Hey,

So basically no one is using MySpace anymore so I moved my blog to a more serious site. You can now find it at http://amandamichellewhite.wordpress.com/

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Don't worry, that doesn't mean you can't still subscribe! f you want to subscribe in an RSS reader, you can either click the above link, or go to the blog and hit the little RSS icon. It's not that hard!

Love always,
Amanda White

Hey everyone!

I've been planning for ages to have a set of tshirts printed up, but haven't pulled the resources together. I didn't want to open a page on Cafe Press because their stuff sucks, but I finally decided to try Zazzle. Last month I took my design and ordered a tank top, and it looked pretty good. So I went ahead and opened a gallery, where you can buy merch with my name and design on it. Please go here and order something! And let me know how it comes out, since I've only checked one of the products so far. Better yet, send me a pic of you wearing it!

Also let me know if you want something you don't see, like a different product or song lyrics on the back (I put a line from my unreleased song "Snowshadow" on the back of the girls' tank top, but I didn't go ahead and do it with the other products 'cause I wasn't sure what lyrics people would want).

So, back to my life. Monday we had our first of two Carmen rehearsals. People were really on book, which was a little disconcerting, but left me feeling better about the parts I didn't know- there was one chorus part that I was confused about whether or not we were or weren't singing, turned out we were and I hadn't finished memorizing it- and another part Ralph hadn't warned us that he wanted us to sing. My friend Jessica Kasinski, who sang in Thais with me, is Carmen, and she sounds REALLY REALLY GOOD. And she's one of those wonderful people to work with onstage, like Heather Green and Veronica Soldera and a few of my other singer friends who really just burn up the stage.

Albert Nidel, who was my Tonio in Pagliacci, is Zuniga. Actually I remembered when Eric Jorgenson and I offered to put in a good word for him with Amici, and I think Eric directly got him this part.

And like I probably mentioned before, the girl who was double cast with me as Bastienne, Rebecca Graver, is Mercedes. So I know a good portion of the cast. (Ralph is Escamillo of course!)

So yeah peeps were totally using music the whole rehearsal, even those that had performed it recently (Amici has done it a few times recently), but I'm sure it's more of a security blanket thing. Hopefully we'll put down the scores for the next rehearsal. But I have to shut up 'til I'm 100% on those chorus parts.

So I'm sitting around trying to memorize the chorus in Act 4 we apparently DO have to do, and I'm thinking, "You know, technically I don't know what a quadrille is, so I should probably look it up." To clarify: I thought the quadrille was a dance, but from the lyrics of the chorus it sounds like a part of a parade. Like, a parade with soldiers with swords. So I'm like, OK it's a really exciting part of the parade, probably involving some sort of dance-like formation, starring soldiers armed with swords. So I'm sitting around googling and wikipediaing it, and it turns out that I was pretty much right on both accounts- it IS a dance, a square-dancey like thing, BUT it was originally based on a HORSE dance. So the quadrille in the parade is a horse dance. Well then I start getting curious, and wondering what a quadrille looks like- in either the human or equestrian form. So I YouTube the human version, and I come up with these rather dull videos- but the soundtrack threw me for a loop. They've got some midified version of Fledermaus playing! The opening number is a mash-up of Prince Orlovsky's aria with a bit of Adele's audition aria thrown in. The other 3 installments all feature highlights from Die Fledermaus, as well. Huh???



And in case anyone else is curious like me, I did find the horse version. A little dull, but on the other hand- Equi-dance, huh? I think if I were into horses I would totally be doing "equi-dance." :) It's a neat concept. I wonder if the horses eventually memorize the moves?



This is a long entry already, but one more bit of news- today was my first day back at New York Circus Arts Academy after my surgery. Cypher insisted that I make my reentry through his Conditioning and Flexibility class, which is suckage for me because I don't particularly care for that class as I am already a house and it hasn't done squat for my flexibility. But anyways it was really really great to be back, even with all my saying to myself "I really shouldn't be doing aerial anymore, not with my bad shoulder, and I really don't have time, and it's totally not beneficial to my music or anything," but after two hours back there I can tell I won't be leaving anytime soon. It just feels awesome to be there.

OK I shd go luv u by

xoxox
Amanda

"It's finished and over forever."

Bastien und Bastienne, that is. Yeah that's a line from the Schirmer translation.

Yesterday (Saturday) was my big show- Queen of the Night aria, Cosi trio, and my first Bastienne. It went really, really well! It was a good team- the tenor had a really good voice, the Colas was hilarious, the pianist was super nice, and everything went great.

