Choir Tour 2016 - Austria and Czech Republic ~ Day 1

Day 1
Friday March 4th - Saturday March 5th

I'm already late - go figure.

I'm supposed to meet Molly and Patricia at 4:00 sharp and here it is 4:01 and I'm just now managing to hop out of my room. With me, I have my purse, carry on, jacket, luggage, and wheelchair. Both Molly and Patricia have that much as well, minus the wheelchair of course. Somehow us three have to make it from McGlinn hall to the Golden Dome. For those not familiar with campus, that's a decent distance, especially with the amount of stuff we have with us. Molly was in charge of pushing the chair, Patricia dealt with the luggage, and I sat on my lazy bum and held the small bags. To make things even more hilarious, Patricia connected two of the suitcases with this strap thing. It looked absurd but dang was it handy.

We made it to the bus just in time. The bus ride was scorching and much longer than I expected. Catherine was my bus buddy for this adventure, very sweet gal she is. Somewhere along the way I fell asleep and woke up suddenly when the bus came to a complete halt. I was so confused and hurriedly packed up all of my things back into my carry on thinking we were at the airport. As I struggled, I realized that we were only at a stop light.. false alarm. We were somewhat close to the airport though, so packing up wasn't for nothing.

Once off the bus, the real excitement began. After we checked our bags, I was directed away from the group to the handicap line. Patrick, our assistant director was in charge of pushing me for this part. The people working the express lines were difficult to understand, so we ended up in the military line. Already frazzled, I get up to the guy who needs my passport and boarding pass and low and behold, mine is missing. Typical me put it in the opposite zipper to what I originally thought, so luckily, I was able to find it after wasting 3 minutes of the worker's time. Then the normal invasive security pat down was initiated. Once complete, Patrick and I were sent on our merry way to the terminal. Even with my flub with the boarding pass we were the first ones there.

Eventually the rest of the group joined us and we were all fairly hungry. O'hare doesn't usually disappoint with options but for some reason, this area of the airport didn't have much to choose from. Our group decided to eat at Chilis, seeing as it was really the only decent choice in sight. Everything was great except our waitress. She had this attitude the entire time and on top of that, she brought us the wrong food and then proceeded to act like it was our fault. Even she couldn't bring me down though, I was with a group of great people, eating cheese curds (which were tied for highest saturated fat on the menu directly behind the brownie chocolate explosion), and in an hour I'd be on my way to Europe. I had no room for negativity!

Patrick and I got to board the plane first #handicapperk . He offered to carry my bags before we got on and I was adamant that I would be fine. That was before I saw how huge the plane was. Holy cow.. Did I mention this was my first international flight? By the time I got back to my seat four rows from the back of the plane, I was dying, BUT I managed. I soon was introduced to my plane buddy, who just so happened to be Nick. I was delighted because I already sort of knew him so I wasn't worried about being able to hold conversation with him for an extended period of time. There were so many options available on how one can spend their time on a 9 hour flight. It took some time, but I was finally able to make a decision on watching The Blindside. Near the end of the heartfelt film, they served our first meal. It was delicious, better than I expected anyways. I chose the pasta option and was very pleased with the result. Upon finishing, I thought it was time to take an adventure to the restrooms which lie below the seating area on the plane. Yes folks, I had to hop down the stairs on a plane hurling itself thousands of miles an hour through the sky, please hold your applause. Going down was easy, child's play actually. Up, for some reason, was soooooo difficult. I made it, but it was NOT a walk in the park. Nick got to see all sides of me on that plane ride. I removed my face proceeded to perform my nightly face routine before falling asleep. It wasn't a good sleep or a long one, but I was able to at the very least. Nick and I both almost slept through breakfast, which was horrifying, but luckily the flight attendants were very kind and helpful and brought us a plate once we woke up. Before landing I used the restroom again, but the attendants had seen me struggle the first time so they allowed me to use THE FIRST CLASS bathrooms this go around. I was too excited for this experience. It was larger than the one's below and it had a window. I was frightened about mooning another plane or a bird in passing but other than that, it was just a regular bathroom experience. I began watching the Vow all the way until our insanely smooth landing.

