Gunn HS Choir 2009 Tour

2011 Italy trip!

2011-03-16T10:42:00.001-07:00

Gunn choir is going to Italy in April, 2011! The blog for that trip can be found here

Don's video of the Spanish Synagogue 'City Called Heaven'

2009-06-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here's Don's video of 'City Called Heaven' from the Spanish Synagogue, using a better camera than mine:

Enjoy, and please send me any more links you want to see here!

List of Links from our trip

2009-06-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

Below is a list of links from all the media collected on the trip so far:

- My blog photos of the trip
- Don Anderson's photos of the trip
- Don's videos of the trip
- Tracks from the Tuesday (June 16th) concert at St. Nicholas Church in Prague
- Video of the choir singing in the Pilsen Restaurant in Prague
- Video of the Gunn Choir portion of the performance at Votivkirche in Vienna

I will be happy to post links to any other files that come up -- video or audio, just let me know. I expect to see a few more audio files from Craig when he (like me) comes back to consciousness and has time to tweak the files, and I also hope to see more video.

Now that the trip is over I appreciate what a massive undertaking it was, and I want to express my thanks to all the great kids, the amazing chaperones and to Bill. We had a unique and gifted experience!

- Glen

My Blog Photos
I have a web album of the photos only from my blog here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grosendale/GunnHSChoir2009Tour#

Don Anderson's Photo Album:
http://albums.phanfare.com/5425871/3924461

Don Anderson's Videos:
http://gunn2009prague-viennatour.blogspot.com/

St. Nicholas Church, Tuesday June 16th:
Beati Quorum
Ave
Sicut Cervus
Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal
Elijah Rock

After-dinner singing at the Pilsen Restaurant in Prague, Wednesday June 17th

Votivkirch Festival Concert, Saturday June 10th

Beati quorum via:

Ave:

City Called Heaven:

Elijah Rock:

Sunday June 21, 2009 - Our last day in Vienna

2009-06-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Today was our final day in Vienna, the only musical event being a mass in Laxenburg, about an hour outside Vienna. The choir sang during the local mass and also gave a recital afterwards. Laxenburg was the summer seat for the Hapsburg dynasty, and the palace and church ("kirche") are still there, nicely restored. The choir boarded coaches at 8AM in choir attire and we went straight to the kirche:
Here's the outside of the church. As you can see, yesterday's wet weather has gone, and today was a beautiful sunny day -- up in the high 60's again and perfect for sight-seeing.
Here our chaperones point out the poster for the Sunday attendance of the Gunn HS choir.
The church is rather small -- our choir and chaperones alone could have almost filled it had we all sat in the pews. The townspeople who attended seemed to enjoy the music quite a lot. Below Bill is rehearsing the choir:

Here's the choir singing after the mass, a recital for the residents. The church is very light and airy, with some beautiful paintings.

After the mass and performance, the kids changed clothes and we headed to a surprise destination which wasn't in our itinerary. Vienna has a park, the Prater, centered around a large ferris wheel (Wiener Riesenrad) -- once the largest in the world:

Today it's center to an urban park and an amusement park, a good place to relax and enjoy some of our final day:

After leaving the Prater, we then embarked on a guided tour of the Ring Strasse -- the street that surrounds Vienna along where the old town walls used to be -- and of some other sites. This is in the Hofsburg Palace:

Clouds started arriving in the afternoon but never turned to rain, thankfully.
Once our guided tour was finished we went to the Alter Bach Hengl Restaurant for our final dinner together. The specialty was the Wiener Schnitzel, and everybody had a great time relaxing -- with all the performances complete the kids felt pretty good.

The Bach Hengl also had music, which even had some of our kids dancing (you can see that in Don Anderson's photo gallery when he uploads the pictures)
We returned to the hotel at about 9:30PM, enough time for some socializing before we packed up our stuff and turned in for a quick nap -- we're up at 3AM for our coach to the airport, and then back home.

It was a busy final day, with music and fun and memories that the kids & chaperones will carry for a long time.

