On the 7th day of our incredible trip, we transferred from Vienna to Prague. Everyone woke up at 7 to finish packing and get ready to go!! The night before, there was no hot water and there was very little in the morning as well, so many of your very own skyline choir members took cold showers. Then, we went to breakfast where there was a buffet with breads, fruit, cereal, and more! This wasn’t my favorite breakfast, but I especially loved the breakfast at Salzburg. I am a very slow packer, so I quickly ate my breakfast and returned to my room to do the last minute packing. (So typical of me!) We brought our bags out of our room and waited to get checked and receive the okay to head out to the bus. Everyday, one of my favorite parts was looking out of the window of the bus and talking to Loey who sat next to me. The views in Austria and Prague were like none I’ve ever seen before. This was my first time across the ocean and seeing new sights and architecture made me fall in love with traveling! I also loved singing in the beautiful churches. The sound created by the spaces was so full and the sound resonated in the air for what seemed like forever. This was especially true at the church inside of the cemetery we went to. The cemetery had the graves of those deemed worthy of being buried there such as the great Beethoven. It seemed that his grave had been visited many times because of all of the flowers laid there. When everyone was done, we went into the church and were in awe of its beauty and sound. We first sang Ubi Caritas but that wasn’t enough! Everyone begged to do another song, so as I remember it, we sang one of our louder and less calm pieces of music. When we left the cemetery, we drove to the House of Music. It had a room dedicated to some of the world’s greatest composers. It also had some rooms that allowed us to learn about sound waves and how they effect our perception of sound. I think many of us would’ve hoped to have more time to do the interactive activities but our schedule was packed full! We left the museum and walked with Pascal to the spot where we would meet to get in the bus to head to Prague. Many of the groups went to local stands and the gelato place on the corner. Many of us got pizza, a hot dog of sorts, or others like me got food from the mediterranean type booth. I got a felafel wrap and ate some of it there and saved some for the 5 hour long drive we had ahead of us! We stopped at a two rest stops. One of which some of us just got out to walk around and some to go to the bathrooms. But, a few of us with Pascal decided to play tag, pet the goats, and have fun doing trust falls. Loey was the brave soul who went first! At the second rest stop, we exchanged our euros into korunas and bought some snacks. We then continued on the last leg to Prague. When we got there we checked into our hotel rooms and had dinner at the hotel. We had a very seemingly common meal consisting of a piece of meat and potatoes! I greatly enjoyed the new food aspect of this trip. After dinner although all of us were facing great exhaustion, we had a two hour rehearsal to prepare for our clinic with the Czech musician the next day. After working on our music, we had our daily meeting to get all of the updates for the next day and then went up to our rooms to go to sleep.
Day 8
On the 8th day, we enjoyed our first day traveling around and exploring Prague. We
woke up early and wore professional clothing for our clinic later in the day. I regret wearing my heels for all of the walking around, my feet were so sore at the end of the day! But, I loved going on the tour of the castle. We learned that when the leader of the Czech Republic is in the country they have the flag up at the castle and when he’s not, they take it down. I thought that was very interesting! The lines to get into the church part of the castle were very long, but the beauty shown inside was completely worth it! We also were shown other places such as the Golden Lane, Daliborka towers, and the Astronomical Clock! Our tour guide told us many things about great leaders and many of the names came up while in Austria as well, such as Maria Theresa and her family. After our guided tour, we were at the town square where the easter market would be held the next day and near St Nicolas church where we would perform for the Easter Mass. My group went to lunch at a little Italian place right on the square. We all enjoyed it greatly! The other half of our group (we split up) went to a nicer restaurant that we all ended up going to together the next day. At the Italian Restaurant I got gnocchi, Izzy got a pizza that she shared and the rest of us got some type of noodle dish. After lunch, we all met up and went to our clinic with a very impactful person. He demanded that we always use musicality such as dynamics, syllabic stress, and more. Not only this, he taught us the pronunciations of Czech words and also wanted to work with us on our song Adoramus Te. Although he didn’t speak very good english, he used descriptions and demonstrations emphatically to impress upon us his point and what he wanted us to gain from him. He seemed very pleased with our progress with him and often would say “Brava!” which I loved. After the clinic, we had free time to do whatever within our chaperone groups. My group went to a café where we got smoothies, cappuccinos and Loey got a fun little dessert. We walked around and explored a little bit too! After free time we met back up with everyone and Pascal led us to the restaurant. The restaurant was dome shaped and we all ate SO MUCH BREAD at my table. The dinner was good but we especially loved the live music and many of us wanted to dance but we got in the way of the waiters so we had to stop :( We had a very interesting fruit sundae with ice cream for dessert. After, we went back to the hotel for a last minute 2 hour rehearsal to prepare for our Easter mass the next day. After this, we were all completely exhausted and wanted to go to bed after the fun filled day.
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