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Published: October 29th 2011
Mountains
This is some of the scenery on the way to Zarautz from Burgos.Well, now! Yesterday, after checking out of the hotel, we had some time to wander Burgos a little more, so I went into the cathedral proper with Lorri Nieto and Yumi Mori and did a really quick run-through because we needed to get back to put Lorri and Yumi’s luggage on the bus. After doing that, the three of us headed to where the shops and restaurants are so that Yumi could get some churros y chocolate and buy a para agua (umbrella). We did find a place with delicious churros y chocolate for 1.90 euros (for each of us) and we saw Ryan Nakagawa, Ben Walter, Jacques Maitre, and Johnathon Atwood as they were finishing theirs. Yumi and I continued on to El Corte Inglés, which is the major department store chain in Spain. After that, Yumi and I went back to the cathedral to try to catch a few more photos before we had to be back at the bus.
We got onto the bus and started the two-hour (three?) drive into Zarautz, which is along the northern coast of Spain. It is referred to as the green coast and there is good reason for that. Now, some
Mountains
This is some of the scenery on the way to Zarautz from Burgos. of the land that we drove through was perhaps a bit plain, but as we got closer and closer to Zarautz, it got greener and greener, with really neat mountains. Some of the stone had the most interesting striations. Unfortunately I didn’t get any good pictures of the most interesting stuff because we were going along the autopista at a pretty good clip. There were also a lot of tunnels and several people decided to play a game with holding their breath through the tunnels. One of the tunnels was about 2400 meters long (which is LONG) and the only one to succeed was Wil Mathews. That being said, when we got to about 100 meters before the exit of the tunnel, our driver (who is a real character) slowed way the heck down, which sent the whole choir into paroxysms of laughter.
We got to Zarautz, which is a really charming town right on the ocean and arrived at the Hotel Alameda, which is really cute with mostly… uhhh… COZY rooms. The bonus over the past two hotels is that it has free WiFi. The bad thing is that it’s really uneven in it’s reliability. For WiFi, the
DUCK!
There was a little duck pond near where we had rehearsal... Hotel Catalonia Gran Via in Madrid is my hero so far. The WiFi in the Hoteles Abba (Fonseca and Burgos) was very good, but the process for use was annoying (included several pieces of paper for the free stuff and in the rooms, it was 10.50 euros for 24 hours). Since the rest of the group arrived, Daniel and I have had a roomie – Max Zimmershead, who is an excellent roommate. Affable and just really easy to get along with.
After getting settled, we headed over to the church where we were to perform last night so that we could get a warm-up in the space. Unfortunately, there was a funeral there, so we had to move the rehearsal to a different space. But we’re adaptable! ☺ After rehearsal, we came back to the hotel to change into concert attire, then turn back around to go perform in the concert. The church is called “Iglesia Padres Fransiscanos” (Church of the Franciscan Fathers), and it had a really wonderful acoustic. The church was pretty sizeable and our audience filled about three-quarters of the pews, which was great. Our concert went really nicely and was very well received. We have
Now You See me...
This statue was in the middle of the duck pond. since been stopped a few times in the street by people who recognize us from last night’s concert and they give us some more sweet commentary. One sweet elderly lady saw me and in her lowest voice said, “BASSO!”
We then headed to a place called Restaurante Santa Barbara. They started with a creamy seafood in puff pastry, served on a sauce of some sort. The main course was a beef stew, which was delicious and they ended with a pastry which was like if you took cake, put some cream on it, rolled it into a log, covered the log in powdered sugar, sliced little circles out of it, then put some chocolate sauce lightly over it. Sounds good, eh? It was.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was about midnight and we all needed some good sleep.
This morning, we woke around 7:30am so that we could get some breakfast before a 9am rehearsal. Rehearsal went well and we have a concert this evening in Polanco, which is a two-hour drive away. We will have dinner there after the concert…
I'll try to get some more pictures up soon...
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