Before I go, here's a video from the Votivkirche performance:

The quality's not so great -- I shot it with my little Canon camera, but it gives you an idea of the performance. I'll be uploading the other numbers after I get home, where my bandwidth is bigger -- it won't take days to upload there.

Next post will be from home!

6/20/2009 - Festival Night

2009-06-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our final big concert in Vienna, 'A Tale of Two Cities: Honoring the Anniversaries of G. F. Händel & Franz Josef Haydn". This festival concert combined our choir with choirs from Turlock High School in California, Wando High School in South Carolina, the CSU Concert Choir & Community Chorus from Fresno, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. This was the third combined concert of our trip, and was conducted by Anna Hamre and Hilary Apfeltstadt (accomplished choir conductors). In addition, Camerata Medica Vienna provided accompaniment on strings, trumpet & organ for the combined pieces.

The concert consisted of individual sets by the Turlock High School Madrigals, the University of Missouri-St. Louis; our set was 'Beati quorum via', 'Ave', 'City called Heaven' and 'Elijah Rock'. After the individual sets, Anna Hamre conducted the combined choir in 'Zadok the Priest' by Händel and 'Little Organ Mass (Mass No.5 in B-flat) by Haydn. Then Hilary Apfelstadt conducted the choirs in 'Te Deum in C for Maria Therese' by Haydn and 'Sing unto God from Judas Maccabaeus" by Händel.

However, before that concert we began the day with a tour of the 'House of Music' museum in Vienna, where the interactive & informative musical exhibits kept our kids interested. This was a relatively brief stop, however, as the rest of the day was spent rehearsing for the 8PM concert.

After the concert was over we attended a buffet dinner for all participants, held at Vienna University (former teaching place of Sigmund Freud!)

Below are a selection of snapshots from the day. Here's the Votiv Kirche in Austria, where the concert was held: After dropping the kids for rehearsal, the chaperones headed out for a bite to eat

This is the interior of theVotiv Kirche, before the beginning of the concert. It's enormous, dark and gothic (as befits a gothic cathedral, of course)
Below are some photos taken during the combined choirs performance. As you can see, there are a LOT of people. As you can also see, my little point-and-shoot camera was taxed to the maximum (and then some). Once Don Anderson has uploaded his pictures you should have a much better view.

This is the size of the cathedral, and the audience as it leaves after the concert:
Here's the University of Vienna site of the buffet dinner, and some more shots of the kids & chaperones enjoying themselves:

It was a very long and tiring day, but filled with amazing music. Tomorrow I hope to upload some videos & you can see what they looked like.

Goodnight!

6/19/2009 - Friday in Melk & Dürnstein

2009-06-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today was a slight break from the performing schedule. The choir sang a recital at the Benedictine Abbey in Melk, and the rest of the day was spent sight-seeing and enjoying a river boat ride on the Danube to Dürnstein.

We started with our first breakfast at the Hotel Schönbrunn, after we all found our way through the labyrinthine corridors to the breakfast room. Here's some girls prepared for the recital at Melk later in the day:
Then we boarded our coaches for the 1-1/2 hour ride to Melk, a town on the Danube west of Vienna. It's home to a benedictine abbey that has been at this site for over 900 years (since 1089 AD if I recall). It was enlarged and enhanced under Hapsburg rule, and is still a functioning monastery (33 resident monks, none of which we saw while touring). Here's how it looks from above:
Below are pictures of our group as we waited to enter for our guided tours:

This is a chamber in the imperial apartments, set aside for visits from the rulers (Maria Theresia was a big supporter). It redefines the word "opulence" especially when you consider this room was built in the 18th century.
This is the town of Melk, along the Danube below the benedictine abbey
The choir sang a recital in this cathedral after our tour:

One of our chaperones, with her daughter
Another chaperone, with his hat:
Some of our choir students demonstrating the dignity and poise for which Gunn High School is so famous
Another chaperone in the wind. Ah, the wind...first came that, and later the rain...
This is the choir singing in the cathedral. It's one of the most beautiful that I've ever seen -- more gold than St. Peter's in Rome, at least as far as I can remember

This is the apse of the church:
The courtyard has a very nice view of the Danube and the countryside
This is the river boat we boarded for our 1-1/2 hour cruise (with a brief stop for a boat change) to Dürnstein
More chaperones enjoying the air on deck
Here's some pictures of the kids enjoying the cruise. As you can see, it's starting to rain a little bit...

