Last Monday started off like a normal Monday. Wake up, rehearse with the orchestra, take a break. Unlike after a normal break though, we were kept waiting until the President of the Czech Republic arrived. Once he and his entourage were in the theater, we played two movements of Dvorak's New World Symphony for him. I never got to actually see him, but he gave the section leaders a CD of Czech music. After that random show of cross-cultural goodwill, we went back to rehearsing our scheduled repertoire.
In some more randomness from Manaus this week, you never can be *totally* certain that you will have power and water 24/7. It's usually quite reliable, but 2 times last week in the morning, the power went out for about an hour. One of the days, the water went off, too. Since this has happened several times before, we just went about our daily business (minus showering or doing dishes). By 4:30 in the afternoon, Jay went to check if our neighbors had water, which they did, and then he realized that someone had turned our water off in the street. Not sure why, but the lever to turn on and off our water is outside the house in the sidewalk. Even more strange, why did someone turn it off in the first place?!
For the last random rant, when I went to the gym this week to swim, I met another girl from the US! I heard her talking in the locker-room, struck up a conversation with her (in English!!!), and exchanged phone numbers. It turns out that she has lived here teaching English for almost 2 years. We're going to try to hang-out this weekend. Not sure how many Americans actually live here, but it was sure nice to meet a fellow ex-pat in this hot jungle.
Now that I think about it, it is more accurate to say,"Life is like a box of melted chocolate in Manaus..."
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