Hallelujah, Michigan

Hello all and greetings from Ann Arbor, Michigan! We flew in yesterday after spending a whirlwind few days in Frankfurt, and Brenda is currently rehearsing for her upcoming performances of Handel's Messiah at the University Musical Society this weekend. Brenda's parents are also here to see her perform and, more importantly, to spend time with their darling grandson who they haven't seen for a while. Rowan had a wonderful afternoon with them today at the children's museum.

During our brief stay in Frankfurt we spent some time with friends, took a quick trip to the Christmas Market (Kartoffelpuffer!), and tidied up our apartment a bit. Brenda pointed out that when we return to our apartment again in January we will have spent a total of 4 nights there over the past 7 1/2 months. Brenda is performing in three different productions in Frankfurt in 2018, so we'll be spending a lot more time there next year.

Brenda and Rowan on the carousel at the Frankfurt Christmas Market. 

We're looking forward to a few days at home in Minneapolis next week. Brenda will be off to Italy in a couple of weeks, but we will definitely be able to get the Christmas decorations up before then. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey all! We certainly have a lot to be thankful for here in Munich, and we celebrated in traditional, gut-busting fashion earlier this week. On Monday night we went to an American chorister's apartment who, I take it, has been hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for many years now. There were lots of people and mountains of food, and we had a great time gorging and gabbing.

Brenda has her fourth and final Die Schweigsame Frau performance tomorrow night. All the performances have either been sold out or only had standing-room spots left. I was able to see the last show thanks to a very sweet babysitter Brenda found. I'd seen the show at least twice a few years ago, and I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed it even more this time around. An added bonus was that our friends Susanne and Stephan were also at the performance with their friend Jule. 

Brenda during the curtain call. (She's in pink in the middle.) 

Brenda and tenor Pavol Breslik 

Pictured above: Jule, Stephan, Brenda, and Susanne. 

Thanks for the pictures, Susanne!

On Saturday Brenda has double duty: she's singing at the BMW Advent benefit concert in the afternoon and at a sponsor's 80th birthday in the evening. On Sunday we hit the road back to Frankfurt, and after a couple days filled with dentist appointments and Glühwein, we fly to Michigan. Brenda will be singing the soprano solos in Handel's Messiah at the University of Michigan next weekend. After that we'll get to enjoy some time in our home in Minneapolis before Brenda flies to Italy for her next gig.

I hope you're all having a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we'll talk to you again soon!

time to bundle up

Hello all once again from Bavaria's capital. Brenda is currently singing her second performance of Die Schweigsame Frau at the Bavarian State Opera, and I just finished putting our little guy to bed. Since her first performance on Sunday, Brenda has been able to enjoy some well-deserved time off after a busy rehearsal schedule last week. Rowan and I have enjoyed having her with us as we shovel sand in the nearby parks. It's been cold here (highs in the 30s) so Brenda went shopping and bought Rowan a winter coat, pants, and boots. He's quite puffy when he's all geared up and looks kind of like a colorful marshmallow bouncing down the sidewalk. I'm a terrible packer and did not think to bring a winter coat so I mostly stand shivering with my hands in my pockets while Rowan plays. I'd consider buying something but why bother when I'll be reunited with my winter clothes in a week and a half? I'm pretty sure I can stave off frostbite until then.

We've been enjoying our apartment in Munich even though we haven't been using the climbing wall nearly enough. The apartment is quite large and has two pianos, and the other day Brenda bought two books of piano sheet music so we can enjoy making a little music in the apartment. One of the books is filled with Christmas songs, which Brenda bought for me because I love Christmas, and since we're in Germany we don't have to wait until after Thanksgiving to get into the Christmas spirit. The other book is filled with German children's songs. Rowan is actually getting a sizable dose of German culture while we're here. He hears the other kids at the park speaking German, we've been showing him German kids' shows, and we've even got a couple German kids' books for him to read. He'll be correcting our German in no time.

So even though Germany doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, we have been invited to a Thanksgiving dinner next week hosted by an American in the Bavarian State Opera chorus. Apparently, a lot of people come and there's a ton of food. I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next time!

climbing the walls

Hello all and greetings from Munich! We've settled in to our temporary abode, Brenda is hard at work, and Rowan and I have been busy exploring nearby parks. He seems to be into sand these days, so we picked up a plastic shovel and bucket (which I was surprised to learn were actually made in Germany) to take with us on our outings. 

Brenda and Rowan at a playground in the English Garden earlier this week.

Our friend Andreas, who we haven't seen since May, came for a visit last weekend. We had a great time catching up with him. He seemed to particularly enjoy one of the stranger features of our current apartment. There is a climbing wall in the hallway...

For those who want an even more difficult climb to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there is a crank that allows you to tilt the wall to make climbing more challenging.

We didn't do too much for Halloween this year, although we did put Rowan in some cute skeleton pajamas, and Brenda and I continued our tradition of watching a horror movie (often loosely defined...I'm a wimp). This year's flick was Get Out. It's definitely worth seeing.

That's what we've been up to. I hope you all have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you again soon!

