London trip, etc.

Hello again!

I didn’t post yesterday because Adrian, Kristin, Ko-Yu, Jhen Wei and I went to London for the day. So-Yun and Trevor met up with us later for William Bennett’s concert at Wigmore Hall… which was awesome, but I’ll get to that later.

Oh, but before I write about our adventures in London, I’m going to tell you about our walk two nights ago (Wednesday). As always, Trevor picked us up at the Old Dairy at 7:42. Every night we walk somewhere different. One night we may start the walk at the O.D., or we may drive to the New Dairy and walk from there. Wednesday we walked from Trevor’s house in Hastingliegh to the town church, about 10 or 15 minutes away on foot. Like the church in Elmsted, the church in Hastingliegh is surrounded by a graveyard. (Adrian and I are going to help Trevor take pictures of all the graves at night in a few weeks. Some of the graves have eroded and are difficult to read, so Trevor will shine a light across the grave and we’ll take the pictures. He wants to document all the graves there.)

We all followed Trevor into the churchyard and then into the completely dark church. We sat in the choir’s benches (I don’t know the correct term) and Trevor told us to be as quiet as possible. The church was still pitch-black inside and he told us that if we’re quiet enough, we could hear voices. Umm… creepy. And I don’t think he was trying to scare us. Adrian said he could hear some faint whispers and so did Trevor. Luckily, I was in the middle of the row, so I felt quite safe, haha. After a few minutes, Trevor turned on the lights and told us some of the church’s history. Quite interesting. I don’t remember exactly how old the church is, but I want to say somewhere in the 1100’s or 1200’s. And amazingly, much of the church – ceiling beams included – is still original. I don’t really understand how that’s possible, but what do I know? I think I’ve discovered a new hobby: exploring and learning about old churches. There are well over 1,000 churches in England. Probably not going to get to them all in next six months, but I’d like to see a few more!

Ok, back to yesterday’s London adventure.

We took the fast train into London and got there around noon. Ko-Yu and Jhen Wei went to Just Flutes to buy piccolos and music. They both got Pearl piccolos… really good price, too! Kristin met up with a friend from high school who now lives in London. Adrian and I went sightseeing and shopping. Ok… mostly just shopping. But I was mostly just along for the ride. (Trying to save my money. I promise, Mom.) We spent quite a lot of time on Oxford St. Adrian switched his mobile service to Orange, and I tried to do the same but my phone was locked or something… I am cursed when it comes to technology. I went to a nearby hole-in-the-wall store to get it unlocked, but they wanted to charge me 60 pounds… which is something like 100+ dollars. No thank you. So I didn’t get a UK sim, but I will soon. But whatever… that’s really not that interesting to anyone probably….

We had lunch at a restaurant called Spaghetti House and had some good food and conversation. We are getting to be good pals. Then we went to Wigmore Hall to get Trevor’s ticket for the concert. I’m in charge of buying everyone tickets for concerts, researching concerts, etc., so I had to make sure Trevor had a good seat. Got the ticket, and continued our adventure.

Next, Adrian and I went to Notting Hill in Kensington. So cute!! (As Jhen Wei says ;)) It’s beautiful there… I would loooove to live there, but unfortunately, I don’t really see that ever happening. One can dream though, right? We spent most of our time there on Portobello Road, a cute little street with lots of shops, restaurants, and pubs. Had some good British ale... Young's I think it was called.

After Notting Hill, we met back up with Trevor and the rest of the students for the concert at Wigmore. The concert was amaaaaaazing. Maybe one of the best I’ve ever been to. No, not maybe. Definitely. Wibb played on the first two pieces – Haydn’s Trio in G major for flute, cello, and piano, and Ferdinand Ries’ Quintet in B minor for Flute, Violin, 2 Violas and Cello. Both were incredibly played. I’ve never heard such beautiful string playing. I need to find some string players to play these pieces with! ;)

The other two pieces were Mozart’s String Quartet in D and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat. The pianist was really wonderful. And so were the violinist and cellist. Ahhh… just thinking about it… it was such an amazing concert. And the hall was beautiful. I can’t wait to go back in December to hear……EMANUEL PAHUD! (Eeeeeeeeeeee! So excited!!!)

Anyway, that’s my first London adventure.

Today we had repertoire class. We played the Reinecke Ballade and the Afternoon of a Faun excerpt. After class Trevor fixed some of our flutes that needed fixing by putting putty in the C# hole. Apparently Powell is one of the makers with a scale that’s horribly out of tune. Powell makes all of their closed-hole and open-hole flutes to the same scale, which greatly affects the flute’s scale for the worst. Awesome.

After class, we decided to take the shortcut back to the Old Dairy, which ended up being quite an adventure. We had to cut across a field of radishes (not actually sure if they’re radishes, but they looked like radishes…) and through some woods up a GIANT hill, all the while just hoping we were going in the right direction. Luckily, we were right and now have a way that takes us to Trevor’s in only about 30 minutes.

Well, I’m making dinner tonight (lasagna or salmon… not sure which one yet) so I better get started on that. We’re all just drinking tea and listening to Brahms right now…. Jealous? ;)