August 26, 2009 - Final Classes, Final Party

This morning we had our final classes - history, drama and music. This afternoon we had time to prepare our presentations on the villages we visited yesterday. The presentations will be given tomorrow morning. I was also able to find an inexpensive suitcase (which will hopefully survive the trip back) and finished the rest of my shopping, except for the CD store in Prague.

Our farewell party was at the soccer field - about a 20 minute walk from our building.

Whole Hog

It featured a whole roast pig, which was exciting, but the tradition here is to only slice off the very outside layer, then baste it again and roast that part for at least a half an hour, then repeat the process over and over. What this means for a large group is standing in line for a long time for a taste of meat, or standing in line for a long time and having them stop serving before you get anything, so you have to wait another 45 minutes.

Line waiting for pork

We also had forced rehearsals for our class performances at the concluding ceremonies, which pulled people out of line waiting for dinner and dampened any festive atmosphere.

Local talent performs for us

The music was by the music teacher singing off key (as usual) over canned backgrounds on his keyboard. This is the keyboard on which I'm to perform tomorrow, so I could see that more than the bottom and top octaves were indeed missing (cutting off ranges I'm used to using when I improvise); the touch was not weighted to feel like a piano; there was no sustain pedal; and the stool was much lower in relation to the keyboard - all things that make sitting down cold turkey to play very difficult.

The van that was bringing people back to the dorm had made several trips when I decided to try one more time for a meal-sized serving of the pork before returning, and ended up getting trapped there for several extra hours, as there was not another van load that wanted to leave when I did. It was difficult to escape the noxious music and I finally asked the director about the next bus, which he said would be leaving in 10 minutes. Thiry minutes later I found that a police car had been summoned to bring me back - unusual, but it worked. This could have been another uniform fantasy moment, but I was just glad to get back!

More on Final Party

I realize this is more negative than usual. Perhaps I'm transitioning to making the return trip, but mostly I find the music program here has been disappointing, especially after two hours of off-key music this morning and then again all evening. I also resent the expectation that I should be able to create some new music with no access to practice time or the instrument I'm going to use. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring.