TOUR!!!! part 1

39 nine teen girls, 16 hours, and a very uncomfortable bus = complete and total chaos!!!!!
I have officially returned from tour ( I actually came back on Tuesday but I I needed some turn around time before I was willing to admit that I am really all here)
My beautiful and angelic choir known as the Belcantos took a four day trip down to LA to participate in the festival of gold ( an invitation only choir competition) and to get to share the beautiful music we had been perfecting all year with new people.
So at the decidedly late hour of 10pm Thursday night all 46 of us ( chaperone's, director, and pianist included) we piled on a large red bus and began a very memorable trip.
Now the first thing we need to realize is that sleep is impossible when you are surrounded by friends in the first place, but when the Director stands and tells us all that ,it's lights out or he'll put our lights out, most of us tend to obey. Now I pride myself in being able to sleep better in a moving vehicle than in my bed, this was a very humbling experience. I COULD NOT SLEEP!! there is no possible way to sleep on that stinking bus.
we stopped in St. George for breakfast and to change drivers. We must have been a site to see as we all trudged in to Denny's at six in the morning in our pj's and with only about 2 hours of sleep each.
after we pulled out of the Denny's parking lot life started to show on the bus again.
Girls did each others hair and talked about what mischief we were going to accomplish that day.
it seemed to take forever to reach LA but we arrived in time for lunch

After letting us loose on a tourist square for lunch we road down to Santa Ana Zoo.

I think we were the most interesting animals there.

Making friends with the a giant turtle.

making faces at monkeys and just all around causing mayhem and destruction!!!

Finally we got to head to the hotel and discover all the craziness that had to offer.

we road the elevators to the top floor and got dizzy looking at LA from the 16th story.

we unpacked and unwrapped the free soap and cups and opened every drawer.

After sleeping in the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in ( no joke it was amazing) we went to breakfast and then returned to the hotel for rehearsal.

several people stopped and sat down in the lobby as we sang in the hotel hallway. It was an incredible joy to

know that the music we made was beautiful and people wanted to hear us.

after rehearsal we boarded our giant bus and headed to the ocean! we were scheduled to go whale watching and get as sandy as possible.

On the way we discovered several things that were not everyday sights.

I couldn't get over the height of the palm trees or the fact that they were everywhere!

People drove around in cars like these and still wore hoodies and jackets in the 70 degree weather! What the hey!


Anyway after finding some food and flirting with the lunch server we made our way to the docks to wait for the whale watching boat.

I discovered the meaning of " compact living as I looked at the sea side houses.



there was about five feet of space between eat house, I kid you not! they lived in a postage stamp of grass and had a window box of a front lawn at best.

Beautiful homes, WAY too crowed

As we got further out to sea and I became accustomed to riding the waves and not being thrown around by them, the boat trip was exhilarating!

We saw some yawning sea lions laying out on a buoy !I must have looked like a cartoon as my eyes bugged out of my scull ! they were just laying out there in the harbor just as common as squirrels in the park and I could not get over it!

And the Dolphins were everywhere! they traveled in clicks and all I could think was they're as bad as high school students.

Anyway, we did not get to see any whales but that was all right. getting to spend two hours out on the ocean and enjoy the out doors after eight months of freezing my tail end off, it was a beautiful thing.

so went my first two days of choir tour.