The Stage!

Just a short one today! Very exciting news.  I jumped on stage today for the first time, NOT in the show yet, but at least it's a start.  It is very different as I'm used to training in the Artistic tent.  Tomorrow is the dress rehearsal for Vienna, so today was light check and training back on stage.  Normally we don't train out on stage but today was an exception!  The lighting goes from overhead normal lighting to stage lighting, which is crazy.  I actually prefer to jump on stage than in the artistic tent because on stage it seems much more focused.  I am consistently improving and making mistakes in the name of learning.  I'll be on stage for my first premiere on Thursday as well.  The show will be packed full and it should be a great night!!  Another change is that for the show I'll be in the poor costume and on the other side...  Not the Bourgeois (Rich) burgundy costume! Should be fun! 

Oh and something else we just learned...  If you travel to Europe with a Magic Bullet, you need to get a power adapter/converter, unless you want a hotel room filled with smoke.  Just saying...


Ok, I guess we can tell you all about our trip to the aquarium, House of the Sea, (www.haus-des-meeres.at/en).  It was in a 10 story building, where the bottom floor is a mix of animals, second and third are all snakes, 4th-6th is a huge Rainforest with free roaming monkeys and birds and 6th-8th is a huge tank with sharks, a green sea-turtle, and lots of cool fish, the 9th is a panoramic balcony overlooking the city.  This is all in the center of the city, and it looks like an apartment building.

Here are a few pictures that we took of the animals.  The monkeys, birds, and some tortoises weren't caged or anything, just free to roam the building!!!

Python

Green and Spiky

Monkey!

Hornbill

Yawning...

Cool Fish

TURTLE!

He looked Hungry...

Alex on the Rooftop.

Vienna- Week 1

Well everyone,
We've made it here, we're finally set up in our room at the Novotel Suites in Vienna or Wein, as it's spelled here.  So far, so good.  It's a very stylish and comfy room, large all open concept, with a bathroom (toilet closet) and a nicer bathroom with a shower, sink and tub.   In the main , we have a huge desk (fits all 3 computers) and a nice couch/reading nook in the window.  We have a flat-screen TV that swings out on a wall mount so we can watch from the living room or bed.  The bedroom is nice with bedside tables and lamps.  We have a very small kitchen area, just a mini fridge, sink, and a microwave but today I bought a hot plate and a frying pan, so... eggs in the morning!!

It's been a pretty slow week for us here so far.  Basically we have been on about 4 long walks (about 4 hours each) trying to figure out where we are and how big Vienna is!  It's actually a huge city!!  We've discovered that there are more parks in this city than people and nicest one is the longest bikepath I've ever seen.  The Donau River runs right through, the north part of the city, our backyard.  It has been split into two parallel rivers and on both banks as well as the long peninsula between them, there are bike paths, gardens, shrubs and woods. 

Here is a map of our area, the northern part.  We live at the X, the "A" is Stephensplatz which is the downtown area.  There is a subway here the U and it goes under the entire city.  We live above the U1 which goes from here to Stephensplatz and best of all Cirque gave me a free pass for the entire time we're here.  Alex bought a week pass for 11 Euros too.  So we can go anywhere in the city now.  The Cirque tent is somewhere near the bottom of this map in the center. 

So after walking, we've really seen a lot of different things but really haven't been anywhere major yet.  We've been passed all the major Museums (haven't gone in yet) and we've walked through some very pretty gardens.  This is the statue of Johann Strauss in Stadtpark (city park).  We found it by accident, just thought the park was really pretty. 

We've been having fun learning how to get around this place and, although frustrating sometimes, we've been trying not to get lost too much.  One day we actually had no idea where we were going and we were looking at the map, unable to see where we were.  I am usually really good with a map, but this was one of those moments.  Luckily we came out at this old abandoned railroad station and scrap yard and eventually found our way to the Donau.

 After we watched some swans swim by we found our way back home.  Our neighbourhood (neighborhood, for the Americans reading this too) is interesting.  It is definitely a lower classed area but it feels safe.  There is a huge church right on the corner of the subdivision, which is a great landmark.  You can almost see it from downtown.  Looks like a castle. 


Not too much has really happened here yet, just the everyday stuff, buying groceries is 10X harder on account of the primary language being German, not French or English.  It is a rather odd situation for me.  I realized I have never been anywhere in the world that I didn't understand at least a bit of the language.  Here, I am at the mercy of people who wish to speak English, if they don't I have no idea.  It is a rather different situation for me.  I'm not really scared of this fact, more challenged by the new language.  I really want to start to try to at least read and recognize common words.  


What I have learned so far is that beer and wine, really good beer and wine, is very cheap!  We had to stop and take pictures in the grocery store...  Yes, we're tourists...


This beer, for instance, an original Budweiser, was 67 cents!!!  And yes we bought some wine too.  It is much cheaper than water, a bottle of water the same size was 3 Euros.