I called Amici to ask about the Frasquita-Mercedes division, and I pretty much got the response I expected- whenever we sing together, I should take the top line; otherwise, it'd between us to figure out. So we're just keeping to our own Schirmer-assigned lines when we're not singing harmony.

Added Fledermaus pics to MySpace and website. I have to order a print of one for my mom. If y'all wanna get a print you can order one from the photographer, of course. :) http://loriduprey.com/fledermaus/index.html

Sorry, I'm a little boring today! I guess I'm wiped. Tomorrow I go to Philly for our first Carmen rehearsal. Turns out I know the Carmen, who sang with me in Thais, and she's really cool so we're all good. I still have to figure out how I'm getting from Philly to Landsdowne. Lansdown? Lansdale? I don't know...

The glamorous life of opera, n'est-ce pas?

Good night!

Love always,
Amanda

Hey!

So tomorrow afternoon is my performance of Bastienne. Today we had off, so I went to Opera Lancaster to see some friends in Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. I was impressed with the quality- I thought it might suck, but actually the shows were very professional. (I use the term figuratively, as it's an all-volunteer company.) The sets and costumes were fabulous. Very few outstanding voices but the overall preparation was great. Puts what we've got at Capitol Opera Harrisburg to shame, I have to admit- but we have better singers. :)

I'm banging my head against the wall about Carmen. See, all the scenes from Carmen I've performed have been as written in the Schirmer score. However, I knew that often Frasquita and Mercedes switch certain lines so that Frasquita always has the top line. So when Ralph at Amici was giving me the cuts, I asked him which way we were doing it. He said the version where Frasquita was always on top. (The way it's published in Schirmer, Frasquita and Mercedes switch back and forth who is on top and who is mezzo, even though Mercedes is usually cast as a mezzo.) Although I'm certain he's working from the Schirmer score. Now that's good, because some places I know the top line (like in Notre Metier, where Mercedes has the soprano line in Schirmer), and the scenes I've done before I pretty much know it both ways.

So I'm sitting here with my score trying to figure out what goes where and I just can't. It's not as obvious as you would think. Sure, if F&M are singing in harmony, it's easy to just take the top part, but what about when they're singing in turn? And I thought I remembered hearing that sometimes they switch verse parts on the card trio, but that seemed like too extreme an alteration for our case.

I finally decided I needed to get professional help. I thought I'll just call my coach and have him give it to me measure-for-measure over the phone, and just send him a check.

He returned my call and told me that there's another version of the score, the "Opera Comique" version (which I would assume means it's the original, with dialogue and not recit, since it was originally composed for the Opera Comique), where Frasquita is always on top, but there are a lot of other changes, too. Now I'm sure we're using Schirmer, not this other score that I've never seen, but are we supposed to make all the part switches? I don't know. So I'll call Ralph tomorrow to ask. Will he say vaguely, "Just always sing what's on top"? Or, worse, will he say, "Oh, no, actually, just do it as written in Schirmer" and I'll have to learn all these mezzo parts I don't know just two days before our first of only two rehearsals? Guess I should have worked this out sooner instead of "guessing" up until now. I probably would have guessed my way all the way through it, except it turns out my Mercedes is the girl I'm double-cast with in Bastien. She hadn't known to ask about the part switching, so she learned it as written. Which is what I really don't want to do. Either way, ONE of us is going to have to learn some mezzo parts FAST.

My guess is the answer will be unclear either way, and I'll cut a deal with Mercedes/Bastienne that we can do as written except on Notre Metier, where I really know the soprano part and don't know the mezzo at all. The rest I'm flexible on.

And no, I am not waiting until 2 days before to learn my music. I know 99% of it (gotta straighten out a few lyrics.) Just apparently not all the right parts, one way or another... I'd've done this sooner, except this Bastienne thing came up...

On a happier, note, I finally got to check out the Fledermaus pictures and they are FABULOUS!!! The pics are from the dress rehearsal- if you followed my whole drama you know my costume was slightly different for the performance, but not by much. :) It's going to take me forever to go through all the pics, pick out my faves, and post them to my website. But here they are if you want to go through them yourself. I'm in the blue & white maid costume at the beginning, and the hot pink gown in the second and third acts.

Lucky me, I got another rehearsal tonight, for a grand total of two. We didn't run it in order- we did the second half first, then the first half- but I was glad to get a chance to work through it with the Colas.

So here's the long-awaited synopsis! (Based on the English version- not sure how different the German version is, as I didn't get too deep into translating the recits when I was cramming it in Bolivia.)

