Sunny Day in Stuttgart

Today was a rather exhausting day. We ran through all the chorus movements in the mass... twice. Once without orchestra and then with the orchestra in the afternoon. My day has been fairly low key other than that. I enjoyed lunch with Michael, a tenor from Ottawa. He's a professional translator for English, French, and Spanish. While there are certainly singers here with "day jobs" it has also been very encouraging to meet people who are professional singers. Yes people, you can survive as a professional musician, though you may have to seek another continent.
I've had to force myself to drink more water. I normally don't have this problem, but I normally don't only have mineral water to drink. Germans love their sparkling mineral water, and that's all the school provides when they provide water bottle. You have to request stillewasse if you want what we call water.
Today was such a sunny warm day! It was 20 degrees... celsius. It was so great that our afternoon rehearsal room had a balcony for us to go on and overlook the city and bathe in the sun during our rehearsal break. And afterward to soak in what was left of the sun, Nicklaus, Kelley, Andrew, and I went for a walk and just sat in front of the Staatsoper. Kelley and Andrew are from the twin cities and Nicklaus is from Essen. Here's a little joke we Americans came up with. Essen means "dinner" in German. So there has to be an Essen in Germany because there is a Hamburg(er) and a Frankfurt(er).
Nicklaus made me self conscious when he said my birkenstocks are house shoes and Germans don't where them out. But they make my feet happy. The other funny thing is that everything Nicklaus has learned about America, he learned from The Simpsons. Which actually has taught him a lot. We were talking about the Scopes Trial and he was like "oh yeah they talked about that on The Simpsons". There are a lot of American shows in Germany. In fact, Steffi and I watched How I Met Your Mother our first night here. Since I've seen every episode, I should be able to learn German because I already know what is going on.
Tonight there is a get together at the upstairs lounge next to the hotel: Sofie's Brauhaus. It's American night, so cheap beers and ribs! Many of the choir members are meeting there tonight.

I just added these pictures. They are from our sunny lunch on top of the MusickHochSchule, the music building where we rehearse.