Munich's airport is eerie in the sense that it reminds me of a dystopian world, but fascinating by how pristine everything looks. Glass everything surrounded us, fancy elevators and interesting passage ways. Only I could manage to have communication issues with the first European person I come into contact with on the trip. This woman in charge of wheelchair assistance was trying to ask me if I needed a chair and I kept saying no mine is on the plane. Apparently, until I said yes, she couldn't bring me my chair from the plane. Beyond confused, Ned Molly and I followed her through these passages until we got to the main area. There she was adamant that we ride this golf cart thing throughout the airport with her. It was odd, but we did it. At customs, I had an issue, again, go figure! I don't really know what happened, but the guy kept looking at me and had to go ask his colleague about something related to me and getting into the freaking country. Don't worry though, I was eventually allowed through.


Ned continues to push me to get my luggage and to currency exchange. He is tour director though, so Andy calls him over to take attendance as the woman is counting my money. Politely, he asks Matt, the kid behind me, to push me over to the group when the woman is done. So what does Matt do? He follows directly behind Ned as the woman with my money looks at my incredulously like I'm the weirdest person ever. I'm embarrassed and I explain to Matt what Ned meant. He is embarrassed as well and takes me back to I can grab my cash. I apologize and we go back over to the group for attendance. Two of our people are missing. What a fabulous start to the trip. The girls had to go to the bathroom and got lost trying to find us. Luckily, they figured it out and all was fixed semi easily.

Another country, same bus ride through flat farmland. Did we even leave the Midwest? I take a nap through most of our four hour trip through Germany but luckily wake up for the ending to get a nice glimpse of the ALPS. We're not in Indiana anymore folks!

Salzburg, Austria was our official first stop. It's the city of Mozart's birth and the Vonn Trapp family. Once we parked the bus, all any of us wanted to do was go to the bathroom, eat, and sleep. However, instead we have to take a fifteen minute walk across the city to a rehearsal. Awesome. It truly wasn't terrible however, the city is honestly the most beautiful place I've ever been and on top of that, the professor directing us was so unbelievably kind to us all. The biggest negative to all of this though is the frightening hill that Patrick had to push me up. It was steep, made of cobblestone, and full of people. Not going to lie either, down may have been worse than up. Gripping my arm rests and slow and steady movements allowed us both to survive that experience.

We finished the evening by having a pre-arranged dinner at the hotel. It was fancy and included a weird beef dish, bread/stuffing thing, vegetables and delicious cake! What it did not include was enough water though. I was so dehydrated from the plane. All I wanted was a proper drink of something and the restaurant couldn't even offer me that. Exhausted and full, I decided to get an early night so I could be prepared for the day ahead. Can't wait!

Florida 2015 ~ Part 3

I love fancy smancy hotels as much as the next person but fair warning, they are breakfast potato killers. RIP to all the tater cubes that have met their end by being mixed with peppers and other assorted veggies, you will be gravely missed. Needless to say I didn't enjoy the breakfast; guess I'll just stick to my granola bars. A bad start doesn't mean a bad day however! The band, choir, and flags all participated in their designated clinic workshops today. Those people in 2 or all 3 chose whichever they so desired and for myself that was choir! Our director, Nicki was the sweetest thing! We did voice overs for many random sounds from bird calls to the slurping of a cat drinking. The we dug into our pieces of music which included The Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight, both from Disney's animated film, The Lion King. The circle of life was glorious. Being on the soprano part has its perks, I mean who else but sopranos would have the melody right? For Can You Feel the Love Tonight, I was lucky enough to be chosen as a soloist! There were three of us in total, Baylee Ritter took the lead with Timons adorable opening, followed by Logan Mies on Simba's romantic tune, and me in the caboose with Nalas flirtatious response! There was a dance portion to a classic song from my childhood. None other than Hannah Montana's Pumpin' up the party track. We fist pumped til we could do so no more and talked about the 5 steps to success: Quick, Friendly, Awesome, Focused, Flexible. A short lecture on the Disney college experience followed and then we were sent on our way. 

To where did we go next? The beach of course! Coco beach was the destination and my only goal was straight relaxation. Once we ate the delicious bbq food provided for us, everyone dispersed. Some went out into the waters, others buried each other in the sand, and then people like me laid out on a towel with nothing but sunshine and reading a book on the brain! It was beautiful. 

