A Night At The Opera

…because going to the opera, is like, a thing.

I'm back from another successful weekend in Munich- this was quite an experience! Friday night I went to the opera in Munich, because the prima donna of our generation, Anna Netrebko, made her debut as Lady Macbeth! I just had to hear her sing live, you see. It was such a fanfare at the Bayerische Staatsoper. People of all forms of high society made their way to the royal opera house in their ball gowns, glittering in diamonds and furs, air kisses here and there, and the theater really came to life. I mean, Munich is a pretty fancy city. So when people do go to the opera, the standard attire is pretty nice already. But this was another level of fancy. Never had I seen people so dressed up for the theater- just like in the olden, glamorous days of the divine divas of the opera, back when people really would dress up. And of course, everyone their in their sparkling gowns and finest attire had done all this because of Netrebko. The house was completely sold out and full of energy. People stood on the streets with signs saying, "need 1 ticket!" Everyone, everyone had come to see the famous leading lady. The scent of expensive perfumes filled the halls. All the while with baited breath, we waited for her to make her entrance. The lights grew dim and the delicate intro (it's not really much of an overture) for Verdi's Macbeth began. I sat in my usual spot under the stage, next to the orchestra- where you can't actually see much of the stage, but when the singers come closer to the front you can see a bit of them. Netrebko of course sang her very best as expected, she is very professional. I saw Macbeth last year with a completely different cast, but the mise en scène was exactly the same. At some point in the third act, a ladies chorus comes on the stage completely topless but wearing bubblegum pink wigs (think of a Katy Perry video), all the while pulling long plastic-bag like things out of their mouths that appeared to be jackets, which they then proceeded to put on. Yup. It's a very typical stage design for the Munich Opera, they tend to gear toward modern, highly artistic stages.

Saturday I gave possibly my best and most fun tour of all. Early in the morning I found out that today was Brewer's Day in Munich, meaning that all the brewing apprentices were graduating, there would be a huge parade, a festival, a lot of bavarian dancing (including coopers), and best of all, FREE BEER! And this only happens every two years. Okay, for me the free beer wasn't the most important because I don't drink much in general, and I can't consume alcohol while giving a tour. However- my group was already having a lot of fun it seemed, and we happened to make it to Viktualienmarkt (Munich's main market, where the festivities were taking place) at exactly the right time. So we were able to enjoy a very traditional bavarian show, complete with whip-cracking and knee-slapping dances, but also most of my tourists picked up a free beer! I was really happy for them. And a really nice guy let me have a sip of his ;)

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun and the group was able to have a very special experience, and truly able to see how cool Munich is!

In the meantime I've been plenty busy with going back and forth from Innsbruck to Munich, starting a garden on the balcony (tomatoes, lemon verbena, peppers, and basil, amongst others!), turning 19 (that's right!), sleeping on tops of mountains, and trying to figure out my life. I've written new songs and started new projects, I'm studying to start driver's training, and I want to go to England next month. And that's just a little sample. Other than that, I'm trying to eat a lot healthier (that's why I'm going to England and why we're starting the garden). I have extreme attention difficulties and want to vastly improve my nutrition (nutrition is everything!). Seriously, before you try hard-core medication for anything, consider a change of eating style based on fresh and raw foods (intricate salads are the best). You'll experience a spike in energy and mood when you're better fed! 

My favorite salad to make is with romaine lettuce, rocket salad (arugula), tomatoes, cucumbers, some bell peppers (whichever color is up to you!), shredded carrots, a little red onion, a teeny bit of fresh garlic, some crumbled feta, and to complete with some dried oregano, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar! Super healthy and fresh, this salad leaves me full and totally satisfied every time.

Anyway my point is, before I would try some kind of stimulant from the pharmaceutical industry (such as Adderall), I'm going to start eating mostly fresh things from the garden and farms, not so much pizza, bread, dairy, and meat (though the meat thing is a personal preference for me, I just am not a big meat-eater in general).

Long posts are what happens when I don't write for a month, obviously. How is everyone else out there doing? Have a lovely start of July!

