Category Archives: Travel

Boston, Weddings

Lauren and Elliot’s Wedding

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My friends Lauren and Elliot got married on Saturday in Boston.  They ceremony was in Belmont, Massachusetts and the reception was at the Seaport Hotel in Boston.  It was one of the most fun weddings I’d been to in a long time!

Things to know about attending weddings as a newlywed:  You will want to talk to everybody around you about how this wedding compares to your wedding.  Pro tip:  no one cares…EXCEPT other newlyweds, who will never tire of said talking.  Oh, and one of the reasons I had such a great time at the wedding was because it reminded me of my own wedding and how fun it was.  Rather than weddings in the past that were ruined by people asking when I was getting married or what was wrong with me that I wasn’t engaged yet.

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(I love her invitations—so classy and simple.  And I love black tie optional.  I thought I had a picture with the reply card and ribbon from way back when, but I couldn’t find it.)

I arrived in Boston on Friday evening.  I had been invited to the rehearsal dinner but wasn’t sure if I’d make it—I did!  The dinner was on a harbor cruise (on the Seaport Elite) and was a great way to relax, meet some new people, and get to see Boston from the water.  And I got to talk to Lauren more at the rehearsal dinner than I did at my own wedding, so I was really glad she invited me!

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Adda and I—Adda was one of the bridesmaids and an old friend of mine from when I played with ProMusica in Columbus.  I hadn’t seen her in YEARS.

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Elliot (the groom), Rick, Frances, and Lauren (the bride)—and yeah, I’m sorry this is a bad picture, but honestly, the rest I had to choose from are even worse.  I think I was too tired, plus, unless I’m instagramming, I need to not use the iPhone for blog pictures. 

We went out into the harbor, hung out, ate dinner, heard some speeches and toasts, and then the boat returned to the dock.  It was still early at that point, so we continued the party at the hotel.  I got to bed pretty late.

The next morning I had had grand plans of sightseeing, but I slept in instead and ended up just wandering around a bit and doing a little jogging.  It was a GORGEOUS day, 75 and sunny, and compared to St Louis (who were getting the remnants of Hurricane Isaac) I could not have picked a better wedding to get away.  I walked about five miles, and took absolutely no pictures.  Blogger fail, but it was a nice day.

We had to meet the bus for transportation to the wedding ceremony at 3 pm so I got all dolled up and went outside.  I ran into Katie, a woman I’d met the night before who was also attending the wedding as a single married lady (as in, our husbands were unable to attend so we were date-less) and we decided to be each others dates.  Added bonus:  could compare this wedding to our own weddings with no judgment from each other.

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The church was really cute!

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Me in front of the church.  Please ignore my ridiculous tan lines—they were more obvious in photos than reality, I think.

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The music was wonderful!  Since both Lauren and Elliot are musicians, they asked some of their friends to play.  They sounded great and I loved the arrangements.  They used organ, trumpet, and strings, sometimes separately and sometimes all together.

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She had four bridesmaids and a maid of honor.

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All in all, the ceremony was very nice.  I especially liked that they did a unity candle ceremony BUT the minister made a point of saying that their individual candles would remain lit.  I hate the idea of people getting married and completely losing their self and only being party of a couple (this is something Chris and I struggle with—staying true to ourselves while giving our best to each other and to our relationship.)

We re-boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel for the reception.  We had a little time to kill before the cocktail hour started so Katie and I did a little pre-party at the hotel bar.

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Sparkling wine seemed most appropriate!

Oh, and I have no decent pictures of Katie.  Note to everyone:  just because your iPhone is super convenient does not mean it is going to take great pictures.  I should have used my regular camera, and I MUST do so in Paris.  Some were okay but showed up upside down on my blog and I couldn’t seem to fix that properly.  And weren’t really good enough to put forth the effort of editing them in a different program.  But I digress, and I’ll stop making excuses for something that was entirely under my control.

