I'm singin' Broadway and I love it!!!!!!

I'm back in Prague! Yesterday was my and Jennifer's day to give our recital in Ivancice, Moravia.

You know, there are times when you feel as though it's still in a communist country. Old habits die hard. I REALLY felt it in the hotel, to be honest. In the daylight it looked even more like an official "Tourist Hotel" than it did in the dark. By that I mean it must be what the hotels looked like for westerners during the Soviet years. It was nice but in a Days Inn kind of way. Like they were trying to make an effort but it wasn't really something they wanted to commit to.

Anyway, we gathered up our things and went with our accompanist, Alice, to the train station for the short train ride to Ivancice. We were met by a lovely woman at the station in Ivancice. She was maybe in her late forties with red hair but one side was longer than the other. possibly a holdover from her college years? She spoke enough english to communicate with us and was very sweet and all smiles. The town is charming and has a very picturesque square. There is a town hall, a Catholic church and many stores. There are some stalls where they have a market on saturdays. There was a man set up selling Czech sweets. He had a sort of fudge made from chocolate and coconut that was very good and a middle eastern confection made from eggs, honey and nuts. It was very chewy, almost like gum, and very good. He also had smoked cheese! It was formed into little loaves and looked more like bread than cheese. It was excellent. I should have bought some to take home for James. All the more reason to come back! Ivancice is also the birth place of Alfons Mucha. They have a museum on the town square in the house in which he was born. It houses some large studies he did for his Slav Epic as well as studies for other works and tons of photographs of his studio, his family, his models and his travels. They were accompanied by explainations that told us much about the artists life. It is interesting. Often the english versions afe full of typos and faulty sentence structure. I find it charming and admirable that they are working so hard to make things accessible for foreign tourists.

The recital went very, VERY well. It was a program of musical theater classics which was right up my ally although Jennifer wasn't as familiar with them but rose the occasion beautifully. It started at six thirty in the evening mostly because we had to catch a bus back to Prague. More about that later. The venue was a very small, intimate room with a low, raised stage. There were mirrors along one wall with a ballet bar and windows along the opposite wall. We had a small audience. Ten people, eleven if you count the man with the tv camera who stayed for five minutes and then left. Our host was very upset about this. Apparently, our concert was held in a small music conservatory. Back in may, they had a long series of concerts at the end of the spring term and the general consensus was that they town must be concerted out at the moment. She was truly upset because she thought we'd done a wonderful job and kept appologizing. We told her it didn't really matter. The people who showed up loved it and that's what matters. As the old saying goes, "When two more more are gathered..."

Afterward, we were treated to the same open faced sandwiches they'd given us in Pisek (Not the SAME sandwiches. They hadn't saved them and pulled them back out for us a week later. These were new but with the same toppings. Clearly a very Czech way of eating finger food.) After we had packed up and eaten we were told we'd be driven back to Brno to catch the bus. We walked outside and met a very nice young man who was standing next to a very old, very beat up four door hatchback! Again, old habits die hard. He threw our things into the back. We said goodbye to our appologetic hostess and climbed into the car.

Off we shot through the countryside!!! Our drive was not affraid to put the peddle to the metal mostly because we had a bus to catch. The country side was beautiful. Again, rolling farmland and small hamlets with red tiled roofs. (I want those tiles! No! There! Those tiles THERE!") We arrived in Brno thirty minutes later just a block or two from where we'd given Plenblut the night before. Alice had our tickets for the bus so we climbed aboard.

It was a sort of double decker affair as touring buses are with the lower level for luggage and the upper level for passengers. We had to climb up a very steep flight of stairs to the passenger level and discovered a pair of seats right there facing the stairway, bulkhead seats, as it were. We grabbed them and got comfortable. Greyhound needs to take this bus line as it's example. After we got on the road two male "flight attendants" came around to make sure we all had our seatbelts fastened, then passed out earphone to whomever might want to watch the "in flight" movie! They had video screens and showed an american film dubbed in Czech. After we'd been on the road for about thirty minutes one of "flight attendants" disappeared down the steep stairway and didn't come back. A couple of minutes later the OTHER "flight attendant" disappeared down the steps and didn't come back! We kept hearing the sound of a machine buzzing and could even feel the floor beneath our feet buzzing in time to the sound. After a few more minutes, one of the "flight attendants" reappeared with a little tray on which were four small cups of espresso which he carried to various passengers! LOLOL!!!! I also noticed you could ask for bottled water. I was happy with my bottle of Fanta orange soda so I declined.

We got back into Prague at 1115pm and took the metro back to the hostel. Barbara and Christian were thrilled see us. They said they'd missed us even though they'd had a nice day off and done some sight seeing. They said it was very chilly and windy yesterday. The weather has been unseasonably cold and wet while we've been here. I'm not complaining. It will be very hot when we get home so I'm soaking it all in.

By they way, did I mention that it's my birthday today? It's a big one. 40! Can you imagine?! I can't! I keep asking myself, "how the hell did this happen!?" I don't feel 40. I'm not sure what it is supposed to feel like but I don't feel it. I haven't really told my colleagues yet. I don't know why I'm withholding information. I guess I didn't want to spend the actual day this way. Oh, well. I am excited about turning 40 but at the same time I'm asking myself, "What do I do now?" It seems to me that there is a certain adulthood and maturity that comes along with flipping over that first number. I would say this has been a year of re-evaluation and deciding what is important to me in my personal life, my professional life and my artistic life. I think rolling over into this new decade of my life means it's time to get on with all the things I keep saying I'm GOING to do. A new start. That's what it means.

That's about it for now. I'm on the verge of being ready to go home. I'm starting to miss folks and places and things. Also, I'm looking forward to directing [Title of Show] at Oh, Look! New music to learn and that pesky theater company to get started.

More to come!