Robin Meloy Goldsby lives in a small village in Germany called Wahlscheid, near Cologne. She moved there in 1994.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, she plays piano for the cocktail hour in the main hall of Schlosshotel Lerbach, next to the hotel's huge fireplace. It is not unusual for bridal parties to arrive there in a gilded carriage drawn by white horses.

On Sundays, she plays during lunch in the restaurant, which is next to a rose and lavender garden in the front of the castle.

Yes, I said castle. The property dates back to 1384. Both the restaurant and hotel are operated by hotelier Thomas Althof.

What a life. But there's more.

When you have played the piano in hotels for a living for 30 years, you are bound to have some stories to tell.

Robin has many, but she's saving a fair number for a book she is in the process of writing called "Piano Girl," due in the spring of 2005.

She has a new CD, "Twilight," all original music, to be released in early May and available on Amazon.com, where "Somewhere in Time," her first CD, is still being sold.

I have it. It is wonderful.

I am looking forward to the book but wanted to share some of her life with readers before it is published. Why? Because she grew up here, in Chatham Village on Mount Washington, where she attended Whittier Elementary, Prospect Junior High and South Hills High School, and later, Chatham College.

And because I don't know anyone else who plays piano at a genuine castle in Europe.

"I feel like Cinderella every time I show up for a gig," she says. "I love putting on my princess dress and sitting down at the piano in the middle of so much elegance."

When her husband, John Goldsby, was offered a job as jazz bassist with the WDR Big Band, the biggest public television/radio company of its kind in Europe, they moved from New York to Germany. It was a move she found difficult because learning a foreign language at age 37 was not an easy task. Now it is home.

They had a baby son, Curtis, and wanted to leave hectic New York City after both had lived and worked there for some time.

Curtis is now 11 and their daughter, Julia, is 7. Both are musical and both are bilingual.

"I'm pretty good at speaking German without an American accent," says Robin, "but when I get excited or upset, I sound like Fraulein von Mount Washington."

Before settling in New York, one of her first jobs was at the Grand Hyatt (now a Marriott) at Chatham Center, and she recalls being tucked into a safe little corner playing a studio upright piano. A gentleman came over one evening, just as she finished playing the song "Charade" in 5/4 time.

"My dear," he said, "this is one of the most difficult jobs in music and you are doing it very well."

Robin thanked him, shaking his hand as was her standard greeting for strange men carrying martini glasses.

"I'm Robin Meloy."

"Nice to meet you, Robin. I'm Hank Mancini. Nice work on 'Charade.' "

"I spent the rest of the evening wondering how many mistakes I had made while playing his piece and thinking, unless you are Dave Brubeck, you shouldn't play a 3/4 piece in five. Especially when you are 18 and the composer is sitting there listening to you."

While in Pittsburgh, she was "a Don Brockett gal" as an actor and a musician. She was at the Hyatt for a long time, but also played at Christopher's, Ernie's Esquire and the Redwood Motor Inn while working her way through Chatham College. She studied piano with Bill Chrystal.

Mancini was one of the first, but she would eventually meet many celebrities when she went on to play at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan for many years. She also played at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, including its grand opening.

Her father, Bob Rawsthorne, played percussion for 30 years on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." "He's still active and he's a great drummer," she says. "He and my mother, who was from Brookline, spend winters in Florida, and he plays there as well. He loves his work and my mother is his biggest fan."

Robin says her father taught her the honor of being a musician. And her mother taught her the honor of being a musician's wife.

She met her husband while in New York at the Grand Hyatt. He was playing with a jazz trio in the lobby. They married nine months later.

Although she now considers Germany her home, here's what she misses in Pittsburgh: Fred Rogers (we all have that in common), Chatham Village, shopping malls, graham crackers, Chatham College, Phipps Conservatory, Shadyside, Ritter's diner, Eat 'n Park, her sister's kids, chipped ham, the Pittsburgh accent, meeting under Kaufmann's clock ... and just being a kid in Pittsburgh.

Sure, a castle in Germany is impressive.

But never underestimate how grand the simplest of Pittsburgh memories can be.