We headed up to the cocktail hour which was in a lobby area that opened up to the outside.  It was wonderful!  There was cheese, crackers, veggies, and an amazing spinach and artichoke dip.  There were also a nice variety of passed appetizers, including tiny crab cakes, lobster salad in little ice cream cones, egg rolls, and a few other things. Plus open bar, always a winner.  We mingled and chatted with people for an hour or so and then it was dinner and dancing time.

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View of the reception hall.  Oh, and that’s Katie on the left at the bar 🙂

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The wedding cake.

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The view out the window from the reception hall.  This was also basically the view from my hotel room at the same hotel, on the 11th floor.  Gorgeous!

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My table—lucky table 13.

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The menu.  Guess what I chose for entree…

The dinner started with toasts, and there was a live band and dancing in between each course.  I opted to wait to dance until after dessert—I was happy to sit down for awhile and just chat and enjoy the delicious food.

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(Yes, of course I chose the LOBSTAH, as they say it in Boston.)

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Lemon cake—there was also chocolate and carrot cake.

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Me and the beautiful bride Lauren.  She and Elliot did a wonderful job mingling.

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Adda and I.  I could have posed better.  The bridesmaid dresses were really lovely!

After dinner, we danced for what seemed like HOURS.  I believe the band played until close to midnight, though I could be wrong.  My feet and my entire body were exhausted, but people wanted to continue celebrating—I made it for about 30 more minutes before I had to say my goodbyes.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend!  So great to see Lauren and Adda, to meet Elliot and Katie and tons of other people as well, and to visit Boston and the Seaport Hotel (who did a wonderful job), and to wear my purple dress that I bought months ago with these shoes.

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Huge Congratulations to Lauren and Elliot, on their marriage and on a wonderful wedding! 

Boston

Almost home

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Congrats to Lauren and Elliot! I had a wonderful weekend in Boston at their wedding celebrations. I’ll tell you more about it later when I’m home but I’ll just say it was a whirlwind of a weekend, exhausting and amazing. I am so happy I was able to finally meet Elliot, celebrate with the happy couple, and see new and old friends. One more flight today before I’m back home for a few days.

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Boston, Travel

Weekend Getaway

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I have never been a huge fan of flying.  I’m not afraid or anything like that, I simply find it tiresome.  I’m more of a car person—I love riding in the car.  As a kid we took tons of car trips—we would road trip for weeks on end, driving from the east coast to the west coast.  I think it would be fun to repeat something like that, but Chris is not a fan of extended road trips. 

I do enjoy seeing new places though, as I guess most people do.  Tomorrow I’m heading to Boston for the first time ever!  It’s for a friend’s wedding, but I’ll be there almost 24 hours in advance so I’m hoping to do some sight-seeing and (this is so HLB of me, but) get a run in along the harbor.  My hotel will be very close to the Boston Harbor (I believe that is what it is called) so that seems like a great place to run.  If I’m wrong, I’ll figure that out when I get there.  There’s also a possibility of getting to go to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night (just got invited last night) which is a Harbor Cruise, BUT it would mean the stars aligning and my flight being on time or early, getting off the plane fairly quickly, not having to wait for a cab, and then there not being any real traffic between the airport and the hotel.  I’d love to make it, but I’m (of course) stressed about it, and I’m telling myself if it turns out to be possible, GREAT, if not, I’ll just have dinner on my own and maybe meet up with some of the girls after the dinner.  Going away for just the weekend is not something I usually do:  when I travel it tends to be for more days at a time as I don’t usually see the point.  But when I got her invitation, I really wanted to go, I COULD go, and getting to visit a new city is just a bonus. 

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Katie, Stephanie, and Lauren—Lauren is the one getting married this weekend (from my wedding, of course 😉 )

I originally decided to travel to Boston on my own.  I don’t know who else will be at the wedding, but I have quite a few mutual friends with the friend getting married so I figured there would be people I know there.  I learned yesterday who a couple of them are (SO pumped to see them again!) and I’m hoping to see more people I know.  The music world is so small that it’s difficult NOT to run into people you know at these sorts of events, and if you don’t know anyone, well, being a musician is such a great connection that it’s easy to make new friends.