Bastienne (aka Bastienna in the Schirmer version) is so sad! Her lover, Bastien, is untrue. She wants to die- but not really, because she takes solace in her sheep.

Colas the magician appears and she requests his help. He tells her Bastien still loves her- he is just being a bit of a matieralist, as the woman who's caught his attention is a sugar mamma.

She remembers how he used to steal her flowers teasingly, and is so sad that he would go to another for gifts, when she would give him all her land and sheep if he asked.

She toys with the idea of playing the courtesan like Bastien, but decides that she never could, her love for him is too pure.

Colas explains that she has to pretend to like someone else to get him to come back. She decides to give it a try.

Bastien shows up and thanks Colas for bringing him to his senses about his love life- but Colas tells him it's too late, Bastienne has another admirer. Colas casts a magic spell to make it better.

Bastienne arrives on the scene after Colas has left and tells Bastien it's over between them. They both threaten to go into town and find wealthy lovers and marry them and be happy forever.

Bastien threatens suicide, but Bastienne still plays it cool. She sends him away, and the two lament the loss of their love.

But then, kind of out of the blue, they're like, "Well, never mind, we do still love each other- let's start anew!" and they promise no more fighting- they are going to be true lovers to each other forever and ever and they are getting married!

Colas comes back on and sends them off hand in hand to live happily ever after. They cheer for Colas, a wonderful man. Hooray!

The end. :) It's supposed to be a parody on pastoral operas, which I guess is why they get back together so suddenly. It's hard to judge, having never seen a specimen of the parodied genre.

Well that's all for now, hope to see some of you Saturday afternoon!

Love always,
Amanda

Hey guys!

Still in Harrisburg. Just sent out my mass email and updated my website calendar. Forgot to add my Daughter of the Regiment dates. Oh well. My assistant was sick for a few days so I had to do everything myself. The horror.

Tonight I had my only rehearsal for Bastien und Bastienne. Still no Colas (the smallish bass role). He's supposed to be there tomorrow. Otherwise the director will have to jump into the role- and she's a soprano. Anyways as far as I was concerned it went well. We had to stage the end of the opera, the rest of the blocking I got yesterday from my double.

The Mozart concert looks really good. My Queen of the Night is rocking, which is good because I was feeling rusty on it when I first got here (having pretty much just returned from 2 weeks vacation). I should probably sing Der Hoelle Rache more often- I tend to rely on O Zittre Nicht to show off my Queen, but that's just not the one people want to hear!

Mostly I've just been walking since I've been here. Sleeping and walking. It's a 5 mile walk into town from my hotel, and I have no access to a car. My feet hurt.

I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Sorry I'm so boring today- please enjoy this article.

Stuff White People Like: Appearing to enjoy Classical Music

"If a white person starts talking to you about classical music, it's essential that you tread very lightly. This is because white people are all petrified that they will be exposed as someone who has only a moderate understanding of classical music. When a white person encounters another white person who actually enjoys classical music (exceptionally rare), it is often considered to be one of the most traumatic experiences they can go through."

Wow that hit home- in terms of my conversations talking to non-musicians, I mean.

Love you guys!

Mandy

Hello my loves!

I am in Harrisburg again, this time participating in a Mozart concert and singing the role of Bastienne in Mozart's very early opera, Bastien und Bastienne. He wrote it when he was twelve, and believe it or not it was commissioned by Dr. Franz Mesmer. Weird. Opera fans will be aware that Dr. Mesmer is parodied by Despina in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, which was written towards the end of Mozart's life.

Rehearsals started Sunday afternoon, but I had my first day of my new church on Sunday and fortunately the directors were able to work around my absence. I arrived yesterday and went straight to rehearsal, where we ran the Mozart concert portion of the concert. The only things I was slated to sing were Der Hoelle Rache (Queen of the Night) and Fiordiligi's line in Soave sia il vento (from Cosi fan tutte). But the girl who's supposed to sing some Susanna stuff wasn't at the rehearsal yesterday or today, so I filled in for her on Deh vieni and sull'aria. She's still supposed to be at the concert, but we should know for sure tomorrow. Also, Eric Jorgenson is here- he's the one who conducted Pagliacci- and he's singing some tenor stuff, and he recommended that we do the Fiordiligi-Ferrando duet. Which I don't know, because I've always been more of a Despina than a Fiordiligi (though who knows what the future will bring), but we're allowed to use music, and I sight-read it fine in rehearsal. We'll decide tomorrow whether or not we're doing it for sure.

