Well we are all officially back in the states and except for waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6am I think we all survived. This whole jet lag thing is really messing up my sleeping cycles. The trip home was certainly a long and exciting one taking anywhere from 20-26 hours from start to finish but we were all very glad to be back on American soil and head straight for the closest McDonalds for a big mac with extra McGrease. One flight even got to meet Bill Murray on their flight...lucky dogs!! I (and several other band staff) got locked in the basement of an old Fiat plant in Italy just hours before our flight left. LONG story but lets just say that terrifying ordeal could have been on the next episode of ghost hunters.
Since this is my last post I feel there are some thank you's in order. First I want to thank everyone for reading the blog and all the kind words and comments. I appologize for the typos or misspellings but I was either typing on the tiny little keyboard on my phone or on the Italian keyboard covered in hieroglyphics I'll never understand. I make no claims about being a good writer or knowing anything about grammar. But, I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. I was worried when I started no one would even read it so that made me happy!
Second I want to send a huge thank you to the people who organized the trip. Our tour was organized through Daniel Pittman and his tour company Counterpoint. Together with his contacts in Italy they put together all the logistics for us in Italy. Our personal tour guides, Barbara, Donia, David, and Daniella were phenomenal and truly made the trip something special! But there was a lot of leg work that went into this trip here in the band office. Randall Coleman, Heath Nails and Ken Ozzello did more for this trip than even I will ever know. From working with student receivables to handle the money, to talking with the study abroad people to insure we got course credit and insurance for the trip, to the tiny tasks like hotel rooming lists and flight manifests. We could have never even left Tuscaloosa without their dedication and hard work. Special shout out to Jay Fox for working out all the equipment details! Trying to translate Cabasa into italian proved rather difficult I'm sure!
Lastly, I am posting all the pictures I took on my facebook account for you guys to peruse. I ended up with over 1,600 pictures. Lots of them aren't that great...I am certainly a very amateur photographer but I hope you'll at least get a glimpse into what we saw, experienced, and lived for 10 days. The links are below and should work even if you don't have a facebook account. If they don't, let me know!
I said it at the beginning and I'll say it again, this was truly a trip of a lifetime and we all made memories and friendships that will last forever. We left a small piece of our hearts somewhere in Italy and I know many of us will certainly be going back to enjoy that incredible country. Until the next international trip...Ciao!
Departure and Rome Day 1
Rome Day 2
Staff Dinner, Vatican, and Wind Ensemble Concert in Rieti
Free time in Florence
MDB Parade in Florence
Free time in Venice
MDB Parade in Padova
Free time and Wind Ensemble concert in Padova
Tour and free time in Verona
The Alps and Wind Ensemble Rehearsal with the fire brigade band
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Last concert!
Today has been a LONG day and we're nowhere close to done. First buses just left the hotel...it's 349 am here. I'm about to lose my wireless so I'm going to just post a bunch of pictures from the day. Enjoy!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The hills are alive with the Alabama bands.
So i almost posted a blank blog today because what we saw today is beyond description. It seems like each day just gets better and better.
We started the day at an old sanctuary called Santuario d'Oropa which was built in the 13th century. It was no easy task getting there. It was about a 1.5 hour drive from our hotel up into the Alps. We had to take winding roads up the mountain. It would have been difficult to drive a car up these tiny roads much less 4 charter buses. Our driver had to honk as we made hairpin turns to warn possible oncoming traffic. Kind of scary! The sanctuary itself is nestled between two large peaks of the mountain range. Immediately after stepping off the bus you could just smell the difference in the air. It just felt fresh and brisk. There was the sound of a stream that had dug its way through the mountain from thousands of years of snow run off.
We toured through the sanctuary with local guides and learned a lot about life there. People come here because of a statue of the virgin Mary with baby Jesus that is located in a small, almost plain looking church at the center of the sanctuary. At present, the sanctuary can house 500 pilgrims at a time not counting all the day visitors. they perform special masses for the pilgrims and they pray at the statue throughout the day.
The most touching part of the tour was the gallery that contained all the gifts people had brought to present to the statue. While some were elaborate like paintings or jewels, many were simple pictures or drawings of loved ones people have lost. Many of the drawings depicted the accidents of how the loved ones died, but with the virgin Mary looking over them. It could be perceived as morbid and it was certainly kind of sad, but to me it was almost reassuring and comforting.
