Half-Year Recap (Part 1)

Greetings, dear readers!

Wow, I can't believe this is my first post for the year, how time has flown! Well, it's good to be back, after several busy months. As always, when I leave things for too long, there's too much to include in one post.

It has been several months now since coming back from my second trip to Europe, this time with members of MUCS, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (known colloquially as the Phil or the RMP), and the Chamber Strings of Melbourne (CSM). Although I had intended to write some posts while overseas, our schedule was a hectic one which left me with little time to put something together.
To summarize, the tour was just about as good as it promised to be, barring a few slight personal hiccups. Everything was organized through the Salzburg-based Chorus, Culture and Art Concert Tours (click here for more info), whose services I would gladly recommend and use again. Our Austrian bus drivers, Werner and Rudi, drove us around with minimum fuss and maximum professionalism. Our effervescent tour guides, Eva from Slovenia and Greta, an Aussie-born Austrian ski instructor, were at once warm, funny and, when needed, able to whip us into line. After all, adults can sometimes be more immature than kids!
Among the many highlights of the tour, several stand out:

• Making new friends among the touring party;
• Catching up with relatives in Holland for a few days before the tour, and meeting for the first time my second nephews, Julian and Kato, and niece, Mimi;
• Watching the world-famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) perform two of my favourite symphonies, Beethoven 6 and 7, at the Concertgebouw; and
• Finally visiting, and falling in love with, Austria.

Then there were the various venues we performed at, some of them absolutely unforgettable, the appreciative audiences, and the local groups we performed with, all combined to make the tour a memorable lifetime experience.
I was also glad to escape Melbourne before two major heatwaves hit the city in January, but the day after I arrived back it reached 40 degrees Celsius. With the combination of heat and jet lag, it was not surprising that it was a very unproductive day!

Now to fast forward to the immediate present, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup is now down to the last four teams. The Brazil vs Germany semifinal will take place tomorrow morning (Melbourne time) and then Argentina v Netherlands the following day. In spite of concerns that Brazil would not be ready in time before the first kick-off, this edition of the World Cup will go down in history as one of the best, at least in terms of the quality of football witnessed. Of course, some incidents and refereeing decisions have been controversial, but it wouldn't be a normal World Cup without those.
I will be going tomorrow morning to the house of a German teaching colleague (who is from Brazil!) to watch the game. It will be tough for Brazil without their captain Thiago Silva, who is one of the best defenders in the world, and their star Neymar Jr, who was accidentally (at least in my opinion!) injured in the quarterfinal against Colombia. Germany will probably never have an opportunity like this again, but even so it will be a tough task to defeat the host nation. Nonetheless, I wish both teams all the best.

Stay tuned for more posts soon. Cheers and God bless!