Continuing on our church visits, we went into the Dominikan Church, Dominikanerkirche, and did some exploring!  It took quite a while to see everything, there were paintings on the ceiling, walls, pews, everything.  There was a huge organ at the back of the church too.  This church was built in the 1630's and from the front looked like a Roman style building with beautiful statues and carvings, much different than the Gothic style in Brussels. Along with the paintings inside there we statues, monuments, and lots of religious "junk" really.  It looked like an episode of Hoarders.  I'm sure everything was meaningful and important, it just seemed there was so much stuff.  It was really fun to look at though and see, from a historical perspective, not necessarily an interior design one however.  

Alex finished her first paper for her class...  The Mars Expeditions...  One less thing to worry about now.  We are planning on going to the Aquarium tomorrow and maybe another long walk somewhere. We're both battling headcolds but hopefully we start feeling better by tomorrow.  The weather has been really great here and hopefully this continues, tomorrow could be as warm as 10 degrees C out there!!  Let's hope!  OH! ...
my bird list is getting much better now too with the water so nearby, maybe soon I'll post more of my bird pictures.  There are some very cool ones here too!!



'Til next time!!
 Aa and Alex

Good Bye Brussels, Hello Vienna!!

Well we've made it!  We are in Vienna, Austria, now and so far it's been good.

Tear down last week was crazy!  Believe it or not even in Cirque du Soleil, the artists are responsible for some part of the tear down.  It is not like the original circus where you were in charge of rigging, setting up and tearing down your own tent, etc. but we still had lots of responsibility.  On our last performance day, Sunday, we began tearing down our part of the tent, the artistic tent.  By the end of show 2 there was literally nothing left inside, no warm up equipment, no practice mats, nothing...  Just our wardrobes, which went as soon as we got our costumes and makeup off.  Everything fits into these road cases and each road case is specific to what it is carrying.  There is a carpenter on site who has made each one to the exact speculations of whatever it's carrying.  From the teeterboard to the treadmill, everything has its own case.  After these are loaded onto trucks they are driven here to Vienna.



After tear down we had two days off to relax and say bye to the city.  We took the time to go to some of the more touristy spots including Rue de Bouchers which is a skinny little corridor in the city center that has about 100 small little restaurants that offer 3 course menus for cheap.  We ducked into a small Mediterranean styled one and had a great meal for 12 euros.  Grilled Garlic Shrimp, Steak and Chicken, and a waffle for dessert!!  It was very good! 




 
We also went back to St. Michael's Cathedral and we stayed for about an hour.  We went into the basement and looked at the original foundation, some of which is from the 11th Century!  We lit a candle in the church as well, for all of our grandparents (there are a lot of them!!).  

We visited Manneken Pis as well, which is the statue that Brussels is known for.  It is rather hilarious that this country loves this little statue, and it is little.  It stands only about 2ft tall and is up on a stone fountain about 10 ft at most.  This little boy peeing has entire shops, beers and an entire city adorning its image.  It's just funny.  That said it was something we had to see and of course we took photos and video.  

We sent some of our luggage ahead on a luggage truck so that we could travel comfortably on the plane.  Cirque chartered a full plane so we did not have to pay any travel fees which was great!!  The plane was a regular jet, Airbus A320 for anyone who really needs details, and it was packed full.  It was great to see how many people were on tour including family members.  We filled an entire jet!!

So far our impression of Vienna is not much.  We got in last night at 11, got partially settled enough to sleep and checked out our room.  It is a much more stylish room than Brussels but it is lacking the full kitchen.  We'll have to make some adjustments but so far it hasn't been too bad.  We have the internet on one computer (the Mac... Just saying) and the PC is not really liking to connect, not sure why...

Hope you are all enjoying the snow back home, for some more than others.  We had a small dusting last night, and today...  Green grass.  Hopefully we'll be up and running here in no time and figuring out the city.  We haven't decided yet what we're doing for our week off now, we'll keep you posted!!

Til Next Time!!
Aa and Alex

Alex's First Time WATCHING the Show!!

Alex and Aaron here, both of us are going to write this one!

Today was the first day, after asking for the past few days that Alex got to go to the show as a spectator and simply watch and enjoy the show.  For me, it was a very cool experience as she is the first person that I know that came to see me living my dream and I could see her at a few different points during the show!  What a great sight for me to see, when I'm bowing, and there's Alex smiling back and waving.

Alex here now,
Hello everyone!

I can finally write to all of you now that I am caught up with the new time change and back to feeling somewhat normal. Today I decided to go into work with Aaron just to get out of the apartment and do something fun. I went and observed his training session first. It was pretty cool to watch until he had a crazy landing on one of his skills which almost had me jump out of my seat. Other than that, I would say he is doing pretty well and fits in with the other planche guys. As we were about to leave for lunch the artistic director, James, asked if I was going to stay for the first show. He then pulled out a ticket for what I would say was the best seat in the house! I was pretty excited.