Chaperones & tour guide on deck, pleased that the kids don't have to be chased (where can they go on a boat ?!)
About 45 minutes into the trip, some of the kids serenaded the regular boat patrons with a selection (Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal):
Another chaperone relaxing on the boat
More choir kids

Our tour buses were traveling to Dürnstein as we took the boat, in order to pick us up and bring us back to Vienna
We reached Dürnstein about 5PM. It's a very small town, about 200 residents. We had about 2 hours to wander and tour; your blog editor headed straight for a restaurant while others decided to explore the town.
Having dinner at Alter Klosterkeller in Durnstein, which served delicious dumplings in the traditional style. This restaurant was hard to find but a great place to eat!
Finally about 7:30 the light rain turned to full-on showers, just as we were gathering at the bus pickup point (no shelter there to speak of). The ride back was a nice relaxing (but damp) end to the day.
Tomorrow is the main concert event, a combined performance with all participating choirs singing together. We do have some tour events in the morning before that, so it will be another busy day. Weather reports call for rain so staying dry will be a high priority!

After our 7th full day of activities we're all a little tired, so tonight should be a good chance to rest -- even though we have a lot to do tomorrow we can sleep till 7:45AM so we should be raring to go!

Later

Recordings from the Tuesday concert in Prague

2009-06-18T16:22:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Craig Syverson, we have some recordings of the Tuesday concert at St. Nicholas Church:

Beati Quorum
Ave
Sicut Cervus
Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal
Elijah Rock

These songs were recorded by Craig at the concert on the digital recorder which was a gift to Mr. Liberatore from this year's senior class. You should be able to click to listen, and you should also be able to download ("Save Link As...") for use on your iPod, iTunes or any audio player. If you need help please consult your favorite computer savvy friend (offer a dinner to be nice). I would recommend downloading to your own computer rather than repeated listening.

Thanks again to Craig!

6/18/2009 - Thursday night wrap-up

2009-06-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today was the busiest day so for for the choir kids. After checking into the Parkhotel Schönbrun the kids paused briefly to take a breath and headed to their second mass rehearsal. However, checkin was slightly complicated by the size & layout of our hotel. Can you find your room on this chart? Quick!
It took many of us more than a few minutes to do that, especially since the 600 numbered rooms are on the ground floor, the 700's and some of the 100's on floor 1, 800's on floor 2, etc. This is the second building in the hotel complex, where the first building is 5 stories tall, so they apparently didn't want to repeat any numbers. Everybody worked it out...eventually.

It's much warmer here than it was in Prague. I don't know if it's a difference between locations, or if the weather just warmed up while we were traveling (and I'm too tired to check weather.com to find out) but we were sweating in our light summer clothes, and the kids were pretty warm in the rehearsal.

After the rehearsal was finished the kids had a quick opportunity to grab a bite and head to St. Stephen's Church:
This is located near the center of Vienna's city center (map here)

View Larger Map

They performed a sound check, and began their concert at 8PM. This was a similar concert to Monday's, with the same other two choirs performing: first the Turlock Madrigals, followed by the community singers from Missouri, then the Gunn Choir for the grand slam home-run hit. There were lots of people in the church, some tourists or passers-by and some members of the congregation. It's a small but beautiful space:
The light was very low, so my pictures didn't come out too well; but Don's pictures will be up shortly and are sure to be better. Still, you can get an idea of the church.

The Gunn performance was, of course, amazing and especially so considering that by this time they had been up and on the go since 5AM! The concert ended at about 9, and we had dinner at a local restaurant in old town, followed by a coach ride back to our hotel where almost every head hit its pillow simultaneously.

