A visit to The Emerald City

Most of my traveling has been international lately (lucky me!) but I do still have a small number of US states left to visit. I had always heard wonderful things about the Pacific Northwest, but never had an excuse to visit there...until now.

When a friend from undergrad sent me an invitation to her upcoming wedding in Newcastle, Washington (just outside of Seattle), I was thrilled! I would be able to celebrate with her while also checking another state off of my list. I was able to spend a long weekend (4 days) in Seattle, and so armed with lots of recommendations from multiple people, off I went!

#3m: Washington

On Friday, I had the whole day to explore before meeting the newlyweds-to-be for drinks! I wandered around Capitol Hill, including going to the Volunteer Park water tower to take pictures of the city skyline, and finding these awesome bronze dance step instructions inlaid in the sidewalk. 

From the bottom of the street my Airbnb was on!

On Saturday, I went to the famous Pike Place Market! I also saw the gum wall (weird and kinda gross but also fascinating), walked by the original Starbucks (the line to order was half a block long), and went on a great run through Capitol Hill.

Original Starbucks sign!

Cruise ship getting ready to depart

Saturday night was the wedding! We were treated to an absolutely gorgeous sunset during dinner, prompting mostly everyone to quickly abandon their food to take pictures.

Courtney and Gio taking pictures with the sunset!

Sunday was spent...recovering from the night before (complete with vegan ice cream from Franky and Jos). On Monday I explored a great coffee shop (Victrola on 15th Ave) and the Olympic Sculpture Park downtown, which led me straight to the water. I highly recommend this park--thank you Alex for the suggestion!

I had an absolutely magnificent time in Seattle. Thank you to Courtney and Gio for the excuse to visit!

Iris (new friend!), the beautiful bride, and me!

13/18 done with #3!

Chorus and Waltz and Bourree, oh my!

#9 (Part Two). Register Suzuki training for Book 1 and 2.

(This is my experience from taking Book 2 training in 2018. For Book 1, go here.)

Ever since taking Book 1 training a year ago, I had been keeping an eye out for potential Book 2 training courses. I thought about going to a summer institute, but it didn't end up working out, so I wasn't sure when I was going to be able to cross this off my list. Then in November, Dr. Scott (my trainer from last year) announced she would do Book 2 in January. Excellent. I renewed my membership with the SAA (Suzuki Association of Americas), submitted my audition, and signed up for the course. Book 2 here we go!

January 26: Day 1
In a stark contrast to Book 1 training, Book 2 needs only 15 hours of classroom time and 8 hours of lesson observation (Book 1 is 28 and 15 hours, respectively). For our first meeting of two hours, we reviewed some general concepts that should have been covered while a student is in Book 1. We played through some of the songs in Book 1 as a refresher/warm up, and also talked a little about setup and potential pitfalls that can affect more advanced skills if the setup isn't correct at the beginning.

January 27: Day 2
I started today off by observing the 10 o'clock hour of String Project, a group class taught by a former SP teacher. I'm not as comfortable planning for or teaching group class, so this was a really helpful morning for me! Then, our classroom time was spent doing another hour of observation of Dr. Scott, talking about how to work on intonation, going over the first few pieces in Book 2 and how to teach them, and having a discussion regarding the SAA Code of Ethics.

January 28: Day 3
Today again started with an hour of observation, and then more of step-by-step instruction of how to teach the next few songs in Book 2. We've done 8 out of 12 so far, so we're speeding along! Class ended with an hour of planning and presenting group lesson plans.

January 31: lesson observations
This was not a day on the schedule, but a day when I got my other two hours of lesson observations in. I went to Monarch Suzuki Academy in Austin and observed four different students for a half hour each.

February 3: Day 4
Today again started with observations from the 10 o'clock hour of String Project. During classroom time, we got another hour of observation, then finished off teaching points and strategies for the remainder of the songs in Book 2. Other things we talked about: how rhythm and pulse are different, singing, and how to introduce reading music and sightreading.

