New guitar

When I left SLC back in September I could only take on carry on onto the plane. Not wanting to risk checking either my laptop so I could carry my guitar on or vice versa, I decided to leave behind my guitar. I've been playing guitar ever since I was 12, so it was a pretty tough decision to make, but I've heard too many musician horror stories about instruments getting destroyed by airline baggage handlers. Plus when you get down to it a guitar is a really heavy, awkward thing to travel around with, hence it stayed at home.

Since getting here I've been feeling the absence, not only of the guitar but of simply having music in my life. I've always done something musical since I was a little kid, be it playing piano, guitar, singing, arranging for Voicestream, going to concerts, or just listening to music. It's one of the fundamental parts of my personality, so not having an outlet for it is pretty weird. So when my birthday rolled around I decided that a new guitar would be a good idea!

Originally I wanted to go to a music store to get something, although one of the other Fulbrighters here recommended I check out a big flea market they have every weekend in Sternschanze, so I decided to give that a shot. Initially I was pretty unimpressed with what I saw when I visited. There's a bunch of crap in flea markets, and there were some exceptionally weird guitars all over the place--all knockoffs and facsimiles of famous makes and models, a few franken-guitars obviously pieced together from multiple instruments, none that sounded very good, and none that I was enthusiastic about.

I was about to give up when I turned a corner and saw a stall full of really nice-looking acoustics. The man running the stand was in his 60's, long white hair, wrinkled face, long black jacket, and just had the look of a guy who looked like he had spent most of his life dealing with guitars. You see the type in guitar stores all the time--people who have such love of the instrument that they sacrifice themselves to a life of retail work simply to spend as much time as possible around what they love. I stepped up to the stand and looked at the guitars, picked one and sat down to give it a try. I was really surprised with the sound. The tone was loud, clear, none of the notes buzzed, and it just felt right. It was one of those things that had a sense of destiny about it: a used guitar of unknown origin, discovered in some tucked-away corner at a flea market in Europe, waiting for the right person to come and discover it. The opportunity was too rare and unique to pass up, I hadn't traveled across a third of the world to walk away from a find like that. I handed over a hundred Euros to the guy, and told me he was happy that the guitar was "going into good hands."

I've had to make a few alterations and fix it up a little bit, but now that I've got some new strings on it and I've fixed the little kinks it's sounding even better than it did previously. We've had a few friends over since I bought it, and they've all commented on how good it sounds. You know that when non-musicians can hear the quality in an instrument that you've found something good. Really, really enjoyed playing it so far, and I'm still looking for a name. I'm trying to come up with a short little German phrase or something, but so far I'm drawing a blank, and you can't really rush a christening.