Jesus was in good shape

All right folks. Now, you know I walk a lot. New York. Europe. You gotta have good walking shoes and some leg muscles to get you around. I was told there would be a lot of walking in Israel, especially the town I’m in, so I thought, “Hey, no big deal. I walk all the time.”

Um, yeah. I can’t really feel my legs at the moment. When they said walking with hills, they weren’t kidding. Going into the Old City yesterday and shopping today, the descent isn’t bad, because, well, it’s a descent. Coming back up? Different story. Up hill for over an hour. When we arrived back at the hotel, there were muscles in my legs twitching that I didn’t even know existed. Who needs squats? Who wants a jacuzzi?! (Pick me! Pick me!)

So I know Jesus was in good shape. I mean, he walked from Bethlehem to Cana to the desert in Jordan to Jerusalem to Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee and on and on. And these weren’t short little jaunts. We’re talkin’ let’s- walk-all-day-up-and-down -some-mountains-sleep-a-little-then-walk-a-few-more-days kind of walking. So he and his disciples were probably lean and buff with their fair share of charlie horses unless they were eating enough potassium (last night I had 2!). And everything in the country is built with stone. Very little wood. So when they say Jesus was a carpenter, he was probably skilled at masonry. He wasn’t this meek, pretty, little white guy you see pictures of. The dude was buff and brawny. Kinda changes your perspective about him.

My First 24 Hours

What a whirlwind! I have seen and experienced so many new things that it’s so hard to get it all written down. My brain is mush and I can’t quite get it all out! I’ve even managed to learn about 10 words of the language!

My room for now has a fantastic view of the city. From it I can see 5 Biblical sites. It’s amazing to read about something your entire life and then finally get to see it for yourself. I don’t have a cable right now to hook my computer up to my camera, but when I do, I will upload the pictures. It’s pretty fantastic.

The culture here is so incredibly different. It’s been a long time since I’ve traveled to a place where I know so little. There is so much I’d like to share, but that will have to wait until I am back home. It’s been exhilarating and exhausting at the same time.

One thing I can share is my experience on the flight. The experience beforehand was quite unbelievable and one that I will share in detail later, but suffice it to say it included a strip search. Think on that one for a bit. Anyway, I get on the plane to find a woman sitting in my aisle seat with an empty middle seat between her and her husband. She only spoke Hungarian and through puppy dog eyes and sign language tried to get me to sit between her and her husband. I calmly grabbed a flight attendant to double check my seat assignment. The woman was asked to move over, which she did, but the rest of the flight she leaned on and over the armrest between us. Being tired and cranky, I resorted to hitting her with my elbows as often as possible. When did I join Kindergarten again?

Air France – who knew they’d be so nice?

If you want a nice trip to Europe for an economical price, take Air France. Well, unless your fat – you won’t fit down the aisle or in your seat, so I’d suggest you stick with an American carrier. But if you can fit down a skinny aisle, book this airline.

The service was fantastic. The food was actually pretty good. And when I ate my chicken with the white wine provided, it was a fantastic combination! All in coach! We each had our own TV screen with several TV shows to choose from, albums of music and about 40 movies.

If you can get past a lay over in the nasty Paris airport, take this airline.

Live TV?

For those of you unfamiliar with what this whole thing was that I was doing in Hungary: Dicapo Opera, the company I worked with in NYC for a year is part of an international opera competition with 4 other countries. It is sponsored by Mezzo TV, a Hungarian station that is broadcast in 39 countries. So this opera I did was part of this competition. Each opera is recorded so it can be aired on the TV station. So the cameras are there, the show is going. We have some technical difficulties due to faulty equipment provided by the opera house, but that is another story that reflects not at all poorly on our amazing back stage crew. We were all giving it our best. I was singing my stuff like mad.

And afterward out at the bar, someone mentions how crazy it was that we were just on live TV in 39 countries. I was like, “Wha???? That was live?” So slow poke here figured out AFTER the show that it was a live production.

I gotta say, I feel kinda special that I was in the Live Broadcast of the European Debut of Emmeline.

So I had another beer!

Cursed Vitamins

So I started taking Melalueca vitamins after my mom’s friend gave her free ones, she was then impressed then sent them to me for free. I believe in homeopathic things, but I dont’ believe that any of them will ever work until I actually try them. So I know there is no placebo affect.

