HOME AT LAST - PART 1

NOTHING HAPPENS THE WAY I PLAN IT!

It's always the same. I get a great idea as to what I want to write in my next Blog. However, when I start writing it turns out to be completely different. For example, today's blog was meant to be a thank you and a tribute to all the wonderful people who helped and supported me while I was stranded in Germany.
Then I had an incredibly stimulating conversation with Rey (as we always do) and decided to video our conversation and post it as an interview. 

After we made the video I took a short cruise on my FB page and found lots of great stuff that friends wanted to post to my time line. I got distracted again.

Now I think I should just go back to the beginning of this years adventure in Germany and bring you up to date.

I arrived in Hamburg a week early so I could visit one of my best friends – Love Newkirk, and join her wedding celebration which I knew would be the fantastic party that it was. Good food, good music, good people and best of all ecstatically happy newly weds! 

My first scheduled concert at "Horst Haus am See" were I'd performed a benefit concert for "Erziehungshilfe-Hamburg e.V." last year was cancelled due to COVID 19. After spending some quality time with my bestie, I left to perform my next concert in Weyhe, Bremen with the Gospel Chor Weyhe led by Elisabeth Geppert. 

It was a wonderful concert that was well visited, well received and well reviewed. And very happily I was not injured when I fell from the pulpit stairs wearing my newly acquired obviously too high pale gold boots. That's another story.

I then headed to Oldenburg because I had planed a series of concerts with my band „Empress, Yeti and the M&M's“, as well as several vocal workshops and private parties. 

As I normally do, I went directly to my friend Cornelia's house. Cornelia is usually out of town around that time and has always been gracious enough to hand over the keys to the castle so I can have my privacy when I'm in town. I was looking forward to spending a weekend with her as she passed through Oldenburg on the way to her next vacation.

However, reports about COVID 19 started to spread, countries were locking down and tRump threatened to block Americans from coming home if they didn't arrive by March 13. I reconfirmed my concert series and decided to remain in Germany.

Having been fed a consistent diet of „fake news“ by the press and contracting diarrhea from the numerous lies told by the „president“ I found myself caught in the travel ban and stuck in Germany without an income or roof over my head. The rest of the story is simply amazing.

The first thing I did was let everyone know I was stranded. Because of the travel ban, I had lots of free time and conceded to strict distancing and mask wearing regulations when meeting people. I was willing to go through any restrictions necessary to facilitate the opportunity to meet with dear friends.

Here's how Alexander Goretzki and I managed to make a little music in the first week of the shut down.

Window concert with me andAlexander