Europe: Day 14 (July 18)

Today, I got to experience something that not many people can claim. After a hotel breakfast, we loaded the bus and went to the Notre Dame of Paris Cathedral. There, we had an hour or so to look around this magnificent house of worship, and then we all took our seats to watch the Chorus perform some of their church pieces. The performance was amazing. The acoustics were fantastic; every syllable was crystal clear. You could see on every one of their faces how happy they were to be performing in such a sacred place. After that, I spoke briefly with one of the priests about the the trip, my friends, and family. He was a really neat guy, and I'm glad I had the chance to talk with him. After leaving the church, we headed to the bus to take a small group of us to the Musée d'Orsay. We spent a few hours walking around this huge and magnificent building. Taking several illegal pictures of the paintings and meeting up with a group of my friends, we left the Orsay and headed across the bridge to the Paris Opéra House, but we couldn't make that trip without stopping for some delicious croissants and pastries. The inside of the Opera House was absolutely amazing. There is just no such building like this back in the US, so I made sure to take lots of pictures. After walking around the Opera House for a bit with my friends, we left for the Hard Rock Cafe: Paris. After an early dinner filled with lots of awesome rock songs, we left for la Tour Eiffel. The line was pretty long, but it was definitely worth it for the experience I was about to get. In the line before I got to the metal detector station, I realized that I had a pocketknife in my pocket, so I hurriedly jumped out of the line and ran onto the bus to put them up so I wouldn't be rejected entrance into the Tower. I hopped back into my place in line and waited patiently to go up on the elevator. The elevator that took us to the first floor (floors are different in Europe; the floor that is "ground floor" is level zero. The floor one above ground level is level 1)  is really odd, because it goes up at an awkward diagonal because of the shape of the "legs" of the tower. After getting to the 2nd floor, we took a different elevator up all the way to the top. The sun was just beginning to set, and the sight was absolutely beautiful. You could see the city for miles (or kilometers) away. The top of the tower is an open-air enclosure, surrounded with only thin wire to keep people from falling off. It was rather intimidating at first, but once I got used to the height, I started to enjoy it more. I got lots of pictures with many of my friends, because the chances of us being able to do this again aren't very high. The air up there was really cold, but it felt great, and was such an surreal experience. I would have loved to stay up there forever!

Europe: Day 13 (July 17)

After packing up the buses, we departed for the Chateau (Castle) of Fontainbleau. We were able to do a self-guided tour around the Chateau. Although the Chateau was really beautiful, I was pretty distracted about going to Paris later today, because today is my birthday! The ride to Paris was hard for me because I was so excited! Once we got there, we had some time for lunch, and then we met up with a tour guide and got back on the bus for a bus tour of Paris. I have to admit, although I enjoyed getting to go through the city, being on a bus for another hour was just about the last thing I wanted to do then. After the bus tour, we checked into our hotel and ate at a Paris restaurant. That night at dinner, I had my first legal drink of wine (I had a glass of Champagne) for my 16th Birthday! Before we left, all the SOA members sang happy birthday to me and it was really awesome. I got a lot of hugs, and so one of the chaperones suggested that to make some quick cash, I should charge 1€ for a hug and 5€ for a kiss. I got numerous hugs and a few kisses, (on the cheek) but decided not to collect on my fees. I guess I'm just a generous person. After dinner, we headed to the port where we got on a nice boat and took an amazing and relaxing cruise down the River Seine. The sky was so gorgeous and the weather was amazing. It was the perfect temperature, just windy enough to keep you cool but not enough to be annoying. I sat with lots of my friends and we took tons of pictures while passing some of the iconic buildings, such as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, Musée d'Orsay, the famous Notre Dame Cathedral, and several others. Tonight was such an amazing day, and everyone was so happy and kind and sweet to me. I honestly can't think of any possible way better to have a Sweet 16 than in Paris, France!

Europe: Day 12 (July 16)

This morning, we leave the French-speaking, Swiss watch-making town of La Chaux-de-Fonds and leave for Fontainbleau, with a lunch stop in the mustard-making city of Dijon, France. This was my first time in France! Some of my friends wanted to go to the first place that they recognized: McDonald's. I was very upset with them, and decided to keep it authentic, so I went to a bakery and bought a real French bread sandwich. It was a very good first meal in France! After our hour lunch stop, we continued to the city of Fontainbleau. Once we arrived there, we checked into our hotel, got dressed very quickly, headed out to a restaurant and then performed in the Église St. Louis, the main church in the town. The audience really appreciated our performance, and were very energetic after every piece we performed. I announced again at this concert, but since I had time to make revisions to my lines, I didn't feel as stressed and therefor didn't mess up nearly as much. 

Europe: Day 11 (July 15)

Today, we had a late morning bus ride from the city of Grindewald to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. We arrived at the hotel, where we quickly got ready for dinner in our uniforms and then performed our concert in the nicest performance hall so far, Musica Theatre. Since I have taken 3 years of French in school, I was invited to do some translating for announcements. They gave me a printout (in English) of things to say about a few of the pieces and I had to work out how to announce them in French to the concertgoers. I messed up quite a bit, since at the last minute, Terri, one of the bus leaders, asked me to introduce her dad, the Band Director. SInce I didn't really have time to get that written down on my sheet of paper, I pretty much had to come up with it off of the top of my head, so I stuttered and messed up quite a bit. There was a beautiful pipe organ in the background, and if you check on FB, I will post links of the picture we took there. This is the picture that will go on the front page of the brochure that is sent out to people that SOA is trying to recruit for next year's tour. After the concert, we packed up and headed back. Nothing much else really happened today, mostly travel, eating, then performing.

Europe: Day 10 (July 14)

So far, I can absolutely say, without a single doubt, that this was by far the most impressive day I have had since this trip began. We started it out by walking to the other bus' hotel to get the tickets that we already paid for to ride the cable car. Our little group went to this nice little supermarket and picked out some picnic-like foods to take along with us to the Alps. We took the cable car, called the "First," to the top of the mountains. We had a large chunk of the afternoon to wander through these wonderful mountain ranges. The sights in the Swiss Alps were just unlike anything that I have ever seen before. There is just so much open space there, unfortunately a sight that is becoming less and less common in the States. We hiked about an hour to this lake made entirely of glacial water. We stopped here and ate our picnic lunch. After a while, we headed back to the cable car station to head back to the concert hall, but when we got on the cable car (which takes 30 mins, one way), and got a good 10 minutes into the trip, the gondola suddenly stopped and hung, ricking, in the cool Swiss air. We all looked around at each other, noticeably a little nerve-racked. After a few panic-filled minutes, all the cars began to move again. Until they stopped a second time. But then they started working again until we got off. We got set up for the concert, and then performed a very nice concert for the people of Grindewald. Although I cannot express how amazing today was, I will certainly post many pictures once I get back home and have the chance to go through them all on my computer and whatnot.

Europe: Day 9 (July 13)

Today, we spent what seemed like forever on the bus departing Italy and heading into Switzerland. We were driving through some REALLY narrow roads with extremely sharp turns. I don't usually get nervous when being driven, but there were a few times that I felt like there was no possible way we would be able to make this next turn, but somehow, our fantastic bus driver managed to get it done. Switzerland is such a beautiful little country, and although it is so small (roughly 2x size of NJ), it has these beautiful, enormous alps that seem to go on and on. I'm really excited because we get to go up into the Alps tomorrow with nearly the entire day to ourselves.

Europe: Day 8 (July 12)

Today we had free to explore this lake resort town. Since I woke up late and missed breakfast, I figured I might as well do some packing up and reorganizing of my stuff since we were going to be leaving early next morning. After getting things wrapped up in the hotel, I went out for lunch and bought a sandwich. After that, we walked to the concert hall to begin set-up. We then went back to the hotel, ate dinner, and then performed our concert.

Europe: Day 7 (July 11th)

Today we left our Venetian hotel and departed for the city of Verona, which for those who remember studying Shakespeare, is the city that his play "Romeo and Juliet" is set in. We got to tour an ancient Roman Coliseum, the third largest in the world. We walked to the actual balcony where Juliet was said to have been for his play. After walking around some of the shops, getting some gelato, and chilling out in the park, we got on the bus and traveled to our last Italian city of Stresa, which is situated by beautiful Lake Maggiore. We had the evening after dinner to walk through this cozy little city. We stopped by some of the shoreline and skipped rocks for a while. We didn't do much after that, just walked up and down the street, got eaten alive by mosquitoes, and then came back to the hotel a little bit early. There, we formed a congregation of people watching Angelo mesmerize an audience of SOA with his mind-blowing magic tricks, and even showed us how some of them were done. I then went up to my room, did some laundry, and went to bed.

Europe: Day 6 (July 10)

Today, we had a free day to explore this busy tourist city of Venice. We began the day with a guided tour of the city, getting explanations of many of the important structures in the town. We concluded our tour at the Murano Glass Factory, where we got to see a skilled glassmaster form a pitcher entirely by hand, in a matter of minutes. After getting to see the formation of blown glass, we got to look around the Murano store at all of the beautiful glass pieces that had been crafted by these people. They were just absolutely amazing. After leaving the store, we walked down the canals looking for a gondolier. We found one that was offering a decent price, €80 for the group, or €20 each for the 4 of us. After a relaxing and exciting 2 km gondola ride, we stopped at another pizza restaurant for lunch. We got 2 margarita pizzas that were absolutely delicious. Following the lunch stop, we walked around the city for the next few hours, stopping in many of the wonderful little shops. I had to stop in one of the shops to get something, but the others didn't want to go in. So I went in and made my purchase. When I got out of that store, I couldn't find any of the rest of my group. I looked in each of the shops on that street for about 30 minutes without any luck. Eventually, I found another group of SOAers and stuck with them. Later that evening, I went to watch the Chorus perform at the Saint Mark's Basilica, a beautiful building. Since it is an operating basilica, we got to experience an Italian Mass. Although I couldn't understand any of the words that were being said, I felt like it was still an extremely humbling opportunity that I am glad I took up. After that, we left for the vaporetto to take us back to the port where our hotel was located. Venice is a pretty amazing city that I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit!

Europe: Day 5 (July 9th)

We had this morning free to explore this nice little ski village of Cortina, Italy. Quite a few of us went to the ice skating arena, which has previously hosted the Winter Olympics. We got two hours of skating there for (after a rebate) €6. Having ice skated before, I wasn't too worried about not knowing how to skate. However, there were several people that had never actually ice skated before. One of the girls, Liz, a great bass clarinetist, was holding onto the wall for her dear life. I went over and helped her out with learning some of the basics. I had soon gotten her off the wall and skating on her own a little bit! I felt really good about helping her to learn how to skate. It was a really enjoyable time there. After we were done skating, a group of us went to this Italian restaurant. We ordered two very appetizing pizzas and split them in our group of 5. The price, once divided evenly, was a very affordable €4.80. After finishing our lunch, we headed back to where the buses had parked and departed for Venice, Italy! Once we arrived at our hotel, we got unpacked and got ready for dinner there. After we finished dinner, our bus took us to the boat harbor where we boarded our private vaporetto (boat bus) to the island of Venice. We had about two hours to explore this nice, busy city. Unfortunately, nearly every street looks identical as it begins to get dark in the city of Venice. Our group got lost, but we ran into another SOA group also lost in the city. We ended up combining and trying to find our way back to the meeting point, the Alligator Pillar right off of Saint Mark's Square. After hopelessly wandering the streets for a good half an hour, we had the genius idea to ask someone for directions. But when we asked a restaurant staff person for directions at about 20 minutes until we were supposed to meet, the person told us that the walk from where we were would be at least 30 minutes. We hustled the group and called our tour leader to let her know we were on our way. After winding our way through the maze of streets, we arrived just at the time we were supposed to meet. Navigating a city is much harder at nighttime!

Europe: Day 4 (July 8)

We had a late morning this morning, which allowed me to get a good amount of sleep! but after breakfast, we loaded the buses and traveled to the "Old Town" part of Innsbruck. We got to mozy around the town in groups and check out lots of the local stores. My group stopped by several shops, buying miscellaneous items for ourselves and others. After that, we stopped by a gelateria, where we were treated to a delicious serving of gelato. After that, we stopped by a local grocer and picked up some sandwiches and other things for lunch. After that, we got back on the bus and took a short ride to this magnificent church where we were fortunate enough to hear the choir sing a few of their pieces. Their sound was heavenly! After about half an hour of exploring the church, we got back to the bus for our 3 hour ride to Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Once we arrived at the hotel, we got settled into our very comfortable and pretty room. We got dressed into our concert attire, headed to dinner a very generous Italian dinner. Following dinner, we got on the bus to the concert hall for tonight, next to the prior Olympic Ice Skating Arena. We spent a rather healthy amount of time setting up for the performance. Being on sound crew, we had to run all these wires to and from the microphones to the mixer box, tape the cords down so nobody would trip over them, and move the empty equipment boxes out of sight. Our concert went pretty well, in my opinion. Unfortunately, our concert ran EXTREMELY late. WE ended up finishing the entire program at 11:20pm. We had to run an extremely fast tear-down routine, but of course, what can go wrong always will go wrong. As we were loading the bus, I began to notice a few small raindrops. No big deal. But eventually, the drops began to grow larger and fell faster. Within 10 minutes, it was a total downpour. Most of the people that were supposed to help with the truck loading had ran inside to seek shelter from the rain, but their absence caused the loading process to take even longer. Additionally, I was in my entire uniform, which included a dry-clean only tie and my suit coat. After getting back to the hotel well after scheduled (around 12:30), I hung my stuff up to dry, got ready for bed, and hoped my clothes would dry out before I had to pack up my suitcase for departure the next morning. All my clothes were dry except for my pants, which I just brought with me and hung on the bus to completely dry. I was planning on doing laundry soon, but I guess nature took care of me that night!

Europe: Day 3 (July 7th)

We got up pretty early today to get on the bus to go to the Bavarian Alps. This was our last day in Germany, until we go back to Frankfurt Airport to fly back to the US. Today, we toured the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, Built by King Ludwig II. Walt Disney used this castle as his inspiration for the castles in Disneyland. The castle was so magnificent and gorgeous, but the King was only able to use it for two weeks before he died suddenly. After touring the castle, we took the bus to our second country of Austria. Once we arrived at our hotel in the Tyrol region of Innsbruck, Austria, we got dressed for dinner and then headed off for the "Tyrolean Evening." This was a very enjoyable night, and was very interesting. The performers were presenting us with traditional Austrian dances, yodeling, and performing interesting folk pieces on unorthodox instruments, such as the harp, singing saw, cowbells, and much more. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I truly enjoyed this evening. Also, one of the yodeling ladies made a really funny cow noise.

Europe: Day 2 (July 6th)

Today, I slept in and missed breakfast :( but I ate some of the granola bars that I brought with me. We had the whole morning free to wander the city, looking through little shops, tasting different bakeries, and talking to different people. I bought a fedora, which I am going to put pins on from each of the cities that we visit. One of the other kids (it's his 3rd time on the trip) came up with the idea, and I decided that I'd give it a try as well. Our group had some lunch at an Italian restaurant. We all had the same dish, "spaghetti bolognese,"  and none of us could finish it! Italians are rather generous with their portions! We also visited the Kriminal Museum, where they gave detailed descriptions of medieval torture methods. After tooling around town, we began setting up for our first concert and our only outdoor concert in the Market Square. The concert was not without several hiccups: we were missing a MIDI cable that allowed the synthesizer to play an electric bass sound. Additionally, there were wayyyy too few chairs for the entire audience, but hey, we were guaranteed a standing ovation! We heard the choir for the first time, and they sounded fantastic. They sang a song called Festival Sanctus, which I have played two years in a row for my highschool full orchestra concert during Christmas. I don't think our concert necessarily represented our full capability, but it was a pretty decent performance. After teardown, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. After dinner, we were free to explore more of the city. We found this little playground and there was this huge table that spun around. I played on that until I started to feel sick, which probably wasn't the best idea. I then walked back to the hotel and began packing up for the ride to Innsbruck, Austria tomorrow. 

Europe: Day 1 (July 5, 11AM)

This morning, we landed at the Frankfurt airport. It was a really nice place, and was very modern-looking. After getting off the plane, we walked our way to the passport control station. We waited at the baggage claim for what seemed like forever. After pulling every bag tagged with the hot pink SOA tag, we all found our suitcases and went through Customs. We left the airport and boarded our transport bus. We stopped at a rest stop where we got some food, used the restrooms, and bought a few souvenirs. From there, we headed off to our hotels. Ours is called the Gasthof Rappen. We settled into our rooms, had dinner, and then took a small tour of the city with our bus leader, Chris. We wandered around the magical little city of Rothenburg, Germany for an hour or so and then headed back to the hotel for the night. This city is so small, cozy, and welcoming!

The Flight to Europe. (July 4th)

At about 8:10pm, we boarded our flight on Singapore Airlines Flight 25 on an Airbus A380. We were greeted by several very friendly flight attendants. The size of this plane is absolutely insane. It economy class, which we were flying, there were three rows of seats with 3-4-3 seats per row. The kinds of complimentary services we got were absolutely amazing. When we first boarded the plane, we found a rather comfortable pillow and nicely folded blanket awaiting us at our seat. After that, they immediately offered us hot towels, which felt great by the way. Once situated in our seats, we started to notice the crazy advanced in-flight entertainment system. There is a USB charging station, AC Outlet, TV/Entertainment screen, and a controller/keyboard/gaming controller/telephone/credit card reader/light controller. The (very shapely) flight attendants brought us roasted peanuts and OJ and water. 

We were served two meals, the first of which was our evening dinner, which consisted of of an appetizer of penne pasta with shrimp and vegetable salad, a main course of panfried chicken with herb gravy, sauté vegetables medley and potatoes. Also, we got cheese and crackers, fresh fruits, a roll and butter, and 

The second meal we received our breakfast. I'm tired now, so bye.

Traveling to Europe: The Day Of

Europe: The day of (July 4th)

Yesterday, we held our two Bon Voyage concerts in front of two extremely appreciative near full-house crowds. My mom attended both, and my grandma, Aunt and Uncle, Great Great Aunt and Uncle, cousins and several other people. Everyone that I talked to afterwords couldn't stop talking about how much of a fantastic concert it was! I was very appreciative that everyone took time out of their busy lives to come and watch me and to send me off to Europe!

Right now, we're all sitting in the lobby of the dorms, doing final room checks and turning in our keys and such. We're going to be taking off for JFK Airport in an hour, with a fast food meal stop on the way there. It'll probably be a five hour drive or so, so it will be a good time to catch up on some of my sleep! We'll probably get to to JFK at about 4:30 or so. From there, we will have to go through TSA and get our baggage and instruments checked (that will be fun.....). After that, we will walk to the gate from which Singapore Airlines Flight 25 will depart. We will be flying on the Airbus A380, which to those who don't know, it is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only airplane in the world that is completely double-decker! Our flight is scheduled to depart tonight at 8:50pm ET, however, since there have been several thunderstorms lately, there is a chance our flight could be delayed. Hopefully not, though. Our flight is scheduled to lang at 10:45am in Frankfurt International Airport (Germany time). After that, we begin our first morning walking around the little city of Rothenburg, Germany. I'll post more things and pictures as they come along! Til then, wish me safe travels! 

Day 3: PM

I'm really happy with how we sound. We are giving out two Bon Voyage concerts tomorrow, and I'm really excited for them. They are going to sound great and I'm so sure that the audience will absolutely love every second we are performing! Today was our last full rehearsal day. Tomorrow, we only have a little of time to rehearse before the concert, and the day after that we leave for Europe!

I finally got a good picture of several of the really cool friends that I've made so far, so I'll post because I know that all of you (cough, MOM) are dying to see some pics.

Left to right: Cameron from Louisiana, Mike from Virginia,  Frank from New York, Mackenzie from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania,  Jon from New York, and of course, myself. 

Day 4: AM

Sooo tired. I slept well but still feel groggy. Great.

Day Three

Today marks the end of my third day here at the College. I'm extremely tired from our 10 and a half hours of practicing today. Nothing really big happened today. The band is beginning to sound hugely improved from the first day rehearsal. All of our pieces are really starting to come together. Additionally, we played through each of our combined pieces with the Chorus, which sounds fantastic, by the way. I also signed up to be on Sound Crew, which entails setting up all the recording and mixing equipment, mics, cords and other assorted whatnots. I ended up finally getting back to the dorm from training for sound crew right when curfew was set, so I didn't really get any time to relax, so I'm headed to bed pretty soon. Good night, world.

Morning Update

T+ 2 days and counting.

Sorry I didn't update my blog last night. I was tired. Very tired. We had 6 hours of rehearsal yesterday. I have some mixed feelings about yesterday...It was really fun to be able to start having sectional rehearsals, and we also had some full band rehearsals. The rehearsals didn't go as well as planned, unfortunately, because barely anyone had looked at their music in advance. It was so frustrating,because  having actually studied my music before I came to the college. We spent a ridiculous amount making stupid corrections to individual sections instead of being able to run most of our 11 pieces straight through. We then met out chaperones and parents that are going on the trip with us. After that, we had dinner at the dining hall. Even though we were supposed to have a pizza party social event thing, Frank, Mackenzie, Mike, Jon, and Cameron, and I went out to to this open field and played frisbee for at least an hour or so. We all went back into the dorm and went up a little commons room and hung out and took pictures of each other and creeped on other people until we had to go to our rooms. Mackenzie is the coolest person I've ever met in my whole entire life. That's how awesome she is. We're going to be best friends for life.