AROUND THE WORLD AND BACK!

The Great Wall of China

The Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame

The Great Matterhorn (Switzerland)

The Hills of Austria

St. Mark’s Basilica (Venice)

I had a heel-click in front of Big Ben but unfortunately I lost all my pictures from London and Paris…

Notice my jacket…. Deutschland!!

So I’ve been a few places this summer…. There is simply too much to blog about and too many pictures to post and so let me just write about a few of my favorite parts from each place.

China – being in a 10 million populated city (Wuhan, Hubei) and having everyone come up to me and ask to have a picture taken with me. We were all celebrities there! (Especially the light-haired, blue-eyed girls hehe.) I definitely feel like royalty. We spent three weeks in China, two of which were spent rehearsing and performing with the Hubei Symphony Orchestra. We all had Chinese stand-partners and mine was a sweetheart. She didn’t speak very much English but neither did most of the people I met. Somehow though, we managed to become pretty close friends… even with the language barrier. My most important and favorite lesson in China was that music is a universal language. Actually, I re-learned that in every country that I went to.

We spent our last 4 days in Beijing where we saw The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven, the pearl, silk, jade, and tea factories, and of course, climbed the Great Wall…. among other things. I might have to continually blog about certain things on this trip.

Oh by the way…. I sat on an elephant.

 

London – seeing Phantom of the Opera, Big Ben, and finding out That London Bridge isn’t really London Bridge.… It’s called the Tower of London. Did you know the real London Bridge is in Arizona? It’s true. Look it up. Oh also, I got to go to a church service in Westminster Abbey.

Paris – climbing the Eiffel Tower in the pouring rain!! Need I say more? Probably not.

Crans-Montana, Switzerland – getting encored 5 times in our concert and bawling my eyes out during Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, the amazing view from our hotel room, and watching people drop their cheese during fondu… then having to kiss every boy on the table. (I never dropped the cheese, don’t worry.) Oh and the CHOCOLATE!

Innsbruck, Austria – seeing Mozart’s home, eating big pizzas, yelling/singing “the hills are alive with the sound of music…. aaaah” :) S

Venice, Italy – ummm being in the City that holds the same name as my roommate, streets made out of water!!!, yummy Gilato, but I must say that my favorite part of Venice was singing in St. Mark’s Basilica. I wish pictures had been allowed in there.

Rothenburg, Germany – stopping at Dachau Concentration Camp on the way, the cute houses, the cobblestone, being in Christmas decoration heaven, crying at our last concert, and thinking of the wonderful friends I made on this trip. How lucky am I?

This summer has helped me appreciate so many different cultures. For the rest of my life, I want to travel as much as I possibly can. Being a poor musician has it’s benefits right?