As the Curtains Fall
…on the last band tour that I will most likely ever take I am spending the last moments on the plane writing this post so that I will not waste any time tonight and I will actually go to bed.
So to catch up on the past couple of weeks, tumblr says that it’s only one but I’m rounding up :). The last ten days have been taken up by band tour, we went international this year and went all the way to Paris! What a tour it was. Every one is currently saying that they are really wanting to get home and just relax but I really wouldn’t have minded doing more stuff there, it’s just that the food was so…monotonous. It was just loads and loads of bread. And when it wasn’t bread it was some other dish that consisted of only carbs, the dietician in me didn’t agree with the fare of the French. But enough of being “the professional” and on to the tour.
DAY 1 - We left on the first flight out on Tuesday of last week, we got the only flight that was straight to France, the other two had to have a layover in London. We took a yellow school bus and got to the airport. In the airport we got errthang checked in and then went to wait in the terminal. It was quite the wait, our flight got delayed so it was even longer of a wait. We ate lunch in some place called route 66 where the fob waitress called the all of the girls “beautiful girl” and all of the guys “happy boy.” then we went and hung out in what we thought was the VIP area, turns out it was just an up stairs waiting area. We saw this “rock star” playing his guitar and singing for Rae Ann and Hillary. Then he left and those two somehow started talking to this dude that at first seemed like he hated Christians but then he revealed that he was just grilling them to see what they knew. My scramble competition was brought down because I was trying to listen and play at the same time, the guy was actually really interesting and knew his stuff. He had a good philosophy of just trust only in the bible and nothing else. On the plane we had an eleven hour flight and I got to watch some pretty good movies that I hadn’t seen even though the selection wasn’t as good as emirates it was adequate. To air France vegetarian = cold squash and brusselsprouts for the main part of the meal -____-. We got to the charles de Gaulle airport and exchanged money at a 1.61 rate! The dollar used to be so much stronger (yes I am an award winning economics professional). Then we met our awesome bus driver named Martin and he impressed us right off the bat with how he was able to get out of the super tight parking spot after doing a like thirty seven point turn. We then had a four hour drive out to our country houses in Normandy, the French country side is very pretty and so much of it is farm country :) with lots of dryland wheat :). I was surprised to see that everything seemed really old and they didn’t really have that many houses that looked like ours. The place where we stayed was in this really cool place where it had these condo things on a big hillside and centered around a central dining hall, the only downside was that there was so much walking. We had our first French meal and it was decent albeit slightly weird. But…when in France… Then we went to bed in our condo, there were so many beds in the place that Marc, Ryan, and I all got a queen size to ourselves.
DAY 2 - Then the next day we went to normandy and took a tour of the whole area, which was very impressive to say the least. It was kept so pristine and everything was so nice! We played in the main place of the memorial and we had some of the crowd in tears, I thought that it was really cool to play for family of those who died fighting in another country, for another country. Even though it rained a little bit it was still one of our best concerts when you factor in location, audience, etc. Then we went to this cathedral on a hill that we had to climb tons of steps to get up to, the thing had a bathroom that you had to pay almost one dollar for at the entrance -____- we took lots of pictures and then went out to eat in one of the restaurants and then we got this really bomb ice cream from this stand thing that was kind of joined to our restaurant, i got carmel and chocolate. then got picked up at a different spot than we got dropped off at because the tide had risen so much that it covered where we were before, Liz got stuck on one side of the water that you had to time when it was coming in but Lydia, Ryan, and I made it past alright. Haha. We went back to our condo and slept after packing up.
DAY 3 - The next day we drove to Orleans for the major part of the day and then after checking into the super bomb hotel we went on a tour of the city while it rained on us. i used a box for a guitar to cover myself from the rain and the haters just hated. We came back and had a dinner at the hotel where the table was divided with woodwinds on one side and brass on the other which led to a dominance over the water and condiments (brass won, of course).