After our tour of the sanctuary we had a nice picnic at the gates. We enjoyed pizza, sandwiches, with fruit and dessert. Many of us made our way down to the stream and climbed on the rocks. It was a nice afternoon with the sun shining and the wind blowing. It was chilly but not too bad.
Then was time for our cable ride to the top of the mountain. The gondola or franicular as they call it fit about 25 people and took about 10 minutes to climb up to 6,000 ft. The ride was not for the faint of heart and several people who weren't fond of heights were not that excited about hanging so far above the ground by a single cable. There was one point about halfway up where we rose over a high ridge and immediately dropped back down. The whole car let out a yell like we were on a roller coaster. The views along the trip were incredible.
All the anxiety was well worth it once we arrived at the top of the mountain. And this is where words cannot express the sight from that high. I don't even think pictures could do it justice. Just being there was somehow spiritual. Like being on top of the world. it's certainly something that will forever be burned into out memories.
Everyone immediately turned into explorers and mountain climbers. We were told there was a lake about a 10 minute walk from the franicular station. Along the way we came across tons of photo opportunities. The path was very rocky and sometimes even went through running water or was covered by piles of snow. Eventually we came to the lake which was still frozen over with a layer of ice. We made our way around the lake and some climbed smaller hills to get better vantage points of the lake and the valley far below. We could see the sanctuary and our buses but only as a small little dot.
Unfortunately we had to leave that beautiful place that many people were already planning to build a house on after they graduated. I even heard Skip Snead, director of the school of music mention he was going to put a new Alabama music building on top of the mountain. I'm going to hold him to that!!. I heard many people saying that the trip up the mountain was their favorite part of the trip thus far. While hearing the organ at St Marks is still the top of my list, this is a very close second.
We are headed back to the hotels now to freshen up an then we're on our own for dinner in the downtown area of Torino. Tonight we have a rehearsal with the MDB, wind ensemble, and the fireman brigade band that we are sharing the concert with tomorrow night. It's going to be a goo time interacting with another ensemble from this country! Tomorrow is our last day in Italy and promises to e another busy one with rehearsals a parade and a concert featuring both ensembles from Alabama. Ciao for now!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
We started the day at an old sanctuary called Santuario d'Oropa which was built in the 13th century. It was no easy task getting there. It was about a 1.5 hour drive from our hotel up into the Alps. We had to take winding roads up the mountain. It would have been difficult to drive a car up these tiny roads much less 4 charter buses. Our driver had to honk as we made hairpin turns to warn possible oncoming traffic. Kind of scary! The sanctuary itself is nestled between two large peaks of the mountain range. Immediately after stepping off the bus you could just smell the difference in the air. It just felt fresh and brisk. There was the sound of a stream that had dug its way through the mountain from thousands of years of snow run off.
We toured through the sanctuary with local guides and learned a lot about life there. People come here because of a statue of the virgin Mary with baby Jesus that is located in a small, almost plain looking church at the center of the sanctuary. At present, the sanctuary can house 500 pilgrims at a time not counting all the day visitors. they perform special masses for the pilgrims and they pray at the statue throughout the day.
The most touching part of the tour was the gallery that contained all the gifts people had brought to present to the statue. While some were elaborate like paintings or jewels, many were simple pictures or drawings of loved ones people have lost. Many of the drawings depicted the accidents of how the loved ones died, but with the virgin Mary looking over them. It could be perceived as morbid and it was certainly kind of sad, but to me it was almost reassuring and comforting.
After our tour of the sanctuary we had a nice picnic at the gates. We enjoyed pizza, sandwiches, with fruit and dessert. Many of us made our way down to the stream and climbed on the rocks. It was a nice afternoon with the sun shining and the wind blowing. It was chilly but not too bad.
Then was time for our cable ride to the top of the mountain. The gondola or franicular as they call it fit about 25 people and took about 10 minutes to climb up to 6,000 ft. The ride was not for the faint of heart and several people who weren't fond of heights were not that excited about hanging so far above the ground by a single cable. There was one point about halfway up where we rose over a high ridge and immediately dropped back down. The whole car let out a yell like we were on a roller coaster. The views along the trip were incredible.
All the anxiety was well worth it once we arrived at the top of the mountain. And this is where words cannot express the sight from that high. I don't even think pictures could do it justice. Just being there was somehow spiritual. Like being on top of the world. it's certainly something that will forever be burned into out memories.