Twinkle while walking around the room

Twinkle Variation B while sitting on the ground and crossing/uncrossing legs every beat!

February 4: Day 5
We made it! On the last day we started with a run through of all songs in Book 2 by memory, then had our last hour of observations in class. We also talked about tone, vibrato, and shifting. We ended training by sharing fun facts about each of the songs that we had been assigned to research during the first weekend. Exit interviews with Dr. Scott were short and sweet, and that was it!

I'm really glad I took this training. Students in the beginning stages of playing the violin are the most stressful for me, and Book 2 training really helped me to understand exactly how Book 2 prepares students for more advanced and complicated repertoire that is right around the corner.

9 down. 21 to go!

Meow

12. Own a cat.

Y'all. I've wanted a cat of my own for at least the last 5 years. But since I was always moving for school, I knew it wouldn't be fair to me or especially the cat to be a nomad while owning it, as I didn't know where I would live, if they would allow pets, if my summer plans would allow me to keep it, etc. So for 5 years, I made do with a cat stuffed animal, the placeholder for my new kitty-to-be.

This past summer, I knew that I would be staying in Austin for the next year at least. I'm done with school, living in a grown up apartment, and I decided that this was the year I was going to get a cat. The thing that sealed the deal was Austin Pets Alive (one of the shelters in Austin) offering FREE cat and kitten adoptions throughout the entire month of August. Done. Now I just had to find a cat!

I knew I wanted a younger cat so that I could get it used to bathing (for allergy reasons), and I wanted it to be outgoing, friendly and sweet. I looked through pictures online and when my eyes fell on Merida, I was in love. She was The One.

I contacted her foster mom, and we set a date for her to bring kitty over to my apartment to make sure it would work out. She met Tim, my parents, and me! I was hooked--she was scared, but so sweet and curious. Her foster mom held her until she was spayed, and I picked her up a week later. Shortly after meeting her, my parents, Tim and I went to dinner and were discussing names. I wanted to keep with the M theme, but had never seen Brave (the Disney movie/princess for which she was named). We spent most of dinner discussing names, before my dad suggested "Miranda." Not only did it keep with the "M" theme and also had the same ending so it would be easier for her to adjust to, but it is also the name of the vet who was unbelievably kind to our family when we had to put our cat of 16 years down in March. It was a perfect fit.

So, I introduce to you: Miranda! She is a 5 month old domestic medium hair. She is feisty, sweet, curious, playful, and is warming up to the dulcet sounds of the violin more and more every day. I'm still keeping her in the bedroom at night because I don't want her getting into trouble around my apartment, but she doesn't quite sleep through the night...she's turning me into a morning person, since she usually wakes me up around 6:30 to feed her! (Though this morning it was 4am...)

We're working on not biting while playing or being affectionate, and not jumping on the counters or table. She LOVES looking outside, hanging out in her kitty condo ($50 off of Amazon! Awesome deal if you can put it together yourself, which was definitely a challenge for one person), and watching TV with us while purring herself to sleep. 

So far she has been a wonderful companion, and I'm enjoying being a cat mom (though it is stressful at times. What if she eats something she's not supposed to? I haven't heard her bell in a while, is she getting into trouble? Will she starve if I don't feed her wet food while dry food is sitting right there?). Expect many more pictures of Miranda to come in the following months/years!

8.5 down. 21.5 to go!

Sweden

11.5: SWEDEN

While Sarah and I were in Copenhagen, we took a day trip over to Malmö, Sweden, which is just a 30 minute train ride from Copenhagen. While researching what to do, we read about the Oresund Bridge, which connects the two countries, and subsequently discovered a TV show called The Bridge...we watched the trailer that morning and were completely hooked. When we got back from Sweden, we bought and watched the entire first season of 10 episodes in four days. But, I digress.

Our trip to Sweden included a little walking tour through the square, a walk through a beautiful park and cemetery to get to the Malmö Castle, and seeing the Malmö Cathedral. We thought we could go into the castle, but we had to pay an entrance fee and we weren't so keen on that. So, we wandered through Malmö, visited a cathedral instead, and got back on the train to Copenhagen to start The Bridge.

