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Published: October 24th 2011
The boot shop
Jahan and LouisThe second half of our stay in Houston seems to have gone so quickly, we can’t believe it’s over already!
We are backtracking a little with this blog to go over what Jahan has been up to.
During the weekend, Jahan had a friend; who lives in San Antonio, drive down to Houston to visit. They arranged for him to stay at the Crowne Plaza, so that made things nice and easy.
On Saturday, the boys went to the NASA Centre which is about a 30 minute drive away. They saw the space control centre that was used for the Appollo missions, and the V5 Saturn rocket that was used to launch these missions including the Appollo 13 mission that landed on the moon. Check out the photos.
Monday was a free day for the chorus, so it was time for some serious shopping! We headed to Cavenders; a huge store full of all that is Texas. Both Jahan and I found ourselves some cow boy/girl boots! I also managed to pick up a very ‘blingy’ belt. Houston has a large mall called the Galleria. The mall has both bargain stores as well as all of the high end
labels such as Tiffany’s, D&G, etc. – We managed to fill in the afternoon at the Galleria very easily.
On Tuesday the chorus had the opportunity to visit the Toyota Centre (where the competitions are held) to watch the small chorus’s compete. It is a fantastic venue and the small chorus’s were great!
The day before the semi’s the chorus went to rehearse on the ‘International risers’ – That’s the exact same layout as on stage. We had the privilege of seeing the end of the Swedish chorus rehearsal before ours – they really are spectacular. Jahan and Gary (one of the chorus ladies’ husbands) went shopping and picked up a few things that we had wanted to find. – It really is substantially cheaper here in the US, Jahan helped Gary to find a video camera and they were successful! We rounded off the evening with a few of us heading to the restaurant; House of the Blues.
Competition day! A year and a half of hard work and it was finally our chance for six minutes on the International stage. We started the day as we usually do when competing. A shared breakfast at the
hotel with all the chorus. Half made up with our foundation on, hair in rollers, etc.. It’s quite a sight really!
All the supporters were fantastic.. they ran after us all day collecting and organising our lunches, taking our change of shoes to the Toyota Centre (104 pairs!!) and some husbands/partners even helped with hair and makeup! – Thanks Jahan 😉
Our time to go on stage seemed to arrive so quickly, but we were ready. We sang beautifully, looked fantastic and were extremely proud of our performance. Our goal was to try and make the top ten (the finals). Unfortunately we were nine points off and placed 11th. To put this into perspective; this was the toughest line up of chorus’s in the history of the competition. We beat two chorus’s who were in the top five in Calgary (2007, the last time we competed internationally) and our score would have placed us in 8th position in the 2010 competition. Virginia; our director is very happy with our performance and score and I know personally I have learnt so much more about my singing voice and techniques in the past week.
Being 11th didn’t mean the journey ended right
there. We had the privilege of sharing the stage with the outstandingly talented top 10 chorus’s on Saturday as the microphone testers. – We sang four songs, including the ‘New Zealand song’, which made the judges cry! I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to be one of the MC’s for our package; introducing the chorus before we began singing … I guess that’s the first time I’ve ever spoken in front of approximately 8000 people before!
That evening we had a party at the hotel to celebrate the last year and a half since winning in Wellington and our success on the stage over the last few days, with a lovely buffet dinner – mashed potatoes!! I was so excited there weren’t fries for once! We had a series of speeches and thank you’s and of course; more singing.
There was no point in going to bed as we had organised a board room for those who were brave enough to be awake at 3am to watch the All Blacks win the World Cup. We managed to cram about 60 people into the small room and shared all our left over snacks from the week. It was
a real highlight of the trip so far and so much fun to share the experience with a bunch of Kiwis at 3am on the other side of the World!
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Mary Parker
non-member comment
Really good to hear so much about it all
Thanks so much for all the interesting info and the pictures. As I had not viewed the chorus singing I was thrilled to see the pictures. I am so happy for you all and you sure did well. My heart is full of joy at the results and the fact you could sing your second group of songs. I bet they loved "You can't stop the beat"