According to my very intelligent sister, Dr. Ilicic, I don’t know the appropriate places to put commas in my blog. My grammar is nicht so gut. My excuse is that I don’t usually breathe when I talk, so therefore I should just write sentences as I would say them. To all the other grammar police, my deepest apologies if I have offended you and you now want to make one of those annoying posts on facebook about me.
Moving on, one of the more terrifying experiences while living in Berlin was sitting in an orchestra with possibly the only deskie that couldn’t speak English. My minimal German skills at the time only got me so far as finding out her name and asking her if she was married. Thank you German school for giving me that at least! The conductor was yelling out bar numbers in German faster than my brain could process them. It’s all backwards in German too e.g. vierhundertsiebenunddreißig is 400 hundred 7 and 30 which is how you would say 437 - it takes a long time to get your head around, well mine at least! Knowing what the conductor was saying was almost impossible, and because I couldn’t ask my deskie what the hell he was on about I had to pretend to understand – this is even more hardcore than air bowing. I learnt the bare minimum in German music expressions from a lovely girl in Salzburg. I was sitting in on masterclasses in German (mind you they were supposed to be conducted in English), anyway, she was kind enough to write a list in the notes section of my phone, which I still have to this day. Lucky you can get the jist of what someone wants musically by their tone and body language, or else I would have made an arse of myself.
On our farewell day/night in Germany, Gareth decided to jump in the river spree, which is the main river in Berlin. We all pleaded with him not to. I even threatened divorce but that still didn’t help! It was about 10pm at night and we had just hired a boat with 6 of our friends for a few hours. We had a wonderful bbq and some very funny driving experiences. It is obvious I haven’t driven in over a year because as soon as I was in charge of the boat I ended up doing a 360. Back to Gareth having a swim in the river spree – a random Berliner came up to us and said “you know that the water is very dirty, he should get out now,” to which we replied in unison “yes, we know!” Hiring a random boat and being allowed to take it in the main river in Berlin, without supervision or a licensed boat driver, just wouldn’t happen in Australia. Could you imagine the paperwork! All we had to do was leave a ‘Kaution’ A.K.A Bond and off we went (with a suitcase full of beers of course).
We had our last Hudson Arc gig in Germany for the year a few weeks ago. It was a stifling 39 degrees and we had to play 2 sets in a room that had no fans, let alone air-conditioning. I can honestly say, I have never seen Gareth sweat so much. I mean, his shirt was absolutely drenched after the first song. We thought moving the performance outdoors would be a bit of a relief from the heat, but it was actually worse. While playing Beds Are Burning I had about 10 mosquitoes sucking my blood simultaneously. Gareth complimented me on my Peter Garrett dance moves.
On Friday 2nd of August, as many of you already know by my anger on facebook, I missed my flight to London for the Britten-Pears Orchestra. I even showed Gareth both The 4:25am and 4:35am alarms on my phone. I seriously don’t remember even hearing them – I have a tendency to talk and walk in my sleep so perhaps this is what happened. I literally got up at 6:30am, my flight was pretty much leaving at that time. We jumped out of bed, I threw on whatever clothes were next to me and ran out the door. It was also my last day in Berlin so I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to the apartment. I woke up poor Emily at 6am (she is the amazing chick that runs everything in the UK), I started to cry and forgot to tell her who the hell I was, so for a couple of minutes she was calming down some hysterical, crazy person that missed their flight. This isn’t the worst part – I couldn’t even have a shower and as I was walking through airport security I got felt-up (by a very nice lady). This is when I realised I didn’t shave my armpits AND they are seriously hairy. Damn my wog genes. The flight place booked me on the 11am flight, then when I went to check in apparently I wasn’t on the system! I had to call the travel agents again in the UK. Apparently British Airway cancelled the booking. What a great freaking start to the day! In the end it was fine and I finally made it there just in time for the first rehearsal!
I am now in Croatia with my hubby on a little holiday before we come home! I will tell you more about it in my next blog and try to be more frequent. This blog was completed a month ago it is just that I have been a bit of a hectoid this last month!
Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with more soon.
Until next time,
Tad x
Moving on, one of the more terrifying experiences while living in Berlin was sitting in an orchestra with possibly the only deskie that couldn’t speak English. My minimal German skills at the time only got me so far as finding out her name and asking her if she was married. Thank you German school for giving me that at least! The conductor was yelling out bar numbers in German faster than my brain could process them. It’s all backwards in German too e.g. vierhundertsiebenunddreißig is 400 hundred 7 and 30 which is how you would say 437 - it takes a long time to get your head around, well mine at least! Knowing what the conductor was saying was almost impossible, and because I couldn’t ask my deskie what the hell he was on about I had to pretend to understand – this is even more hardcore than air bowing. I learnt the bare minimum in German music expressions from a lovely girl in Salzburg. I was sitting in on masterclasses in German (mind you they were supposed to be conducted in English), anyway, she was kind enough to write a list in the notes section of my phone, which I still have to this day. Lucky you can get the jist of what someone wants musically by their tone and body language, or else I would have made an arse of myself.
On our farewell day/night in Germany, Gareth decided to jump in the river spree, which is the main river in Berlin. We all pleaded with him not to. I even threatened divorce but that still didn’t help! It was about 10pm at night and we had just hired a boat with 6 of our friends for a few hours. We had a wonderful bbq and some very funny driving experiences. It is obvious I haven’t driven in over a year because as soon as I was in charge of the boat I ended up doing a 360. Back to Gareth having a swim in the river spree – a random Berliner came up to us and said “you know that the water is very dirty, he should get out now,” to which we replied in unison “yes, we know!” Hiring a random boat and being allowed to take it in the main river in Berlin, without supervision or a licensed boat driver, just wouldn’t happen in Australia. Could you imagine the paperwork! All we had to do was leave a ‘Kaution’ A.K.A Bond and off we went (with a suitcase full of beers of course).
We had our last Hudson Arc gig in Germany for the year a few weeks ago. It was a stifling 39 degrees and we had to play 2 sets in a room that had no fans, let alone air-conditioning. I can honestly say, I have never seen Gareth sweat so much. I mean, his shirt was absolutely drenched after the first song. We thought moving the performance outdoors would be a bit of a relief from the heat, but it was actually worse. While playing Beds Are Burning I had about 10 mosquitoes sucking my blood simultaneously. Gareth complimented me on my Peter Garrett dance moves.
On Friday 2nd of August, as many of you already know by my anger on facebook, I missed my flight to London for the Britten-Pears Orchestra. I even showed Gareth both The 4:25am and 4:35am alarms on my phone. I seriously don’t remember even hearing them – I have a tendency to talk and walk in my sleep so perhaps this is what happened. I literally got up at 6:30am, my flight was pretty much leaving at that time. We jumped out of bed, I threw on whatever clothes were next to me and ran out the door. It was also my last day in Berlin so I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to the apartment. I woke up poor Emily at 6am (she is the amazing chick that runs everything in the UK), I started to cry and forgot to tell her who the hell I was, so for a couple of minutes she was calming down some hysterical, crazy person that missed their flight. This isn’t the worst part – I couldn’t even have a shower and as I was walking through airport security I got felt-up (by a very nice lady). This is when I realised I didn’t shave my armpits AND they are seriously hairy. Damn my wog genes. The flight place booked me on the 11am flight, then when I went to check in apparently I wasn’t on the system! I had to call the travel agents again in the UK. Apparently British Airway cancelled the booking. What a great freaking start to the day! In the end it was fine and I finally made it there just in time for the first rehearsal!
I am now in Croatia with my hubby on a little holiday before we come home! I will tell you more about it in my next blog and try to be more frequent. This blog was completed a month ago it is just that I have been a bit of a hectoid this last month!
Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with more soon.
Until next time,
Tad x
photo - Johannes Walther @ Loop Art Festival, Dresden.
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