Everyone immediately turned into explorers and mountain climbers. We were told there was a lake about a 10 minute walk from the franicular station. Along the way we came across tons of photo opportunities. The path was very rocky and sometimes even went through running water or was covered by piles of snow. Eventually we came to the lake which was still frozen over with a layer of ice. We made our way around the lake and some climbed smaller hills to get better vantage points of the lake and the valley far below. We could see the sanctuary and our buses but only as a small little dot.
Unfortunately we had to leave that beautiful place that many people were already planning to build a house on after they graduated. I even heard Skip Snead, director of the school of music mention he was going to put a new Alabama music building on top of the mountain. I'm going to hold him to that!!. I heard many people saying that the trip up the mountain was their favorite part of the trip thus far. While hearing the organ at St Marks is still the top of my list, this is a very close second.
We are headed back to the hotels now to freshen up an then we're on our own for dinner in the downtown area of Torino. Tonight we have a rehearsal with the MDB, wind ensemble, and the fireman brigade band that we are sharing the concert with tomorrow night. It's going to be a goo time interacting with another ensemble from this country! Tomorrow is our last day in Italy and promises to e another busy one with rehearsals a parade and a concert featuring both ensembles from Alabama. Ciao for now!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Live stream of Friday's concert
Here's a message we just got about the concert on friday. Apparently it is supposed to be streamed online. The message doesn't mention it but it will also include the MDB as well in the finale. Here's the message and the links. I'll keep you updated if more details arise.
It is official now!. Our concert witt the Alabama Wind Ensemble and the Antica Musica del Corpo dei Pompieri Torino 1882 on MAY 18th will be broadcasted in lifestreaming at 21:00 - Italian Time // 02:00 PM Alabama Time at the following sites: www.vvf.to.it and www.livestream.com/vvfto
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It is official now!. Our concert witt the Alabama Wind Ensemble and the Antica Musica del Corpo dei Pompieri Torino 1882 on MAY 18th will be broadcasted in lifestreaming at 21:00 - Italian Time // 02:00 PM Alabama Time at the following sites: www.vvf.to.it and www.livestream.com/vvfto
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Where for art thou, Crimson Tide
Two ensembles, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona...
I hope Shakespeare doesn't mind I changed his story a little. Today we discovered the fourth most popular city in Italy, Verona. As you may or may not remember from you high school english classes, Verona is the home of the tragic lovers Romeo and Juliette.
We met our local tour guides that led us through the old mediaeval town. We started in the arena, a place very similar to the coliseum in Rome except this one is a little smaller and a lot more intact. They still put on a lot of operas and plays in the space and performers like Sting, Elton John, U2, and many others have put on concerts there.
From the arena we made our way to the house of the Capulets and got to see the famous balcony where Romeo came to swoon. It was actually in a very small coutryard that you would recognize if you've seen "Letters to Juliette" As you enter through the archway you see lots of love notes and names with hearts around them graffitied onto the wall. In the courtyard you can look up and see the balcony and for a fee you can even enter the house and go up on to it. There is a statue of Juliette in this small courtyard where the tradition is to rub her right breast for good luck. I don't quite understand why people do this, but there certainly was a long line waiting to cop a feel. My favorite part was the metal gate in the corner of courtyard. fairly unassuming save for the thousands of pad locks placed on the metal bars. It's apparently an old custom for newly weds to lock the locks and then throw the key away. They also place these locks under bridges here and throw the key into the river.
From there we had about an hour to explore and grab some food and of course some gelato before we found our buses and began the track to Torino. We're about 30 minutes outside of the city now and already the view of the Alps is breathtaking. There are snowcapped mountains everywhere that look a lot like the rockies!
Yesterday, as I said, was quite a day!! We woke up and headed into the city center of Padova for the beginning of the parade. We marched down very narrow streets packed with people and tabels from resteraunts. People seemed a little surprised to see a sight like 100 people marching through the streets playing instruments but they enjoyed it and many followed us to a courtyard where we formed onto some steps. Next a traditional Italian band dressed in Rennaisance clothes paraded in to the courtyard. There were about 10 trumpetiers with one valved bugels at least 5 ft. long and around 7-8 drummers playing on period instruments. The most interesting part were the flag boys that each had 2 flags about 3-4 ft. long. As the band played, the flag boys performed very interesting choreography. It was different from what our MDB color guard does but there were a lot of the same things. They threw them high into the air sometimes even exchanging them between each other. They also would spin 3 and even 4 flags at one time, something I've never seen before and the MDB seemed to love every minute of it. Next we played several stand tunes and cheers for the audience, which if you can tell from the pictures I posted was rather large. The entire square was full and there were people hanging out of the windows to get a peak at the band. It was a very cool experience.
