and a bit stiff. Maybe the jumping castle should have been saved for another day?
I had a look at the S Palace website - looks fantastic. Must be even more beautiful in real life.
Hope you managed to fake it well enough for your solo at Matzen. I'm sure in such a beautiful place the music would have just flowed naturally. (hope so) Bonus is you get to hand out your brochures and retrieve some more souvenir space.
Stay warm!
Lots of love M D B xxxx
I had a look at the S Palace website - looks fantastic. Must be even more beautiful in real life.
Hope you managed to fake it well enough for your solo at Matzen. I'm sure in such a beautiful place the music would have just flowed naturally. (hope so) Bonus is you get to hand out your brochures and retrieve some more souvenir space.
Stay warm!
Lots of love M D B xxxx
Photos from Day 1
Now that I've gotten on Alex's laptop, I can upload photos from yesterday!
 |
| Me with the percussionists in front of Schoenbrunn Palace |
 |
| A group of us in the gardens of the Palace (I'm third from the right!) |
 |
| Vienna in the evening - very pretty! |
I'll see what I can do tonight/tomorrow for photos from today. They may end up on my Flickr account because it's so slow to upload to Blogger.
Today is more sightseeing in Vienna (some of us are thinking of walking to the Hofburg (the imperial palace)), followed by a one-hour trip to the town of Matzen where we'll rehearse, have tea and then perform. I'm doing the Habanera, sax trio is doing the Super Mario Bros. Theme, and I've got solos in both the Big Band pieces... looks like I'll be spending the trip going over my sheet music trying to remember things I should have rehearsed. All our bus trips are done in the same coach - we have our driver, Wolfgang, until we get to Paris. Wolfgang is hilarious and his coach is lovely, so we're all very happy with this.
More photos tomorrow if I can.
- Jo
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
I'm off to Euuuuuuuuuuurope!
So, tomorrow, I'm actually, finally, really off to Europe. (No, you can't stop me now, Mum. You had that chance nine months ago.)
Thanks Mum and Dad for being so good about packing and everything else. :)
Thanks Mum and Dad for being so good about packing and everything else. :)
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