I’ve taken several, good, whole food vitamins made by organic brands etc…and never noticed ANY difference in my body, so I figured the vitamin thing was a hoax. But, wanting to please mom, I took the vitamins and thought “What the heck? Might as well.” So I started taking them as directed and HOLY COW!!! I felt a difference in the first 2 days! My energy levels were incredible! Like, I wasn’t tired at 6pm and wanting only to go to bed. I didn’t get tired until late at night, at like, the time you’re supposed to get tired. So I was starting to run out in Sarasota and I was like, “Oh my gosh! I have to get more vitamins before I leave out of the country!!!” So I signed up under my mom for Melaleuca (yes, it is a multi-level marketing company. I am NOT trying to start a business. I just love their vitamins. If you love their vitamins, and want to sign up, awesome, but I really could care-less…well, except I do care about your health and wellbeing, but that’s another story), so I got the vitamins shipped overnight to have them for all my travel. I gotta say, these things work too darn well. I have so much energy late into the night and ALL DAY LONG that it’s almost hard for me to go to sleep. The first day I got here to Hungary, I went to sleep after being awake for 40 hours. I got about 7 hours of fitful sleep. I woke up the next morning feeling great and had energy all day. Never got tired! Ever! And was up until 2 and then forced myself to hit the sack. Slept through for 7 hours last night, had energy all day, did the first show and am still up at 2am. Again, forcing myself to go to sleep!

These cursed vitamins are giving me too much energy and keeping me way too awake and productive.

I can’t get to Szeged

I’m slowly updating things, so keep checking back for updates!:)

I believe that the trip to Szeged is quite possibly the longest, most arduous trip I have ever undertaken…even worse than the trip to Australia. I got on a flight at 5;30am on Thursday morning in Sarasota, FL and landed in Budapest 24 hours later, and then got on a bus for 2 hours to Szeged. So because the airlines haven’t figured out that a lot of people actually go to Sarasota, there are direct flights to almost nowhere…well, Delta does advertise that amazing non-stop to (drum roll please….) Atlanta!!! Woohoo! That’s so far away! Way to go Delta! Way to have a non-stop to your American hub! You are so amazing!

But I’ll back up a little. I got to the airport at 4:50 am. Guess who wasn’t even working yet? If you guessed the Delta agents “ding ding ding”! You have the right answer! So much for checking in an hour and half before your flight. I always knew that was a gimmick to make you waste more time and spend more money at the airport on an 8 oz bottle of water that cost $20.

So I get on the flight. Lucky for me, Tropical Storm Ida was headed in the same direction as me! Yay! So my flight to Atlanta was fine, but I land to find that my flight to LaGuardia is canceled and Delta has been wonderful enough to book me on a flight 4HOURS LATER!!!! That, however, was not a possibility because 4 hours later I needed to be going through security at JFK (yes, 12 miles away from LaGuarda. That’s a different story). So after talking to the surprisingly pleasant Delta agent, I was confirmed on a flight only 2 hours later. After a little breakfast (at this point, I felt like a beer, but hey, it was only 7:30 in the morning. Gimme a break), I get on the flight to LaGuardia, only to find out it is delayed. At this point, I have been underway for 6 hours…now, mind you, Atlanta is only about 8 or 9 hours from Sarasota in a car. I’m rethinking my plan at this point.

But after the drama of the delay, I finally made it to LaGuardia with just enough time to make it to JFK. How did I get there? Funny you should ask.

The fastest way between LaGuardia and JFK is to take a cab, so I stood in the interminably long line at the airport to make the drive. I got a great cabbie. Got me there in 15 minutes for 25 bucks. That ain’t shabby. Side note, remember at this point I have been traveling for 9 hours and had only gotten 3 hours of sleep. So I get to JFK, hand the guy $40 and wanting to give him a $5 tip for loading and unloading my ridiculously heavy suitcase that eventually had the dreaded bright pink tag put on it that said “Lourde” – French for your bag is too damn heavy so I hope you feel guilty – I say “I want $15 back”. He looks at me and says, “Your fare was $25″ and I’m like “I know. $15 please. Well, wait, no (being super generous and deciding to give him a $6 tip, I say) naw, give me $14 back.” He gives me a dirty look and cusses me under his breath. All the while I’m thinking, “What’s wrong with this guy? I gave him a better tip than anyone is this city would!”

