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Well, it's been about two months since my last update, and quite a bit has happened since then, so I better write about it all. Or at least part of it. I think I'll start with the jazz choir's Europe tour.

Wed July 6 - We (that is, my dad, mom, and I, the former going to Europe with me as chaperone/sound man) left our house early in the morning, went to our church to load the bus, choir, and chaperones (there was also a smaller bus for some of the choir's fans, i.e. relatives), and left for LAX. After a sleepy but mostly sleepless (for me at least) bus ride, we went into the airport, and then waited in the check-in line for an overly large amount of time. After we finally got our boarding passes (exit row seats, yay), we got on our plane to our first stop, Houston. There, we had a brief layover, then got on the plane for the ride to Amsterdam.

Thurs July 7 - We arrive in Amsterdam. Flights that span two days and nine timezone changes can be quite disorienting, but sleeping on the plane rides did help a bit. After getting all our luggage (that means bags for 43 plus the choir's equipment) and waiting for our bus, we went to Delft, where we were staying. Once we got there, we didn't have much to do, so we just wandered around the town a bit, then went back to the hotel to sleep.

Fri July 8 - The day started out with a tour of Delft. (Well, it really started out with breakfast at the hotel, but so did every day on this trip.) At the end of the tour we went into one of the three Delft ceramics factories. Later we changed into our performance clothes and headed off to the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague for our first performance of the tour. The performance was, uhm, interesting. It started off well enough, but for some reason Sing a Song of Song started off in 3/4 instead of 4/4, and stayed that way until Mr. J cut us off half way through the song. Anyway, that night we went to the Dave Holland concert, which was great. We got back to Delft around 2am or something, but when your're on a tour in Europe with the jazz choir, you're always tired, so it didn't seem that late.

Sat July 9 - We took a day trip back to Amsterdam. It started with a visit to the Rijksmuseum, filled with a bunch of Rembrandt. After that was the traditional boat tour of the city, followed by random wandering down the shopping area, where I, as usual, bought nothing and was somewhat bored. After that we went back to Delft, then on to the jazz festival again. I didn't have tickets to any of the paid concerts this day, so we basically wandered around from place to place the entire time. For anyone who's never been to North Sea before, it can be described best with one word: crowded. Well, that and smoky, in quite a few places. Oh, and loud. In fact, those were the three reasons we wandered the entire time: the places were either full, too smoky, too loud, or a combination thereof. We heard a little good stuff, but were too tired to stay for one of the later acts, which everybody who did go said was very good. Oh well. At least I was awake enough to take a shower and get rid of some of the smoke smell.

Sun July 10 - We left Delft on our bus (all the way from Florence in Italy, as we would be using it for the rest of the trip) and headed toward our next stop, Cologne (Köln) in Germany, where we saw its well-known gothic cathedral... we also heard Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor while there, but rather than being played on an organ, it was with a collection of accordions and a tuba. Anyway, after lunch we continued on to Rüdeshiem, a small town on the Rhine. We had to take a ferry across the Rhine to get to the part of town where we would be staying. When we got there, we had dinner, then the choir had a rehearsal (we had a performance the next day) which went well.

Mon July 11 - We got to sleep in an hour or so (I had been getting up a bit before 7 every day, which is early for someone used to sleeping until the afternoon during summer). After breakfast we took a cruise on the Rhine. Most of the choir stayed on the top of the boat for the cruise, while I, as usual, sought shade, this time in the front of the boat. We went upstream a bit first, then turned around and went downstream until we were a little past Lorelei (a very large rock that stands something like 400ft above and right next to the Rhine; also the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea). There we got off and took the bus back to Rüdeshiem. After that we got ready for our performance, which was to be at a restaurant a couple blocks from our hotel. We got there, waited for the group that was there to finish playing, and set up our equipment. Then our transformer died. No mics, no amps. We sang one a cappella song, and, defeated (and with many in bad moods), carried our equipment back to the hotel. After dinner we had another rehearsal, which I wasn't particularly looking forward to, but it ended up okay. The beginning of Way of the World brought some laughs, with the guitar and bass jamming without amps, and aside from the tiredness, the rest of the rehearsal was fine.

Tue July 12 - No sleeping in today. This was the day that we left Germany, and headed into Switzerland and the Montreux Jazz Festival. The bus ride was rather long and boring, though that was broken up slightly by playing cards (as were most boring bus rides and waiting). The official card game of the trip apparently was Three Card, though I managed to get some to play Hearts, and Gin when there were only two people. Anyway, after we got to Montreux and checked into our hotel (the same one as last time, great view of the lake), we went off to our first performance (most of the choir took the bus, which became full, so a few of us walked the few blocks there, arriving at the same time). The performance went well (they're kind of hard to differentiate a month after they happened). Afterwards we wandered up and down the overcrowded walkway by the lake, with lots of vendors and overly loud music here and there.