Tomorrow is a more relaxed day, with a trip to nearby Melk to visit the abbey:

View Larger Map

First we'll have a guided tour, followed by a brief recital from the choir, then a river boat ride down the Danube to Durnstein for dinner:

View Larger Map

I won't be able to update the blog until tomorrow night, but I should have a lot to talk about!

Later!

Leaving Czech Republic

2009-06-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

We've just arrived in Vienna, no time to say very much -- about to leave for rehearsal.

Here is the Czech countryside as we left, from the coach:
And here is a display at the rest stop which sits just inside the Czech border to Austria (if you remember the Nut Tree at Vacaville, multiply it by ten:)

A couple of our kids outside the rest stop shopping center

I believe they understand the word 'kitsch' very well here:
These are our coaches,
This is Dragum, the driver for coach #3 (my coach):
Craig Sylverson is pointing out Bus 2 with his new metric tape
These are our Kingsway guides

Here's what it was like for five hours on the coach today:
and this is our arrival in Vienna:
Off to rehearsal!

Update Thursday morning

2009-06-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

As a reminder, the photos here are my own (Glen Rosendale's) and tend to reflect the kids I'm chaperoning. Don Anderson, on the other hand, is deliberately rotating among groups, and using a better eye (and camera!) than mine. Uploading pictures has been slow for him due to low bandwidth here but he's catching up.

His photo album can be found here and anything that I've shot a picture of, he's done better. Also, you'll see many more photos in his gallery -- including a wider variety of kids & activities (when the activities are separate).

Glen (this guy)

speaking for Don (this guy)
I know we're both uncommonly handsome, so sometimes people confuse us with each other. Hopefully this clarifies the difference (myself being slightly more handsome, that is).

Regarding our tour, we're just about to have our Thursday morning breakfast and then jump into coaches for a 6 hour drive to Vienna, followed quickly by rehearsal, dinner & a concert. It will be a long day!

Later

6/17/2009 (Wednesday): Final night in Prague

2009-06-17T14:19:00.001-07:00

This will be short as we have a very early (5AM and it's 11PM now) wakeup tomorrow for our bus trip to Vienna, and I haven't started packing.

Tonight was Gunn Choir's farewell to Prague, with a concert at the Spanish Synagogue and dinner at the Pilsen Restaurant in Old Town.

We began with a coach ride to the north side of the Mánesův bridge (we can't bring the coaches into the city center, so any group event starts with a remote park) and a walk to the synagogue, about 15 minutes. For this trip the choir was in full concert attire, which certainly attracted the attention of passers-by (how often do you see 100 teenagers in black formal wear strolling down the street?)
We arrived a little bit early for the concert, and took this photo:
Of course there will be much better version on Don Anderson's photo page, which should update much faster once we reach Vienna and faster internet bandwidth. As you can see, all the kids are here and doing great. As you can also see, when they are all together they are a LARGE group!

The Spanish Synagogue (which we toured yesterday) has no connection to Sephardic Jews, but rather to the style of construction in the building (strong Moorish influence):

It's very beautiful and a wonderful venue for the program, which included some traditional Jewish songs as well as some American spirituals (emphasis on the Old Testament). The audience was very full, and they loved the music immensely. One of our chaperones sat next to a former Czech resident, a Jew and a holocaust survivor, and he was both surprised and deeply touched to hear American students, mostly non-Jewish, singing these songs in a synagogue, especially done so well. It was a very moving and amazing performance. Below are a couple more pictures I took during rehearsal, so you can see what a beautiful building it is:
After the concert we walked (we've been doing a lot of that!) to the Pilsen Restaurant, this time through the heart of Old Town. Of course the kids were still in concert attire, and still attracting lots of attention.