Much much love

India

And the song in my head is: Dear Boy by The Format

Why Being a Tour Guide is Possibly One of the Coolest Jobs Ever!

Hey Guys! I hope everyone's having a great week. 

A week ago I hung out in Munich and worked for a couple days. Aside from working, I had a voice lesson (so great!), hung out with an old friend, and did a little (window-)shopping ;) 

I absolutely had so so so much fun though! That was definitely one of my favorite trips to Munich. First of all the weather was perfect (so ideal for giving tours in the city), and the tours were awesome! And I got to thinking, you know, this is one of the best jobs you could ever have (even if you're shy like me!). Here are some of my favorite reasons.

1. You can do this nearly everywhere in the world. People are always traveling, and if you're really lucky, you could be one of those guides who lives at home but gets to travel with the groups. Yes yes yes!

2. The people! Yes the people. I'm very shy and can be super introverted. But this job has really pushed me out of my comfort zone, in talking for almost three hours to groups of upwards of 60 people! And when you really give your best, it pays off. The people are happy, they're laughing, they wanna get lunch with you, etc. A couple from Siberia once gave me a magnet from their small russian hometown. So awesome!

3. When you give a great tour, people love it. And as result, you leave work with more energy than you started with. Hellooooo!

4. If you live in an interesting place where people come to visit, you can literally get paid to talk for a few hours about your favorite place. It's the most natural thing in the world! And if you want to live somewhere interesting, this is totally an option!

5. If you live in a place where tourists often come, but so far there are not really any tours, then you have a huge advantage on the tourism market in your location and could start your own company. Hello entrepreneurialism! And there are tours for nearly everything. Cheese, Beer, Chocolate, Fishing, Bungee Jumping, Bridges (yes there is a "swinging bridge tour" in Maui, Hawaii), etc.

6. Lots and lots and lots of free time. In my company, a guided tour of Munich lasts about 3 hours a day. Generally each guide would only work one shift per day, and not every day. And so you take 3 hours to work and hang out with awesome people from all over the world, and can totally get ice cream/go to the gym/hang out with the besties/bake that cake for Omi/whatever else afterward!

So I'm going back this weekend for even more! And now I must say, I look forward more and more to my trips to my european hometown. Why? Because I lived there for almost two years. I know where my favorite bars are. I know which restaurant is my favorite. I know where to find the least overcrowded but still cool beer garden. And best of all, I know the best places to find a hot deal on a pair of Manolo's (the best shoes known to man!).

This past weekend was also excellent. The weather was super beautiful. But I caught a cold, yay me! Being sick in gorgeous weather is also possibly one of the cruelest forms of torture ever. It's like one big massive hangover (minus the over 'alcoholized' feeling. but you still feel gross). The sun is too bright, the shade is too cold but the covers on the bed are too hot, you can't smell anything thanks to sinus congestion, you can't taste anything because you can't smell, and because your whole head is quite literally full of sickness crap, you can't think straight (or see very well) to save your life. Thankfully I'm mostly over it though, now that it's cold and raining outside. My life is like a trying-to-be-a-comedy-but-not-that-funny movie. But I still have fun though ;)

talk to you sooooooon (and get a job as a tour guide!)

Much Love

India

Music for the murky weather: Wait by M83

Secrets

No, no, no! I'm not revealing my secrets, but I am sharing one of the most important "secrets" in the world!

Last week I wrote that I would be recording a presentation of the book The Secret, and here it is! The link has already been shared, so there's no password necessary. Enjoy! I understand, I said "um" about a million times, I haven't done a public speaking assignment in ages. There's a reason why I'm a blogger ;)

The Secret- The Presentation

What I have been up to this week is contacts, contacts, contacts! Basically going out and meeting people, keeping in touch with special people. It's really a cool job, when you realize you have the chance to change people's lives (if they want it)!

I'm excited to see who I'll meet tonight and the next few days…

Otherwise, I'm getting ready for my trip to Florida (that fresh beaaaaach!) starting on Monday! I'm so nervous, I haven't been to the states in nearly two years!

And then there's my big plan to party hard Saturday in Munich (well not so hard), at my favorite place of course- P1!

Plus the weather here has been just so fine, warm and sunshine all the way through! I haven't seen snow a single time this entire winter! (Except for my view to the mountains)

Besides all of that, I'm singing- as usual.

Be back soon!

Happy Thursday

India :)

Viva Musica: Are You Satisfied? by Marina and the Diamonds

Schub!

Schub is a German word that basically means thrust or push. And when we say "schub geben!" (or giving thrust), we mean business. Networking is a big business, in fact the biggest and wealthiest business in the entire world- generating billions of units of currency every year. 

And I'm only at the forefront.

It's so awesome because the skills I'm learning with networking will come in very handy for other interests, like singing (for example). I know, I'm not giving many details about what this networking stuff actually entails, they are coming soon! But I know not everyone is actually interested in my work.

My real work is more interesting, right? I mean my work of nature, my "god-given" work- writing music and siiiiiiinging!

So how does this lyric sound?

…und du schaust mich an und sagst mir so leise,

ich mag dich gern, deine Art und Weise

oh oh honey I wanna see the world with you

tell me all the things we're gonna do!

that's right! I'm writing a song in German. Well technically the song is going to be in German AND English (think of the band Frida Gold, they do the same thing). So the words might sound totally cheesy or whatever, but it's so real/current/relevant to my life situation right now. ;)

Well enough of the boring stuff, right? It's about time I put up some pictures here! They're coming… I'm planning on producing a webinar this week about a book. When I was with my team in La Palma, we were all supposed to present books as an effort to spread knowledge and growth. Long story short, only one of us actually presented- and though it was a really good presentation, I feel really bad for not presenting mine. So I'll be posting an informative presentation video about the book The Secret very soon! (Maybe I should turn this into a video blog?)

Also happening: AMERICA in two weeks! Hello all things American: Denny's, peanut butter, and dairy queen! 'MURICA!

Nah just kidding. I like peanut butter, but I am by far the least american person you've met (except for my chips and oreos obsession). I'm still totally excited to hit up the beach, that fresh Worth Avenue (yes, I'm going to Florida!), and every Ralph Lauren outlet Orlando has to offer. Can anyone spare me their black AmEx? haha ;) Of course seeing my family and surfing in Coco Beach will be a blast. Hello Sunshine! 

Over and Out! (Good night and good luck!)

India

Music of the Night: Lullabies (Adventure Club Remix) by Yuna

The Learning Curve

Here I am in Innsbruck! I could not be more in love with this place. First of all, it's a really small town with a big city feel. Only around 120,000 people actually live here- which is fairly awesome for me because that's the same size as the place where I grew up. Still, when you're walking downtown it really doesn't feel so small! 

Another really cool thing is that at every vantage point you can see the mountains, because we're smack dab in the middle of them! Plus the people here are so friendly- I'm 100% sure that this move was exactly the right thing for me.

So what am I doing here anyway?

Simple: networking! Now as much as I'd love to explain what exactly that means, I will just say it's fast-paced, fun, and a good road to success. Of course my goal is to be a singer- but that's for later. Right now I'm just concentrating on working hard at this game that's totally new for me. And yes, it's definitely a learning curve. First of all, I'm a really really shy person. I mostly always have been. So coming to Innsbruck, meeting tons of new people all at once, and being really extroverted is of course fun, but can be scary! And as the word "networking" would suggest, being outgoing is definitely a pre-req. At least I know where to improve though! That's the really fun part though, because I realized in order to succeed, it's all or nothing- stepping outside of your comfort zone 90% of the time, breaking personal records, and committing to self-improvement every single day. When you do that, the results come so quickly. Change yourself, change your life, change the world!

But I better not get too far ahead of myself ;) I'm just excited, because so far Innsbruck has been a place that challenges me- and where there are challenges, there are HUGE opportunities for growth!

So bring it on! ;) let's see what 2014 has in store for all of us!

Music for the Morning: Damn Beat by FAMP (a really awesome Austrian band- check them out!)

