Munich to Freiburg

Well breakfast was a bit of a disappointment this morning ... Funny how quickly I get used to a breakfast that's nothing like my 'real life' one (toast and honey, banana and a pint of water). I was expecting the usual Maritim experience - fresh fruit and a dollop of Quark, egg and bacon, Greek yogurt with honey and a plate of cheese ham and grapes which gets transferred to my Tupperware and serves as lunch on the bus / train (I know that sounds like a terribly rude thing to do, but my excuse is there is never anything I can eat in the buffet car or service station). However, this morning, in spite of it being another Maritim, all I managed to find was 2 halves of tinned peaches, bacon and rubbery scramble and a very grainy looking yogurt (I gave that a miss actually). I did manage to get a picnic, but there were no grapes, so cherry toms and apple it had to be. Either way, it'll go down nicely with the Sekt we managed to procure for later ...

I've been to Munich before and really loved it, but unfortunately we didn't get much time there this time. It was a case of dashing in, hanging the frock up, putting on my sexy thermal vest (Munich was having a relative heat wave at -5 degrees, so I was glad of an extra layer!) and heading straight back out to have a meander down to St Michael's church and the Neue Rathaus. Unfortunately the clock only works at 1100 and 1700, and as we had to be on the coach then to go rehearsal, we didn't get to see it in action. Consequently Munich has been added to the list (blimey, it’s been a while since I wrote one of those) of places I want to come back to when I've got some leave and some money!

The concert was another cracker - the orchestra reckoned it was the best so far and along with the audience were very generous with their applause which was nice of them. We're singing really well actually, working with Johan has meant that we have rediscovered our sound; an orchestra member said it was back to the sound that it had back when it recorded the soundtrack for Amadeus, which is great. We're pretty damn tight now (always room for improvement there though), have pretty damn impressive fortes and, even more gratifyingly, increasingly controlled and soft pianissimos. Its like each section is singing as one voice, the mixture of different voices is really blending with no voices dominating the texture, which is exactly how it should be. The real shame is that we have no idea when we're going to be singing together again (apart from the final concert in this tour which happens to be in Birmingham Symphony Hall on the 28th). It would be great to get back to London and go straight into working on some challenging acapella repertoire with Johan, but that's not to be, so I'd better enjoy this while it lasts! :-(

Once back at the hotel it was luggage down to the bus again for overnight transport to Freiburg and a freezing cold stomp out to a beer Keller where Weiss beer is brewed on the premises. We resembled snowmen by the time we arrived - shoot the person who said it was 10 minute walk - it was seriously cosy in there and after my first half pint mug of Cabernet Sauvignon (I was a bit disappointed not to be able to join the others in their litre stein's of beer) I had regained the feeling in my fingers and was enjoying some silly banter ("When I'm calling you" Ali & Shaz) and serious conversation with our lovely waiter Matthias about the construction of his lederhosen ...

We were kicked out at closing time and the lovely Stephen treated us to a cab back to hotel which meant that we made it into bed with enough time to manage a luxurious 5 hours sleep and if I'm lucky I might manage to snatch another hour or so on the train. Funny how this touring lark is just a continuous cycle of eating, drinking, singing and sleeping ...