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Love the update patH!
if it's possible to play before the party, I'll take the opportunity (thoughI will be nervous!)

I am really trying hard to take EVERY opportunity that comes up to play for anyone, anywhere.

Mr. Casinitaly and I are both really looking forward to this event - it's going to be so much fun to see everyone that we know, meet some new people, and enjoy the wonderful location!

Just had a long chat with my sister, to fine-tune the event.
Everything is on track. My sister made a beautiful program which I will send via PM to the confirmed participants.

The confirmed participants are:
BritishJim + 1
casinitaly + 1
Palmpirate
patH + 3
SwissMS + 1
TheodorN
WiseBuff + 1

To those, I have a question: Are there any vegetarians?
I am asking because the boat trip includes a menu. There are two options, one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian.
They need to know ASAP if they need to prepare vegetarian food, and how many. If not specified otherwise, the non-vegetarian menu will be served.
The options are:
Non-Vegetarian: Roast veal with champignons, vegetables and Spätzle (south-German noodles),
Vegetarian: Spinach-Tofu Strudel on tomatoes.

Another thing, especially to those who stay in the Schloss Rheinfels, or in other hotels that are not close to the railway station of St.Goar:
Do you want to walk to your places after we arrive back from the Rhein in Flammen, or shall we book Taxis?
This is especially important for people who may not want to walk to the Schloss Rheinfels. It's not far lengthwise; but a bit steep.

I also created a WhatsApp group "EPP2018", and have added me, my sister, and casinitaly. I thought it might be useful to have a group to chat. And in Europe, roaming is cheap for Europeans.
If you want to be part of the WhatsApp group, just send me your WhatsApp contact info via PM.

So: Let's hope for a piantastic party!

Non vegetarian for WiseBuff plus 1. We will have a car at the Schloss Rheinfels.

We aren’t vegetarians either! Casinitaly + Mr C

I will have a look at how steep the walk is and let you know tomorrow if we want to book a taxi or not.

The program looks great!

Non-vegetarian meal for me, and I'll walk to the Academy from the station. I've been looking forward to the party, and even more now, having seen the full program.

I’d like te vegetarian option Please! also I think the walk back depends on how steep it is. I’ll happily share a taxi and not worry about it. Do we need to book that now? I’ll look into the What’s Ap ap and be in touch.
Thanks for getting things so well organized, only three weeks to go!

Ok, we've checked and we'll share a taxi too. That last part seems really steep, and at the end of a long exciting day we don't feel we need the cardio work

My thinking too!

I think we will do a taxi as well. As far as the meal plan, we do not need the vegetarian option.

The plan for the weekend looks great! I am getting excited already!!

Only one and a half weeks to go!
Today the tickets for the Rhein in Flammen event arrived. Hopefully there will still be water in the Rhine.

My sister has made another list: The menu options at the places where we are eating on Friday evening and Saturday noon.
The Schloss Rheinfels told us that if they know beforehand what we want, the waiting times might be shorter.
So here is the link to the options.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ajrf31ijaasC0TszYRXlPndYKeNw

Those who are already in the EPP2018 WhatsApp group can reply via WhatsApp. I also shared the file there.
The others can send me a PM or post here on this thread.

Looking forward to next week!

Jealous as! I’m skipping Europe this year as I’m studying (psychology) so I am incredibly jealous of you all, and please post LOTS of photos so I can enjoy it vicariously!

The party was a success! At least that's my opinion and impression.

I didn't take many pictures. This is a group picture with all 14 participants (among them 8 pianists), in front of the piano.


The pianists were (position starting from the left):
Back row, in front of the piano:
BritishJim (1), Palmpirate (3), SwissMS (4), WiseBuff (5), casinitaly (6), TheodorN (8)
Second row:
Hans (patH's Dad) (2), patH (4)

Many of the participants are still travelling - we're among the first to get home, so let me say -

THE EPP 2018 GERMANY --- was absolutely fabulous!!!

A huge thanks to patH and his sister (Isabel), who put together a simply splendid event.

Friday, early evening, most folks went on a tour of the castle, which was actually part of the hotel property. Or maybe I should say, the castle and the hotel were one and the same! The difference being that the hotel was pretty classy and cosy, whereas the rest of the castle was a bit of a romantic ruin.

We had dinner together - with a stunning view over the river, hills and valley below us.
The next morning, we headed over to the Academy, for the party. The room we had was very much a "salon" -(no, not saloon, salon!) - very 18th C, pretty chairs and sofas, and two pianos. One of which we discovered (after the fact) we were not meant to be playing.

patH and Isabel had organized charming espresso cups for each performer, and for the first time since we started these parties, I took the bull by the horns and went first.
(I will provide a list of what everyone played, as I wrote most of it down, but have to check a few points.)