PS- I know this is a really short post- it's busy, busy around here! I'll be back later this week ;)

Am Meer (by the sea)

So far, La Palma is fantastic! It's beautiful here, the food is great and cheap, the sun shines and I can hear the ocean from our hotel room! On January 1st we went sailing from Tenerife Island and we saw dolphins! That was incredible. I had never been on a sailboat before but always wanted to, so it was really cool. That night though we took a ferry to La Palma island, where we've been ever since. On Thursday (2. January) we hung out at the black sand beach in the small port town we're staying in, Puerto Naos. 

The Canary Islands are pretty cool because they remind me of Hawaii; they were formed out of volcanoes, there's a huge variety of flora and fauna, and the best part: there are few frangipani (plumeria) trees! Those are the best smelling flowers I know. Anyway, on Friday we went to a special boulder beach where you can actually go surfing. That night we went to a really great unknown restaurant and just ordered a menu of the typical food of the area, and it was so good. I don't know what made it so good, it just was! 

On Saturday we visited a national park in the mountains where they have an observatory and we went on a walk through there, but then we visited some land in the area where there was a small farm with horses and chickens and it was pretty cool- one of our friends said it might even be possible to ride the horses! Ahhhh! Sunday was just been another chill-out day, laying on the beach and turning brown. Sunday was actually the first day I went in the water (and got tossed by the huge shorebreak about a million times), getting tons of black sand in my hair and bathing suit. Man, I love the Atlantic but I don't know if it loves me!

I do have a pretty big and exciting announcement, however!

Everything's changing! I'm moving again! This time to a new country- to Austria! Okay, it's not as big of a deal as I make it seem- I'll only be 90 minutes away from Munich, but still... I'm thrilled! The town is called Innsbruck, well-known mostly because it's a huge winter sports destination- deep in the Austrian alps. It's a beautiful spot and I'm so excited to start a new adventure there! For now I'm networking there (which is going to be awesome), working hard, hey who knows? I might even sing in a few clubs! If you can't tell I'm excited, then you haven't been reading ;)
 Austria, are you ready for me?!

More news when it's more exciting!

Music for the morning: Only the Young by Brandon Flowers 

Round and Round

On a more unfortunate note, I am not traveling to Kiev in November as planned. Though I am slightly disappointed, the trip has not been cancelled altogether- just moved to mid-January. Every cloud has a golden lining. In this case I am grateful as this allows me to continue working through the end of the tourist season (til New Years). Plus it gives me more time to learn Russian better. Then it's off to the Canaries and then Ukraine! 

I am totally excited for what the New Year has in store. Let's just say I am working on various projects on the moment, mostly involving music. I'm doing all kinds of things- writing songs, imagining some album concepts, and trying basically to get a clear image of what I want to achieve as an artist and a singer. For the moment I'm concentrating a lot on pop rather than opera. I was always better at pop anyway ;)

A number of you might be wondering why I'm talking about Kiev and the Canary Islands at all. One evening I was working at a club and I got to know an amazing group of people called the DO Team (do-people.com). These people are revolutionizing the way network marketing works (basically that means promoting a product through word-of-mouth) with a really cool product called Lava Vitae. This is a health supplement made of activated volcanic ash that helps your body detox and promotes brain and digestive health. I took this while I was getting over a second round of tonsillitis (I am the luckiest person alive) and it worked wonders. Anyway, what the DO People do is promote the product worldwide through personal networking, and the next market to open is in Ukraine.

Besides that, the people I've gotten to know in this team are just the loveliest bunch. I've had so much fun in such a short time with them and I'm really excited for our future projects together (exciting details to come)!

The weekend is also going to be busy and exciting and crazy (story of my entire life)- I'm moving- again! This time to a more long-term place. And I'm photographing tonight and Saturday night! Check out my galleries- these are my two personal favorites: 
http://www.nachtagenten.de/fotos/list.php?gallery=914733&public=GLDIlL3f914733

http://www.nachtagenten.de/fotos/list.php?gallery=914808&public=CKuCwLo1914808

Have a terrific Friday everybody!

Music for the morning: I Couldn't Care Less by Leslie Clio (she's so cool, check her out!)