Today was the Bastien und Bastienne rehearsal. So, when Capitol Opera Harrisburg asked me to do Bastienne, I was in Bolivia and had to frantically search for a score. Then I remembered that pretty much all of Mozart's music is available free online. However, I couldn't manage to print it, so I got my assistant in India to put it in a pdf file for me, but he has trouble understanding which score to print- the point being that it took a long time for me to finally get the score. Then, the day after I get it, the director just happens to mention that, oh, by the way, we're doing it in English. Oh, thanks for letting me know. So now I have less than a week before I have to be here. I just sucked it up and got the score at Juilliard the day after I got back- btw not a single store in NYC had a recording, not even Academy Records. When is the freaking Met store opening back up??? I had to iTunes it.

Soooo anyways. I didn't get to rehearse formally, as I had just copied down the blocking from the girl I'm double cast with 5 minutes ago. So she did it, and I ran through my blocking in the corner, and tried on costumes, etc. Then the pianist stayed late with me so I could run it through by my lonesome, after everyone else had left. Yep, I did the show by myself, including the dialogue, duets and the trio. After all, as seems to be a pattern for me, I'd never done any of this music with piano before at all- just by myself, a capella and a little singing a long to the recording (mostly just in my head while jogging and on the train), so I wanted a chance to run it- as it is it looks like I only have one rehearsal, the one tomorrow.

So, that's what's up with me. I'll write more about Bastien und Bastienne later. Synopsis and whatnot. So I'll talk to you guys later!

Love always,
Amanda

Hey! Sorry dudes I haven't gotten a chance to get caught up with ya!

After being in La Paz for a night, I went to Lake Titicaca and stayed on Isla del Sol. It was really gorgeous! You had to climb up this huge huge huge hill to get to where the hotels were. With the altitude and the heavy packs and everything, it was an extreme physical exertion, even for me.

I didn't know where to go and I hate hustlers, so I went to the HI hostel. The travel agent in the town on the lake who had booked my boat recommended it (without booking me) and some girls on the ferry said they were going there, so it was the best I had to go on. The HI hostel kind of sucked, and the Aymara ladies who ran it didn't speak or understand a word of English, but it was cheap and close.

The views all over the island village were fabulous. There were restaurant patios overlooking the lake every few feet. I joined the Irish girls at my hostel for a coffee at a patio across from the hostel. The beverages were sub-par but the sun and sea were worth the whole trip.

The only thing to do on the island is to walk across it, which theoretically takes 4 hours one way. The only way to get back is to take a boat, and I didn't know what time they ran but I was sure they were done for the day. It was 4:30 by the time I left the girls, and I knew I only had a couple hours before the sun went down (it is winter down there), but there was nothing else to do and I was feeling energized after recovering from the climb.

I reached the halfway point of the island right at sunset, and turned back around to try to get home before it got too dark. This was pretty faulty thinking, as it gets dark pretty much when the sun goes down, and I had, being generous about my speed, an hour and a half walk ahead of me. It wasn't long before I was stumbling in the dark. Then I remembered I had a mag light! I pulled it out and twisted it on. The keychain-sized light, which was so impressive when shone upon my reading materials in the bus, barely made a scratch in the darkness of the island. Disappointment! Anyways I speed-walked the path back towards the village lights, thinking I'd be safe once I got to the end of the island.

Wrong! Counterintuitively, the darkness was even more of a hazard once the trans-island path splintered into winding, stepped stone streets, and I had to figure out which rocks were part of the sidewalk and which were part of the scenery. The problem was that there was hardly any light in the village- only a few scattered street lights, and even the hotels and restaurants were kept very dark, with most of the lights extinguished. I was practically crawling on my hands and knees at points, trying not to fall over a cliff.

I asked directions from some locals and eventually stumbled upon my hostel. Then I had to head out for food. I went to the nearest restaurant, where I found the girls, who had had exactly the same problem as me, except with a slightly better flashlight. Very slightly.

The next day I headed back to the town and from there to La Paz, where I would spend the end of my trip. I had wanted to go hiking, but I would have needed to get a couple people together, which is hard when you're traveling alone. It was a moot point anyways because I ended up getting sick again. Seems like whatever had gotten into my system in Uyuni on Tuesday hadn't quite gotten out of it (I had been battling scattered bouts of nausea ever since) and I was sick again Saturday evening- worse than the first time. One of my friends at the hostel (some people I had met my first night, who were back there again the same days as me) works in a hospital and knows about medicine and stuff, so she helped me get the right antibiotics (everything is over the counter in Bolivia). They also came down and checked on me in the night, which is wicked sweet- you know, when you're sick in a really weird country, alone, in a hostel- somebody has to take care of you!