Later on, all three buses began to make our way to see the Hoop Dee Doo. This is where it really starts to get interesting... To start off our struggles, our buses dropped us off at the wrong location and one of the buses even abandoned the students! The dinner show began promptly at 8:30 and after being picked back up by the buses and driving around aimlessly for what seemed like hours, we finally arrived, late of course. Luckily for us, however, the performers held the performance until we were seated and settled. After all, with 140 some people, we were basically the honorary guests as we took up more than half of the audience! To describe the Hoop Dee Doo in simple terms picture this: An extremely Hokey performance similar to the madrigal dinners but with a Southern Belle/countrified twist! Some of our troupe even became main focal points in the show. (Gavin Balota as the brave Indian chief and Fritz Pagel as the silver fox - insert kiss upon forehead here). The show was a hootin and a tootin good time; I even got to strum an authentic washboard! Here's hoping that tomorrow is equally as much of a hoot and a holler as today was! 

Florida 2015 ~ Part 2

Oh the wonderful sun is shining strong and bright down here in Florida! Continuing with yesterday's agenda, Epcot was definitely a blast in a glass! Upon first arrival we all quickly pulled out our electronic devices to take a picture of none other than symbolic globe like silver ball.

My group then headed on over to guest relations to see about getting me an electronic chair to use for day. After about choking when the worker told me it would be a $50 fee, we all fled from the money magnet building. After many more pictures we took a ride into the depths of the giant symbolic globe like silver ball. It was a fun trip through time as we saw things ranging from the ancient Egyptians all the way to our own personalized futures. A great time traveler always needs a break so our next stop was this delicious and authentic pizzeria in the mock Italy! I swear the Italians do it right in almost every aspect. I mean honestly the language is beautiful, the food is perfection, the women are pretty and the men are finer than fine 😻 ! While sitting and eating we flagged down one of the many fit waiters and requested him to snap our picture. While looking at the photo, however, our group of 6 had suddenly gained another member! We were sitting in front of this glass window and another worker shamelessly photobomb our shot!

 It was honestly hilarious beyond belief. The food helped to reenergize us long enough to find the infamous Fa Mulan and snap a quick photo with the insprirational woman warrior,

however our adrenaline had run out and everyone had become irritable. We unfortunately finished the night at the park in crabbiness, but at least the fireworks burned bright and temporarily burned out our tempers. After a long day all we really needed was sleep, however, once at the hotel we couldn't just run to our rooms and crash because that'd just be too simple. Instead we got lost in the mysterious hotel, had to unload EVERYTHING, not just the luggage, and my room had 4 extremely achy and sweaty girls who simply wanted to shower. Finally, at around 12:30, we were finally able to sleep. 

What a day...

Florida 2015 ~ Part 1

After a crazy few weeks of travel from Davenport, Iowa for a dance competition, to Omaha, Nebraska for our class's Atrazine project, to Bloomingdale, Illinois for the II District's district convention, it's finally time for Spring Break! However, no break is in sight for me. Waking up at 3 am is only acceptable when travel is involved! It's been a long morning of bus rides and of course the long haul across country via the clouds, the moment we have all been waiting for for almost a year has finally arrived. Within minutes PTHS's band and choir will be arriving in Disney World!! Stay tuned for pictures and updates from my perspective of this magical trip 😁😁

"The Good Life" ~ Nebraska

Nebraska: typically not one's first visit choice when it comes to traveling across country, yet here I sit among 6 other students and my teacher as we all make the long journey out to this Midwestern state. My Ecology class has been working with the University of Nebraska in Omaha for a few months now. We have been planning out a 10 week lab that both our high school and the university will be taking part in. This drawn out experiment will be testing the local rivers in our designated towns for Atrazine, a dangerous insecticide. Because of the extensiveness of the rivers, we have invited other high schools in our county to join the fun! In order to put the finishing touches on this project before our start in Mid-April, the university invited us to come work with their students in person and present our other projects and programs to the college. 

 

I could not be more excited for this trip. Besides the fact I get to miss school and go on a road trip with my friends, I also get to help make an impact on our natural world! Let's do this Nebraska! 

Take Two 👌

I did this for my trip to California over the summer and absolutely loved it. Now with a full schedule ahead and long hours of traveling time to write along the way, I'd like to give it another go! 

Welcome to the blog of my wonderfully crazy life! To those reading, fair warning, I try way to hard to make a funny and tend to have awkward things happen in my life more often than the average person... But that's what keep me on my toes.

And with that cautionary statement in mind... Here's to new experiences, wacky moments and many (pointless) blog posts. 

Tally ho!