Europe, the End of an Era (part 1)
Jul. 24th, 2009 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chu_totoroI’ve noticed that, contrary to most people, I tend to write more when I have been in a good mood. Plenty of people I know use their journals almost exclusively to vent, and I do too, but when something unpleasant has been and gone already, what’s the point in calling it back up and reliving the unpleasantness?
This may explain why I have not yet posted on New York, though not Baltimore. In any case, what’s fresh is fresh, and if I do not miss these people as much as I should, I can at least say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the trip and mean it with all my heart.
DEPARTURE
Fairly uneventful. My mother and I had a row right before we left the house, AND I forgot my lanyard at home, resulting in us almost missing the bus. It literally was about to drive away and mom had to run in front of it to get it to stop. The rest of it was standard airport procedure.
ARRIVAL
THIS, on the other hand, was magnificently delayed! The transfer flight was an epic failure. Our plane got towed, kids. Towed. What a kicker. So we’ve been sitting on the (unmoving) plane for twenty to thirty minutes, and I had just started to tell Tiffany a scary (true) story about Taiwanese airplane fail...
ADELA: So then they send it in to be checked, and the company sends it right back, saying, “No no no, you must be mistaken, this isn’t fuel, it’s water!”
TIFFANY: What!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Hey all, slight delay here, but no worries, we’ll be right on our way!
ADELA: Right, so it turns out their fuel storage tanks didn’t have any air holes, meaning that all the condensation just dripped in and went straight to the bottom, and no one noticed because oil floats on water – so that poor plane just got a bellyload of water!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Hey all, this is the Captain again. Something’s dripping from the left engine – we’re not sure whether it’s oil or water, just hang tight for five to ten minutes while we get a mechanic up here to check on it...
TIFFANY: ADELA YOU CURSED OUR PLANE. YOU CURSED IT. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!
We sit, and everyone’s fiddling w/the touchscreens and watching movies when the voice cuts in again.
ANNOUNCEMENT: There – ah – appears to be some problems with the engine, we’ll have to switch planes. We’ll be coasting back to the same dock we left from using our remaining engine, we’ll ask all passengers to please remain seated until otherwise instructed.
Groans all around, partly from the bad news and partly from movies being interrupted. Luckily, the movies resume after the announcement, only to be interrupted half a second later when the same announcement is repeated in French. (Don’t you just love Canada~)
Ten minutes later,
ANNOUNCEMENT: Ah, they are not allowing us to turn on the engines because it is dripping – we’ll have to wait for some firetrucks to come along and push us on back...
And so we returned to the airport, waited an extra hour or three, and arrived in Europe a whopping five hours late (and tired out of our minds). Whoopee!
INTERLAKEN
Pretty little city, if a bit dull. Caught the first glimpse of the remaining three-quarters of orchestra during dinner (we are in the one and only half-orchestra, half-band group) and explored the area on our own.
There was a restaurant called Hooters not so very far down and a “sex shop” not so many blocks farther from it. Oh, joy.
Performances (ours, I mean) not really worth mentioning. We did hear a brass/wind (?) ensemble that was positively amazing (much better than any of the groups in Carnegie Hall), but everyone was so tired that we kept nodding off. :(
I had a bit of an escapade in which I attempted to tune a piano and suffered some dealings with a bitchy behind-the-counter lady. It began thus:
ADELA: What are these kids playing? What a bizarre contemporary piece!
KIDS: leave
ADELA: Oooh, my turn!
(Adela sneakily tiptoes up to the piano and prepares to strike the first chord to Rachmaninoff...)
PIANO: SCREEEEEEECH.
ADELA: ...oh.
The piano was horrendously out of tune! It was so out of tune that Rachmaninoff sounded something like a mad cross between Shostakovich, Bartok, and New York traffic. I mean, I’d seen some bad mini-grands in abandoned music rooms before, but they were angelic compared to this.
Well, how different could tuning a piano be from tuning a guzheng, a cello, or a violin? I propped open the back cover and peered in... and in fact it wasn’t so different, except that I lacked the proper tools!