"The Knotted Gun" by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd

I loved this windmill!

Malmö Cathedral celebrating pride week/month

Headstones of the wealthy inlaid in the cathedral floor

Sweden was a lovely little day trip, and we had gorgeous weather for all of our walking!

København

11.4: DENMARK

Back in March when plans were becoming more firm for Europe, I was looking for any excuse to extend my stay as long as I could. Since Julia couldn't take two weeks off of work and I didn't want to travel on my own, I needed to find another travel buddy! Cue texting Sarah and asking, "What are you doing in August? Wanna come to Europe and travel with me?" It worked out, as long as we could go to Copenhagen (astonishingly it was one of the cheaper places we were considering) and so a day after Julia left Europe, Sarah arrived!

As it would happen, Julia's connection was through Copenhagen from Berlin and she had a long layover--14 hours--so we explored the city! We went up the tour of the Church of Our Savior to get a good view of the city from above. We also went to Nydhavn, the famous canal with the beautiful houses/businesses.

The Copenhagen Opera Festival held a free outdoor concert and we caught the very end of it right on the water!

Nydhavn: much more commercialized than I expected, but still iconic!

While on my own, I explored the area of Copenhagen where The Little Mermaid statue lives, and even though it was crazy crowded, I managed to get a picture with no one else in it!

Once Sarah arrived, we packed a lot into every day, so I'll just be giving you my highlights of the trip!

We spent a day in Helsingor, where we did a walking tour of the city as well as visited Kronborg (aka "the Hamlet castle"). The castle was huge and my favorite part was the tour of the casements, or the underground portion of the castle where they kept the kitchens, soldiers, and staged battle practice. It so super creepy, but also very cool.

Hamlet and Ophelia greet you as you come out of the train station

Composer Dieterich Buxtehude's house!

Spotted in an alley

The famous Kronborg!

Legend has it that Ogier the Dane sleeps in the casements of Kronborg,
ready to awaken and help Denmark when the country is in need.

Tivoli, the amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen, was also amazing. Though we didn't go on any rides, the whole feel of the park was more classy than any American amusement park I've been to, and there was actually great shopping as well!

Beautiful gardens at Tivoli

In Roskilde, we went to a Cathedral with tombs of previous kings of Denmark, as well as the Viking Ship Museum. Back in the Viking Age, five ships were sunk at the entrance of the Roskilde Harbor to prevent an attack from enemies. In the early 1900s, researchers discovered these scraps of wood at the bottom of the harbor and identified them as part of Viking ships, and then reconstruct them for the museum--it was incredible!

Viking Ship Museum

Sarah's going for a sail!

Train snacks!

Christiansborg, the palace in the middle of Copenhagen where the Parliament resides and where the Queen still uses some rooms for dinners and meetings, was great to see because it's still a working castle in some regards. But, the coolest thing about Christiansborg to me is that it's built on top of two other castles that once existed in the same place--and you can see the ruins! The Bishop of Absalon built the first castle in the 12th century (it was plundered in 1259) and then the Copenhagen Castle was built at the end of the 14th century (but it was destroyed in 1730 to make way for the first Christiansborg). 

The dining room, where food is prepared for Danish state dinners.

Christiansborg Palace

Amalienborg, where the Queen lives today, was crowded with tourists and generally unimpressive--but I did see the changing of the guard, which was totally worth it.

Copenhagen was an AMAZING city and had great food, coffee, and people. The best food we had was in Helsingor (the Smorgasbord, open faced sandwiches) and on the last night of our trip, where splurged, went to a restaurant that Rick Steves recommended, and had some pretty amazing small plates.

Two fish dishes and gazpacho for the first course. The next course had
risotto with peas and hazelnuts, and a beef dish that was divine.

I absolutely loved Copenhagen and am SO glad that Sarah pushed for us to visit this city. I would go back in a heartbeat!