Dinner at the Pilsen was very good, a typical (so far as I know) Czech meal of beef soup, sausages with gravy and bread, and a fruit pastry dessert. (Vegetarian meals were also available, but not being a vegetarian myself I cannot vouch for their quality). Fortunately this was a very LARGE restaurant, to accommodate our crowd as well as regular customers. Below is just one part (but the biggest part):It turns out that people like to sing in this restaurant -- first came a happy birthday song, then an impromptu aria in Spanish from the back end of the room. Our chamber singers couldn't take that challenge without rising to it, and stood at the end to give a quick and enthusiastic 'Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal':
Naturally the rest of the choir joined in on the triumphant 'Elijah Rock'. It truly brought the house down, with all the guests and staff stunned at the transformation in front of their eyes -- from loud happy teens to an amazing and enthusiastic performing choir. Below is a somewhat poor quality capture, hopefully better video will be on the web soon:

Anyway, that's it for Prague and for me. Tomorrow is our busiest day yet, a full day's coach ride to Vienna, followed by a full rehearsal and dinner, and then a concert. I need to get packed and get to sleep!

See you later!

June 17, 2009 (Wednesday Morning) Sight-seeing

2009-06-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

This morning we had no rehearsal or concert, so we divided the kids up according to what they wanted to do. Our group (about 20 kids) chose to go ride the funicular up from near the river to Petřín, a hill above the city -- at the top of the hill is a replica of the Eiffel Tower, as well as some gardens and parks.

We took the tram from our hotel to the bottom of Petřín. Here we are aboard the funicular, waiting to ascend:

This is the view looking down as the funicular goes up the hill
The top of Petřín is surrounded by a thick stone wall, here's some of the treble choir singers in a doorway in the wall
This is the tower on top of Petřín. It does look sort of like the Eiffel Tower...

Here I am in the first level platform (too lazy to walk all the way up to the second, although the kids did it). The view was pretty amazing.
View of the Vltva River; old town Prague is to the right
Here's the view from the observation tower of the Prague Castle and St. Vitus' Cathedral in the center:
... and here are more of the choir kids outside a church on Petřín:After spending about an hour and a half on Petřín we came back down and headed towards Charles Bridge to walk across. Here we are coming back down the funicular to the tram station, looking up the tracks toward the top of the hill:This is the Charles Bridge, very old and foot traffic only (also currently undergoing repairs). This was the royal path between the Old Town and Castle many years ago. Today it's mostly souvenir stands selling (ahem) kitsch. Some of your kids will be bringing it home with them...
Charles Bridge has several famous statues along the sides, here's one:
After crossing Charles Bridge we split up into different groups. Some of us headed back to Old Town, here's what it's like walking along Karlova
Finally coming back towards the hotel we pass the Powder Tower, a remnant of the old walls around Old Town Prague:
It's quarter to five now, and at five we'll load the buses for a trip to the Spanish Synagogue where the kids will sing another concert. More of that later.

I hope to update tonight, but it might not be easy -- we will get up very early tomorrow for our bus trip to Vienna, when we'll say goodbye to Prague, and we'll all need our rest. If I can't get this updated tonight I'll do it tomorrow night from Vienna.

Later!

June 16, 2009 (Tuesday): Prague performance day

2009-06-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

Today was another full day. We had another morning of guided tours, followed by the choir's first public performance of the trip.

We began at 8:30 by taking our coaches to a spot where we could walk across the Mánesův bridge into old town for a guided walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. Here's some of our kids about to start out:

The Jewish Quarter represents the remnant of Jewish residency in Prague, which is long and complicated. This neighborhood preserves some synagogues, monuments and a cemetery as a historical record. Below is Maiselova Street: Our walking tour led us through the neighborhoods, the Pinkas synagogue (whose walls are painted with the names of the more than 77,000 Czech Jews killed during the Holocaust), the Jewish cemetery, and the Spanish Synagogue (where the choir will sing tomorrow). At the end of the tour we saw the Charles Bridge, and across the river (looming over the town) the Prague Castle & St. Vitus Cathedral which we visited yesterday:
Following our guided tour we arrived at the Old Town Square, where some shuffling and hopping got the kids ready for a festival concert at 2PM in St. Nicholas Church:

That's St. Nicholas Church's twin spires on the right in this picture (again we had beautiful weather):

This beautiful chandelier hangs over the interior:
This performance was shared among the University of Missouri choir, a choir from Turlock, California and the Gunn Choir. The Gunn choir was last, and delivered an amazing performance that impressed everybody who was there:
The performance lasted an hour, at the end of which the choir changed into street clothes (again, some running back and forth to the bus across Mánesův bridge was involved) and we came back to the square for some much-deserved free time. Here's St. Nicholas Church from the front:

This is Dlouhá street where it enters the square, a mix of art nouveau and art deco architectural styles:
Here are some pictures of the Gunn choir students enjoying themselves in the beautiful sunshine and weather:
Hmm...who are those people on that circular bicycle, anyway?

The afternoon on the square was probably just about as perfect as it gets:

Here are the kids playing an ad-hoc game from theater class -- the rules escaped me completely although they sure enjoyed it. So did all the visitors to the old town sqare watching them...
Even Mr. Liberatore participated:

Here's Don Anderson taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. You can see what he saw at his online album...
After a couple hours shopping in the old town square (the current exchange rate is about 16 Koruna (crowns) to the dollar but the real cost of most things is about the same as back home) we had a hosted dinner. The chaperones were kept away from the kids in the cellar so as not to disturb them, but we snuck down just to see how much fun they were having. It seemed like a lot:

Meanwhile, upstairs the chaperones were silently and boringly just eating and staring at each other, with no conversation at all. Or at least that's what we told the kids later after our first chance to be apart!

So, today was another great day: Wonderful weather, terrific guide services (both local guides and our tour guides from Kingsway), and especially the amazing performance at the St. Nicholas church by the choir. They were in top voice and delivered a wonderful set of songs.

Tomorrow will be a somewhat more 'free' day; a relaxing morning followed by a concert at the Spanish Synagogue. Everybody is looking forward to the chance to sleep in after the past few days' hectic pace.

See you tomorrow!

6/16/2009: Tuesday morning update

2009-06-15T22:00:00.001-07:00

After a nice night's rest we're all getting ready for our first concert today. The choir will be singing at a festival in St. Nicholas Church, right in the middle of old town Prague. Rehearsal yesterday went well and they're sounding beautiful, so I'm sure it will be a great event. The weather report calls for rain this morning, but tapering off this afternoon (however the weather report seems to change almost as much as the weather itself around here!)

We have a walking tour scheduled in the morning, and a group dinner tonight - after the festival we'll be able to relax just a bit.

I'll update again tonight after we get back to the hotel from dinner. It looks to be a great day!

6/15/2009: Monday round-up

2009-06-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today was a very busy day for the Gunn HS choir in Prague. We started out with a continental (naturally) breakfast in the hotel, followed by a 3-coach caravan to the Prague Castle, actually a very large compound on the top of the hill west of the river. We broke into 5 groups and were led by local tour guides on a walk through the castle and grounds, including the chamber which was the site of the famous (second) Defenestration of Prague (google it if you don't remember it from world history class). Following our tour, we had a quick bite to eat and coached over to the Top Hotel to spend the rest of the day. The choir had its first individual and group rehearsals while the chaperones cast off their chains for a while to wander freely in old town. No arrests were reported. A group dinner with all choirs began at 6PM in the Top Hotel, and wound up around 8.

After the dinner, some of the kids elected to return to the hotel (it has been a long day, after all) and some had their first chance to see old town -- if only briefly. After a stroll from Wenceslaus Square through Old Town to the Powder Castle, we took a tram back to the hotel for a well-deserved night of rest.