DAY 4 - Then the next day we got to sleep in and relax before a skoretz driven church session, love that guy. Then we got free time in Orleans proper and we went around the city taking more pictures and shopping around. There was this motorcycle demonstration/riot where cops had to come to break it up. During our free time we went to a museum there and I was able to teach an art discussion based art analyzation class to some students + big bob, that was fun. Then we had a dinner at some upstairs restaurant where Lydia and Danny sat across from each other and talked about dates in general and their “favorite dates”. Personally I think that they really hit it off and they got “cute coupled” by the Dylan and Dillon squad. :). Ahh it touched shlobbert to see such an event because he is so darn cultural, it also touched me but i mean shlobbert it brought tears to his eyes. The food was just lots of bread but it was still enjoyable and master chef Liz made some interesting recipes with what was available. Then we had a large walk in some rain back to our coaches.
DAY 5 - Then on Sunday we filmed an episode of cribs with MTV at phade to blacks chateau de chambord. Took more pictures on our explorations and then went to do an outdoor concert in cloisters Abbey de la trinity. The concert went alright and we had a decent crowd watching us. After that we returned to the hotel where we had dinner, and the “fresh five” started when the main table was taken up and max, Danny, myself, and two freshman named grace and Laurent joined us. The way it started was when max and the girls were talking about cliques and dr smoothe and I were watching other tables and seeing the social dynamics of each, and then when we decided to combine the two conversations was when it all started. We had good time talking about how the other tables interacted with each other and friend circles within each grade. We then adopted a David inspired greeting that goes way to hard.
DAY 6 - Then the next day we left Orleans to go to Paris in the morning. We then played what I thought was our best concert ever, while I was in band, at the chartres cathedral. The acoustics were amazing and the concert on the whole went really well, plus it was an awesome cathedral in France with a decent turnout. That was amazing. Then we went to a restaurant to eat some more carbs, it was good though because it was pasta. Then we returned to our student hotel, which people had been playing up to being a hostel but it was actually pretty nice and it had these cool lights in the room and on the showerhead to tell you how hot the water was. We had adventures to the zombie infested second floor that was more hype than reality. Shout out to Evan and his sweatshirt, hype is now but style is forever.
DAY 7 - The next day we had breakfast in the hotel before our guided sightseeing tour of the city, i had to pee the whole trip because I drank a whole bottle before we left and the bus driver (not Martin the awesome driver) wouldn’t open the bathroom. We got to the eiffel tower lookout spot where there were so many bargainers there to sell cheap stuff (it was exactly like kenya bargaining, and the bargainers were african too), but I was more interested in finding the bathroom because I was going crazy. I found a warehouse that I almost just peed in but then I thought better of it and walked for an eternity to a service station. Sweet relief. Then I got back to the spot and we took lots of pictures. For the group picture that bobbert wasn’t even going to be in, he wouldn’t even take a picture with my camera -____- who are you? Seriously…so I got auntie Kathy to take it for me :). Then we had some free time walking around the city before our concert. We then set up for the fete de la musique, our last concert ever with lla symphonic band. Four years in the band, three of those being principal tuba. Loved all of them and loved the tuba, everyone always thinks it is so boring but I like it because I still put more emotion into the music ;). Also I’ve never had to do a real audition because I of course had to make the band, because I make the band, ahhhhh. Haha. It was like graduation kind of because it was the last concert possibly ever :(. But I love performing… Then we went to dinner in another upper room of a restaurant where it was probably the most enjoyable time on tour, there was good conversation and good friends. We ended up wrecking the table and getting the waiter so mad at us that he purposefully served everyone else before us, but for me it was the best meal hangout wise even if not food wise :). Then went back to the hotel and took a shower and then went to dan and maxs room to have talktime and hangout. Shout out to kidxwonderxvelvetxhoopxtooxraw because of my battery percentage -__-.
