Day 7: Strehla, Germany

Today we were waken up by Kenny at 8:15 and we changed into travel uniform brushed our teeth and headed to the youth hostels breakfast room. The wonderful stomach filling breakfast consisted of bread, meat, cheese, cereal, nutella, juices, and German yogurt with strawberry chunks. Once we finished we went back to our rooms and brought down our suitcases to load the bus. We left to go to Alexanderplatz to shop for souvenirs. Some people bought authentic leather wallets, some postcards, hat pins, and some other playful souvenirs. After we left that flea market we went to Strehla. On the way we stopped for lunch that the youth hostel provided for us. It had two sandwiches, an apple, a water, and a German chocolate wafer. Then we continued our journey to Strehla while, we took a nap. During the nap it had started to rain. When the bus took a sharp turn Baker fell off his seat and everybody burst into laughter. When the laughing had subsided the bus pulled into the church parking lot. As we were unloading the bus Francis announced that we were 2 1/2 hours late. As we went into the church to warm up people were streaming in so we could not give away our sound. We just looked around at the acoustics so we were used to the sound and we would not be distracted when singing. The church was in really nice condition considering it was built in 1685! Then we went to a back room we changed and warmed up there. When we first walked in to the concert disappointment rose. There was a keyboard that you could barley hear, it was missing 3 octaves, and there was no pedal. Here are some comments from Francis about the keyboard:

"Plinket-plunkety dinkey toy made for 5 year-olds."
"Meant for children to play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and things like that."
"I found myself playing on air."

During intermission we decided to abandon all pieces with lots of piano including Jack and Josh's solo. Luckily Josh sang a solo last year without a lot of piano (Caro Mio Ben) so he quickly adapted to that one. The concert went so well at the end, they started clapping in unison after we walked off. We quickly turned around and walked back on! Back in the room after the concert we changed back and boarded the bus to go to the Strehla Youth Hostel. On the ride Francis acknowledged that we were in tough conditions and rated the concert 9.5 out of 10! The Hostel was family owned and they have been following the choir since 2002! When we were riding there they were kind enough to make a barbecue of bratwursts. It was really fun! After dinner we went in the back to play soccer and ping-pong. We made teams of hats and no hats and we played for 2 hours! Then Andy brought us around the fire pit for a talk. Then we headed to the showers and hit the sack!

Brought to you by Choirboys Ming Sin and Baker LaMotte!