last horrah

yes my friends, my trip was cut tragically short due to a knee surgery that i cannot postpone anymore.  so i will be back in the states in just a few short days.  as a last horrah i went on a cruise in halong bay! it was the most amazing thing i have ever seen.  there is quite a large group trying to get halong bay added as one of the 7 wonders of the world.  it is a bay with 981 names islands and thousands of little islands.  probably the highlight of the entire trip to vietnam was kayaking in halong bay.  we went through one of the islands in a cave that was probably only 3 feet high and when we got through it it was the most beautiful lagoon completely surrounded by islands.  the only way in is through that little cave.  it was simply amazing.  we made a lot of friends on the cruise which is always a lot of fun.  after kayaking i spent the evening jumping upp the 4 story cruise ship into the ocean with 4 college kids from singapore that i made friends with.  it was a lot of fun!  anyways this will probably be the last post here i hope you enjoyed!

Another Recital

yes, two recitals back to back.  i am really tired.  but they both went pretty well.  today i played at the university of music in hanoi.  it was really fun, the president of the university came and gave us flowers and stuff he is a really nice guy.  the best part was when they introduced us it was like the introduction you give to fighters before a championship boxing match.  it got me really pumped to go and play some dragonetti.  haha.  in other cool news i was officially offered a position next summer.  it has really been an amazing, life changing experience that i would not trade for anything but im not so sure i will come back.  yesterday it was 48 degrees Celsius and 90% humidity.  for you Fahrenheit people thats a little over 118 degrees.  yeah, not so much fun.  but with less than a week left here i am starting to miss it already.  

Recitals

In case you didnt know i was supposed to do a solo recital while i was here.  there were quite a few recitals planned for this summer actually.  the three americans (me ellen and mckenzie) the principal cello and a pianist for the VNOB.  well the three americans got together and decided it would be more fun for us and the audience if we were to play more than one recital and do it all together.  last night was the recital at the VNOB theatre and it was really a lot of fun.  dont get me wrong, i didnt play perfectly, but i played well and it was an enjoyable night for everyone.  when the musicians in the orchestra found out we were doing a combined recital they all wanted to get involved too which made it even more fun being able to work with some of them much more closely and really get to know them (like the concert master who was at least 30 min late for every rehearsal).  so us three ended up playing about 15 min each, then mckenzie and the first player of the second violins did a Bach double together; me, mckenzie, the concert master and the principal cellist played a rossini string quartet, and our accompanist played part of tchaik's piano concerto.  as an extra special treat me and ellen and mckenzie treated everyone to our (now famous) violin trio!  it was a really fun night and we are doing it again tonight at the conservatory so i hope it goes just as well

sorry about the butt shot. i promise thats not me.  that is inside the cu chi tunnels the rest of the pictures are saigon

Saigon

so we just got back from a week trip to see some new stuff.  unfortunately i forgot the charger for my camera so all you get for now is pictures of saigon.  as soon as i get pics of nha trang and the other areas from the girls i will post them.  you cant see, but i will explain what we did.  so we took a 32 hour train there which was uncomfortable.  saigon was pretty awesome!  we took a tour of the cu chi tunnels that were used in the war and met a lot of really cool people there.  we stayed in the backpacker area which is really cool because it is mostly kids our age who wither just graduated or are taking time off to see the world.  we soon discovered that when people are traveling by themselves for up to a year they are very very friendly.  people we met became our instant friends and it is really cool staying in a backpacker district because at restaurants and stuff we would see a lot of the same people and they would invite us to eat or watch a game or play pool or something.  very cool.  other than saigon the other big part of our adventure was nha trang.  if you ever come to vietnam you need to visit nha trang.  the beach is beautiful and it is very cheap.  the hotel was right on the beach, literally i could have thrown a rock from my room into the ocean and it only cost me about $12 a night.  the most expensive rooms in the hotel (which was 4 stars) was $46.  while we were there we beach bummed a lot and rented a boat along with some other people we met and went island hopping and snorkeling.  we went with a bunch of people on a scuba diving trip through vietnam, new zealand, and australia, and a brittish guy.  they were all really cool but by far the best part was that the vietnamese guys that we rented the boat from were musicians (of sorts) and were nice enough to give us a free concert.  good stuff.  

My classes

so i have neglected to tell any of you about the other stuff that i am doing here.  besides playing in the orchestra i am teaching 2 english classes at a childrens school and 2 music classes at an orphanage.  well...its not really an orphanage, its a bhuddist lady.  apparently people just started dropping their kids off at the temple where she works and she took them all in.  she is the nicest lady ever!  so now she has 20 kids between 5 and 16 years old.  they all live in a rather small area so their living conditions are pretty depressing (they sleep on shelving units with pieces of wood laid horizontally for beds.  the only padding they have is a thin (like 1/2 inch) mat.  but we go there and teach them music to hopefully cheer them up and give them a hobby.  so far i have taught them quarter notes, half notes, whole notes and some rests.  since its me i also taught them thumbs up and high fives.  they are good with 'up high' 'down low' but are still having trouble with the 'to slow' concept.  anyways they are great