(I’m trying to frame the flight in my head as a good time to relax and read.  I’m working my way through the Game of Thrones series and my goal is to finish the second book tomorrow and the third book by the time I go to Paris.  I have some other books I want/need to read, but I don’t think I’ll want to start those until I finish this series.)

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What do you mean, new friends?  Aren’t I enough for you?

On a more serious note:  My grandmother made it through the surgery but because of some existing health problems is now having some other issues.  Please continue to keep her and my family in your thoughts and prayers. 

Paris, Travel

Your Guide to the St Louis Symphony European Tour

As many of you know, my husband Chris plays viola with the St Louis Symphony.  You may or may not know that the St Louis Symphony is about to embark on their first European Tour in decades. 

They are playing concerts in London, Berlin, Luzerne, and Paris.  I will be flying out to meet him in Paris.  I will see the final tour concert there and then we are sightseeing in Paris for a week.  Needless to say, we are excited.

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(Pounds, Euros, and Swiss Francs.  Chris’s per diem money.)

In addition to the tour-related stress and anticipation in the Frantillo household, the internet is abuzz as well.  Several symphony musicians will be live-tweeting the tour, including my friend Jon.  You can (and should!) follow them on Twitter:

Jon Reycraft, trombone (@reycraftian), Jennifer Nitchman, flute (@jennynitch), Celeste Boyer, violin (@celesteboyer), and Diana Haskell, clarinet (@dihaskell).  They’ll be using the hashtag #slsotour so you can follow that as well if you are twitter saavy.  I also recommend you follow @slso, @adamcrane, and @eebsworthgoold for more tour and symphony information.  And of course I’ll be tweeting as usual—if you like my blog, you’ll enjoy my twitter account. (@hannahviolin).

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What if you aren’t on twitter, you ask?  You can also follow the Symphony on their facebook page instead, follow their Tour Blog, or perhaps read about it on other news sites.  This is an interesting article about the tour that you can start with, and here’s a link to "Cityscape", a local NPR show, on which a couple of the SLSO musicians talk about the tour and especially the Proms.  (Being invited to play at the Proms is a HUGE honor.)

Here’s the tour concert schedule:

September 4, 2012 (London, Royal Albert Hall)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
BRAHMS:  Tragic Overture
BEETHOVEN:  Violin Concerto
SCHOENBERG: Five Pieces for Orchestra
GERSHWIN:  An American in Paris
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms (I made this into a direct link to the concert info rather than the main proms site)

I believe that this concert will be broadcast on the internet—it’s at 7:30 pm London time, so you should be able to figure that out for your own time zone.  (Unlike the Olympic coverage, you may need to listen to it live though someone on the facebook page suggested it would be archived for a week.)

September 5, 2012—Berlin (Musikfest Berlin 2012 at Berliner Philharmonie)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin

ELLIOTT CARTER:  Holiday Overture
BEETHOVEN:  Violin Concerto
SCHOENBERG:  Five Pieces for Orchestra
GERSHWIN:  An American in Paris

http://www.musikfestberlin.de

September 6, 2012—Lucerne (The Lucerne Festival, Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin

IVES: The Unanswered Question
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 1

http://www.lucernefestival.ch

September 7, 2012—Paris (Salle Pleyel)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin

BRAHMS:  Tragic Overture
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
ELLIOTT CARTER:  Holiday Overture
GERSHWIN:  An American in Paris

http://www.sallepleyel.fr

This one at Salle Pleyel is the one I will be attending.  I can’t wait!

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Oh, and tonight is the "Rally Concert" at Powell Hall.  Let’s all join together and wish the Symphony a "Happy Flight!"

(Disclaimer, will not be attending because I will be teaching children to play the violin instead.)

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(Gift from Chris’s mom—neither of us speaks French, so I guess we’d better learn quickly!  Luckily Chris already speaks English so he’ll be okay for the first tour stop.)

Boulder, Travel

Boulder

I am just stopping in to tell you that I’m having a wonderful time on vacation.  Isn’t it grand?  Don’t you wish that YOU were on vacation? 