Wed July 13 - This was our only full day in Montreux. We first went to the Castle of Chillon (Château de Chillon), known for its imprisonment of Bonivard in the 16th century. I could have slept in a bit more, but the people who went two years ago had said they enjoyed it, so I decided to go. It was pretty fun. The castle was right on the lake... it had two sets of walls, a dungeon and cave-like rooms, tall towers, a chapel, etc. I went around to all the rooms Kevin and Sam... I managed to keep them following the numbers of the guided tour even though Kevin thought we were just going to places randomly. Every once in a while we found a room with good acoustics so Kevin and I sang one of our Chamber Singers songs. Oh, and we found a secret passage of sorts between two rooms; it was very dark inside, with a low ceiling, and we scared two other choir members when we came out the other side. Anyway, our time at the castle ended by climbing up to the top tower of the castle (we were running a bit low on time so we had to hurry), then going back down to the chapel with most of the choir members who came and sang one or two songs (lovely acoustics, though we were short a couple altos). After that we went back to the bus and rode back into Montreux. We didn't have anything else planned that day except a performance that night, so I took a nap. After that I got ready for the performance, and went down to the stage—different from the first one we performed on, but same as the last Europe trip's stage... directly in the sun, though I don't think it was as warm as two years ago. The performace was great, better than the one the day before... too bad it wasn't recorded (the mic was off... at least we got the first Montreux performance though). After that we were free again, so after dinner I played cards with people in the lobby (mainly Andrew).

Thu July 14 - We got up at the same time as two days ago, if not earlier. We spent half the day on the bus, heading to La Spezia in Italy, first through beautiful valleys between mountain ranges and then through about two dozen tunnels, which made it difficult to play cards. After we got to the hotel and checked in, we went off to Cinque Terre, a set of five little coastal villages nearby, reachable only by train (the first of which we missed by about 30 seconds). We ended up only going to two of the villages... it was a little interesting but for the most part kind of boring. After we got back my dad and I wandered around La Spezia a bit (everything was closed by then, of course, though window displays were still lit up), then went back to the hotel, which was the worst one of the entire trip, but luckily it was for only one night.

Fri July 15 - Another travel day. Our first stop was Pisa, but we were running late so we didn't have much time there... basically look at the tower, have lunch, and spend maybe ten minutes in the cathedral. After that we drove on to Perugia, home of the Umbria Jazz Festival. When our bus arrived at the hotel (around 5, I think), someone came running up and said that our performance that evening had been moved to something like 5:30. This would give us no time to get dressed or prepare in any way, but when Mr. J asked if we still wanted to perform, everybody said yes, so we hurried up the hill to the festival and soon were performing. It went pretty well; though the original later time would have been nice, this rather impromptu performance was fine. After the performance we went back to the hotel and had dinner, of all places, and an American grill called Crazy Bull.

Sat July 16 - This day we went to Assisi, a town not too far from Perugia. First we went up an escalator to one part of the town, and after that we went down to the Basilica of St. Francis. Don't really remember much about Assisi... must not have been memorable. Anyway, after we got back to Perugia we went up to the festival early, as we were to perform again (on the same stage, this time in our uniforms) that night. Though I wish we hadn't gone early, because all we did at first was wait for an extremely loud band to play first... my dad and I sought refuge on the other side of a building, where the rest of the choir joined us later to warm up. Then we went up on stage. This stage, by the way, is outdoors, though covered, right in front of some building. It looks out down a busy walkway and has another walkway running in front of it. During the first performance the people basically flocked to the shade, making it at least look like there weren't many people. But the second performance was after sunset, and there were lots of people all around. The performance went very well, full of energy and excitement. After the performance we changed out of our uniforms, and some went back to the hotel, but we stayed up and had dinner there. After dinner (which takes a while—this is, after all, Italy), there wasn't much time to do anything, so we went back down to where a bus (not ours) would pick us up and bring us back to the hotel. But the bus was full when we got there, so we crammed half of our group onto it, and four of us walked back to the hotel instead. We somehow managed to get back to the hotel not long after the bus (it's all downhill), getting almost lost only once.

Sun July 17 - We went to Orvieto today. We drove along what I think was the Tiber for a while to get there. We went up a funicular to get up the cliffs, then a bus to go the rest of the way, dropping us off in front of the cathedral, which closed for mass when we got there. We went on a tour of the caves nearby (man-made, not natural), which contained many pigeonholes, literally—small holes for pigeons which could be eaten during a siege. Aside from that the caves weren't very interesting, though the second one we went into was nice and cool, being totally underground. And there was a well from Etruscan times (probably 700s BC). After the tour we walked down a couple of the streets, had lunch at a place with Internet (which quite a few people took advantage of), then the choir gathered at the cathedral, in which Mr. J convinced the person in charge to let us sing. So we sang Episode: Prelude (a song with no words... they didn't want secular stuff and this was the closest we had). Cathedrals have nice acoustics. Anyway, after that we went back down the funicular and went back to Perugia. We ended up having dinner at some pizza place, where I was amused by the fact that you could get your pizza with either alta or bassa crust.

Mon July 18 - Another traveling day! Luckily the bus ride to Florence (Firenze) was not as long as the other ones we'd had during the trip. We got to Florence before the hotel was ready for us, so we took an impromptu bus tour of the city, stopping by a park on a hillside that had a fountain in the form of a dragon, around which we took a group picture (well, lots of pictures really; pretty much every adult there had a camera). After we checked into our hotel (which was rather nice), we had the rest of the day free, so wandered around Florence a bit. Pretty soon most of the people in our group no longer felt like wandering, so we went back to the hotel room. I played billiards with Sam for a little while (of course, this billiards table had pockets barely bigger than the balls themselves). I probably played cards, too. Don't really remember that much.

Tue July 19 - For this day we had originally planned to go to Lucca, where we were to perform. But the festival there was canceled, so we didn't. Instead I spent the day sleeping, as I wasn't feeling too well (sore throat, etc.).

Wed July 20 - On the road again... we traveled to Venice (Venezia). Another long bus ride. When we got to our hotel (on the mainland) they weren't ready for us, so we had a short practice outside and then waited around doing nothing. After we got into the hotel, we gathered to go to Venice proper. We took a bus over the bridge, then a boat over to Piazza San Marco, around which we wandered for a while, then gathered back at the piazza, where the moon was rising over the canal, so we sang Full Moon. After that to get back to the bus we took taxis up the Grand Canal... one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Thu July 21 - Back to Venice. We went to the same area, more or less, except we had all day to wander, meaning I was bored. Not to mention tired. But afterwards the entire choir gathered for dinner at one restaurant (I had a pomodoro pizza). After dinner we sang one of our songs, and at the very end of the song it began to rain. We had been planning to go up in the campanile (bell tower) in the piazza, but when we found out that you had to take an elevator and couldn't climb it, many changed their minds; a few however, myself included, decided to go up anyway. It was quite a nice view. We could see Venice, lit up by the occasional lightning bolt (one might have hit the tower while we were in it; it was pretty loud... we were in a nice metal cage, though this fact didn't seem to abate Shelby's fear very much). After that we still needed to get back to the bus and didn't really want to take boats in a thunderstorm, so we walked back instead. It took us a while to get to the bus station... let's just say that Venice doesn't have many straight, continuous streets (nor does any European city we went to, for that matter). But it wasn't cold or anything, so it wasn't bad. After we got to the station we waited for a bus, then went back to the hotel.

Fri July 22 - We went to Milan (Milano), making a brief stop in Verona to drop off Kevin and Leslie. There was a shopping/sightseeing opportunity in Milan (the hotel was about half an hour out), so a some of us decided to see what there was to see. Everybody wandered in different directions, so first we went to the cathedral, where we not only walked in it but also climbed up some stairs onto its roof, giving us a nice view of the city (few buildings are as tall as cathedrals), including the top of the dome of the plaza where we had dinner. After that we gathered back in front of the cathedral, and the bus took us to our hotel, where most of the people were just leaving to go to dinner. So I borrowed someone's cards and we played them until everybody got back, after which someone else joined us in our games. Then we went to sleep; we would be getting up early tomorrow.

Sat July 23 - This was the day of our flight home. We got up at some insanely early hour to get some breakfast and then travel to the airport on the other side of Milan (our travel agent put us in a hotel by the wrong airport). After getting all our luggage checked in we got on the plane and flew to Newark. I slept for a good portion of the flight, waking just as we were coming over Canada. When descending into Newark I could see glimpses of New York City, but only when we were turning; the plane's wing was in the way for the most part. When we landed, we noticed that we were running quite a bit late—by the time we got to the baggage claim area there were something like fifteen minutes until our next flight started boarding. By the time we got all of our luggage (oversized items take longer and are in a different area), the plane was already boarding. So we rushed to get our luggage checked in again (too bad they can't do it for us... they must not like international flights), went through a security gate that one of the airport employees opened just for us, and hurried off to the plane. Shortly after the last of our group got on the plane, we left the gate and were on the runway. Again, I slept for a good part of the flight, and woke up somewhere over New Mexico. After landing and getting our stuff, we waited for the bus, then rode back to Good Shepherd, where all of the choir families were gathered to pick us up. We put the equipment that needed to go back to DP in a trailer and left it there so we didn't have to deal with it that night, then went home.

Well, now it's been over three months since my last post. This one took a long time to write. But it's finally done. Now I can write about other stuff, like college.

But not right now.