paris and the plague

Well, made it to Paris, sang an awesome audition--and I mean, one of the most fun times I've had with Zerb, and then, to my not-so-surprise, heard the list of singers called back and couldn't help seeing the trend of Francophone names.
I get it, it's a French studio program. However...why advertise yourself to the masses, knowing that you will have oodles of American youngsters flying over for a LOT of money, to just give each person 4 minutes of ONE song (unless you cut them off after the first page and pick another song..as you did to about 3 people before me), seem totally disinterested the entire time, flipping through papers and whispering amongst yourselves, and have FIVE days of auditions like that (which, might I add, ran TWO and a HALF hours late)...only to call back 12 French singers?
At least that is not the ONLY thing that I flew over to Germany for.
I could not imagine the discouragement of those who spent probably 800 dollars on a round trip flight, 90 dollars a night on a hotel (and I'm sure they assumed they would be called back, too..that's 3 nights), only to get in the room, have them cut you off after one page, and ask for one more minute of a 2nd aria.

I was here already, and it was just two more stamps of my Eurail pass...so no big deal.

Returned from Paris to the beginnings of the current singer-plague.
Well, ok, not yet.
Right now it's just a totally stuffy nose and some post nasal drip that is making it just a bit uncomfortable to do just about anything...since I am constantly blowing my nose.

I am supposed to sing on Wednesday, and tomorrow is supposed to be a travel day for me.

I am PRETTY sure that I'll be fine...but I would hate to get on a train for 8 hours to find that I'm not 100% by Wednesday.

I'll be monitoring this all day by staying in bed, drinking water and EmergenC, drinking tea, real orange juice, and seeing whether it's feeling better or worse by tonight.

Last week here and I just have ONE more audition and this happens now? Well, I suppose better than on the plane ride back or next week when I'll really be busy re-packing my life into the next 5 week stint.