I was feeling better by Sunday night, when I went to Cholitas wrestling! The woman sitting next to me in the gringo section was telling me that she'd been in Bolivia a year ago and met someone who was writing an article on Cholitas wrestling for National Geographic, and it coincidentally had just come out.

So cholitas wrestling is theoretically WWF starring Aymara women in traditional clothes. In practice, only two of the, what, 5 acts? were pairs of females, the rest were men. The plot was the same each act: the bad guys are friends with the ref, the good guys would have won in a fair fight, but the evil ref and the cheating of the bad guys interfered. Most of the time they won anyways. The female acts both had the same plot too: a good, virtuous Aymara girl fights against a bad-ass rebellious girl in Western clothing. None of the chicks looked all muscular, but pulled all the moves!!

Some of the guys in our group got beat over the head by one of the girls, which was pretty awesome. One of them, a particularly outspoken American, became a devotee of a middle-aged wrestler with sideburns and star-spangled tights, whom he referred to as Neil Diamond until we found out his name was Mister Atlas. He bought the most delightfully HORRID poster of Mister Atlas you can imagine, and kept waving it in the bad guys' faces. At the end of the finale, Mister Atlas ran over to our corner and signed it. All the little urchin children gathered around to see.

It wasn't a tourist attraction for gringos- our presence was superfluous. The rest of the audience away from the ringside youth hostel seats were all Aymara, old and young alike, and very into the show. They show was pretty crazy, in that "would never happen in America" kind of way. The acting and moves were relatively lame, but we were nearly run down by wrestlers stumbling out into the audience many times, having to jump up from our seats and dodge out of the way. Some people in our group were beaten with props, and we were all sprayed with water and Pepsi. (One of the bad guys stole the bottle of Pepsi right out from under my neighbor's chair. That's why she's a bad guy I guess!) It was uncontrolled enough to make it authentic even among the fakeness.

I spent Monday in Lima, as I had a 13-hour layover between flights. I hung out in Miraflores for several hours, then met up with a family I met last time I was in Lima two years ago. I barely made it to the airport- I got into a really really cheap cab, with a little paper sign on the windshield that read "taxi," and it kept breaking down on the highway. Lima is a dangerous city and I wasn't sure if it was safer inside or outside of the car, so I just sat tight as the driver worked on the engine. At one point I saw him just spit in it and slam the lid. Well, it started running, so I guess he knows what he's doing. (Didn't Jesus cure somebody's vision with his spit?)

I only had a few hours to relax after I got home- we had our first Pirates of Penzance rehearsal last night! Much younger chorus members than in the last show. I do love Pirates. Glad to be actually doing Mabel this time, instead of covering and never getting a chance to sing.

Also! I am doing Bastien et Bastienne (an opera Mozart wrote when he was 12) in Harrisburg next weekend. I know, last minute! I am an SOS soprano. More on it later.

Love you guys!

Amanda

Civilization at last!

I am back from Uyuni and our three-day Land Rover tour across the salt flats and nature reserve.

Yeah it was pretty awesome.  First of all, the idiot travel agent I talked to here was very unhelpful.  I rode a ghetto bus down there and my feet were so cold by the time I got there that I couldnt feel them for 45 minutes.  Then I didnt have a tour booked because she told me it was better to book one when I got there, except it was 6am on a freezing Sunday morning and nothing was open.  I finally sat down in the main square to layer on a few more pairs of socks under my hiking boot when a travel agent lady came up to me and offered to open her agency for me, and since I was cold and wanted to go inside, I went with her.  So I booked my tour with her even though her agency was obviously pretty bottom rung, because she had a space heater and let me sleep on the couch while she went back out to hustle.

Our car was like an hour and a half late, but it was like an hour and a half late for everything the whole time.  We..re on Bolivian time here.

I had two French guys, a Spanish couple, and a Chilean guide.  One of the French spoke fluent Spanish, the other only basic, both spoke some English.  The Spanish woman spoke no English but some French.  Her husband didnt speak either comfortably but he preferred attempting English to French.  The Chilean and the tour guide only spoke Spanish.   So we ended up speaking French most of the time, and a little Spanish.  (Which I dont speak.)

