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.

Mazatlan

So last week was our first trip of the year to Mazatlán. Apparently, the orchestra goes quite often, but this was my first time. Overall, it was a really good trip, and it was nice to get out of Culiacán for a bit. The bus left on Thursday morning, and we arrived in Mazatlán 3 hours later. In the 2 days that we were there, we only had one 3 hour rehearsal and a concert, which meant that we had tons of free time. We were also put up in 5 star hotels on the beach and given an extra 700 pesos. Andrea, of course, was my roommate.
If you haven't been to Mazatlán, I would recommend going. There are some great restaurants, and the beaches are really nice. Since we ate out every meal, we managed to try a lot of restaurants. My favorite was called Cocina de Ana. It's a buffet style place with home cooked food that isn't greasy or heavy like most restaurant food. And it's super cheap. They had amazing fish ceviche, which is a mixture of cucumber, tomato, onion, and lime juice. The fish is raw, but the lime juice cooks it a little bit. We went there for lunch two days in a row. As for beach time, we didn't get as much as we would have liked. It was kind of cold (for Mexico). But, on the last day, it was warm enough to go jet skiing! I had never been before, but I got talked into it by Andrea and two of the trumpet players, Mike and Matt. So much fun! If anyone comes to visit me, I'll take you jet skiing and restaurant hopping in Mazatlán. I think that's pretty good incentive.
As for the concert, it went pretty well. I take back what I said about the singers, but I stand by my opinion of the conductor. The soloists this time were really good, especially the tenor. He sang "Nessun Dorma" beautifully, and the audience loved him. He is still very young, but I wouldn't be surprised if I heard more about him in the future. Wish I could remember his name, though.
Anyway, it's back to the grind in Culiacán. We have quintet Mon-Wed, and then we start rehearsals for our program in Guadalajara next week. The 3rd oboist is going to be playing a lot of 2nd on that program since he's hardly played at all this year. It works out well for me, since I have decided to take the President's Own audition next month, and I could use the extra practice time.
Here are some pictures from after jet skiing. Don't ask me what we were doing in the second one..

Deep fried sushi

Hola amigos! A lot has happened in the last week, and I haven't keeping up very well. I apologize to my faithful reader(s?). Here is a brief recap. I had sushi for the second time today. You may be wondering what sushi is like en México. Not anything like it is in the US, or probably Japan. I was first introduced to Mexican style sushi when I went to Hermosillo, so it was not a surprise to me, but I will try to describe it as best I can to you gringos. First of all, almost every roll has Philadelphia cream cheese in it. Rolls come in 3 styles: natural, capeado (lightly fried), and empanazado (deep fried). They fillings include the traditional fishy stuff, but may also contain chicken, beef, and other weird stuff. Oh, and to top it off, it is served with mayonnaise and green onions with a citrus flavored soy sauce. Leave it to the Mexicans to make sushi completely unhealthy. It was surprisingly tasty, as you may have guessed, since I have gone twice since my last post. Other than sushi, I have been eating lots and lots of avocados. They are super cheap at the market here, and so good. If I have a slightly greenish tinge the next time you see my, you'll know why. If you are wondering about my ice cream situation, I have splurged. Twice. Hey, I have to keep my sanity.
Tuesday was the first installment of our chamber music series. My group doesn't play for another three weeks, but I did attend last night's concert. It included a double bass duet, a woodwind quintet that played that Chimnée piece by Milhaud, and a percussion ensemble. The percussionists played some unbelievably cool pieces, including one by John Cage, and a piece by a German composer involving rolling pins. They also did a rendition of Barber's "Adagio for Strings," which I was very skeptical of, but turned out to be really beautiful. Tomorrow we are taking a break from chamber music and traveling to Mazatlán for a few days, where will play more opera stuff with bad singers and an even worse guest conductor. Yipee. But at least we get to hang out on the beach.
Well, it's getting late, and my cane is done soaking. As you oboists know, cane waits for no one. I shall tie my reed, pack, and go to bed. Buenas Noches.