Vacation!

I suppose technically neither Jay nor I are on vacation, but being in the States is close enough for me! Jay had to stay back in Manaus, but I flew to NYC a few days ago to spend some quality time with my girlfriends before heading off to Virginia. I had an amazing time in New York seeing friends, going out to eat, shopping a bit, and running errands. It felt great to be back in the states right away, and while I do miss my friends and Jay in Brasil, I am very happy to be here now. As much as I like speaking portuguese, there is just something comforting about being able to say what you want when you want without having to think too hard.
Anyway, I am currently in beautiful Virginia to play in the Castleton Music Festival with Maestro Lorin Maazel. I knew this was going to be something special when I saw the limo waiting at the bus station to drive us to the festival. Definitely got off to a great start! It only got better when we arrived to see what an amazing part of the country this is located in. We're surrounded by big trees, the Blue Ridge mountains in the Shenandoah Valley, fresh water creeks and lakes, and lots of animals. So far I've already seen a fox, raccoon, and deer on the roads, and llamas, goats, zebra, zonkey!, horses, and cows on farms. I left my camera in NYC so I don't have evidence of the natural beauty all around me here (or the zonkey) except using my computer's camera, but when I get it back, I will post some better pics.

Our house surrounded by gardens

Hard to tell, but that is the lake

Out on one the many porches here

We start our rehearsals tomorrow, and I am looking forward to playing with everyone here. The people I have met have all been very nice and down to earth. I'm staying in someone's guest house with other musicians, and my housemates are all cool. Our house is situated on a dirt road with its own lake, trails, and a tennis court from what I hear. I haven't had much time to explore yet, but I plan on exploring tomorrow on a run around here.
The only slightly unfortunate aspect of this place so far is the high temps- 100 degrees today- and high humidity- 85%. Good thing the last year in Manaus has prepared me for it!

Festa Junina

The month of June is a really fun time here in Brasil thanks to the Festa Junina. It's a traditional party popular throughout the country, especially the northeast, and pays homage to three Saints that have holidays this month. It involves dressing up in character as cowboys/country-folk, dancing quadrilha (think square dancing), having a bonfire, and eating traditional foods. Since it's actually winter down here and most places are cold, traditional food includes hot things like quentão, a warmed wine or cachaça with ginger, cinnamon, and orange rind, many foods made of corn like canjica or corn bread, and lots of sweets and desserts. 

To make sure everything was ready for our festa, the girls had a pre-party get together to make the proper decorations- a fake fire since it's already hot enough here and bandeiras, little colored flags cut from tissue paper and hung from a string. Besides the decorations, we had typical country music playing during the night. 

Almost everyone showed up in a costume, and since everyone brought a typical food (I confess- I made Ghiradelli brownies from the States that were the first thing gone), we had tons and tons of food. 

Table full of food

The hostess and me in costume

After we all stuffed ourselves on various cakes, vatapá, rice, pão de queijo, and salgados, we gathered around to start the quadrilha. Everyone partnered up and followed the directions shouted from the leader. We had some familiar do-si-do moments along with some new moves-  for example, "chuva" where you raise your hands above your head to imitate rain falling. We danced around the roof laughing our heads off for several songs, and I have to say that the Americanos impressed the Brasileiros with our moves :)

I know it's blurry, but 

that is Jay dancing in the middle!

All of us on the roof

We were unfortunately kicked off the roof after our hoedown by the building manager (party pooper!!!) and moved the party down to her apartment. Of course the fun continued despite the manager, and we played another traditional game inside, BINGO! Almost everyone ended up winning by the time we finished, and we all got cute little presents to take home. 

I won!! 

This was a super fun and very memorable experience for us both. The atmosphere was part carnival-part hoedown, and you know you can't go wrong with that!!

Copa do Mundo!!

Brasilians certainly do not take their futebol lightly. The sidewalks have been painted in yellow and green stripes for weeks, every other car has Brasilian flags flying, and there are even new murals in the middle of many roads showing their pride. People really get excited for the World Cup and spare no expense here! 