And you say, Hannah, weren’t you already on vacation? Well, kind of.  I was moving and taking a break from teaching but now I am actually on vacation.  You know, the kind where you fly somewhere, and rent a car and the rental company takes complete advantage of you by charging you for the supplemental insurance even though you told them you didn’t want it, and then later when you call tells you you’d have to return to Denver to fill out new paperwork (Yes, I’m looking at you, Payless Rental Cars, and I won’t ever be looking at you again, because that is a lousy precedent—if my husband says NO don’t try to sneak it back in.  And then don’t be an ass on the phone.)

We are visiting my sister Leslie and her fiancé Peter, and our friend Dave, who are all at the Colorado Music Festival, which is in Boulder, Colorado.

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Initially I thought, I don’t want to tell my readers we are out of town.  You worry about safety and that kind of thing.  Robbery.  But our new place is a lot more safe and secure than any of our previous houses have been…so I am not worried.  Besides which I’ve been showing off on twitter and instagram…so…

Anyway, I said I was just stopping in.  We got into town yesterday, had lunch at Illegal Pete’s, shopped and walked around in the afternoon, dinner at the West End Tavern.

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Leslie and I outside the Laughing Goat, which is evidently Boulder’s best coffeehouse.  The vanilla lattes were good.

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Posing with what I think of as the Boulder Boulder.  I don’t think that’s what it is called, however.

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Then…(and this is huge for this St Louis girl)…it started to RAIN!  And it rained, and it poured.  And we got a little bit wet, which was fun at first, and then I remembered why rain is annoying.  But it was a really nice change from NOT having any rain.  (That’s some quality writing, right?).

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This morning Leslie and hiked up to the Royal Arch.  This is a crappy photo because the light was difficult, but that’s me at the top.  Interesting fact about hiking:  going down is easier than going up.

I’ve taken a ton more pictures, but I have taken most of them on my regular camera, and I forgot to bring the USB cable, so I’ll share them later.

 

Travel

Summertime and the living is easy

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I realized I’ve got a lot of trips happening in the next few months!  Boulder, Boston, Paris, and Phoenix.

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The other day I was saying to Melissa how I was excited about my upcoming travels, especially as I hadn’t been anywhere in a long time.  Other than South Carolina, you know, I haven’t been anywhere in like a year.  Well, other than our honeymoon, Miami and a  Caribbean Cruise.  Okay.  Seriously.  My life.  Not too shabby.

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(neither is her life)

Okay, readers.  Here’s the deal.  If you were in Boston and had one morning/early afternoon to sightsee on your own, where would you go and what would you do?  And then, if you were in Paris with your husband for a week, where would you go, what would you do, where would you stay?  Basically if you could plan that trip for me, that would be awesome, as I have other stuff to worry about…

I’m kidding.  A little bit.  Part of the fun of traveling is the planning and anticipation.  Except when you are doing so MUCH traveling, that you don’t know quite where to begin.  Phoenix and Boulder are fine as those are visiting friends/weddings/etc.  Boston is for a wedding too but I want to take advantage of sightseeing too since I’ve never been.  Paris…is going to be glorious.  But I’m tired, and overwhelmed by life, and we are moving in under two weeks and there is tons to be done.

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Oh, and today is some sort of holiday.  Fourth of July I hear.  Do they celebrate that everywhere or just here in the good ol’ United States?

There’s an ongoing joke between my friend Sarah, Chris, and then I’m involved even though I wasn’t there.  A few years ago (I believe it was the summer of 99, actually…somebody correct me if I’m wrong) Chris and Sarah were tooling around on the Fourth trying to find somewhere to eat lunch in Cleveland.  They went to Einstein’s Bagels, but it was closed.  However, there was a crazy homeless lady walking around, and she looked at them and yelled “HAPPY F***ING FOURTH OF JULY, EINSTEIN’S!!!!!!”

Ever since then on almost every major holiday, we send each other a barrage of text messages to the same effect.  Today, since we FINALLY (lolz) all have iPhones, there is a group message thread happening.