I know you don't need a running commentary on my health, really, but today's the best I've felt in a while. I think I've only blown my nose a handful of times _all_ day. Woot! Anywho, decided to head in the general direction of the Imperial Palace complex and go from there. Mostly because I'd done a bit of research and discovered that there is an imperial burial vault as part of the complex (yes. another cemetery. Quel surprise, I'm sure). To my dismay, it didn't open until 10, and it was only 9:45, so I wandered to St Stephen's cathedral, and took a few pictures of the outside. Couldn't find my way in, but wasn't really feeling the need to go in anyway. In the meantime, a sign pointed me to Mozart's house, and I ... read more

and my alarm went off at 8. A good solid night's sleep was definitely a blessing, as I am feeling much better today. In Gorizia I found som vitamin C tablets that fizz in water, and have tried to pound back at least one of those each day. I'm still a bit snuffly, but the Italian version of Sudafed is keeping me sane and helping to prevent my having to blow my nose every ten minutes (which is also how I got through the competition, in case you were wondering). Running out, though, and may soon have to find an Austrian version. This morning I skipped the hostel's €3.90 breakfast in favor of breakfast at ... McDonald's. It's not as bad as it sounds. They have a McDonald's Café here, where I had a giant ... read more

Left Gorizia fairly early this morning and headed into Slovenia. I honestly wasn't sure why on earth we were going to Slovenia, of all the places in the world, but my non-expectations have been thoroughly exceeded and I think it was what we needed to get over the emotional drama of yesterday. Our first stop was at Predjama castle. Pred apparently means 'before' in Slovenian, and jama means 'cave'... So three guesses as to where this castle was located. But the name doesn't really do it justice. When you come up the hill and look at the Castle, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. It's white, and set straight into the side of a cliff. Our guide there pointed out that there was also an earlier castle actuallz _in_ the cave in the ... read more

Up bright and early this morning, although not as early as the small group performing in the Renaissance Class. They were first on the agenda for the entire day. We wandered over to the auditorium to see them perform at 9:00, and it was an absolute pleasure! They looked like they were having so much fun, and were sounding just about perfect! Stayed to listen to a few of the other competitors afterwards, and got to hear groups from Poland, Russia, Latvia, Italy, South Korea, amongst other countries. It was interesting to hear them all, but competitions like this can be pretty subjective, and we're not at all sure what the judges are looking for. Fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The best part of the a.m. was watching Heather stalk the pianist from a ... read more

This morning it was back on the bus to Verona. Verona is another smaller city that I think would be neat to revisit someday. In spite of the cheese-tastic-ness of the whole 'Juliet' tourism industry, it's a very historic city, not to mention that hey have the opera festival during the summer in the arena, lots of parks an interesting public places... One hour there really wasn't quite enough. We continued the day of bus-filled awesomeness after Verona, arriving in Gorizia in the evening with enough time to settle into rooms and get changed for our evening concert in Fiumicello, which was part of the festival in which we're competing. We sang in another church of unknown vintage, which was fairly full of audience members, including our bus driver, Gianfranco (who has been at _every_ one ... read more