the lady in the red dress

Hey all! As I'm sure most of you know, I love seeing my wife's face. Well, now I have the opportunity to see it more often because it is on posters all over town! That's right, Brenda's beautiful likeness is being used to lure people into going to the opera. I anticipate sold out shows for the rest of the season. [Editor's note: while Brenda is excited that her picture is posted all over town, she is not exactly pleased with their choice of photo.]

That's her in the red dress.

A closer look.

In other news, we haven't been up to a whole lot since last week. Brenda has had a performance or two, we bought a coffee table and a rug and we're all caught up on episodes of Dexter. Life as usual. We went out to lunch today with Florian at a traditional Frankfurt restaurant in our neighborhood. I took the camera along so I could take a few shots for you.

The pitcher in the right part of the picture is called a Bembel.

It is what apple wine (a traditional Frankfurt drink) is served in.

Underneath the stained-glass image of the two men drinking it says (loosely translated), "Apple wine is a godly drink that makes some people fat and others thin."

Halloween is closing in fast and, as you may have guessed, it isn't a very big deal here in Deutschland. However, they do have decorations for sale some places and you can even buy pumpkins. We'll be carving pumpkins one of these days and should have a terrifying squash for you to behold next week.

That's all I've got for today. Have a great week and Happy Halloween!

Bremen

Hey All! The beautiful fall weather I was telling you about last week is gone. In its place we have full cloud cover and highs in the 40s. Oddly enough, I've actually been enjoying the gray weather and cool temps. They are signs that the fall holidays are on their way and that we get to dig out our bone-chilling Halloween decorations.

You may have noticed in the terrifying picture above that there is a rather attractive red thing in the background. That is our new couch! And the evil skull candle holder is sitting on top of our new table. You will get to see more pictures of our newly furnished apartment at some point but that point is not today.

You may remember that Brenda went to Bremen last week. She had a wonderful time with her friend Juliane. Here are a couple iPhone-captured pictures of her trip.

Brenda grabbing the leg of one of the Town Musicians of Bremen.

If wikipedia is to be believed then touching a hoof will make wishes come true.

The Town Musicians of Bremen standing on top of a fountain's water pipe. Beneath is presumably a statue of one of the Seven Lazy Brothers; the main characters from a popular Bremen story. The short, short version of the story is that the brothers were lazy but still became successful in the end. A story I find rather inspirational.

I had better wrap things up here. We are getting dangerously low on coffee and our favorite coffee roaster (oh Wacker's, how I love thee) will be closing in a little over an hour. I hope you are doing great and I'll talk to you next week.

the street where we live

Hey All! Greetings from sunny Frankfurt. Fall is in full effect here and we've been thoroughly enjoying it. I'm happy to report that we've made great strides in furnishing our apartment since I talked to you last. Florian was kind enough to take us to Ikea and fill his car to the brim with new furniture. He even helped us schlep it up the 65 stairs to our apartment. I think we can safely say that our home is now furnished. A coffee table would be nice, as would a few other things, but they will come in time.

Brenda is visiting a friend in Bremen at the moment. She is between performances and decided to use the time to get away for a couple of days. Unfortunately, she forgot to take our camera with her but nevertheless has promised that she'll take a few snapshots with her iPhone.

And speaking of snapshots, I took a few of the outside of our apartment building and neighborhood. Enjoy!

The front of our building.

The view from our balcony.

Our street as seen from our living room window.

A building on our street.

I hope you're all great and I'll talk to you next week!

Robot love

Hey All! The Tales of Hoffman, Brenda's first production of the season, opened on Sunday. By all accounts it was a huge success and, if you ask me, that is in no spall part due to Brenda's contributions. You can see pictures of the production by clicking here.

Oper Frankfurt also made a promotional video about the production which includes Brenda being interviewed and clips of her singing. You can see that here.

Brenda plays a robot in the opera. Her father (creator) in the show unveils her to a crowd of people and she proceeds to show them all what she can do by singing and dancing. Of course, the tenor immediately falls in love with her. (Brenda is pretty good at attracting tenors it seems.) However, before man and robot can live happily ever after, the villain disassembles her. Such is opera.

In other news, we're gradually getting more and more stuff for our apartment. On Monday, we went to Ikea and bought a couch as well as several other small things. The couch will be arriving today which means that we will finally have furniture in our living room. We still need a few more things but we're getting closer to having a fully furnished apartment.

That's all I have for this week. Sorry for posting a day late, I sort of forgot what day it was. I hope you all have a great week!

new apartment pics

Here are a few pictures of our sparsely furnished new apartment. These were taken the day we got into the apartment and at that point all we had time to do was put the bed and the kitchen table together. You'll have to forgive the low quality of the images. We used Brenda's iPhone to take the pictures.

The door you see behind me leads to our small balcony. Our apartment is on the 4th floor and since we're so high up we have a nice view of nearby rooftops. Whenever I step out onto the balcony I'm reminded of the opera La Boheme.

Here you can see our kitchen which we had to purchase in order to get the apartment. As a side note, neither Brenda nor I have owned major appliances before. I feel so grown up.

Our bedroom. It's very white at the moment.

Our living room. It is currently covered in boxes and suitcases.

Our bathroom. That glass window behind the bathtub allows some natural light to get into the bathroom. It will also allow for endless shadow puppet entertainment.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

opera singers on the move

Hey all! Ok enough chit-chat, let's get down to business. This is a busy week for us: Brenda is in her final week of rehearsals for the Tales of Hoffman, I started German classes yesterday and we are moving into a new apartment. Usually I have quite a bit of free time on my hands here in good old Deutschland but this week everything is happening at the same time.

We love our new apartment. Brenda was kind enough to take a few pictures of the new place but, since we're still sleeping at the old place, our internet connection isn't fast enough for me to post them to the blog. I will post some pics later this week.

On Saturday we had a great time picking out some new furniture at Ikea. At the top of our list was a bed, a couch and a kitchen table (with chairs). We succeeded in picking out all of the above and were able to buy the bed and table but the couch is on back order. The bed and table arrived at our new place today. I was in class when the items arrived but Brenda and Florian were at the apartment to receive our new purchases. Somehow Brenda suckered Florian into putting together the kitchen table and all 4 chairs as well as wiring in three ceiling lights throughout the apartment. When I got to the apartment after class we tackled the bed. If you've ever bought anything from Ikea then you know, putting their products together involves a little more than 15 minutes and a screwdriver. Florian, Marlar, Brenda and I spent somewhere around 2 hours putting the bed together. Of course, pizza and beer may have slowed the process down but at least morale was high.

My German class is pretty intense. I'm there for 3 and 1/2 hours, 5 days a week. My impression after the first two days of class is that my German is far worse than I thought it was. However, it seems to be better than many of my classmates' German but that is little consolation. I'm committed to the class for the next 3 weeks. I'm not sure if I'll continue beyond that point.

Brenda's opera premieres on Sunday. I'm super excited to see it and it seems like Brenda is just as excited to perform it. I'll tell you all about it in next week's entry. Until then, I hope you have a great week!

and finally, the pictures

Hey All! Here are a few photos taken in recent weeks. Enjoy!

Grüne Soße - a Frankfurt original.

Florian's first attempt at making this traditional Frankfurt dish turned out to be a big success. Once Brenda and I are in our new apartment we will have to try to make it ourselves.

Scrabble auf Deutsch

Brenda even won the 2nd game!

A snapshot taken in Dresden. I think it speaks for itself.

Marlar and Brenda enjoying a beautiful day at an apple orchard.

Have a great week!