underway in the new year

Happy New Year! After a very eventful holiday season, Brenda and I are on the train to Berlin for a revival of Ariadne auf Naxos. We feel really fortunate to have spent so much time with friends over the holiday season. Here are a few photos from our festivities:

Our friends, Barb and Michael, invited us over to their home again this year for Christmas Eve dinner. Every year they make an amazing meal, which includes baked ziti, garlic bread and shortbread. 

After Brenda's Lucia di Lammermoor performance on the 27th, we met up with our friends, the Schuberts, who came into town to see Brenda's show and to have dinner with us. Lucky for us, they are very willing to travel, so we've gotten to see them in Frankfurt, Munich, and Schwarzenberg, Austria. We plan on traveling to see them next month in their hometown and seeing Susanne and Andreas perform in Weber's Der Freischütz with their marionette opera company.

Brenda lit the "sugar hat" this year during our annual Feuerzangenbowle evening. Of course, Brenda didn't get to drink any of the delicious concoction because it contains alcohol, but we found a very good non-alcoholic mulled wine for her to enjoy. By the way, our friend, Adelin, hid behind Brenda in this picture, but her shadow gives her away.

It was a very foggy New Year's Eve in Frankfurt this year. As is traditional in Frankfurt, people head to the streets close to midnight to set off fireworks. The fact that they couldn't see the fireworks once they shot into the air didn't seem to deter the revelers.

Brenda enjoying the view from the train. We even saw snow, which is surprising considering how warm it's been in Frankfurt recently. When we got to Berlin, it was around fourteen degrees fahrenheit (-10 celsius). Brr!

We've got internet in Berlin so I will do my best to return to our normal blogging schedule. That means I'll be writing you again in a couple days. Talk to you then!

holiday madness

Hey all! We had a great time hosting our annual feuerzangenbowle evening tonight, but we ran out of time to write the blog. Check back again soon (hopefully tomorrow) for a full post. Until then, have a great week!

Christmas, Day 2

Merry Christmas! Even though it's the 26th, it is still Christmas over here. Germany celebrates two days of Christmas as official holidays (25th and 26th), although I'm not entirely sure why. One of the more unexpected results of having two days of Christmas is that grocery stores are not open on either day. And on years when the 27th is a Sunday (like this one) grocery stores aren't open for three full days plus they close around 2:00 PM on the 24th. In past years Brenda and I have been caught off guard and been forced to either go out to eat or go to a market at the main train station to choose from a small selection of "food" (which basically means we survived on a few bags of chips). This year, however, we were prepared, and on the evening of the 23rd we went to the grocery store and stocked up. We're optimistic that our rations will last us until the stores open again on Monday morning.

Drew flew back to the U.S. on the 23rd, and we miss him already. We're going to fill you in on more details of his trip (including pictures!) in a later post. Since we still don't have internet in our apartment (which may take until the end of January or early February to get sorted out), loading pictures to the blog is tricky. We're going to Berlin in a little over a week for a revival of Ariadne auf Naxos, and we should have a good internet connection there. Fortunately, our neighbor's internet signal seems unusually strong today, which is allowing me to write this post and to share a couple of pictures with you...

 Brenda and I went up to the top of a mountain in Kitzbühel to meet Drew for a late lunch during his day of snowboarding.

We only saw Drew snowboard briefly, but he clearly knew what he was doing.

Here's a glimpse of our new apartment. As you can see our pictures are not up yet, but they will be soon. See that mantel behind the tree? It came with the apartment. It is wooden, easily movable, and works well during the Christmas season. We'll see if we have a place for it after the tree comes down.

It's a beautiful day in Frankfurt today, and we're going to get outside and enjoy it. I hope you are all having a very happy holiday season, and we'll talk to you again on Tuesday!

Happy Holidays!

Hey all! We just got back to Frankfurt this evening after a beautiful few days in Austria. We weren't able to find time to write the blog today, but you'll hear from us (or our favorite guest blogger) later this week. Until then, Happy Holidays!

enjoying some family time

Hey all! This is the first blog entry coming to you from our new apartment. Unfortunately, we still don't have internet, but a couple days ago our neighbor was kind enough to give us the password to his router, which is two floors below. The signal isn't strong, but it's better than nothing.

Our holiday season got a lot merrier on Saturday when Brenda's brother, Drew, arrived in Frankfurt. This is his first trip to Germany during the Christmas season while we've lived here, and he and Brenda went over to enjoy the Christmas market today. He left wanting more, so we're planning on heading over again tomorrow. We're also going to see the new Star Wars movie later this week and then spend a few days in Austria beginning this weekend. Drew wants to snowboard down a mountain, and we want to drink hot chocolate and watch him.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was preparing for a tax exam. Well, I wasn't able to study as much as I wanted to because of our move, but I decided to go ahead and take the test last week anyway. Much to my surprise, I passed, which means I can now apply to become an Enrolled Agent. If my application is accepted, then I'll be able to represent people before the IRS. So if you get audited, let me know, but I'll cross my fingers for you that you don't.

Before I sign off, I thought you'd like to know that Brenda's most recent performance of Lucia di Lammermoor was outstanding. Brenda got a well-deserved standing ovation, which is a rare occurrence in Frankfurt. I wish you all could have been there.

Until next time, have a great week!

baby bump in concert

Hey all! I'm writing to you while sitting on the floor of our former, and now empty, Frankfurt apartment. Our internet provider managed to get us online again at our old place, but we're still waiting to be connected at the new one. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow. The move last week was quite painless thanks to the moving company we hired, but now we're busy unpacking and building some new IKEA furniture. It feels more and more like home with every box we unpack.

 We've made it over to the Christmas Market a few times already to enjoy some of the culinary delights. Here Brenda is getting ready to eat some potato pancakes. 

 And here I am with my first cup of Glühwein of the year.

Brenda had her first performance of Lucia di Lammermoor on Saturday and it was great. If you'd care to see a few pictures taken during one of the recent rehearsals, you can do so here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Brenda also sang at Oper Frankfurt's annual gala, which, if I heard correctly, raised around 900,000 euro this year.

 Brenda bought a new dress for the gala.

And here's a hint as to why she needed a new one.

My wife is waiting for me at our new apartment, and she's expecting pizza. I'd better not keep her waiting. Until next time, have a great week!

all boxed up

Hey folks! It's moving time. The movers are coming early Thursday morning to schlep all our stuff to our new home. Most of our things are packed up, but there is still in plenty to do between now and then. Brenda has been juggling packing, rehearsals and that whole pregnancy thing with aplomb. Her final dress rehearsal happens the day we move and her first performance is on Saturday.

I'm going to have to keep this post short today because we don't have internet at home anymore so I'm writing all of this on my phone. I made the mistake of calling our internet provider yesterday to tell them about our upcoming move, and they immediately cancelled our service. I asked them to switch it back on but apparently that's not possible without divine intervention. That'll teach me to plan ahead.

Before I let you go, I wanted to thank everyone that sent me their email addresses. I will be making the blog private later this week (or as soon as I can find an internet connection). If you haven't contacted me yet, and you'd like to continue reading our blog, please send your email address to: chadcgraham@gmail.com

Until next time, I hope you have a great week!