Twinkled, Spangled Stars

Found this in the hallway of Die Bibliothek für Gestaltung by my work. That is a very intimidating place, but a place I know I will frequent. They have design books, in English, für frei. I just need to act confident, and convince them I am student; then I'm golden. 

I had an exciting afternoon, because I got my VIOLIN! The violin shop was magical. After being rung up, I began talking to the owner in Deutsch...and then realized the only word I knew that could help me was die Geige (violin), so I asked him to speak English. It was so cool; he went to this giant, tilting armoire, with old glass paneling, at least 10 feet tall, and there were more than 80 violins in there! He kept moving them around, squinting his eyes and plucking the strings to find the Goldilocks "just right" violin for me. He asked me how long I had been playing, and sheepishly I answered, "Well, a few months. I'm ok, not a genius or anything..." He then said, "Well, with this violin, you'll become one." Now that is epic! The shop had bundles of horsehair and a turnstile of loose strings. Drawers of chin rests and shoulder supports and sound potentials. He had this energy, that you knew he loved his job and couldn't wait to rent me opportunity. He talked with me about Cincinnati, and told me, "Oh, Cincinnati, what a musical city." CCM must be doing something pretty good. I am thrilled to be bowing away again. I need to get some music—a task for Saturday. But for now, my neighbors get to hear some Twinkle Twinkle and Christmas songs that I memorized.

I was extra-inspired because of the song during the Inaugeration, with Itzsach Perlman and Yo Yo Ma. The Inaugeration was special, being an expat and all. I watched it via webcam, and found myself grabbing my heart and wiping tears. Seeing him take the oath with the Lincoln Bible, that was history right there. 

As I was walking home tonight in the twilight, I had a bit of an epiphany. I think the reason I like Basel so much is because it is a city that you can still see the stars in. I was thinking about the sky, and then playing the stream-of-consciousness game: stars, spangled sky, spangled banner. Then I just decided, hey, I'm an American, I know the first verse, and more importantly, I don't know any of these people walking. So I just let it out. I even set the words to different tunes, and created some melodies of my own. The walk home from the violin shop was 45 minutes...

So to make up for the last post, I am going to talk about some amazing interactions with people that I had last night and today. Of course there was the violin man. I was at an intersection with too much construction and confusing crosswalk signals, when I saw a man standing next to me with the most amazing backpack. There was a giant zipper, about three inches wide, going right up the front, and the same going around the top. Each of the teeth was an inch big! It was too awesome to just walk by and solely think about its awesomeness. So I said, "Hey, I know this is weird, but I love your backpack." He said, "Really? Me too! It is for polo!" And then we smiled, kept walking and smiling, not knowing how to a continue a conversation on that. Then he went to the recycling bins and I went my own way. We cheerily "Ciao"-ed, and that was it. Next interaction: On the train last night to Bible study, there was this crazy man chanting, and I looked over to the woman a few seats away. Her eyebrows raised, as to say, hey, I don't know either, and we both just burst into laughter. And then the chanting man did too.