Endlich wieder Neues...

...auf meiner A Cappella Seite!
(Oder auch genannt: Zwischen Hypotheken und Makler...)
Und es gibt sogar gleich zwei neuen Berichten: der Bericht vom Wise Guys' Tanzbrunnenkonzert Mai dieses Jahres und das Gartenkonzert von Stimmrecht im letzten Monat. Mit vielen Bildern!!
So, es fühlt ganz gut, diese Berichte endlich online gestellt zu haben. Nur der Bericht der Hamburger A Cappella Nacht sollte noch geschrieben werden, aber ob das noch klappt ohne Notizen? Am nächsten Freitag wartet die nächste "Arbeit" auf dem ich mich ganz dolle freue: Die 1. Lingener A Cappella Nacht mit LaLeLu, Viva Voce und Vocaldente. Das wird toll!!

When will it stop?

Last week we saw three (!) different houses. Number 8 was very interesting, but we won't take it, because we saw number 10 which is probably even better! Number 9 was a clear no.

The search for a house continues and I'm wondering when it will stop. Maybe really soon. Maybe not. I've learned not to be too happy too soon, because visiting a house a second time can change your mind quite easily. You notice different things. Visiting so many houses does have an advantage. You learn what your preferences exactly are and how important they are. Some things we found very important in the beginning are less important now. Other preferences we found out throughout the search.

10 blue dots - 10 houses
We tend to stay in the east part of Hengelo, don't we?

I still hope to be able to send you all Christmas cards, not only to wish you nice holidays, but also to notify you of our new address. Please keep crossing your fingers for us? We'll visit number 10 a second time tomorrow!

theGlue

Ich entdeckte gerade die YouTube-Seite von Oliver Rudin von theGlue. Die vier Videos von theGlue kannte ich noch nicht. Im Moment arbeitet die Gruppe an ein neues Album. Ich bin schon mal ganz gespannt!!


(Das Publikum bei diesem Auftritt ist nur ein bisschen komisch...)

Number 8 and 9

Just a short note: we visited another house today! And number 9 is scheduled for next Monday. According to the estate agent we met today, the average amount of houses people visit before buying one is about 6 or 7, so we should find a house pretty soon.
Number 8 was pretty good, by the way. So good, that I just spoke to our personal professional adviser on the phone and we'll plan a second visit, together with him.
Will you keep your fingers crossed for us?

Danke Bodo

Warum hat mir keiner gesagt, dass es am 3. Oktober ein toller A-Cappella-Abend stattfindet in Lingen, nur 40 Minuten fahren von Hengelo? Zum Glück gibt es die Webseite von Bodo Wartke. Nicht, dass es dort A Cappella Konzerttermine gibt, aber weil Bodo mit Viva Voce gesungen hat, gelang ich auf der Viva Voce Webseite und Viva Voce kommt nach Lingen. Genauso wie LaLeLu und Vocaldente. Wenn das kein schöner Abend wird... Karten sind schon bestellt! Ich kann es noch kaum glauben und ich hoffe, dass ich nichts übersehen habe. Vielleicht entdecke ich morgen plötzlich, dass wir am 3. Oktober schon etwas Anderes geplant hatten. Oder dass Lingen nicht 40 Minuten, sondern 4 Stunden fahren ist, weil es noch eine andere Stadt in Deutschland gibt, die Lingen heißt. Oder ... Nein, das soll nicht sein!
Juhu! *freu* Es ist so schön so nah an der Grenze zu wohnen und A Cappella in zwei Ländern genießen zu können! :D