I go in the airport, check in, all the while befuddled at his response. (Did I mention I’d been up for too long with no sleep?). So after Air France finally finds my ticket (who knew that these new, amazing check in machines read your middle name on your passport as your last name and can’t find you and then claim you don’t exist), I go to the restroom. While taking care of some business, it suddenly hits me “OH MY GOSH!!! YOU ONLY GAVE THAT GUY A DOLLAR TIP!!!! NO WONDER HE WAS CURSING YOU!!!!” I felt sooooooooooooooo bad. I always want to be the nice person and be that blessing that NO ONE gets in the city…and yet? I was probably the person he went home and said to his family, “There was the white chic who was really nice in my cab, and I lugged her heavy a*$ bags for her and she didn’t give me jack! That %$&#*%!” I felt so bad, I even went outside hoping that he’d waited for 20 minutes for me to make things right. Alas, that was not to be. He obviously had money to make from people who aren’t moronic…and to think I actually made A’s in Math.

The Fridge Makes Me Sneeze

So I got home earlier this week after being gone for over a month. My hubby has learned that it doesn’t matter what he does to the house while I’m gone, as long as it is clean when I come home, all is well.

And he does a pretty decent job. He gets better each time. At first his untidiness used to annoy me, but now I find it rather endearing because it is truly one of his guy moments. Being married to a man who tells you which shoes to wear with your outfit and which earrings will best bring out your eyes, it’s nice to discover him having guy moments. So instead of getting angry about the spider web in the corner with a spider and eggs in it, I relish it and chuckle a little bit.

But, I believe the best guy moment occurred yesterday. After pulling out some packaged cheese out of the fridge and finding it covered in icky goo, I took to the task of cleaning it out. To my utter shock (not really) I discovered that all the food I had left 5 weeks ago was STILL in there! I mean, I don’t think it had even moved.

So when Tim got home last night, I mentioned this fact to him, and he said, completely straight faced as if this would be a normal occurrence to everyone in the universe:

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t really go near the fridge much while you were gone because every time I opened it up, my allergies went crazy.”

Folks, you know the mold has to be bad when the cold of the fridge can’t even keep it at bay.

Wow, love. Just keep telling me how to look good, and I’ll deal with the allergy causing fridge.

Happy Birthday

Today is Chris’ birthday. He would’ve been 38 – and he would’ve been bemoaning the fact that he was almost 40…he started that when he turned 31. And we would’ve laughed about getting old, getting wrinkles and gray hair – and then laughed about it all. So, instead I’ll laugh to myself and think about all the fun times.

Concert set

So my next Nashville performance is set!

I will be performing as a part of St. Matthew’s Recital Series. Joel Bolen will accompany.

Sunday, September 27
4 pm
St. Matthew’s Catholic Church
535 Sneed Road West
Franklin, TN 37069
www.churchofstmatthew.org

This concert is free, however, I will be taking donations for my upcoming mission trip to Nazareth. 10% of donations will go back to St. Matthew’s music program so 2 amazing things will be supported!

As per usual, this will be the most fun you’ve had at a classical concert. Ask anyone who’s been. And you don’t even have to miss the Titan’s because they play the early game!

See you there!

Nazareth or bust

So, you may have noticed that yesterday I wrote a little entry about this upcoming Nazareth trip. Well, I got an email from the admin at church today saying that she had just checked the church mail and there was a check for $650 for me! I was like, “What!? This doesn’t happen to me! I’m always the one on top of everything, who always has everything done early, who’s never had trouble raising money for ANYTHING! And now, I don’t have jack squat and someone mails a check. This kind of stuff happens to other people.” Well, I guess not. It happened to me. Amazing how God works. My mom always told me, “God owns all the money in the world and He’ll figure out a way to get it to you when you need it.” And boy did He. I don’t know who it was, but I know it wasn’t in response to my post yesterday since you can’t very well mail a letter and have it arrive on the same day. So, not sure who you are, but if you are reading this, thank you very very much.

Now only around $1300 to go! Merely pocket change.

P.S. I am planning a concert for September 27th that will also double as a fundraiser. Details forthcoming.