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
Thank you Adam! I just read through all of your posts and it was like taking the trip again! Also, flight group C got to see the main guy from LMFAO in Paris! So, needless to say we were excited about that too! But Bill Murry would have been cooler! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you again!
Wow!! Thanks for posting the FB albums!! Looks like you guys had an incredible time and I'm sure you will cherish this trip forever. Thanks again for writing the blog, you did an incredible job. As you can see from the posts, we (parents) really enjoyed and appreciated it!
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