Gartenkonzert in Bottrop

"Gibt es eigentlich schon neue Termine? Ich möchte euch gerne irgendwann mal in Deutschland auf einer kleinen Bühne erleben", schrieb ich vor zwei Wochen an Swen von Stimmrecht. Die Antwort war sehr toll, Swen schrieb: "Wir machen am nächsten Samstag bei meinen Nachbarn nachmittags um halb 4 ein "Gartenkonzert". Das ist nichts Offizielles, es kommen ein paar Leute, aber wenn Ihr uns in ganz untypischer Umgebung erleben wollt: Herzlich willkommen!"
Beim Lesen freute ich mich schon riesig und Swen hat sich genau so gefreut als ich gesagt habe, dass wir nach Bottrop kommen wurden. Sedi, Dan und Tina hatten keine Ahnung, dass Swen uns eingeladen hatte. Überraschung!
Gestern war's dann so weit und wir fuhren nach Bottrop. Als wir durchs Gartentor hinein kamen, haben sie sich total gefreut uns zu sehen und Swen und wir haben nur gelacht, weil die Überraschung so gut gelungen war.
Das Konzert war echt toll, ganz locker und spontan, mit ein paar schiefen Tonen und lustigen Texthängern, weil sie nach dem Sommer noch fast nicht geprobt hatten. Wir haben viel gelacht und das Konzert echt genossen. Es war mal etwas ganz Außergewöhnliches, mit Nachbarn, Freunden und Familien in diesem schönen Garten, Getränke und Fingerfood dazu, und einfach mal wieder herrliche A Cappella Musik hören. Dieses Konzert bezeichne ich als die Eröffnung meiner neuen A-Cappella-Theatersaison. Jetzt geht's wieder los! :D


PS: Dank an Sedi für die tolle Gespräche über u.a. Rockmusik für Blockflöte und Gemüse Orchester ;)

Singing again :D

I've been looking around for quite some time, but now I've finally found a choir that suits me. Yesterday, during my third choir rehearsal, I had to do some vocal range tests to determine if I can sing alto. After singing several mm-mm-mm-mm's, ng-ng-ng-ng's, ni-ni-ni-ni's and na-na-na-na's, I'm officially a member of Half Past Nine now. The choir has 16 members, and they sing mainly a cappella arrangements of familiar songs. The arrangements are for at least five voices (SSATB). Right now we're rehearsing a Beach Boys song as performed by The Real Group, for instance.

By the way, it's a funny experience, to say the words "Wise Guys" and not being asked who they are! I'm among a cappella fans!
And I've given up to correct my colleague, who asked me again "That's a choir without music, isn't it?". I just answered her with a simple "yes" ;)

L.I.N.E. and Di-rect

Festival at the market - Day 2

Three rock bands from the Netherlands were playing at the market last Saturday. And with free entrance it's always fun to have a look around. We had a family party first and got home a bit late, so we missed the first group and arrived halfway the performance of L.I.N.E, a good band with nice songs. Because there was no rain tonight, I decided to test the manual mode of my camera and I liked that a lot!

Krystl from L.I.N.E

The third band that night was Di-rect. In the Netherlands they are very well-known, I don't know if they are known in other countries? But I don't really like their music and it was too loud. But again, I could test the manual mode of my camera! :D

Spike from Di-rect

Tim from Di-rect



I think I'm 'going manual' more often! (Are these the first signs of wanting a digital SLR camera?)

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Festival at the market - Day 1

The Wall is a rock opera presented as a double album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released in late 1979. More information on wikipedia.

Yesterday this rock opera was performed in Hengelo on a huge stage at the market place. Pink was played by Nikolas Shannon, a fantastic singer from the USA who lives in Germany. He played the character Pink in a very convincing way. The rain helped him though. Depressed, lonely and confused he sat at the edge of the stage, getting really wet and looked even more sad.
A lot of people from Hengelo, some of them we know, played a role as well. The choir, the kids choir and the orchestra were from Hengelo.

The audience got pretty wet as well, but despite the rain, the market place was full of people. During the short dry period of the concert I managed to make a few pictures, like this one:


I wouldn't have wanted to miss this! And I didn't know I'd love music from Pink Floyd...

House number 7

We visited "house number 7" today. According to the estate agent 7 is a lucky number. But probably not our lucky number, I think. A really nice house in a good neighborhood, but it needs too much work which makes the house too expensive. Maybe our lucky number is 8? I surely hope our lucky number is under 20...

Stimmrecht

Und weil ich gestern mal was ganz anderes tun wollte als das Suchen nach einem Haus, habe ich den ganzen Abend voller Freude mit meinem Videostudio gekämpft und ein tolles Video zusammengebastelt ;)
Das wollte ich schon längst mal machen! :D

Like Mount Everest

Finding a house is like climbing a huge mountain. We almost thought we reached the top of the mountain, but suddenly we were falling down. And it was a long fall... Damn!! It's actually stupid, that talking to one woman can make such a difference. We're doubting more than ever now and that means: The search goes on...

