Admittedly, neither one of us knows a thing about music.  Not “real” music anyway, the kind you hear in concert halls or opera houses.  The kind with instruments that your parents wanted you to play in high school marching band, as opposed to that garage band your classmates struck up that played the kind of music that made your parents complain about how music these days was anything but music.

So it’s a little ironic that Neighbor Kim, one of, if not THE, world’s most renowned bassoonist and in her spare time, Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium, invited us over to a dinner party last Friday where we were surrounded by other world-renowned musicians.  There was Ole, the Norwegian violinist, and Reiner, the German viola player who also teaches in 7 languages, as well as his wife, an opera singer whose name I can’t recall (let’s just say she, and the wine, were lovely).  You’d think we’d have absolutely nothing in common with these famous musicians and yet we did – our 457 visas.  We might not all be famous but we are all foreigners.