Fun with friends

One of the biggest blessings of living abroad is the deep friendships that you are able to form in a short amount of time.  That was certainly the case for us and we were able to reconnect with two sets already this weekend and have another event tomorrow that is likely to fit the pattern.

Friday night we had dinner with Robert and Miriam and their two children (a girl two years younger than Grace and a boy two years younger than Henry).  We met our usual restaurant (my favorite place for pizza) and for once, it didn't rain (inside joke:  it has rained every single time we've met them for dinner, once when we were seated outside and rain wasn't even forecasted!).  We went back to their apartment to meet, Mia, their pet hamster and for the kids to play and the parents to talk about the challenges of having children that don't fit the mold for today's educational system.  These were pretty deep conversations and it's amazing in some ways that we've able to pick up where we left off even though we only knew them for about six months before leaving.

Cultural note:  I wish either of us had our camera last night.  There was a little festival to coincide with the beginning of spring at Hauptplatz (the main square).  They took down the May pole (which is a VERY tall tree "pole") and had a band and traditional dancing.  It was great to see the kids trying to mimic the steps together!

And today (Saturday) we went to a local lake for a swim with Loulou and her son, who is just a year behind Grace (and then two years ahead of Henry).  We spent SO much time with them the last half of our year here, and when I come here for business I always stay in their second apartment.  We even planned our return to the US to coincide with the start of their vacation there so that our kids can hang out on the flight together.  We do so much with them while we are here (they just left; after returning from the lake we had them over for a Mexican dinner) it is always amazing that our best buddies are half a world away from us.

Cultural note:  Sue took a picture of me out on a paddle boat with the three kids.  I said, "did you get a bunch of the naked kids in the picture so that we can explain that apparently girls don't wear swimming tops until they are 6 or 7."  And Sue said, "and did you see that woman that didn't have a top?"  I guess you won't have to think very hard to arrive at the answer I gave for that one (of course I saw her!).

Tomorrow we are going to the Graz Opera.  Our friend David (an American from southern Missouri -- just how does he do it!?) is performing, what he says are, beautiful Schönberg pieces (see cultural note below).  He invited us on Friday night and within two hours I had a sitter lined up.  How's that for taking advantage of the familiar?  It sometimes takes me longer to line up a sitter in Fayetteville!  We hope Meredith will speak German with the kids.  So far they have not heard very much.

Cultural note:  The composition of "Songs of Gurre" took place over a period of eleven years – an unusually long time for Arnold Schönberg. Yet when he completed them in 1911, he felt that his work followed a composition style from which he had subsequently departed: “This work is the key to my entire development. It shows me from sides that I now no longer show myself from or, indeed, from a completely different basis. It explains how everything had to come as it did later, and that is enormously important for my work: that both me as a person and my development can be followed from here.”

The story of King Waldemar and his love for Tove, who is murdered by the jealous queen, is part of Denmark’s treasure trove of national legends. In the course of its numerous reinterpretations, the legend was extended to include the motif of the restlessly wandering king and projected onto King Waldemar IV, who died at Gurre Castle in 1374. This version became the template for the poems of Jens Peter Jacobson. Published in 1868, they fascinated Schönberg with their concentration on the subjects of nature, God, love and death.

The Vienna premiere of "Songs of Gurre" on 23rd February 1913 under Franz Schreker marked Schönberg’s greatest lifetime success. In fact, one hundred years would pass before this major work of the late romantic period finally found its way to Graz.