(Warning! Much fiction follows!…)

Thursday, April 21st was a RED LETTER DAY in Germany. The first American female ever to fly a Lufthansa 737 without a pilot’s license or any flight training successfully took to the skies, carefully and skillfully guiding 94 passengers (including a stunned pilot and co-pilot) from Düsseldorf to Hamburg without a hitch. The German transportation authority and German government were amazed, citing it a “miracle”. “Those Americans just keep getting smarter and smarter!”, Chancellor Schröder exclaimed.

After landing, the American was greeted with a tickertape runway parade, fireworks, Bavarian dancers, and lots of German chocolate. The Chancellor declared it a national holiday from that day forward, lauding it a “day of reconciliation and bridge building between two great countries and their great citizens”. Miss Crawford took it all in stride, saying “it was a nice break from the international tax treaties that I am usually writing & translating into myriad languages. Flying jetliners is a piece of cake in comparison”.

In other news… we successfully moved all of Soenke’s stuff into our new apartment in Poppenbüttel(neighborhood in north Hamburg). I had no idea one guy could have so much stuff ! Thankfully we had the assistance of several friends, including Knut, Mehmet, & Klaudia. I was a good supervisor & coordinator, meaning that I kept an eye on the sodas & made sure no one was slacking. At the new pad, we put things in order (roughly speaking), hung a few necessary window coverings, and bought some kitchen stuff at Ikea (they even have WAL MART in Hamburg! It’s so great!).

Somewhere in there I had a Girls Day with Sally, which meant that I brought over all the Mary Kay stuff she’d bought from our gal Brenda (USA), & went through it as only girls can do (LOVED that Satin Hand Lotion!) We then took to the roads of Hamburg & somehow found our way to the university area where Sally used to live a few years back, & enjoyed a great Italian lunch. I was especially happy that we found somewhere to park that didn’t involve parallel parking!

Back to the 737 story. Here are some more, er, factual details. I actually got to ride in the *COCKPIT* with Soenke on his flight from Düsseldorf to Hamburg, and I got my OWN headset, with a microphone, & some buttons on the control panel that I was allowed to push. IT WAS SO COOL. So I pushed my button, & we took off. Then later I pushed another button, & we landed. It was a miracle. In between sitting at the gate & landing, I tried not to pass out from sheer terror. After admitting that small fact to Soenke, I don’t think I will be invited back to the cockpit again. (TIM STOP LAUGHING.) But it was still VERY VERY COOL, definitely a red letter day for me !!

Photos follow…

Here’s the plane I flew:

My cockpit:

Soenke assisting me as co-pilot:

Me doing the hard flying work:

Soenke congratulating me after a successful flight! :

On to the Hamburg apartment move…

Assistant Mover Klaudia

Assistants Mehmet & Soenke at the old flat:

Our Fearless Leader Knut:

Has anyone ever seen me vacuum before?!? :

Soenke successfully installs window covering; too bad the door won’t open now! :

Sally & Jen enjoying caramel macchiatos:

Another gratuitous shot of Soenke in his uniform:

Some nice buildings in Düsseldorf:

Wednesday 16 March found Soenke & I at LAX… him on the way back to Hamburg after 10 days in LA, and me on the way to New York for another stellar crazy-opera-girls weekend ! This time our favored tenor José Cura was the target, singing Samson & Delilah with Denyce Graves at the Metropolitan Opera. For those who don’t know about José, he is the hot Argentinian tenor that brought all of us crazy opera girls together about 6 or 7 years ago. We have since banded together & traveled to various countries & venues to see him sing over the years. Along the way, we became best friends & started vacationing together even when José was nowhere near our destination! We also have met friends all over the world who share an appreciation for José…oh yeah, and his music).

And so I arrived at JFK at around 10pm & cabbed it to Lin’s tony NY apartment on the upper east side. It is VERY TONY. I was greeted at her building by the 24-hour uniformed, French-speaking doorman who took all my luggage up for me. Nice touch. Her 43rd-floor apartment has an unbelievable view over upper Manhattan, the East River and Hell’s Gate. (Not bad, Lin!) Close investigation of her fridge led to my delighted discovery of mango Stilton cheese, grapes, olives, and some Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I thought I had died & gone to heaven.

Lin & Anita (from Ohio) arrived back to the flat shortly thereafter, fresh from that night’s Samson performance & we immediately began celebrating & catching up. On Thursday, the girls headed off for sightseeing and I did some tax work at Lin’s desk (a secret excuse to soak up some of more of that fabulous view). Thursday night we went in search of a Moroccan restaurant which had, as we discovered, gone the way of the 8-track, and instead enjoyed a meal of mezzes and lamb at a delicious Turkish joint.

Anita headed back to Ohio on Friday to celebrate her 38th wedding anniversary, and Lin & I lingered over a long Italian lunch with plenty of important philosophical girl talk & advice. Cindy arrived from Virginia in fabulous form just in time for us to head off to the famous Grand Central Station Oyster Café for dinner with our other opera friend, Monique, whom I had not seen since our Madrid ‘Il Trovatore’ trip in December 2000. Monique is an international cancer research gal who manages to squeeze in José sightings wherever possible. After dinner we headed over to Carnegie Hall (my first visit !!! awesome!) for a recital with baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky who has a wonderful voice & used it to sing some very low, depressing Russian songs. Cindy loved him but I left feeling like I wanted to go freeze to death in Siberia with some borscht and a bottle of Vodka. On the upside, I had a really great front-row box seat & we got to meet Dmitri after the performance at a CD signing. We then headed off to a tapas bar, ‘Oliva’, that Cindy had heard was great (she’s always our restaurant gal). It WAS great.

Saturday was the day of the big Samson performance. Lin had lined up a fantastic pre-performance dinner at Josephina’s (across from the Met) which was attended by a good group of fans, including some from England and Ireland. Many of them are heavily involved in José’s international fan club, for which Lin is the US representative. It was a lively bunch & we had plenty of notes and experiences to share.

Going to the Metropolitan Opera is always a hugely elegant, exhilarating experience. I stopped before crossing the street to soak in the beautiful facade with giant arched windows, which were lit up by the gorgeous chandeliers and rich red carpet inside. Thanks to Lin, my seat was dead center in the Grand Tier. The performance, of course, was magnificent (I’ll leave the technical reviews to qualified reviewers). When the temple came down & the last curtain fell, there was a warm ovation & we headed to the backstage door hoping that we had gotten on the “list” to see José. He had not taken any backstage visitors since the run began, so we were worried. Thankfully we were all on the coveted list & after a short wait had a chance to see and chat with José. He was in good spirits, and full of the usual flirtation, and smiled his way through various photos & signatures. Let me say that the backstage visitors were 99% women, as José has this dangerous animal magnetism that few women on earth can resist (and he knows it!).

And thus the big opera weekend drew to a close! Sunday I flew back to LA and everyone else headed back home as well. We were all left with very happy memories & excited plans for the next reunion!

Believe it or not, I don’t have any backstage photos yet (my ‘people’ are slow on getting those to me…) but here are some other weekend shots:

“Important client calls” in Lin’s NY flat (right….!):

Cura babes getting ready for a big night on the town:

Cindy, Lin, Monique & me at a tapas bar (Oliva) after Samson & Delilah: