Clarity

Hello from Hannover! I am currently in the home of my friend Jessica and her boyfriend Sebastian. Jessica is a horn player and Sebastian is a singer. It has been really nice to catch up with Jessica after so long. We both did our undergrads at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She seems really happy here and to have really adjusted to living here. (I could tell when she poured a small bag of rock sugar into a sugar bowl, and sighed happily at the way the sugar fit perfectly into the bowl. Not too much, not too little. Very German.)
I have a group of auditions coming up in different cities, and this is sort of the calm before the storm. It will be a lot of travelling. I like travelling, at least the part where I am situated comfortably on a train and I can relax until my next connection. However, it can be very stressful and tiring. I am at a point in my trip where I am a bit worn out and homesick and I know I cannot go on like this indefinitely.
There are lots of stories to write about. I keep forgetting to write about my trip to the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels. Alex recommended that I visit the Victor Horta house museum to see an excellent example of art nouveau architecture. When I mentioned it to Claire she suggested I go to the musical instrument museum. I had remembered passing by in the bus and being impressed. So on my last day in Brussels I took the bus there while Claire was in class. I loved it! The museum building itself was designed by Victor Horta, so I did get to see some of his work. There were several floors of incredible instruments, which were fun to look at just for the beauty and design. Each museum guest gets a pair of head phones and this is what really brought the instruments to life. Throughout the museum there were little spots where you could stand and listen to music with the instruments in front of you. I found it so inspiring and actually cried to see the instruments and how lively and unique all of them were.
I have also been up to Langeoog and I have lots of stories from my visit there. Birte and her husband Jan are the proud parents of baby Saja, their little girl born in October of last year. She's a beautiful little girl with clear blue eyes and rosy cheeks. It is very quiet on the island. There are no cars. I went for plenty of walks along the North Sea. Birte and Jan study birds. Part of Jan's job is simply to walk along the beach where the tide washes up all kinds of things including many birds. Jan has to count the live and dead birds that he finds and give some sort of cause of death in his record book. He is a bird detective. I will never look at a walk along the beach in the same way again. Jan can tell if the bird was a peregrine falcon victim by the way the connector bone between the wings has been torn. Langeoog is an important center for birds. At this time of year birds are returning from many exotic locations. Lapwings arrive from France, while others come from faraway parts of Africa. There is an incredible variety of birds on Langeoog.
I walked along the beach with him and also rode a bike with him to another section of the island to look at birds through a telescope with one of his collegues. He and Birte truly love birds. I enjoyed seeing the flush acrossed Jan's face of pure excitement at seeing the first pair of Lapwings of the spring. I saw and learned so much about birds. Out the kitchen window in Birte and Jan's house one day, a pheasant walked by. I have never seen a pheasant but I always imagined them as dull brownish or grey birds. This pheasant was so colorful and it felt like the pheasant bestowed a great honor on us by blessing us with its exotic presence.
Jan told me that as a singer I really must hear a nightengale one day. They aren't back until May though, so I'll have to hear one another time!
This seems like a scattered entry. I called it clarity because I am not exactly sure what it is, but some things have become clearer for me recently. Maybe it is only being more comfortable with the idea that things might not be entirely clear right now, but in a short time things are going to get better. I am also calling it clarity because of the North Sea and the way the seagulls flew over the wet sand close to the waves and were reflected perfectly in it like glass.