Everyone had about 3-5 hours around the city to grab some food and do some shopping depending on which ensemble you were in. The wind ensemble had a nice long rehearsal in the concert hall to get ready for the concert that night. All of the performances in Padova were part of an international music conference held at the music conservatory there. The hall was very intimate and a great place to perform. We played a collection of American music with some pieces by John Williams, a movement from a Symphony by Dacvid Maslanka that used old church hymns, and a piece called "From an Alabama Songbook" that contained a lot of old folk tunes based out of Alabama. The concert went very well and the audience jumped to their feet at the conclussion. We were presented with several gifts to commemorate our performances here and we presented the conservatory with an elephant statue as a sign of our appreciation.
That's the update from the past couple days. We're almost to our hotels now (yes we're slpit into two again) to check in then we're all eating together at a restaurant tonight. Tomorrow I think we're headed into the Alps (approx 6,000ft up to according to our tour guide) for lunch and some sightseeing. Then we all have a rehearsal tomorrow night in preparation for our Final concert on Friday. The MDB will be performing a spectrum-like performance along withn the wind ensemble and the host band.
Only two days left in our time here in Italy. Everyone has had an incredible time and made memories that will last forever. It's kind of sad to see this time coming to an end but we still have some time to enjoy this amazing country!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I hope Shakespeare doesn't mind I changed his story a little. Today we discovered the fourth most popular city in Italy, Verona. As you may or may not remember from you high school english classes, Verona is the home of the tragic lovers Romeo and Juliette.
We met our local tour guides that led us through the old mediaeval town. We started in the arena, a place very similar to the coliseum in Rome except this one is a little smaller and a lot more intact. They still put on a lot of operas and plays in the space and performers like Sting, Elton John, U2, and many others have put on concerts there.
From the arena we made our way to the house of the Capulets and got to see the famous balcony where Romeo came to swoon. It was actually in a very small coutryard that you would recognize if you've seen "Letters to Juliette" As you enter through the archway you see lots of love notes and names with hearts around them graffitied onto the wall. In the courtyard you can look up and see the balcony and for a fee you can even enter the house and go up on to it. There is a statue of Juliette in this small courtyard where the tradition is to rub her right breast for good luck. I don't quite understand why people do this, but there certainly was a long line waiting to cop a feel. My favorite part was the metal gate in the corner of courtyard. fairly unassuming save for the thousands of pad locks placed on the metal bars. It's apparently an old custom for newly weds to lock the locks and then throw the key away. They also place these locks under bridges here and throw the key into the river.
From there we had about an hour to explore and grab some food and of course some gelato before we found our buses and began the track to Torino. We're about 30 minutes outside of the city now and already the view of the Alps is breathtaking. There are snowcapped mountains everywhere that look a lot like the rockies!
Yesterday, as I said, was quite a day!! We woke up and headed into the city center of Padova for the beginning of the parade. We marched down very narrow streets packed with people and tabels from resteraunts. People seemed a little surprised to see a sight like 100 people marching through the streets playing instruments but they enjoyed it and many followed us to a courtyard where we formed onto some steps. Next a traditional Italian band dressed in Rennaisance clothes paraded in to the courtyard. There were about 10 trumpetiers with one valved bugels at least 5 ft. long and around 7-8 drummers playing on period instruments. The most interesting part were the flag boys that each had 2 flags about 3-4 ft. long. As the band played, the flag boys performed very interesting choreography. It was different from what our MDB color guard does but there were a lot of the same things. They threw them high into the air sometimes even exchanging them between each other. They also would spin 3 and even 4 flags at one time, something I've never seen before and the MDB seemed to love every minute of it. Next we played several stand tunes and cheers for the audience, which if you can tell from the pictures I posted was rather large. The entire square was full and there were people hanging out of the windows to get a peak at the band. It was a very cool experience.
