It is also a very exciting day for me as my brother will be going home today. He has been stationed at Abu Dabi in the Middle East since mid September. He has missed all of his new son's first major holidays, so for them to be able to be a family again and for my brother to really get to know his son again is a wonderful thing for me. He should be arriving back, if all goes as planned, around 9:30 Central Standard Time. We are on Central European Time, which is 6 hours ahead of Summerville and 7 hours ahead of Oklahoma City, where my brother is stationed when he is not deployed. I can't wait to hear from him, but I will have to wait a little extra since I will be teaching when he actually comes home, plus he will need some time with his family. So hopefully I will be able to talk to him tomorrow if not tonight.
My question for the day yesterday was "What is the BigBox?" Well, although we are indeed out in the country in terms of Germany, we are in the biggest city here in this region. It has about 60,000 people and quite a cultural offering for the area. We have a theater where performances of some of the world's best plays along with productions I have never heard of are performed. We also have The BigBox. This is a performance center that was opened just 5 years ago. It is a big
boxy structure across the street from our mall. It has a definite modern appearance that one would not associate with Germany, but it is nicely done in that different sort of way. I have already been to see a performance there to which my younger son's class went. They heard a performance of a classical piece by the resident orchestra that they had studied in school. The resident orchestra is a division of the Munich Orchestra. The BigBox has had some popular names of various types of music already in its short life, such as Art Garfunkel, Whitesnake, Bryan Adams, and Queensryche, as well as more cultural performances such as RiverDance and The Twelve Tenors. They have also had major German bands that are hugely popular here. And like many performing arts venues, they also have the orchestral performances, which I really enjoy. I am really looking forward to a treat I got for Christmas of two tickets for my husband and I to see THE Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the best orchestras in the world, perform my most favorite classical piece: Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring. I just can't wait.The word for today is music: die Musik - said as we say it.
The question for today is: "Is the popular music of Germany different than American pop bands?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