One day we'll reach the top.

A bit quiet

It's a bit quiet here. But a lot has happened in the past few days. We spoke to several people who advised us about different things. Today we visited the house a second time, together with our personal professional adviser, which was nice, because he really knows a lot more about houses than we do. We got to know a lot more about the house. Now we have another weekend to think things over and the next decision has to be made before Tuesday. If possible, keep your fingers crossed!

PS: Sorry for not/barely writing e-mails these days. My mind is too busy...

Time to think

This weekend we stayed at "our" campsite in the north of the Netherlands. Time to think things over concerning the house we are interested in. And we had time to relax. We enjoyed the sun and we enjoyed the Shakespeare open air play in the rain. Dutch weather proved again to be very changeable! But we had a great time! Martin and I also celebrated "our 11th birthday", which was special, because it all really started at this campsite.

Our camp in one of the corners of the campsite, with five tents, belonging to my parents, my brother and his wife and son, my sister with her boyfriend, our friend Remco, Martin and I
Now, we are back home and we contacted our financial adviser about our mortgage, another objective adviser about building a garage, the estate agent of the house to show our interest and we are probably going to look for an estate agent later this week who can negotiate about the price for us. We have also done some research on the internet and we still have a list of things we need to know before we can really make a decision. So we're pretty busy right now :) If all works out well, we might buy a house soon......

Yes?

Today we might have found our new house! We like the place a lot and we have a really good feeling about it. Now, all we have to do, is to figure out some financial things, to see if our plans can succeed. For instance: what are the costs of building a garage?? Anybody any ideas? Then in this case we could build one next to the house, just like the neighbors on the other corner already did. Most of you know: we really need the garage...
I'm curious if we feel just as positive after the weekend as we are feeling now. If the answer is "yes" then this house could be the one! But first, we have to pack our bags for another weekend camping with my family and (for me) the 14th visit of the Shakespeare theater. This year, they're playing MacBeth. Probably the weather will not be as good as last year, but I'm sure it'll be just as much fun! The only bad thing about it is: After this weekend, holidays are really over until Christmas.

Salad is ready!

See you within an hour!

Would you like a fruit salad next time? I made one last weekend, when we had friends coming over for dinner:

Next

It will be number six next Tuesday. The sixth house we'll visit. Will this be "the one"? I really, really don't know. Martin and I have said it before: "This could be the one...." and then it turned out otherwise. We'll see. My brother tried to comfort me with "We visited 16 houses before we found a good one". Sigh...

I just got invited for another balcony-barbecue-lunch tomorrow at Martins work. Do they like me joining them or do they just want me to bring them another salad? Hmmm... ;)

A definite "no"

Why was the "cheap" house so cheap? Because they are now selling the house and the garage separately. Which is bad for us, because we want them both. This information was not yet changed on funda (funda is the main website in the Netherlands with an overview of almost all houses for sale). We've learned from it and from now on we will also check the estate agents' website as well before visiting the house.
Apart from that, the house needs so much work. Not only the kitchen and bathroom need a complete make over, all the window frames need to be renewed and so on, and so on. Definitely, we don't want this house!

We'll continue searching on funda now. And I don't know how many kilometers we've been cycling through the city in the past week, just to watch houses for sale from the outside and to get to know the neighbourhood. I'm glad it's summer ;)

Keine Stromgitarren, keine Keyboards, trotzdem rockt's

Endlich mehr von den Kontrollören bei YouTube. Wirklich schade dass die im nächsten Jahr aufhören...

House hunting

Tomorrow we'll see another house!! It's 45.000 euro cheaper than the one we saw yesterday. So we can easily pay it :P. But the pictures we've seen of the house are terrible. Awful kitchen and bathroom, everything is old-fashioned. I think an old person lived there and moved to a home for elderly or maybe passed away. But, with 45.000 euro you can buy a very nice new kitchen and bathroom ;) It'll just be a "little" bit more work. And there's no noisy road anywhere near the house.

In the meantime, we enjoy the nice weather, for instance at the balcony of Martins office. I just went there to join them during lunchtime. Today they decided to barbecue for lunch. Good idea! Nice job :)



To be continued...