Whoohoo! I'm going to Austria! Fritz Schroth, the director of this
conference center, is taking me and two or three other crew members to his house on top of a mountain from Sunday to Friday. We will be doing some building or renovating. I don't know what. One other guy who's going works on the grounds here, and is named Gandolf. I like him a lot. The girl is named Anja, and will be cooking for us.

The house, I've been told, has been renovated by the Schroth family
in the last few years. The bottom story is from the middle ages! The upper story was last renovated in 1771. The house is 1600 meters up on a mountain, and you can see miles of valleys. Along the top of the
mountain opposite is the Italian border. The location is south of the
highest mountain range of the Alps, so the weather will be
Mediterranean. The house is far away from the village in the valley,
and you need four-wheel-drive to get to it. I'm completely geeked.

I really just met Herr Fritz when he came on Monday, and I hardly
even talked to him before he invited me. But I guess his daughter (managing guest hospitality and the kitchen), Ester, told him I might like to go. I had talked with her quite a bit before, as well as with her brother, Daniel. She let me clean out the horse stables a few times (an excuse to get out of the kitchen for a bit), and took me riding. I had mentioned twice that I was very interested in carpentry and building, and that she could tell me if there were any projects she needed done by the barns or such. She said she had some, and would have to come up with the materials.

It should be even better for my German study there (going pretty
well, especially when I find people who will teach me a bit), because they probably won't speak much English to me, and I think they're the kind of people who will be patient with my German attempts. Yeehaah!

Piano practice is going well, but I'm starting to fear that Margaret
will never have time to get out her cello. The year-long crew have
Seminar three times per day this week, and Margaret doesn't want to
play cello with my accompaniment until she's practiced alone for a
while. However, today I discovered a book of short piano pieces by
various major classical and Romantic composers, and another book of
short piano pieces by a Russian composer. I read through some of the latter today, and I enjoyed it much more than playing hymns for sight reading practice. So I might only work on the Bruch cello piece
(shorter and much better than the Lalo concerto), and spend the rest of my time in the newly found books, and on scales and arpeggios.

Just had to let y'all know! Now I will go eat dinner (seven minutes
late!).


Ransom