After we each did our first round of playing, we were presented with our mugs!
We had the pleasure of hearing Papa-patH play - and of helping him celebrate his 84th birthday!
Mama-patH didn't play piano, but she was also a delightful addition to our event.

After a couple of cycles of pieces we walked down the road to have our lunch and enjoyed getting to know people we hadn't met before, and catching up more with our old friends.
In the afternoon we had more really splendid performances, - one of which was a patH original of the Wagner Wedding March played in all kinds of music styles. --- I believe a video was made, and I do hope we get the link to it!!

When we had all exhausted our repertoires (well, I speak for myself.... I have a very small repertoire ) -- when we had finished playing our prepared pieces we did some "name that tune" games and some sing-alongs. patH was very obliging, listening to our suggestions whispered in his ear for things he should play for the group to guess at, and BritishJim was very helpful reminding us of the words to Over the Rainbow when our memories failed us!

As we wound down, it was time to head off to the train. We had time to visit the main church in St. Goar, which was built in about 1250, and was originally a Catholic church, but was later turned into a Protestant church. It was lovely - very elegant, very simple.

We hopped on the train - to the very next town, and had a chance to walk through a wine fair, and sample some local Riesling. Then it was down to the river to get on our boat for the evening cruise.

It was lovely to float down (or was it up?) the river, seeing the famous Lorelei rocks, and SO MANY castles on the hillsides! As it got dark the larger buildings were illuminated and the atmosphere couldn't have been more poetic.
When the fireworks started, we were blown away. I am not one to use the word "awesome" lightly - they were AWESOME! They had types of firesworks many of us had never seen before, and they went on for ages, along with music from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". Simply amazing.

We had a longish wait for the train home, but that gave us time for more chatting and ..yes,.. more singing.

We were all pretty wiped out when we got back to the hotel, but we were all beaming with the accumulated joys of the day.
We bade farewell to Theodore at the station as he was in a different hotel and leaving earling in the morning - it was a real pleasure to meet him in person!

Sunday morning, patH, Isabel, Mama & Papa patH left after breakfast.
BritishJim and the missus, and Casinitaly+ Mr Cas visited the castle ruins together, and found we were pretty in tune with wanting to climb up and down everywhere, albeit with great care and infinite slowness on the part of the ladies

Palmpirate decided to have a Spa day at the hotel, while Wisebuff, SwissMs and Casinitaly plus their sweeties went off to Rudesheim for lunch and a wee tour of the town.
While in town we tried "fresh press" - very newly fermented wine, from the "it just happened" harvest - at about 2-3% alcohol. Very sweet and aromatic, like a dessert moscato, if that gives you an idea.
**********
This post was interrupted when Mr. Cas called me out to the balcony because there was a fireworks show going on --- not quite Rhein in Flammen, but pretty darn entertaining.

Back to the story...

**********************


The six of us plus Palmpirate met up for dinner at the hotel, and had a leisurely very chatty time. We had all been very decisively planning to have strudel for dessert. When our waiter said they had no strudel left there was a (rather loud) cry of dismay. We said:
"How can there not be strudel?"
"Are you SURE?"
"Are we in Germany?... We have to go to Germany for strudel."
"Really? There isn't ANY strudel?"

Then, while we reluctantly perused the dessert menu for something else, all the while bemoaning bewilderedly that there was NO STRUDEL... the waiter came back!!!
and He said....I checked with the chef, and we have 7 pieces of strudel!

Mr. SwissMs said, "Just a moment" - and he counted us. "Amazing," said he, "there are seven of us!"
We were delighted.
It took some time for the strudel to arrive, and it was hot, as if it had just come from the oven. We were pretty sure the chef made it specially, just for us. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

We said our fond farewells and made our heartfelt promises to stay in touch, and headed off to rest our weary heads.

I'm sure we'll all be posting pictures soon - and between us there are quite a few - but regardless of any photographic evidence (or lack thereof at the moment) -take my word for it - we had a truly wonderful wonderful time!

Our thanks again and again to patH and Isabel for all the time and effort they put into ensuring that we had such a tremendously successful event.

Destination EPP 2019..... stay tuned. We have a bit of research to do but we have an interesting idea!

Thanks so much Casinitaly for your detailed description of what sounded like an over the top piano party. Great photo of the group!

so jealous

How nice!! So very cool of you guys over there to do this every year!

Me too

Thanks for this wonderful update Cheryl, it seems to have been a fantastic success! Well done PatH for the organisation!