Everyone had about 3-5 hours around the city to grab some food and do some shopping depending on which ensemble you were in. The wind ensemble had a nice long rehearsal in the concert hall to get ready for the concert that night. All of the performances in Padova were part of an international music conference held at the music conservatory there. The hall was very intimate and a great place to perform. We played a collection of American music with some pieces by John Williams, a movement from a Symphony by Dacvid Maslanka that used old church hymns, and a piece called "From an Alabama Songbook" that contained a lot of old folk tunes based out of Alabama. The concert went very well and the audience jumped to their feet at the conclussion. We were presented with several gifts to commemorate our performances here and we presented the conservatory with an elephant statue as a sign of our appreciation.
That's the update from the past couple days. We're almost to our hotels now (yes we're slpit into two again) to check in then we're all eating together at a restaurant tonight. Tomorrow I think we're headed into the Alps (approx 6,000ft up to according to our tour guide) for lunch and some sightseeing. Then we all have a rehearsal tomorrow night in preparation for our Final concert on Friday. The MDB will be performing a spectrum-like performance along withn the wind ensemble and the host band.
Only two days left in our time here in Italy. Everyone has had an incredible time and made memories that will last forever. It's kind of sad to see this time coming to an end but we still have some time to enjoy this amazing country!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Alora
Alora (uh lore uh) is my new favorite word. It means well and they use it like ok at the beginning of a sentence. Ex. Ok, here's the plan for the day. I'm stealing it and bringing it back to the states!!
Today has been a long a grueling day. very exciting though but im practically falling asleep as I type this so I'm going to sign off and wrote more during our 4-5 hour drive tomorrow. I leave you with some pictures from today. Enjoy and ciao for now!
Parading through the streets of Padova
Finale of the parade. Looks a lot like elephant stomp right?
The crowd loved us!!
If this works it's a video of the traditional band and color guard we shared our finale with. Very cool!!
If this also worked its the band singing the alma mater on the steps
Italian pizza party!!
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Today has been a long a grueling day. very exciting though but im practically falling asleep as I type this so I'm going to sign off and wrote more during our 4-5 hour drive tomorrow. I leave you with some pictures from today. Enjoy and ciao for now!
Parading through the streets of Padova
Finale of the parade. Looks a lot like elephant stomp right?
The crowd loved us!!
If this works it's a video of the traditional band and color guard we shared our finale with. Very cool!!
If this also worked its the band singing the alma mater on the steps
Italian pizza party!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Via Canaletta,Padua,Italy
Monday, May 14, 2012
The MDB takes Florence!
So I thought this got posted yesterday. Apparently I thought wrong. Bad italian Internet!!. Sorry for the delay but here ya go!!
Well folks, the MDB has made history today. We were the first marching band to ever walk through the streets of Florence. It was absolutely incredible to watch those red an white uniforms marching through the streets.
It did not start off that great. First of all it started raining about 2 hours before we started the parade and continued as we unloaded the truck and got changed. Although we ha our own changing and staging area right off the square, We were operating in very close quarters. The members, having felt with 101,000 crazy fans and all that is a game day at Alabama handled it in stride and we eventually found our way into the square to warm up and then make our matching block.
They were rock stars to the people in the streets. Everybody immediately started to gather around the band despite the rain and take pictures of and with them. People were coming up to them asking them who they were and why they were here. The most popular obviously were the 6 ladies from the color guard.
We had Some friends from the states and some not so friendly people from schools we've probably creamed in the last. We had a couple hecklers from UGA right before we started but I looked around and didn't see their marching band anywhere and I hope their football team is busy practicing so it didn't really bother us much. We answered with a classic ROOOOOOOLL TIDE and then we stepped off.
We started the march in front of the large church that dominates the skyline of Florence. The sounds of Yay, Alabama echoing off the buildings and through the streets of Florence was something that cant be described. To be a part of creating history and for it to be my school was something I will always cherish. I hope these members truly appreciate what they have done.
We came to a large plaza called Piazza della Republica where we stopped to perform a stand still performance. We had gathered lots of fans that followed us down the street but we also attracted a lot of people for our performance. The band played stand tunes and cheers we play at the games and even sang the fight song once. People were smiling, dancing, and taking lot of pictures or videos. Even people from the local shops came out to watch. You can imagine being the only marching band to have ever marched through the city, we were quite the attraction. The rain didn't seem to phase them at all.
