Currently riding through the Alps, snow capped and covered by vineyards. Hard to close ones eyes and stop looking out. Traveling by train is slow, but you can’t beat the scenery and you don’t have to deal with the lines, and crowds of the airports, as well as having to be there 2 hours early. And when you arrive you are already in the middle of the City, not on the outskirts. (this was the advise of my friend Christoph) So in a way they equal each other out. Just wish I had thought of this ahead of time and gotten a Eurail pass. When I was purchasing my tickets the woman behind the counter asked me where I was from, and when I said the US she said “you should have gotten a Eurail pass.” But somehow managed to get pretty good cheap prices.
But you never know what the environment might be like. While taking a beautiful local train north along the Rhein behind us sat a man talking loudly on the phone and next to us was a man who would burst out yelling in his sleep from time to time.
It was good to see the skirts in Munich have grown in, and yes I got free tickets to see Bobby McFerrin. The performance was magical, and it was exciting to see finally the work of a composer friend of mine who has been collaborating with Bobby on new choral works based on Bobby’s style. If you have a chance to see him live, please try to, on stage he is full of pure joy, playful and includes the audience in a very free and open way. The best moment was when he opened up the mike for anyone out in the audience to sing a duet with him. This woman from Brazil went up to sing a samba song, and it was absolutely amazing how having never sung together before the two of them improved together so easily and fully, the crowd was so supportive.
Traveling slowly through a dark tunnel below the mountains, stopping, feels a bit strange. Bursting out into Sunshine. Only to plunge back into the dark. Already the language has switch from German to Italian. And like before when I wanted to speak french when I got back to Germany when people spoke german to me, now I want to speak german (well just danke for thank you really) when people speak to me in Italian. Gotta get that language chip checked out.
