EuroLife: Day24

I believe that Michael recently regaled you all with the ugly details of Jena weather. Well, since then, it has been absolutely beautiful here in Jena. Sunny, warm, and lovely. Michael's feeling a bit bad about the post, so I thought I'd set the record straight. 3 days in a row of sunshine! We are most happy about this turn of events. In honor of Jena's recent good behavior, I'm including another photo from one of our recent hikes.


We turn the discussion, today, from beer to Handel's Messiah. (I leave it to you to decide which is the better half of this relationship :) Last night, I had my second rehearsal with the Jena Philharmonic Choir. Last week, when I first arrived at the rehearsal, it suddenly occurred to me that the whole thing would be conducted in German. Yes, I should have thought of this earlier, but I tell you over and over again I find myself momentarily surprised by the fact that absolutely everything here is done in German. Surely I will get better about this.

I managed to navigate the rehearsal last week, with the help of my wonderful new American friend Laura, and this week I even tried to have a conversation with the woman next to me in German. We did alright, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty. Now, in contrast to this, we are actually singing the Messiah in English. This means that I spend most of the rehearsal struggling to understand the basics of what the conductor is (at a truly staggering speed) shouting at us, and the rest of it practicing my pronunciation of English words. For example, "His YOKE is easy and His BURDEN is light." (For all our practicing, someone inevitably sings--with great conviction--that his Joke is easy.) Last night, one of these little sessions was actually a bit difficult for me. The conductor prefers British pronunciations, so I spent quite a while practicing, with the others, my British pronunciation of "upon". It's harder than it sounds!

By far the best of these moments came when we were working on "worthy is the lamb." We had been singing a very fast, very difficult part ,"to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength..." when a woman raised her hand. She asked if we could practice pronouncing "strange." (At least, she asked something like this...again, she insisted upon speaking German.) The director replied "Strange...strange...No no! Not 'strange', but 'strength!'"

The conductors pronunciation of "strength" sounded like "strinnnggthe". This is a difficult word for Germans, as is squirrel. (The latter we have heard about from more than one German friend.) I spend most of my times sounding pretty silly, so it's nice to occasionally be able to say a word without any difficulty at all while others grapple with the pronunciation. I am learning not to take this for granted!

All in all we are really having a fantastic week. The people of Jena are so friendly (despite my jokes), and the city is beautiful.

I leave you today with two photos, particularly amusing when seen side by side. It seems that there are areas where you are not permitted to let your child play in traffic and, more surprisingly, areas where you ARE permitted to let your child play in traffic. Odd.