There happened to be a handyman cleaning the piano chair right then. He was very interested in what I was doing, and I asked him if he had a tuning wrench. After he ran off I realized that we just had a whole conversation in which I spoke English and he spoke German, and we had somehow managed to understand each other.
To make a long story short, he found some wrench-like tools, but they weren’t designed for the piano and did not fit. I came up with some creative ways to use them which involved another wrench and maybe pliers, but by then he had disappeared and I couldn’t find him. I had some interesting conversations with the lady behind the information desk.
ADELA: Do you have a wrench, by any chance?
LADY: What?
ADELA: A wrench. Like, you know, a wrench. *makes wrenching gestures in midair*
LADY: No, vee do not.
five minutes later
ADELA: Do you know where that worker dude went?
LADY: He is not here.
ADELA: Oh... *disappears down the stairs again*
five minutes later
ADELA: Hey! Do you know when that worker dude will be back?
LADY: He has gone home. He will not be returning for the day.
ADELA: Hunh.
five minutes later
ADELA: Hey sorry, what time is it?
LADY: Five past four.
ADELA: ‘kay, thanks! Hey uh, could you give these back to the worker guy for me? *flourishes a variety of wrenchtools*
LADY: ...
As I am walking back to my hotel, I suddenly had another brilliant idea. My hotel, surely, had wrenches! I asked at the front desk and most certainly they did. If you’re wondering how I managed to walk out the front door with a wrench in my pocket, my hotel consists of two buildings and I lived in the second one. ;D
The lady was not very happy to see me again.
ADELA: Hey, uh, you got those tools I asked you to hold on to a few minutes ago?
LADY: No, I gave them back.
ADELA: ...but I thought you said the workers were gone for the day. How could you have given them back?
LADY: I don’t have them.
ADELA: ... okay then.
There was another lady behind the desk with her this time, whom I shall nickname Bitchy Blonde Accountant (because that’s what she looked like). I went back down the stairs to fiddle with the piano, but of course my wrench was useless without the aforementioned tools. As I was fiddling, Ms. B.B.A. came down the stairs.
ADELA: Oh hey, do you happen to have those wrenches? I’m pretty sure your co-worker was lying to me up there...
B.B.A.: You! Get away from that piano, this instant!
ADELA: ... oh okay, if that’s how you want it.
B.B.A.: You no touch that piano, understand!?
ADELA: But it’s horribly out of tune, see-
B.B.A.: Do not touch!
ADELA: Okay, okay. Hands up in the air.
B.B.A.: This piano is for decoration only. Visitors are not allowed to touch; my assistant up there, she told you already not to touch-
ADELA: No she didn’t, I think I can remember what I heard just two minutes ago-
B.B.A.: I vos there too! I heard her say to you, so don’t argue vith me!
ADELA: Whoa. Way to lie to my face, woman.
B.B.A.: Now you put that piano back the way you found it.
ADELA: Okay, okay.
two seconds later
B.B.A.: See look, now you’ve broken it, you can’t put it back!
ADELA: Hold your horses, woman, I’m propping the bloody stand back up, can you give me some time!? Look, it’s fine now. Jesus.
B.B.A.: Harrumph.
she goes back up the stairs, and I run my fingers longingly over the middle octave (the only eight keys that are remotely in tune) before closing the keyboard cover
B.B.A. (who had magically reappeared on the stairs): No playing!!
ADELA: Jesus, that was fast. Are you a ninja?
B.B.A.: I hear you up there! No playing, you understand?
ADELA: All right, all right. See, I’m putting my cello away now. No piano.
B.B.A.: Yes, you play with your little cello. I think it sound much better.
WHOA BITCH ALERT
ADELA: I would slap you right now, except I’m traveling with a group and out of respect for Mr Boitz and the SHS Music Department I don’t want to cause a scene.
ADELA: You realize it sounds much better because your piano sounds horrible. Because it is OUT OF TUNE.
ADELA: You also realize that this is my first impression of Swiss people, and that I’m going to go back and tell my friends that German Swiss people lie like mattresses.
So, that was my first impression of German Swiss people. They lie like mattresses.
(I didn't actually say all of the above, of course. This was just internal monologue.)
When I went back up the stairs, I bumped into Mr Boitz. Luckily, he wasn’t paying close attention.
BOITZ: Oh, it’s Adela! Are you... bringing back your cello?
ADELA: Uh, yes. Yes. That’s exactly what I was doing! (flashes winning smile and escapes)
So ends the episode in Interlaken. The only other notable occurrence here was that Boitz singled me out once more by name in rehearsal when again, it was definitively, definitively NOT my fault. And I snapped a little after rehearsal and went on a little mini-rant, which I shall not repeat here but will summarize in bullet points.
Anyway I am done with this orchestra forever! And the actual point of that was that after that day he seemed to ease up a lot and actually praised me (and Felicia, of course) at one point for something so I was wondering if maybe he overheard my rant or if it was just a fluke. After all, we didn’t have that many more rehearsals left. Regardless of whether he did or not, though, the fact still remains that Boitz favors favorites and I am not one of them, which makes me rather cranky. I am so glad to be done with him.
(Don’t get me wrong though – I love all you kiddies of the cello section and I love Fishy too [my quarrel is with Boitz not with her]! It’s just that for the past semester I’ve increasingly felt the pressure from Boitz, and as Boitz runs the whole show it is impossible for it not to matter and oh, that is bitter.)
Sorry about the spot of emo-ness that that inspired. This concludes part 1 of the Europe trip and never fear - part 2 is forthcoming!
addendum; on bitterness - I hate bitterness. Bitterness festers and never goes away. If only this were something honest like sadness or anger I could deal and when it's over it'd be over but this, this will never go away. In fifty years I'll look back and maybe I'll still be bitter, because as long as I still respect and love Boitz and as long as his opinion still matters to me then I can't escape it, not ever. What an unforgiving emotion.
This may explain why I have not yet posted on New York, though not Baltimore. In any case, what’s fresh is fresh, and if I do not miss these people as much as I should, I can at least say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the trip and mean it with all my heart.
DEPARTURE
Fairly uneventful. My mother and I had a row right before we left the house, AND I forgot my lanyard at home, resulting in us almost missing the bus. It literally was about to drive away and mom had to run in front of it to get it to stop. The rest of it was standard airport procedure.
ARRIVAL
THIS, on the other hand, was magnificently delayed! The transfer flight was an epic failure. Our plane got towed, kids. Towed. What a kicker. So we’ve been sitting on the (unmoving) plane for twenty to thirty minutes, and I had just started to tell Tiffany a scary (true) story about Taiwanese airplane fail...
ADELA: So then they send it in to be checked, and the company sends it right back, saying, “No no no, you must be mistaken, this isn’t fuel, it’s water!”
TIFFANY: What!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Hey all, slight delay here, but no worries, we’ll be right on our way!
ADELA: Right, so it turns out their fuel storage tanks didn’t have any air holes, meaning that all the condensation just dripped in and went straight to the bottom, and no one noticed because oil floats on water – so that poor plane just got a bellyload of water!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Hey all, this is the Captain again. Something’s dripping from the left engine – we’re not sure whether it’s oil or water, just hang tight for five to ten minutes while we get a mechanic up here to check on it...
TIFFANY: ADELA YOU CURSED OUR PLANE. YOU CURSED IT. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!
We sit, and everyone’s fiddling w/the touchscreens and watching movies when the voice cuts in again.
ANNOUNCEMENT: There – ah – appears to be some problems with the engine, we’ll have to switch planes. We’ll be coasting back to the same dock we left from using our remaining engine, we’ll ask all passengers to please remain seated until otherwise instructed.
Groans all around, partly from the bad news and partly from movies being interrupted. Luckily, the movies resume after the announcement, only to be interrupted half a second later when the same announcement is repeated in French. (Don’t you just love Canada~)
Ten minutes later,
ANNOUNCEMENT: Ah, they are not allowing us to turn on the engines because it is dripping – we’ll have to wait for some firetrucks to come along and push us on back...
