Christmas Market Eve

Happy Thanksgiving! I know I'm a couple of days early, but that's how it is for us this year. Brenda's show opens on Sunday, which means that she has a lot of rehearsals this week and no time for a celebratory dinner on Thursday. (We're working on convincing Germany to add Thanksgiving to its list of holidays, but that will take some time.) We celebrated this past Sunday instead with our friends Barb and Michael. Brenda prepared an amazing vegan dinner that was very German. We had fresh pretzels, cooked red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, potato dumplings, a veggie-friendly beef roulade and beer-flavored gravy. For dessert we enjoyed some soy ice cream with candied almonds and walnuts. And to make the evening even more authentically German, Brenda wore her dirndl and I wore my lederhosen. It was a fun night.

Brenda caught a cold a couple of weeks ago and has been having trouble shaking it. With her first performance coming up on Sunday, she decided a trip to the doctor was in order. It turns out that her cold is actually a sinus infection. The doctor prescribed some antibiotics and told her that she should be feeling better soon. My guess is that it's easier to sing the title role in La Sonnambula when you're healthy, so feel free to send healing vibes this way.

In case you're looking for a stocking stuffer, a new recording of the opera Ariadne auf Naxos was just released with Brenda singing the role of Zerbinetta. As far as I can tell, it's currently only available on the Oehms Classics website and in Oper Frankfurt's lobby during performances, but I'm sure you'll be able to buy it on Amazon and iTunes soon enough. I was lucky enough to hear a rough copy of the recording, and I can tell you that Brenda sounds fantastic.

Even though I'm holding a copy in my hand in this picture, we still haven't gotten our copy yet. I can't wait to listen to it!

In other news, I've been busy with my language classes and they're going well. I keep making mistakes so apparently I need to keep going to class. I'm meeting up with a few of my classmates before class tomorrow so we can take a class trip through the Christmas Market (tomorrow is the first day!).

I should call it a night. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'll talk to you next week!