Day 3 and 4

We've had some awesome days! Yesterday, we visited the beautiful Glendalough, which means the land of two lakes. It is a 6th century monastic settlement with a stone church and tower completely in tact. We had over an hour to explore the grounds and many students took the 3.5 mile walk to both lakes. We then took a drive out to Kilkenny and stopped at a burial pylon that was at least 5,000 years old! We had some downtime at the hotel, a great rehearsal and a great dinner! All the food has been amazing and the weather is beautiful (but chilly-many sweaters were purchased today). Today began with a trip to Kilkenny Castle and then several students and I were on the radio to promote our performance! While we were doing that, the rest of the group climbed an awesome church tower and then we all had some lunch and time to explore Kilkenny and shop. The afternoon was incredible! We had our workshop with the young people of Newpark Close Family Resource Center, which is sort of a neighborhood club and a youth center. It was clear that had never heard anything like our choir. We sang with them, taught them warmups and part of Shenandoah as they sang for us. After that, we performed at St. John's Roman Catholic Church, which was spectacularly beautiful and sounded glorious. We sang and the Newpark Close students sang. The Mayor of Kilkenny attended (and took selfies with us!) and everything was so fun and lovely! Our hearts are full tonight! 

Day 2

We had an awesome Day today in Dublin. We visited Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells, one of the oldest books in history. We also had a great tour of Dublin Castle and sang on the streets outside of St. Peter's church and inside the beautiful Royal Church on the castle's grounds. We visited several beautiful parks and had a great bus to her around the entire city. Even though the kids were exhausted, the highlight of the evening was our dinner at the Merry Ploughboys Pub. The food was awesome-especially the apple dessert! The Merry Ploughboys are a trad band who sang an entire show of great music and featured Irish Dancers who were incredible! We were honored to be asked to sing Dulaman and it was so fun. I took some pictures to post to the blog, but can't figure out how to link it to the blog, so check the Official Skyline Choir Facebook page for those tomorrow! Off to sleep now...we're so tired! 

Arrived!

We've arrived safely! Luggage collected and we're on our way to meet our tour guide, Barbara! 

Ireland updates will be posted here!

Hey everyone! I know I don't update the Blog often, but you should start following now so you are in the loop while we travel to Ireland. We'll be posting regular updates here!

http://skylinechoir.blogspot.com/

In case anyone was not following...here's a link to Brian's Blog of our Italy trip!

Looking forward to planning our winter/spring 2015 overseas trip!

I enjoyed meeting all my classes today and am so looking forward to the year!

Just to let everyone know: I have updated the calendar page of the website and have uploaded the links to this year's syllabi.

CHOIR REGISTRATION IS SEPT. 24! Don't miss it.

ITALIA! All is going well! Students and chaperones are resting a bit before dinner while Mrs. Cie is working....coming up with new standing charts for every possible configuration...3 rows? 5 rows? pews? clump? Preparing for everything! Soon I meet with our coordinator to get some answers on the church questions, but we won't know where or how we stand until the morning. Yikes! Feeling great about the music, though! After a nice dinner we'll have a short, calm, focused rehearsal and a long night of sleep! Santa Maria Maggiore Mass in the morning!