1) Scheizze - Shoot! (or the other word...)
2)Bier - Beer
3) Guten morgen/tag - Good Morning / day
4) Danke - Thanks
5)Weiner schnitzel - A type of food
6) Volkswagen - Punch Buggy!
7) Meine Damen und Herren - Ladies and Gentlemen
8) Willkommen - Welcome
9) Fremde - Stranger
10) Gluklich zu sehen - Happy to see you
11) Bliebe reste stay
12) Herr - Mr.
13) Frauline - Ms.
14) Aufwidersehen - buh bye
15) Herr passport bitte - Your passport please
16) Haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band
17) wundebar! - Wonderful!
18) Guten Tag hop hop
19) Ach du lieber
20) Eins, zwei, drei, Cool Runnings!
So the extent of our German vocabulary comes from movies or musicals by Mel Brooks and Kander & Ebb. Good stuff to know, but not so much when trying to communicate with actual Germans. Fortunately, we have learned that lots of Germans speak English. So when ordering food or purchasing flowers, just a simple "Do you speak English?" gets you a whole lot further than our obviously limited vocabulary would.
After arriving in Essen, Sidonie took us to go grab some lunch. After lunch, we walked around the shopping area where we ate while Sidonie had a very successful talk with her new agent (yaay!) We then headed back to her apartment and began laundry. We now feel clean and don't smell anywhere near as offensive as we did before. We then met Sidonie at her theatre at about 5:45 and she gave us a tour of the backstage. We learned that Stage Left and Stage Right are actually flipped here in Germany, the perspective is actually from that of the director, not the actors on stage. We also found it interesting that the Stage Manager gives the standby's and go's in English and is also called "Stage Manager" - no German translation. Cool huh?
Foreshadowing? Maybe so...
Backstage, there were a few different dressing areas. Each actor has their own section and the renderings of their costumes are hung next to it. The set was also really cool! It's designed to look like a giant jukebox. At the foot of the stage are giant letters and numbers that lit up during the pre-show when different songs came on. The stage itself is a giant record player. The record is a revolve where the drum kit was set up. To stage left (or here in Germany, stage right) was a needle for the record player with an arm large enough for people to stand on. One of the more impressive parts about the show is that all of the actors supplied the music. There was no orchestra pit, it was all supplied by the actors on stage. One of our favorite scenes was Buddy Holly at the Apollo. It opened with a fantastic rendition of Big Momma Thorton's "Hound Dog." When Sidonie made her entrance for this scene, she looked like Beyonce in Dreamgirls! Just sayin - über fierce.
At intermission, two giant screens came from both sides of the stage to act as the curtain. The screens were jukebox playlists. Sidonie told us that all of the songs listed were either by Buddy Holly or songs inspired by him. Our personal favorite was Weezer's "Buddy Holly." There was a lot of Elvis and interestingly, a couple Beyonce songs. The majority of the second act was a big ol' rock concert with Buddy Holly, Big Bopper ("Chantilly Lace") and Ritchie Valens ("La Bamba"). If you aren't familiar with the story, they all die in the end. In Don McLean's song "American Pie" when they say "the day the music died" it is referring to the day that Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens all died in the same plane crash after this last concert they performed together. The last number in the show was HUGE. It had the whole house up and dancing. The guys hit their last notes, the lights popped and they were gone, just like it was all those years ago "the day the music died." The ensemble, still on stage, began to sing a slow downed, almost gospel-like version of "Johnny B. Goode" (which was awesome, btw). The guys slowly came back on stage and began to sing it in the Michael J. Fox "Back to the Future" style we all know and love. At the curtain call, the lead explained that the Colosseum Theatre is sadly closing in August with the show. Like many theatres right now, it is having a tough time keeping it's head above water during these rocky economic times. It's so sad to see yet another beautiful theatre close its doors, especially one as unique as this one. The building looks as though it was an old factory warehouse, so the interior has lots of open beams and sky lights. It's really quite beautiful.
The show itself was really cool. It's so interesting to see a show in another language. Sidonie was kind enough to give us a little plot breakdown before we saw the show so we had an idea of what was going on. It was still difficult to follow at times, but that just added to the adventure of seeing a show in a foreign language. Fortunately, all of the songs were in English, so we could follow those for sure! During several numbers, the cast tried to get the audience to clap along to the music. We noticed that everyone in the audience was clapping to their own beat, not to the one provided on stage, which we found to be pretty amusing.
After the show, we grabbed some dinner, then came back to Sidonie's and passed out (as evidenced by our short post from last night). Sidonie got going early this morning to perform in a promotion for her show while the Woodmere gang slept in until noon (awesome). We finally got going, did a little shopping and ate some lunch at Vapiano's, a Subway-style Italian restaurant. We dined on pasta and Arizona peach tea (a sweet reminder of home!). We then picked up some dinner for Sidonie then took it to her at the theatre. We got to hang out and meet some of her friends for a little bit before the theatre kicked guests out before the show. As a thank-you for doing her promotional gig today, she got a huge bouquet of flowers (we've learned that they do flower bouquets really well here in Germany). We took those home for her but ran into an Ikea across the street to get her a big vase. Now that she has an agent, she'll need bigger flower vases for her soon-to-come bigger flowers!
So now we're chillin' at casa de Sidonie and waiting for her to come home! We still haven't sampled our beer that we bought in Brussels, so we're planning to have a chocolate and beer-tasting party when she gets here. We leave tomorrow for Amsterdam and hope to get there in time to check out the Van Gogh Museum.
We also really like reading the ads around here because, well, they're funny. Here are two winners from Germany:
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