I attended the 4 o'clock show which was almost full and full of excited people. As the show began, rather than sitting back and relaxing....I got nervous and sat on the edge of my seat. Aaron walked out and performed his first scene in the opening act. I got the instant feeling of "hey I know him!" I wanted to tell everyone around me but besides the fact that they probably wouldn't care, they didn't speak English! The show was very different to see live with everyone right in front of my face compared to the small television that I watched the show from on my first day backstage. I also felt myself more nervous watching the show because I had met the people behind each act. I compared it to when we saw a show in Vegas and I could care less if they fell or messed up, I didn't know them!  At the intermission, I felt important when I got to go outside and get through the gate that fellow spectators weren't allowed to go past in order to get to the backstage tent to hang out with Aaron for the 20min break.  When I returned to my seat for the second half I once again wanted to tell the guy next to me where I got to go during intermission. Instead, I held it in and began to watch the second act. It also looked much better and different in person than when I was half asleep watching it backstage a few days ago. The BEST part (other than watching Aaron in all of his acts) was at the very end when the cast members and audience were all clapping. Aaron got to see me in the crowd waving and I guess my ring hit the light and gave him quite the wave as well. The show was overall quite the experience! I would go every day if they would let me. I'm very proud of him!

There you have it!!   I was so glad Alex got to come see the show and the next time she see's it I hope I'm jumping Planche in the show!  Hopefully, since you all can't be here, you at least share a little excitement that we both had today!  Maybe someday I'll get to see you in the audience too!  All in all a great day!!

We'll write more soon! Only one week left in Brussels, then it's off to Vienna, Austria!

I figured I'd add a few more photos from backstage today. 

 - This is me in my robe, which we wear when we leave the artistic tent to go outside or to the kitchen.  They keep the costumes clean mainly, or to Alex, they make us all look like boxers...  or monks.


Til next time!!

Aaron and Alex!!

Bruge... Brugges... Bruges... Yeah, That place.

Depending on the language you are speaking, one of these is the proper way to spell this city's name.  Today was the first of two consecutive days off for us at Corteo, the "double-dark" as it is referred to.  Alex and I decided we would take a day trip to Brugge, pronounced "Brooge", which is directly west of Brussels by about an hour.

Our day started with a train ride at about noon.  We got our tickets, headed to the platform and within two minutes were comfortably seated in a beautiful train car enjoying our lunch. I felt pretty good as I wasn't too sure what this train would look like and it was Alex's first time on a train (lame but true...)  I was in the process of impressing her with our wonderfully comfortable seats when, approximately two minutes later we were escorted to the second class cabin... Apparently we missed the #1 on the door when we got on and had seated ourselves in the first class cabin.  After a brisk walk backward on the train, through the cars, we found the "not-as-comfortable-but-still-ok" seats designated for the "not-so-fortunate" travelers.

Our train ride was rather uneventful outside of a few really huge pigeons (aka. Beefy Pigeon), and very tiny horses, which we dubbed mini-horse.  It was about an hour long and traveled west through some very small towns and one major city, Ghent.  A few interesting things we noticed were the size of fields.  Coming from both Chatham-Kent and Mt. Pleasant, we are both used to farms and farmland but here, even in the city people have chickens, sheep, and small 1/2 acre fields.  It was very odd to see big business buildings and small houses with sheep on the same lot.  Different world over here.

We got off our train at the very edge of Brugge and we were told by some fellow Cirquians that it was easier to just walk into the town rather than take the bus.  This was very good advice as we got to see a ton of the city.  We walked from about 1-7pm.  There was a whole lot to see and we took loads of photos.  Some notable areas we saw were:  The Belfry Tower at the centre of the Central Market, The Canals running through the city and in most places under the city, The huge Churches and Cathedrals (about 10 in the small town), the Horse Drawn Carriages, the Brick Roads, and of course the Statues.

Here are a few photos that we took today, just a quick look at Brugge.

On the Canal

Alex on a Bridge

Old Bridge Over the Canal 

Aa and Alex in Brugge

  

He's wearing my UWO Ring

14th Century Sandstone

Alex and her Lion

Belfry at Night

The Belfry (Tower)

View from the top

  Most of our day consisted of walking around the city.  We mostly followed the canals into and around small subsections.  We walked though the campus of the old Sint Jans Hospital and also went to the Center Market, very similar to Brussels.  We even took a very steep walk up the steps of the Belfry (Tower) at the center of the city. This was built in and around the 13th-15th Centuries and it it was very noticeable. The placard on the wall says that the tower leans over 1m southwest... Cool.

Leg Cramps: 15th Century Stairs

After our climb (366 steps) we had a beautiful panoramic view of the entire city and we had a lovely song played for us by the bells hanging above our heads!!  It was very loud but pretty nonetheless.  On our way down, both Alex and I had leg cramps and literally had to stop halfway and stretch.  These stairs were about 5 inches wide each and very very steep.  I actually fell down a few of them while making a video of our expedition.  After the tower, we went to a few local pubs and restaurants, tried a couple beers (10% alcohol) and some wine.  After our long day of walking and exploring we jumped back on the train home, which is much shorter when you fall asleep!
We woke up at our stop and went to a grill nearby for some dinner. 

We're now back home relaxing and eventually going to sleep!
We had a great day today and tomorrow we plan on exploring Brussels again!  We'll most likely have lots more pictures tomorrow and a new story for everyone tomorrow night.  We miss you all.

Til next time!
Aa and Alex