And so we returned to the airport, waited an extra hour or three, and arrived in Europe a whopping five hours late (and tired out of our minds). Whoopee!
INTERLAKEN
Pretty little city, if a bit dull. Caught the first glimpse of the remaining three-quarters of orchestra during dinner (we are in the one and only half-orchestra, half-band group) and explored the area on our own.
There was a restaurant called Hooters not so very far down and a “sex shop” not so many blocks farther from it. Oh, joy.
Performances (ours, I mean) not really worth mentioning. We did hear a brass/wind (?) ensemble that was positively amazing (much better than any of the groups in Carnegie Hall), but everyone was so tired that we kept nodding off. :(
I had a bit of an escapade in which I attempted to tune a piano and suffered some dealings with a bitchy behind-the-counter lady. It began thus:
ADELA: What are these kids playing? What a bizarre contemporary piece!
KIDS: leave
ADELA: Oooh, my turn!
(Adela sneakily tiptoes up to the piano and prepares to strike the first chord to Rachmaninoff...)
PIANO: SCREEEEEEECH.
ADELA: ...oh.
The piano was horrendously out of tune! It was so out of tune that Rachmaninoff sounded something like a mad cross between Shostakovich, Bartok, and New York traffic. I mean, I’d seen some bad mini-grands in abandoned music rooms before, but they were angelic compared to this.
Well, how different could tuning a piano be from tuning a guzheng, a cello, or a violin? I propped open the back cover and peered in... and in fact it wasn’t so different, except that I lacked the proper tools!
There happened to be a handyman cleaning the piano chair right then. He was very interested in what I was doing, and I asked him if he had a tuning wrench. After he ran off I realized that we just had a whole conversation in which I spoke English and he spoke German, and we had somehow managed to understand each other.
To make a long story short, he found some wrench-like tools, but they weren’t designed for the piano and did not fit. I came up with some creative ways to use them which involved another wrench and maybe pliers, but by then he had disappeared and I couldn’t find him. I had some interesting conversations with the lady behind the information desk.
ADELA: Do you have a wrench, by any chance?
LADY: What?
ADELA: A wrench. Like, you know, a wrench. *makes wrenching gestures in midair*
LADY: No, vee do not.
five minutes later
ADELA: Do you know where that worker dude went?
LADY: He is not here.
ADELA: Oh... *disappears down the stairs again*
five minutes later
ADELA: Hey! Do you know when that worker dude will be back?
LADY: He has gone home. He will not be returning for the day.
ADELA: Hunh.
five minutes later
ADELA: Hey sorry, what time is it?
LADY: Five past four.
ADELA: ‘kay, thanks! Hey uh, could you give these back to the worker guy for me? *flourishes a variety of wrenchtools*
LADY: ...
As I am walking back to my hotel, I suddenly had another brilliant idea. My hotel, surely, had wrenches! I asked at the front desk and most certainly they did. If you’re wondering how I managed to walk out the front door with a wrench in my pocket, my hotel consists of two buildings and I lived in the second one. ;D
The lady was not very happy to see me again.
ADELA: Hey, uh, you got those tools I asked you to hold on to a few minutes ago?
LADY: No, I gave them back.
ADELA: ...but I thought you said the workers were gone for the day. How could you have given them back?
LADY: I don’t have them.
ADELA: ... okay then.
There was another lady behind the desk with her this time, whom I shall nickname Bitchy Blonde Accountant (because that’s what she looked like). I went back down the stairs to fiddle with the piano, but of course my wrench was useless without the aforementioned tools. As I was fiddling, Ms. B.B.A. came down the stairs.
ADELA: Oh hey, do you happen to have those wrenches? I’m pretty sure your co-worker was lying to me up there...
B.B.A.: You! Get away from that piano, this instant!
ADELA: ... oh okay, if that’s how you want it.
B.B.A.: You no touch that piano, understand!?
ADELA: But it’s horribly out of tune, see-
B.B.A.: Do not touch!
ADELA: Okay, okay. Hands up in the air.
B.B.A.: This piano is for decoration only. Visitors are not allowed to touch; my assistant up there, she told you already not to touch-
ADELA: No she didn’t, I think I can remember what I heard just two minutes ago-
B.B.A.: I vos there too! I heard her say to you, so don’t argue vith me!
ADELA: Whoa. Way to lie to my face, woman.
B.B.A.: Now you put that piano back the way you found it.
ADELA: Okay, okay.
two seconds later
B.B.A.: See look, now you’ve broken it, you can’t put it back!
ADELA: Hold your horses, woman, I’m propping the bloody stand back up, can you give me some time!? Look, it’s fine now. Jesus.
B.B.A.: Harrumph.
she goes back up the stairs, and I run my fingers longingly over the middle octave (the only eight keys that are remotely in tune) before closing the keyboard cover
B.B.A. (who had magically reappeared on the stairs): No playing!!
ADELA: Jesus, that was fast. Are you a ninja?
B.B.A.: I hear you up there! No playing, you understand?
ADELA: All right, all right. See, I’m putting my cello away now. No piano.
B.B.A.: Yes, you play with your little cello. I think it sound much better.
WHOA BITCH ALERT
ADELA: I would slap you right now, except I’m traveling with a group and out of respect for Mr Boitz and the SHS Music Department I don’t want to cause a scene.
ADELA: You realize it sounds much better because your piano sounds horrible. Because it is OUT OF TUNE.
ADELA: You also realize that this is my first impression of Swiss people, and that I’m going to go back and tell my friends that German Swiss people lie like mattresses.
So, that was my first impression of German Swiss people. They lie like mattresses.
(I didn't actually say all of the above, of course. This was just internal monologue.)
When I went back up the stairs, I bumped into Mr Boitz. Luckily, he wasn’t paying close attention.
BOITZ: Oh, it’s Adela! Are you... bringing back your cello?
ADELA: Uh, yes. Yes. That’s exactly what I was doing! (flashes winning smile and escapes)
So ends the episode in Interlaken. The only other notable occurrence here was that Boitz singled me out once more by name in rehearsal when again, it was definitively, definitively NOT my fault. And I snapped a little after rehearsal and went on a little mini-rant, which I shall not repeat here but will summarize in bullet points.
- Whenever the cello section does something wrong, it’s my fault
- Whenever I do something wrong, it’s my fault
- Whenever Felicia does something wrong, it is not her fault, and if it is she is forgiven graciously and never picked on by name
- Half the time Felicia does something wrong, it is also my fault
- Whenever I do something right, it is overlooked and does not matter
- Whenever the cello section does something right, the credit goes to Felicia
- When the entire fscking section is wrong and I am the only one who’s right, I am the one off from the section, regardless of the truth
- When Felicia and I are not together, I am always the one not together with her, regardless of the truth
Anyway I am done with this orchestra forever! And the actual point of that was that after that day he seemed to ease up a lot and actually praised me (and Felicia, of course) at one point for something so I was wondering if maybe he overheard my rant or if it was just a fluke. After all, we didn’t have that many more rehearsals left. Regardless of whether he did or not, though, the fact still remains that Boitz favors favorites and I am not one of them, which makes me rather cranky. I am so glad to be done with him.
(Don’t get me wrong though – I love all you kiddies of the cello section and I love Fishy too [my quarrel is with Boitz not with her]! It’s just that for the past semester I’ve increasingly felt the pressure from Boitz, and as Boitz runs the whole show it is impossible for it not to matter and oh, that is bitter.)
Sorry about the spot of emo-ness that that inspired. This concludes part 1 of the Europe trip and never fear - part 2 is forthcoming!
addendum; on bitterness - I hate bitterness. Bitterness festers and never goes away. If only this were something honest like sadness or anger I could deal and when it's over it'd be over but this, this will never go away. In fifty years I'll look back and maybe I'll still be bitter, because as long as I still respect and love Boitz and as long as his opinion still matters to me then I can't escape it, not ever. What an unforgiving emotion.