It would be too much for me to recount the whole trip here.  We went to the salt flats, which were pretty crazy as you can imagine.  It was just white and flat.  With neat piles of salt here and there.  But it was really salt.  Yes, I tried picking it up and licking it.  It was salt.

There was also an island of cactuses in the middle of the salt flat.  If my guide spoke English, I could probably tell you why.

They can also make really solid things out of the salt, like buildings.  We stayed in a hostel made entirely of salt- even the beds!  (Some things were made of cactus though.)

The next day we saw flamingo-inhabited lakes.  I..d never seen flamingos in the wild so that was neat.  We also went to a red lake, which was incredible.  Like, it was really red.  Not like just kind of pink or purple, like it was red.  Pics to follow!

We also saw giant stone things and an active volcano in the distance.

That night we stayed in a real shitter of a youth hostel.  Forget hot water, they didn..t even have showers!  My whole group of 6 was squished into one small room.  The hostel had a little shop that sold lots of wine, so we acquired a lot of it.  There was only one heat stove in the building so we all gathered around it and drank and hung out for hours.  I kept getting everyone to sing.

OK so here..s the thing about me- i have a really high alcohol tolerance (for a cute little girl), I dont puke from drinking, and I NEVER get hangovers.  Once in my life I threw up the day after drinking too much, and once in my life I woke up with a mild headache after drinking too much.  And if you know me you know its not for lack of imbibing, that..s just the way Im built.  (I actually theorize that its because I drink so much water, and hangovers are largely caused by dehydration.)  Anyways, I got SICK.  I threw up, went to sleep, woke up with a violent headache, and proceded to be sick on and off all morning- couldn..t even hold down water.  Im thinking this has something to do with altitude sickness- some people get really, really ill from it- head, stomach, the works.  Im not one of those people, but maybe the combination of the drinking and the altitude?  (I drank plenty the night before with no problem though.)  Or the eggs.  The vegetarian substitute meals they gave me were all eggs, and i cant stand eggs, but I was choking them down anyways.  But a lot can go wrong with eggs, and Ive heard Bolivia has an alarmingly high salmonella rate.  Whatever.  We went to some hot springs, and they were the nicest-feeling hot springs Ive ever been in- consistant temperature, and just hot enough.  I felt much much better after that.  In fact, shortly after I felt fantastic- I couldnt stop singing.  I guess I was making up for how crappy I felt that morning, when we were in the car and at the geysers.  Everyone else was jumping through the geyser, but I couldnt bring myself even close to it because I felt so sick and the smell of sulpher was not helping.

We kept having car troubles, and at one point the driver dropped us off at the trashy hostel to have lunch and disappeared with the car for about an hour or more, leaving us just hanging out.  It was really boring, but then a herd of vicunas walked right up to us and hung out for awhile.  They were so used to people- one of them came right up to me and just looked at me.  Not close enough to touch, but considering that when we were in the car they were always running away from us, I didnt know they could be so friendly.  Then they just wandered around the grounds for awhile, between the buildings, looking for something to do.

When I finally got back to Uyuni, I found that almost all the buses back to La Paz were sold out.  Freaking travel agent, she told me I could just buy the ticket there!  It was at the very last minute that I found a crappy little bus company Id never heard of that had a few seats left.  It was even more ghetto than the first one- Im talking a bad day on the Chinatown bus- but it got me to La Paz in one piece.  I was afraid Id be sick again on the bumpy ride (the vast majority of roads in Bolivia are not paved), and there are no bathrooms on the ghetto bus, so I just forced myself to fall asleep, which worked out.

Today I am back in La Paz but I am too tired and lazy to really do anything- just recouperating.  Tomorrow I go to Titicaca.

See ya!

Love always,

Amanda

Last night after I left you, I went to little wine bar.  There were only two customers when I walked in, and they were singing Va Pensiero (a famous opera chorus by Verdi).  I did a double take, shrugged, and joined in.  Turns out the guy is a tango singer from Argentina, and the girl used to sing in the Bolivian Choral Society. So random. She told me I might be able to get the score I need from the choral society.  The guy sang me a tango song. Pretty cool.

Today I twisted the arms of some of my hostel mates into making the trip to Valle de la Luna with me.  It..s half an hour outside of town, and its like, this whole area of these pillary rock formations that you can walk around.  We figured out we could hire a cab there really cheap- $6 an hour, divided by three people.  It was really something, stunning and unusual. So glad we went.  Yes there are pics, but unfortunately I left the cable for my camera at home so I can..t upload them til I get back!!

Gotta run catch my bus to Uyuni.  ttyl!

Amanda