Below is the cathedral in Prague Castle -- the largest in Europe. Funny how I've heard that before about several other castles. The weather today was great, as you can see, and it is indeed a large cathedral.
Here's the front:

and here's (part of) the inside:
Here we are working our way around the cathedral after touring the inside:

and here is our local tour guide Barbara giving us some history in Golden Lane (that's the reclusive Don Anderson fiddling with his camera behind Derek there...)
The view from the castle is pretty amazing, especially on a day like today --

After our tour, snacking in the plaza:

and here's a picturesque street in the castle compound

The Prague Castle is not normally occupied at all, but is used by the President and leaders for special occasions and visits from heads of state. Today we saw many diplomatic cars (big Mercedes Benz with flags on the fenders) and another flag was flying next to the Czech flag. Wikipedia tells me it was the flag of Burkina Faso, so that's a pretty big deal! Below you can see a crowd of people outside the front entrance of the castle, apparently waiting either for some white smoke or a Mercedes Benz to emerge:
It's an awfully pretty view.

Here's a shot of some of the kids eating dinner. As always, you can find Don Anderson's much superior and more numerous photos here but given our bandwidth and his high quality pictures it can take much more time for him to upload a day's photos. Be patient.

Just a reminder, this is me the blog guy in my snappy panama hat:

That's the end of our first full day in Prague. Tomorrow is another busy busy day, with some more foot tours in old town and a concert performance. Most importantly, everybody on the trip is healthy and well, and having a great time. See you tomorrow!

Monday morning: Rise & Shine

2009-06-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

7AM & time to go! We have a full day ahead of us, with a walking tour of Prague followed by the first rehearsal of the combined choirs (time off for the chaperones!). This evening we'll have a get-acquainted dinner with all the other choirs and the tour's conductors. It will be a busy day, and I probably won't update the blog until late this evening (about noon Monday in the US).

Everything's going great so far, no problems at all -- off to a great start!

Settling down for the night in Prague

2009-06-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

We've arrived safely in Prague, reaching our hotel at about 8PM. We've just had a dinner in the hotel restaurant -- not bad, salad soup & ham with rice. And potatoes, good ones! Here's a sight I caught coming in on the bus from the airport, I think it's the National Gallery, but I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong:As I mentioned, our choir was split into two groups coming from the US; both groups met up in London at Heathrow Airport in Terminal 5 (the new terminal, below)
It's a nice airport with a Starbucks (naturally) and the first group had a few hours to explore. Our trip out from San Francisco was mostly uneventful, with some turbulence over the midwest -- I hear the second group reported the same thing. Below is the 747 that brought us here:
And here's my air chaperone group arriving: Matthew, Sam, Micah & Derek.

From London we flew together as a group to Prague, arriving about 6PM. It took a little more than an hour to clear customs, collect all our luggage, count all our heads and take off. We're in 3 coaches; my chaperone group is in coach 3 (below):

It will be our home away from home for our entire trip, so we're sure to get used to it quickly.

Right now dinner is winding up, and kids are socializing in the restaurant. Lights out at 11, tomorrow we have a walking tour of Prague to look forward to.

So, everybody's here and accounted for, safe & sound, ready to start enjoying the tour. So far so good!

Away we go!

2009-06-13T15:44:00.001-07:00

So our choir trip is finally on, today's the day we leave for Prague! We're traveling from San Francisco in 2 groups, the first one leaving at 4:50 (about an hour from now). Everybody is present and accounted for, here's some pictures of the kids killing time in the airport --

And here are 2 of your chaperones, myself & Sue. Neither of us can believe that this is my 8th trip and her 12th (!). We expect to have a great time.
We will arrive at London Heathrow in the middle of the night, and spend 4 hours waiting for the latecomers to arrive. We'll all fly on together to Prague in the morning.

The trip is off to a great start -- no broken bones, arrests or drama, and everybody here. Next stop London!

Welcome!

2009-04-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

This is where I'll be blogging about the Gunn HS choir trip to Prague & Vienna, in June of 2009. This is not an official website, just the narration of one of the chaperones on the trip.

If you've got questions about the trip itinerary, logistics, or any other official information please contact the Gunn choir director (Bill Liberatore) using his well-publicized contact information.

Posts will be made as often as I can, as fatigue and internet access permit. This promises to be an exciting trip and I hope to share some of it with the people waiting at home. See you soon!