We left that square and continued through the streets once more to the drumline cadence until we came to the most famous square in Florence, the Piazza della Signoria. (the picture at the top was taken in this square) You might recognize it from the final scene in the movie Hannibal. It's also home to the fake version of
Michaelangelo's David. The real version we saw earlier today. We played many of the same songs from the last performance but this time we gathered close to sing the Alma Mater. This is a big tradition with the band and we sing it after every Saturday practice and football game. It was truly a special moment to look into the faces of these musicians as they sang. Truly one of the moments I will take with me always. It seems like Florence agreed as well as the rain had subsided by the end.
Following the performance we headed to the truck to repack everything and gather our personal items. Now we're back on the buses headed back to the hotels. We are staying in montecatini, a town about 30 mins outside of Florence. It's truly a beautiful little town with lots of shops, restaurants and a great vibe of people. We're divided into 3 different hotels here. Hotels are rather small in italy so you can imagine finding a hotel for all 160 of us is difficult. The good thing is they're all pretty close together so we all gather in lobby's and head out with our friends. Tonight we get some free time in the town to eat dinner and soak up the night life.
It's been a long day having woken up at 630am but it has most definitely been worth it. A great day with great people that we will all remember for the rest of our lives. Tomorrow we leave and head to Venice, the city of love. Stay tuned for some more updates from the past couple days. We had some tours and greeting in Venice but thought you guys would rather hear about the most exciting part first. Ciao for now!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Well folks, the MDB has made history today. We were the first marching band to ever walk through the streets of Florence. It was absolutely incredible to watch those red an white uniforms marching through the streets.
It did not start off that great. First of all it started raining about 2 hours before we started the parade and continued as we unloaded the truck and got changed. Although we ha our own changing and staging area right off the square, We were operating in very close quarters. The members, having felt with 101,000 crazy fans and all that is a game day at Alabama handled it in stride and we eventually found our way into the square to warm up and then make our matching block.
They were rock stars to the people in the streets. Everybody immediately started to gather around the band despite the rain and take pictures of and with them. People were coming up to them asking them who they were and why they were here. The most popular obviously were the 6 ladies from the color guard.
We had Some friends from the states and some not so friendly people from schools we've probably creamed in the last. We had a couple hecklers from UGA right before we started but I looked around and didn't see their marching band anywhere and I hope their football team is busy practicing so it didn't really bother us much. We answered with a classic ROOOOOOOLL TIDE and then we stepped off.
We started the march in front of the large church that dominates the skyline of Florence. The sounds of Yay, Alabama echoing off the buildings and through the streets of Florence was something that cant be described. To be a part of creating history and for it to be my school was something I will always cherish. I hope these members truly appreciate what they have done.
We came to a large plaza called Piazza della Republica where we stopped to perform a stand still performance. We had gathered lots of fans that followed us down the street but we also attracted a lot of people for our performance. The band played stand tunes and cheers we play at the games and even sang the fight song once. People were smiling, dancing, and taking lot of pictures or videos. Even people from the local shops came out to watch. You can imagine being the only marching band to have ever marched through the city, we were quite the attraction. The rain didn't seem to phase them at all.
We left that square and continued through the streets once more to the drumline cadence until we came to the most famous square in Florence, the Piazza della Signoria. (the picture at the top was taken in this square) You might recognize it from the final scene in the movie Hannibal. It's also home to the fake version of
Michaelangelo's David. The real version we saw earlier today. We played many of the same songs from the last performance but this time we gathered close to sing the Alma Mater. This is a big tradition with the band and we sing it after every Saturday practice and football game. It was truly a special moment to look into the faces of these musicians as they sang. Truly one of the moments I will take with me always. It seems like Florence agreed as well as the rain had subsided by the end.
Following the performance we headed to the truck to repack everything and gather our personal items. Now we're back on the buses headed back to the hotels. We are staying in montecatini, a town about 30 mins outside of Florence. It's truly a beautiful little town with lots of shops, restaurants and a great vibe of people. We're divided into 3 different hotels here. Hotels are rather small in italy so you can imagine finding a hotel for all 160 of us is difficult. The good thing is they're all pretty close together so we all gather in lobby's and head out with our friends. Tonight we get some free time in the town to eat dinner and soak up the night life.
It's been a long day having woken up at 630am but it has most definitely been worth it. A great day with great people that we will all remember for the rest of our lives. Tomorrow we leave and head to Venice, the city of love. Stay tuned for some more updates from the past couple days. We had some tours and greeting in Venice but thought you guys would rather hear about the most exciting part first. Ciao for now!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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