DAY 8 - then the next day was spent in the louvre seeing more art and whatnot. Was disappointed that Ralph Lauren’s car collection was in a different building that we didn’t pay for. Then we walked forever to many different shops and whatnot had the best panini that I had eaten in a while and then ate ice cream from this famous place, saw a cathedral, and then just went to more shops. Louis vuitton = scary expensive, sat outside the shops with what I presumed to be some Asian husbands waiting for their wives to come out of louis. Then we scrambled (shout out to the game) to get to the Eiffel tower in time to go up. We went up, took pictures, looked around and went down. it was so windy, but very impressive to see all of the sights. i was asked why the tower is there in the first place so heres why: it was built by gusatave eiffel as an entrance for the 1899 worlds fair, not as impressive as a war monument or anything but. They say that the Eiffel tower is really romantic and that Paris is the city of love, and it must be because there was a white dude with a huge beard that proposed to his asian girl. They were just chilling when we saw them but the others said it was cute :). Then we left and went to a restaurant an hour and a half later than we were supposed to but it’s all great. I was so tired until I got some food in me then I perked up and enjoyed the dinner. Some of the people tried escargot this day and it was gross. They said it was like garlic mushrooms that popped. Ewewwwwwwwww. Thats NASTY! But it was entertaining to watch them choke them down. We went back to the hotel, packed, and knocked out.
DAY 9 - Then today We woke up at six so that we could be on the coach by 7:30. We had a short drive to the airport and then when we got there it was so much hustle bustle. The French had three slowwwwww people to check in 200 people it took forever and then on top of that they hassled us about the instruments that we had already contracted to get over to the us with a special deal. Then we had thirty minutes to boarding and still had people back at the gate, a monorail to take, and security to go through. I have been lead to believe, due to the shining stars that helped me, that the French TSA is retarded beyond normal standards. They couldn’t even figure out what clothespins were, it must be a daily miracle that they make it to work everyday. but I’m not even mad, Dylan on the other hand was about to spit fire at these Indians that were ruder than a mother Frickman. We got to the gate and they were boarding but it didn’t really matter because I was able to buy presents for my parents and still had to wait in line, thats how slow the parisians do it. This plane ride has been uneventful, I’ve slept, watched movies, eaten my food, eaten chandlers food, bartended for myself with the sodas, and now I am writing this post.
All in all band tour was amazing because of friends, location, and the playing that we got to do while here. Even though we spent a lot of time on the busses like we always do, the people around me made it fun. We played lots of Mario cart and scramble, saw really nice places, and listened to my awesome music (especially the audiobook tracks). :). France was beautiful but it seemed like everyone was smoking all the time, there was so much of the secondhand smoke that I’ve had a sore throat the past two days :(. Also France had two sides of the spectrum to it: louis vuitton with so much wealth and then all of the graffiti and disparity that was seen. It was older than I thought it would be but still very beautiful architecture. The work that has gone into that country and it’s forms of art is enormous, trillions of man hours gone to art. It’s extremely impressive and also worth the beauty. the people of France weren’t as nice as they could have been especially the ones in the service industries where one needs to be congenial. The food was over hyped or maybe I just ate at the wrong places. But some of it was good, they had some good French bread. Haha. But everything was so expensive! H&m prices were the same as American prices except when you convert it is so much more. The cities are so smelly, just as bad as new York and the countrysides were beautiful. I am so very glad that I was able to go on tour this year, it was so awesome.
Long post mongoose but now onto numbers
1.) thank you for being so dedicated this year in teaching is and getting us the best tour possible
2.) thank you all who made tour possible, it is highly appreciated especially Art and the parents
3.) anticipation is unnerving. Haha
4.20.5) I am glad to be back and hopefully someone will plan something because I have to give all of you your graduation presents still.
5.) thanks for your support big boy(s)
6.) can’t wait to see all of you summer family members
7.) you definitely made the tour a funner and more enjoyable one :)
Sidebars and extra numbers: Lydia and I have a post length competition, I hope I win. You’ve been Taylor Swifted. Longest summer ever, let’s make the most of it. I hope you have good intentions. cute Indian couples make shlobbert and david smile largely ;). I suppose I could be like Paula and come back to tour with the band.
that is all
its what they want