Hace Calor

Oh. My. God. It is 99 degrees today. That is all.

The Beatles Espectacular

Picture this- a really bad sound system, 4 guys with Mexican accents and bad pitch trying to sing "Yellow Submarine" (pronounced Soob-marine), and a conductor who doesn't know what to do with meter changes. Yes, that was our concert on Wednesday night. The Beatles Espectacular. Really, the name says it all, so there's no need to elaborate. Thank God we have a few days off, although it's really too hot to go out and do anything these days. Luckily, there is a law here that the government pays 2/3 of people's electric bills from May-October, so it's not expensive to run your AC. Maybe they think the heat will drive people crazy? I must be going crazy, because I spent a hundred pesos on a pint of ice cream yesterday! It was so amazing, though. And after hearing about the gas prices in LA, I figure it's ok because I'm saving so much money on gas.
So what shall I do with 3 more days off, other than hide out in the AC and make reeds? Most things are closed right now, since it's some kind of Mexican holiday, including my yoga class :( Creative suggestions are welcome.

Relief!

I have AC! This means that I finally have some relief from this weather, which has been in the high 90s and very humid every day. This makes practicing and reed making much easier.
Last week was another interesting one in the orchestra. We had an excellent guest conductor. She was from New York, but spoke fluent Spanish because her family is from Mexico. We played some pieces that I though would be way beyond the capabilities of this orchestra (including another awful piece by a local composer), but she got a very solid performance out of us. I hope she comes back...
We have been traveling almost every weekend lately, and will continue to travel a lot until the season is over in June. Many of the trips are to Mazatlán, which is always fine with me because not only does that mean beach time, but it also means I get to eat Thai food. Culiacán is not exactly known for its ethnic restaurants, and I really crave it sometimes. Anyway, Andrea and Anthony introduced me to this place a few weeks ago, and I think it is one of the best Thai places I have ever been to. Definitely on par with Thai Pepper, Allan's favorite Thai place. So, that is more incentive for people to come visit me in Mazatlán. Really, lots of good food and beaches. What more do you need?
Ok, I'll stop with the shameless plugs and get back to practicing...

Catching up...

So, I'm a complete and total slacker, and it's been almost two months since I've written! In my defense, I've been busy, and I'll explain why. Since my previous post, I've made two trips to the US. I'll give you a very brief recap of both of them. The first was for an audition for the Marine band in DC. Overall, kind of a stressful and rushed trip since I stopped in LA on the way, and I played like poo. However, I did get to see Kyung and Joe, some old friends from Round Top (I went to that festival almost 5 years ago!) and my high school oboe teacher Joan, so the trip was definitely worth it. My second trip was the last two weeks in March for Semana Santa and Semana Pascua (Easter break). This trip was also a little bit hectic because I went to 4 different cities, but worth the trouble because I got to see so many friends. I stopped in LA and had a lovely dinner at Noshi with Jon, Gabrielle, Kristin, Sonia, Kelly, and Christy. I also got to have lunch with Agnes. Then Jon and I went Jacksonville for Heather's wedding where we also got to see Ruth Ann, Mike, and Marianne (an IU quintet reunion!), and on they way, we saw Cat for a few days in Naples. Then it was off to the Fort, where I hung out with my parents for a while. Lastly, I went to Chicago to catch my flight back to Culiacán, and picked my brother up on the way from Purdue. I got to see Rupal and Ashok very briefly, and also randomly ran into my friend Nameeta who I haven't seen in 6 years! And she doesn't even live in Chicago! Anyway, it was a busy but good vacation.
I was sad to leave, but we did get to play Tosca when I came back, which was fun. We had a good guest conductor, and believe it or not, the singers (at least the soloists) were good! Unfortunately, the week after, our program was terrible. Really awful. Bad. Honestly the worst piece I've ever played in my life. Some local "composer" wrote a piece for us, but I'm not going to go into further detail because the memory of it is too painful.
Oh, I almost forgot the thing that has been occupying my time the most! I'm going to peru in June!!! I'm very excited, but planning out the trip is taking a lot of time, and therefore my blogging has been sporadic...or non-existant. But I'll try to do better for my faithful reader(s) and update more regularly.
Buenas Noches!