The excitement is actually quite contagious, and Jay and I had so much fun watching Brasil's first game against South Korea. We went to our neighbor's place to watch the game and share some tasty Brasilian food amongst friends. Everyone was forewarned not to bother going if they weren't interested in really watching the game! The funny thing to us was how disappointed everyone was when there were no goals in the whole first half of the game, and how quickly they got disinterested. As a lifelong Arizona fan, Jay had no trouble maintaining his faith in the team no matter how boring it seemed. Luckily the second half went much better, and everyone's spirits were lifted after Brasil scored 2 goals. There was lots of jumping and shouting and fireworks and horn honking during and after the game. I can't even imagine how crazy it's gonna get as the Copa do Mundo progresses! I'll keep you posted.... 

and Go USA!!! 

  

My First Race

I've had quite a few "firsts" since moving to Manaus, but the one I am most proud of is running in my first 10 km race. My good friend Debora and I have been diligently going to the gym since the fall, and I can safely say that all the effort has paid off for us. Sunday morning we completed our first race, and now we can't wait to do another!

We found out about the race on Tuesday night, and I immediately ran 10 km on the treadmill (for the first time although I've been running for 45-60 mins 3x week for more than a month). I ran everyday this week to prepare for Sunday and did another 10 km run on Friday afternoon. My goal was to finish in one hour, but once I got out on the road I thought maybe just having a goal of not stopping at all would be more attainable. It was 100 degrees at 8:30 in the morning when we started and you can imagine how humid it is here in the rainforest. Plus on top of the hot sun and lack of shade on the route, there were so many hills! 

To make a long story short, I finished in 52 minutes and achieved both of my goals. It was a difficult run to be sure, but totally worth the effort. It was such a fun atmosphere there, too, with all the different sorts of runners and who doesn't love free watermelon on a hot day?! 

Before the Corrida Rustica

Debora, Marcelo (trainer at our gym), and me after the race

We did it!!!!

Opera, Manaus-Style

The XIV Amazonas Festival de Opera has officially finished!!! We played our last opera of the season, Lo Schiavo by J. Carlos Gomes, last Sunday, and it was done true Manaus-style... which means it was a big ol' production! 

Just like the huge show at Christmas, there were hundreds of people involved in this production. The orchestra played inside the Teatro Amazonas on stage with the full chorus behind us. Maestro Malheiro conducted us live while huge monitors of him outside the theater led the singers. There were also gigantic screens set-up outside to show the main action on stage with portuguese sub-titles. The entire side of the theater, and then some, was used as a stage for the singers, dancers, actors, children, and animals, and there were chairs throughout the whole area for the crowd.  

Jay came to see the opera and did a good job documenting it with pictures....

You can see the festive atmosphere before we started, 

complete with cotton candy!

The stage is lined in red and one of those monitors faces 

the singers (the conductor) and one faces the public.

A cool part of the opera with fireworks 

on top of the Teatro.

Lots of actors portraying the natives on stage 

while others climb the sides of the Teatro.

Normally the orchestra is stuck in the pit and has no idea or view of what the singers are doing on stage. Fortunately for us this time, they brought in a big flat-screen tv for us to see the action. It was actually kind of distracting because it was hard to focus on the conductor when there was a tv a few feet beside him, but it was nice to know what was happening in the opera. It was especially funny to watch the reaction of one of the lead singers singing an aria while riding a horse who preferred to trot instead of walk at that moment. He continued to sing perfectly, but I can only imagine what must have been going through his mind! 

Jay and I both walked away from this performance amazed that a city in the middle of the Amazon can produce such a large-scale, well-made production, and I am grateful to have been a part of it! But even more grateful to know we are done with operas for another year :) 

Boat Trippin'

We had a great time on our most recent outing on the Rio Negro with our friends. My girl Debora's family was visiting from out of town, so she planned a boat trip to give them a look at the good life in Manaus! We all shared the cost to rent a big, 2-story boat and set out on our river adventure early in the morning on Saturday. 