Munich

Greetings from Germany! The Chendowan crew is back on this side of the pond, and we're currently on the train to Munich. After flying to Frankfurt yesterday we spent the night in our apartment, had dinner with friends, repacked, and headed out the door late this morning. It was fun to see Rowan rediscover the apartment as well as the toys he hasn't played with since June. He's changed a lot since then. Fortunately, he continues to be great at adapting to different places. After tonight we will have slept in six different places over the past eight days (Door County, Minneapolis, Ankeny, the plane, Frankfurt, and Munich), but we'll be in Munich for a month so we can enjoy some continuity there.

Rowan wanted to go for a walk after I finished the previous paragraph, so now it's the next day and I'm sitting in the kitchen in our airbnb apartment while Rowan naps and Brenda is at work. She's singing Strauss this time around, and I imagine the rehearsal is going smoothly. She already knows the music and staging very well because she performed this opera (Strauss's Die Schweigsame Frau) previously in Munich during the 2014/15 season. The conductor and much of the cast have changed, however, and since it's been a few years, and since Strauss can be very difficult musically (not to mention vocally), it's good she's getting a couple weeks of rehearsal. Since we're on the topic of Brenda's career, I thought I should mention that she is a nominee for International Artist of the Year in the Australian classical music magazine Limelight. (Apparently we all missed a good concert in Melbourne earlier this month.) If you'd care to see who the other nominees are, you can do so here.

There are some holidays in Germany coming up next week so Brenda is going to have a few days off. We're looking forward to settling in to our temporary abode and visiting some of our favorite places in Munich.

I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you again soon!

a new place to call home

Hey all! Well the blog has certainly fallen off the rails over the past month. Sorry about that! Here's a short recap of what we've been up to. Brenda spent two weeks in Tokyo followed by a week in Melbourne, Australia. Her performances both places went splendidly. In Australia she did a radio interview that included Bill Nye the Science Guy. If you'd care to take a listen, you can do so here (Brenda starts chatting about 32:20).

While she was away Rowan and I spent some time relaxing with my parents, and I also made final preparations to move into our new house in Minneapolis. The day Brenda flew back to the states was the day we moved all of our stuff into the new place. Before we relocated to Germany in 2008 we put all of our belongings that weren't going to Germany into plastic tubs for storage in my brother's and parents' basements. We placed all of those tubs, along with our few pieces of furniture, into a 16 foot truck and drove it to Minneapolis the day Brenda got back from Australia. Conveniently, Brenda flew into Minneapolis, so I dropped off the moving truck at the house, Rowan and I went and picked her up at the airport and then drove back to the house and moved in. Of course we couldn't have done it all without the help of my parents, brother, Drew, Dan and Whitney, and Brenda's parents who came a couple days later to look after Rowan while we unpacked and shopped for furniture to put into the house.

We took a break from unpacking on Monday to drive to Door County to celebrate my parents' milestone birthdays over the summer, and Brenda and I are currently relaxing in our rental house while Rowan naps and my parents explore Sister Bay. Here are a few pics from our outing yesterday:

Cana Island Lighthouse

 A view from the top.

and another...

and one more. 

I forgot to mention I passed the Minnesota bar exam! The best part about that news is that I don't have to spend two more months of my life studying for it again. So even though the major hurdles of becoming an attorney (i.e. law school and the bar exam) are behind me, I still have one more thing to do before I can be subject to disbarment: I need to swear an oath during a monthly admission ceremony. Brenda, Rowan, and I are back off to Germany in less than a week so I'm going to miss the ceremony this month, but I'm hoping to be sworn in in December. That way I can ring in the new year by suing somebody. I can't wait.

I hope you're all having a wonderful fall, and we'll talk to you again soon!

down by the bay

Hey all! It's hard to believe it's been almost three weeks since we last posted. We've been bouncing around a lot lately, but we're finally starting to get into a routine. The only catch is that Rowan and I are getting into a routine at my parents' house while Brenda does so in another country. Brenda hopped on a plane on Saturday and flew so far west that she ended up in the east. She arrived in Tokyo on Sunday, rehearsed Monday and Tuesday, and she has her final rehearsal on Wednesday, which is tomorrow for us but today for her (I don't really get how that works, but I think it involves math). It sounds like she's having a nice time in Tokyo even though she's struggling a bit to find vegetarian food. Our friend Whitney spent two years teaching English in Japan, and she prepared a card for Brenda that explains, in Japanese, that she is a vegetarian who doesn't eat meat of any kind (not even fish). Brenda presents the card at restaurants and sometimes, as happened last night, the restaurant has no food for her. Luckily, Japan has an Outback Steakhouse so if she gets desperate she can go pig out on bloomin' onions. 

Since I wrote to you last we took a short trip to Door County, Wisconsin with Brenda's parents in honor of her Mom's birthday. Drew was also there, and let me tell you, that guy know's how to chop kindling with a hatchet. We stayed in a cabin right on the water and had a wonderful time. 

 The view from outside our cabin.

 The master at work.

The twins lounging in Drew's portable hammock.

I've been flying solo during the night with Rowan since Brenda flew to Japan (I guess we've both been flying), but it hasn't been too difficult since Rowan has been sleeping so well lately. Be that as it may, I'm still off to bed early just in case he's planning a middle of the night scream-fest tonight. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll do our best to write to you again soon!