Pizza, Cake, and Eyedrops

It's about time for an update! I'm going to take advantage of the fact that my computer seems to be behaving itself right now. Let me go back in time almost 2 weeks, when our quintet was still preparing for our chamber music concert. As I mentioned previously, each chamber group in the orchestra had to prepare one "serious" piece of music and one piece to perform for a children's concert. We performed our serious piece, the Francaix quintet, on the 12th. Overall it went pretty well, and to celebrate, we had a party at Chris' house afterwards. It was supposed to be just the quintet, but some other people in the orchestra heard about it and ended up crashing it. Still fun, though. Here are some pics of our quintet.

On the 14th, we were supposed to play for a group of kids in Mazatlán. We chose "Across the Seregeti," a fun, kid-friendly piece, and prepared a little presentation. Oh, and remember the amazing pizza that Antionio's mom makes? Well, his parents live in Mazatlán, and invited us to their house for lunch afterwards! So we dragged our butts out of bed and left for Mazatlán at the crack of dawn so that we could perform for the kiddies and of course, eat pizza. On the way there, we joked that we would rather skip the performance and go straight for the pizza, and I guess the pizza gods must have heard our wishes, because the performance never happened. We got to the hall and set up, and after waiting an hour for the kids to arrive, we got a call saying that there had been a mixup and the kids weren't coming. It wasn't a total waste of a day though, since we had an amazing lunch and played some of the Francaix for Antonio's parents in their apartment.

So the 19th was my birthday, and I wasn't expecting it to be anything special since I don't know a lot of people here, but all in all it was a really good day. I got to talk to a lot of my family in India (Skype is amazing!) and had sushi and cake with the bassoon players, Anthony and Noemi. The bad part about the day was that I woke up that morning and couldn't really open my right eye. Not a good feeling. I couldn't put my contacts in and my glasses had recently broke, so I taped the frames together so that I could see. Let me tell you, it was pretty stylish. Anyway, the conductor ended up driving me to the eye doctor, and it turns out that my corneas are inflamed. The doctor gave me some eyedrops and said I can't wear my contacts for a few weeks, so I get to walk around with taped glasses for a while. Cool.

Anyway, I need to go pack because I am going to LA/DC for an audition tomorrow. More details later....

grrrr...

Ugh. So now that my internet is finally back up, my computer is having problems. I have never had a single problem with my computer in the 2 years I have had it, and it starts acting up when I'm in Mexico and can't get it fixed. Since it is my only form of communication (both phone and email), and the only way I can listen to music and watch DVDs, this sucks. If I have abruptly ended a conversation with you or haven't emailed you back, it's not that I don't love you. It's just that my computer might not love you as much as I do. But, I will be in LA next week, so I will try my best to get it fixed. Patience, my friends. More updates to come soon...

Guadalajara

Yay! My internet is working again! I guess I should celebrate by writing in my blog. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I guess the most exciting would be our trip to Guadalajara. The orchestra was invited to play a concert there, so we all flew down for a couple of days. It was my first time ever to Guadalajara, so it was fun to explore the city. It is a very different city from Culiacán. It is much bigger, and generally a much cooler place. There are actually things to do and see. The concert was fine, nothing terribly exciting, except that Guadalajara is about 4000 ft higher than Culiacán, which made my reeds unhappy. Oh, and believe it or not, I had Mexican food for the first time since I have been here at a restaurant called La Chata. Roberto, one of the trumpet players, took us there. The food was so amazing!
In other news, I have a new roomie! Slava moved into a place of his own, and Andrea moved in shortly after our Guadalajara trip. We have been trying to get our apartment in shape the last few days, and even bought a washing machine by ourselves. Between the two of us, we somehow managed to get a cab to Wal-Mart and back, and talk to the people there so that they would deliver it to us! I was very proud, even though the cab driver made fun of our accents the whole way home. Anyway, our washer is here. Now we just have to figure out how to hook it up, since the directions are in Spanish.
Here are some pictures of our trip to Guadalajara. There are some pictures of the beautiful architecture in the city, as well as the hall that we played in.