Our boat at the port- it's the one on the far left

One of the best ways to cruise the river is definitely laying in a hammock. Our hammock unfortunately was not cooperating very well and flipped over when I tried to sit in it! It happened so fast, but was traumatizing nonetheless. Not to mention painful landing on my head, shoulder, and knee. Since everyone put up their own hammocks on the boat, I used theirs and left Jay to use ours at his own risk! 

Relaxin

Our first destination was Encontro das Aguas, aka Meeting of the Waters, where our two rivers, Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes run side by side without mixing due to their differing densities. We've already been there several times, but this time was very special because we got to see dolphins jumpin through the water! I'm not sure why, but these fresh water dolphins hang around this area and though we've thought we'd seen them swimming before, this time it was unquestionable. They were too fast to catch in a picture, but there were several swimming and jumpin together. It was soooo cool!

You can see the 2 rivers behind us (black and brown)

The next stop was Vitoria Regia, another spot we've been to numerous times. Last time we went the river was very low, so the lily pads were basically non-existent. This time the river was very high and we got to see some huge ones. On our way back from seeing them and this very tranquil part of the river, I stopped for a bit to look up into the trees surrounding us. To my pleasant surprise, I spotted a monkey jumping through the branches overhead! We went on to spot 3 or 4 different little monkeys hopping between the trees. It was too hard to get a clear picture of them cause the trees were so dense, but I know I will always remember them and now I can check seeing monkeys in the wild off my to-do list :)

Very calming and peaceful

We also stopped along the river to see some huge 3 feet long fish in an enclosed tank. People paid $5R to feed them small fish on a pole. It was like fishing except that there was no hook on the pole, and the point was to see the huge fish struggling to get the bait. Actually it turned out being the people fishing who really struggled the most and was quite amusing to see Debora's 80 year old grandma fighting to keep her bait away from them. Jay and I stuck to taking pics and laughing at everyone until the fish got either too bored or full to care anymore...

Debora in action

We finished up the trip by cruising by the new bridge that is being constructed across the river. There are  a lot of new public works happening around town thanks to the fact that the World Cup is coming to Manaus in 2014, and they are very fast with their construction here. 

As we headed back to the port, it started to rain a bit and was quite windy, so we got to experience the very rare treat of being cold. Everyone had such a good time, and we vowed to make this a more usual occurrence now that the orchestra season is coming to an end. I'll keep you posted! 

The Blues

Sometimes it's hard to believe what a small world we live in. A couple weeks back, Jay and I had the pleasure of meeting the members of Eli Yamin's Blues Band. They are currently doing a tour, presenting workshops and concerts, through parts of South America on a grant from Lincoln Center. We heard about the concerts through a friend of ours that works at the school where they performed, which happens to be one of the most reputable English schools in Manaus and only one block from our house.

Anyway, we went to a workshop the first day they were here and really enjoyed the experience. The band is comprised of a pianist/singer- Eli Yamin, singer- Kate McGarry, drummer-LeFrae Sic, and tuba-Bob Stewart. All of them are amazing musicians and gave a very thoughtful workshop that explored the roots and rhythms of blues. Kids and adults alike really seemed to have a good time listening and learning. I was so inspired that I came home singing my own blues (a happy blues, that is)!  

After the workshop, Jay and I introduced ourselves to the band and soon discovered that we used to live in the same neighborhood as them in NYC! It was fun to talk to some American musicians, especially such cool ones from our old hood, and we found out that we even have some mutual friends there. Never thought we'd end up in Manaus hangin with New Yorkers!

When they found out that Jay plays, they invited him to join them the next night at their concert. I wish I could've gone to hear them play, but I had my own concert that night. I heard from other friends that Jay got a standing ovation from the crowd, and I know he had a great time jammin. I unfortunately don't have any action shots, but here's some from after the concert.

Jay and the world-renowned tubist, Bob Stewart

Us with the amazing drummer, LeFrae

I highly recommend checking out this band cause they are the real deal!