Choir Tour 2010

We all have been looking forward to the choir tour all year. The trip finally came around on Tuesday!

We toured with a choir from St. John in Fraser, Michigan, and they arrived at Holy Cross Monday afternoon. After school, we met in the music room and went outside (I, however, being the responsible student that I am, did homework during the recess). Then we went back inside to warm up. We warmed up our voices for about an hour, and then we went to the cafeteria for dinner.

After our dinner of nachos, grapes, corn, and ice cream, we sang for the Monday night church service. We were probably singing for 60% of the service. We sang O Filii Et Filliae, an echo song written by Volckmar Leisring, God Is Our Refuge and Strength, Cantate Domino, an extremely difficult song by Hans Leo Hassler, Jesu, Jesu, a traditional Ghana spiritual, Siyahumba, another traditional spiritual, Angels and Saints, a combination of Angels Watching Over Me and When the Saints Go Marching In, Sing Aloud to God, Our Strength, and Clap Your Hands, a song where which includes - obviously - hand clapping. Finally, we headed home and started packing!

I got up at 5:45 on Tuesday, and at 6:30, I arrived at Holy Cross to hop on the tour bus. We took off at 7:00, and for the first hour we mostly slept. After we livened up, the yelling, listening of iPods, movie-watching, and eating began.


Jessica, Alison, Myrthe, Michaela, Sydney, and I were lucky enough to have the only seats with tables. This was very convenient, because everyone else had to put their snacks, iPods, books, etc. on the floor or on their laps. The table also served as exceptional footrests (The only bad thing about our seats was the unenviable location right in front of the bathroom, which stunk. We quickly found this out, and nobody dared to use it again).

Our first stop on the trip was Valparaiso, Indiana - the place where I was born - at Immanuel Lutheran - the place where I went to preschool and where my grandparents and cousins attend church and school. After we performed, I visited with my cousin Sarah, my grandparents, and my Aunt Judy. I didn't get to talk for very long, because we were on the road again in a few minutes.

Next we sang for St. John Lutheran in La Grange, Illinois, where we also ate lunch. The church was beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed singing there (at this point I started to lose my voice: I still can't sing). We hit the road again and stopped at St. Paul in Brookfield, Illinois, in the Chicago area.

By this point in the day, we were all very tired and most of us had headaches. We were relieved when we finished our final concert of the day and headed for our hotel. The hotel was really nice, and hardly anyone was there. After we settled into our rooms (I stayed with Jessica, Alison, and Ashley), we put our bathing suits on and went swimming. The pools were indoor, and there was an Olympic-sized pool, a 3-foot, warmer pool, and two large hot tubs. There was also a small arcade room, pool and ping pong tables, an exercise room, and a sauna.

We ate our pizza dinner poolside, and afterward we changed, grabbed our school books, and went to the "Atrium", a huge hall booked for our study hall. Thankfully, I got all my work done. For the remainder of the study hall, I drew James, Robiati, and Meron (by the way, the drawings were atrocious).

After devotions, we had free time for the rest of the night. Free time was pretty wild, with much running around, pop-drinking, yelling, and visiting other people's rooms. I'm surprised nobody complained, since it was 10:30 at night.

Our curfew was 10:30, but nobody actually went to sleep. We could hear the eighth graders on either side of our room bouncing off the walls until at least 1:00 (not to mention the seventh grade girls called us three times in the dead of night because, apparently, they were bored). We, on the other hand, got in bed at about 10:45.

The night was a long one, but day finally dawned, bringing us a spectacular view of the Chicago skyline.

This picture has nothing to do with the choir tour, but I thought it was a cool picture, and I took it, too!

We got downstairs to the breakfast bar at 6:00 sharp. Breakfast included delicious biscuits, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and potatoes. After everyone had eaten and packed, we hopped on the bus and arrived at Grace Lutheran to sing for their chapel service. After that, we went down the street to Concordia University Chicago, the place where my choir director went to college.

Unfortunately, the chapel floors were carpet, which is a cardinal sin for singing. The vibration didn't reverberate well, so our sound wasn't the best. It did reverberate well in Trinity Lutheran, where we performed our very last concert of the tour.

For no reason, we went on a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood, and then drove to Navy Pier in Chicago!


We began our time by going on the famous Ferris wheel, a very enjoyable experience.




Next we went on possibly the most fun ride ever! It was one of those huge rides with seats hanging from it, that swings you around high above the ground. We went on it three times. At the end, we agreed that, if we could, we would spend our entire day on the ride. It would totally be worth it.


Next we ate lunch at the gigantic food court. Meron and I had Chinese. Ashley had Auntie Anne's Pretzels. Matt simply had McDonald's.

After our lunch, we explored the indoor section of Navy Pier, which included the coolest restaurant ever, Harry Caray's, named for the famous Chicago Cubs' broadcaster. They had hundred of autographed baseballs, bats, and jerseys.

Game-worn, autographed Bobby Hull jersey.

Game-worn, autographed Patrick Kane jersey, skate, and helmet.

A real Lombardi Trophy!

Game-worn, autographed Walter Payton jersey.

After this excursion, we browsed the numerous shops of Navy Pier. There were a lot of awesome places, like the hat shop, which sold hats that could actually light up! They also sold wigs.

Another store sold T-shirts with hilarious phrases and sayings. While at the Fudge Shoppe, Jessica couldn't resist the mouth-watering chocolates, and bought a caramel/chocolate apple.

At the end of our fun day, we got into the bus and left Chicago. We arrived at Valparaiso once more in about an hour, and the St. John Fraser singers hopped on a new bus that took them to Michigan. The Junior Choir visited the stunning Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University. The church is absolutely beautiful, with a 4,500 pipe-organ, a giant, unique baptismal font, many dazzling stain glass windows, and an underground altar that serves as a prayer room. The ceiling is vaulted, so the sound bounces around really well, and there's a five second echo at least.

After touring the church, we hopped on the bus to finally head home. . . where we learned that the bus was having break problems. Because of this, we had to switch buses. We didn't switch onto any ordinary bus, though. It was the bus that the Fort Wayne Komets use.

When we got home, we were tired, hungry, and hoarse. I felt better once I bragged to my family about the awesome time I had. It was probably one of the coolest experiences of my life, and the ride in the Komets bus made it even better.

I'm already looking forward to next year's choir tour to Cleveland (not quite as exciting as Chicago, but it's still a choir tour)!