Linh-Li's Birthday

It was Linhli's 4th birthday yesterday.  it is really cool how they treat me like i am one of the family!  the party consisted of Linh-li, her parents, her grandparents, and me.  the random american that crashes all of their family functions.  it was fun though.  it was really funny, her grandparents bought her some legos so all of us were playing with them, except Mark.  he was kinda just in the corner being quite.  then like 30 minutes later out of no where he pulls out this beautiful intricate color coordinated creation that makes everything we were doing look like crap.  i was thinking, 'oh my goodness, that is exactly something my dad would do!'  anyways, they are a really great family i feel really at home here...linh makes sure of that. haha.  she takes care of me.  

more pics of the opera house

First Concert

so we had our first concert this weekend.  it was with the international choir and the vietnam national ballet.  it turned out really nice.  i dont know how, but the level of playing and professionalism was way better! the orchestra did not sound or feel the same at all.  it was a really cool experience getting to know the choir also.  since it is international there were people from all over the world.  the piece we played, 'margnificat,' featured 5 soloists and they came from england, germany, sweden, japan, and vietnam.  we actually made really good friends with Ryoko, the mezzo soprano soloist from japan as well as others in the group.  it was a really amazing experience meeting people from all over and even when we couldent communicate that well we were still united with music.  

a word about the opera house.  it is BEAUTIFUL!  built in 1911 by the french and it is the most sought after venue in all of south east asia.  i recently found out that the vietnamese were the first in history to use pearl inlays in architecture and this was the first opera house to ever have that.   

it was just brought to my attention that people are actually reading this.  so now i feel obligated to talk about the music.  so i am playing with the national orchestra, opera, and ballet of vietnam.  people have been asking so let me clear this up.  no it is not a college, no it is not a high school, for heavens sake no i did not come to vietnam to play with a middle school. hahahaha.  yes, so it is a 'professional' orchestra.  i used quotation marks because the people in this band to make a living playing with this orchestra.  however it is the nationally funded orchestra of a communist country so as you can imagine it is not the best orchestra of all time.  i have heard the principal cellist and the concert master play solo and they are both absolutely amazing musicians and i am sure that most people in the group are individually but they all have a serious counting and watching problem when you put them together.  also there is a weird discipline problem with the whole country.  linh's sister is a piano performance major at the conservatory and she only practices 30 minutes a day.  plus in rehearsals it is not uncommon for someone to be talking on their phone while we are playing or for people to start packing up 20 or 30 minutes early in the middle of rehearsal.  

now if you have made it this far i would like to say a word about the basses.  i am saying this in the nicest way possible because i truly think its not them personally its probably because of the lack of good instruction on the bass, but the players here are not very good.  they have serious counting and intonation problems.  its kinda funny though, i was practicing the dragonetti concerto (which is pretty hard but not to crazy at all) and they were all drooling over it.  but then every single bassist can play the dittersdorf concerto and bottasini's grand duo (not very well but...) and those peices are harder than the dragonetti.  i found out that music is extremely expensive and hard to get (mostly because of the govt) so the only person in the city who has solo bass music is the teacher at the conservatory and he only has 6 pieces.  some of them are easy, some are very hard but its all they have so they all know how to play them.  sad.  

xin chao Vietnam

ok so i have been here a week i guess i can actually type something.  first thing i learned about vietnam is the traffic is terrible.  they have lanes but i really dont know why they bother, cars go wherever they want, usually in a two lane street there are actually 4 or 5 cars cramming in.  the space that the cars are not taking up is used by crazies swerving in and out in their scooters.  there are approximately a million scooters on any given road and they pretty much go where ever they want.  this includes, but is not limited to, in between cars, on the opposite side of the street against traffic, and the side walk.  the first lesson i learned here is that when you are given a walk symbol at an intersection it is in no way guaranteeing you a safe journey to the other side of the street.  traffic aside, the people here are really nice.  everyone is very friendly, i feel a bit like a celebrity sometimes.  when we were in the country we visited a friend of a friend who is a rice farmer in a very small village.  i dont think they have ever seen americans before and they were so nice.  little kids followed us everywhere and every family invited us in to see there homes.  it was kinda weird, they would walk us through like a museum showing us their prized possessions.  they all offered us food and water even though they had very little and we did end up having dinner with one of them.  mckenzie was even proposed to while we were there. oh sorry, introductions:  mckenzie and ellen, this is no one, no one this is mckenzie and ellen (shown in the pic of me and the two girls next to the temple looking building thing).  ok, the last thing i am going to say is about my host family (shown in the pictures i will hopefully be adding to this post)  the mom is lihn (pronounced 'ling') the dad is nghia but he says i cannot pronounce it right so he told me to call him mark, and their daughter lihn-li which literally means 'little lihn.'  they are incredibly nice people.  she is the piano teacher at a childrens school.  she graduated from the conservatory with a degree in piano performance and used to be a concert pianist before having kids (i say kids because she is pregnant if you couldent figure that out).  he is a businesses  man.  him and his brother own a bose speaker/mac computer store here.  he goes to america a lot on business and his favorite thing to do is point out the differences in taste and look from american fruits and vegitables to vietnamese.  i think he mostly does this to look cool to his family.  haha.  lihn-li is really cute but still kinda scared of me i think.  she used to run away when ever i came in, now she hides behind her big stuffed deer doll and sneeks up to me.  when i look at her she stops moving and hides behind the doll, then when i turn around she starts moving toward me slowly.  anyways, im sick of typing and no one is going to read this anyways so

My house and the sweet ride that gets all of the Vietnamese girls

Good morning Vietnam

im a man of few words...

......enjoy the pictures