Grand Tour in Fast Forward

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Hello all. Sorry there won't be photos, but my camera cord is in Cork, and I am now safely ensconced in a friend's flat outside London. How I got here is a long and complicated story. In the last six days I have been in:

Verona, Italy
Venice, Italy
Bardolino, Italy
Milan, Italy
The Swiss Alps
The French Alps
Paris, France
Calais, France
Dover, England
London, England

Here is what happened:

We were all happily singing away on our four-day holiday in Verona and Bardolino and Fumane (lovely town; amazing wine), having grand nights out, expecting to be home on Sunday afternoon. You can find clips of our performances on YouTube!

will take you to one of the contest pieces, and you ought to be able to find the others from there.

On Thursday, someone got a text about the volcano, but we didn't think it would affect us, so we kept on.

Friday, we did a day trip to Venice. Venice is incredibly surreal and I'm not sure I ever want to go back. It's very sad. This beautiful city, where several centuries ago there was art and music and carnival and people living their lives, is now a strange touristy amusement park. There were no Venetians there. Only tourists. The Bridge of Sighs and the Doge's palace were covered in advertising for Bulgari. The best experience I had was when I hopped off away from my group of people and started randomly wandering. It was kind of like walking on a deserted movie set. But I found a mask workshop and bought two gorgeous handmade masks from a man who was busily engaged in making more of the same with papier mache. He told me all about how the mask making business is going downhill and now tourists just buy cheap plastic things instead of the real thing. He assured me that he made The Real Thing.

Saturday was absolutely manic. By then, we knew we would have to figure out some alternate route home. About a million plans flew around. No one really knew what was happening AT ALL. The committee was wonderful. I don't know how they got us through it all, but they did, and no one broke down or killed each other or anything. As I write this, Choral Soc is safely at home in Cork.

This is how they got there:

We couldn't do anything useful from Bardolino, which is a tiny town on Lake Garda, so we took a coach to Milan. However, the hostel we had booked turned out to not have bedsheets, or a functioning toilet. Or, in fact, to even have the rooms they had booked for us for a fifty euro deposit (we got that money back). We eventually found another hostel and had to stay there two nights. It was one of the sketchiest places I've ever stayed. One of the owners tried to run a con on his business partner using us (the choral soc) as part of his scam.

However, we had beds and a locked room for luggage. And, while in Milan, I got to see the Duomo (it's GORGEOUS and frightening and enormous and absurd all at the same time). We also ended up exchanging songs with the owner of a jazz bar near our hostel, staying on the patio until late into the night, doing group pieces and solos and listening to traditional rural Italian songs. I sang the first verse of Joan Baez's "House of the Rising Sun," but couldn't remember the second. There was an Italian man there who, it turned out, was a HUGE Joan Baez fan, and wanted me to sing it again and again! When we left, the last few customers at the bar hugged us and gave us Italian air kisses and said we were lovely people with beautiful voices. Luckily, there was a British ex-pat (with his adorable terrier, dressed in a tiny dog sweater) to translate everything.

At the McDonalds by the Duomo (of course there's one there!) I found a live ladybug in my salad. Far from being disgusted, I was reassured that they must use very fresh lettuce.

After two days in Milan, we got a coach at 5pm local time that was taking people to Paris and then Calais. Our travel agent told us NOT to go to Paris, because everyone was going there, but to get off at Calais and take on of the MANY MANY ferries crossing to Dover.

That coach ride took 18 hours (including stop offs for food and toilets). We drove through the Swiss Alps at sunset and into dusk. I slept through the French Alps, except to wake up around 3:30am for a stop off at a disgusting toilet. I would have gone in the woods if I knew how awful it was going to be beforehand. But when I came out of said disgusting toilet, the stars were absolutely stunning. It was cold and clear, and the sky was filled with sparkles. You could see ALL of the stars.

Then it was back on the coach. We arrived in Paris around 5am. I didn't get off the bus, but got to see St. Laurent and the Gare du Nord from the coach windows. There was ONE plane flying out of Charles de Gaulle when we drove by.

We arrived in Calais at around 1pm, fought through the ticket queue to the toilet, and were delighted to find absolutely nobody (they were all in the queue for tickets!) The Choral Soc was interviewed by the BBC and broadcasted live and also later as a taped piece, singing "Somebody to Love," by Queen. If you find it on YouTube, please excuse our voices. They were already wrecked Friday, after the competition and a crazy late night of dancing and shouting. After four days or so of insanity, people could barely speak, let alone sing.

Because the Irish Embassy had made us a priority case, there were 32 reserved spaces on the "Endeavour," a cargo ferry commandeered to get people across the channel. While we were on the ferry, we switched on the BBC to see ourselves. This is how I found out that Heathrow had reopened and my dad's flight would likely be coming into London. I frantically called him from the ferry, and decided to split off from Choral Soc, who were going to take an eight hour coach from Dover to Fishguard, Wales, and a ferry to Rosslare, Irleland, and another coach to Cork. From Dover port, I bussed to the train station and got a train to London Victoria. Here ensued more madness.

I had arrived in London on less than two hours' notice. I knew several people in the city, but discovered that, while my phone worked in Italy, Switzerland, France, and Dover, it apparently did not work in London. I found an internet cafe, frantically emailed a million people, and finally used a pay phone to get ahold of Michael Murphy, who used to live in Yellow Springs! He gave me directions to his flat in Barnes Bridge, right on the Thames, and now I'm with him and his partner Karin and their adorable mutt dog.

Keep in mind that I did this all on an hour and a half of sleep (gotten on a coach, so it wasn't very good sleep, either) and no food (unless you count crisps, gatorade, and a pear, which I kind of don't).

However, I'm here now! And tonight, I will be at the Amanda Palmer concert that was my reason for coming to London anyway! And, best of all, Neil Gaiman will be there! Sadly, I did not bring my ukulele with me to Italy (I was planning on picking it up, along with my concert ticket print out and my oyster card, and the hat I made to give to AFP, and all my London guidebooks... etc, when I was back in Cork for three days between trips), but the important thing is that I will BE THERE.

Tomorrow, my dad arrives in London and our trip begins! Well, his trip begins. Mine began last Thursday. Thank god Karin and Michael have a washer and dryer.

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