Portland, OR: November 11-14, 2015 - A Soldier's Mother's Lullaby (NCCO)

Well, I certainly took my sweet time getting this post written.  First time anyone's said to me they were looking forward to a blog post and I take like a month to get it posted.  I barely remember the sequence of events.  Luckily, I take photos.  That's the secret to my success.  I just look at the pictures and figure it out.  Anyway.  Onward!

The National Collegiate Choral Organization, or NCCO, is relatively new on the scene of choir conferences, having had its inaugural event in 2005 and only occurring every other year since.  Unlike ACDA back in February, I was at this event not as an attendant but as a participant - the Cardinal Singers were selected to be among the half dozen or so groups that performed throughout the long weekend we were there.

I believe Portland was chosen, at least in part, because Ethan Sperry, director at Portland State, was one of the founding members of NCCO.  He, incidentally, had visited Louisville about a month or two beforehand, and also, incidentally, had commissioned a piece several years ago that Cardinal was, at the time, performing on our next concert, so he was quite happy to step in and conduct us during rehearsal just for funsies.

Also, I got to miss some school for this, so that's fun.  Of course, almost all of my classes are directly involved in choir, so there was only like, one that I had to explain to the professor.  Anyway, we left Wednesday morning in three groups: the llamas, the goats, and the sheep.  These names were chosen, I think, as a one-time joke; nevertheless they stuck.  The three groups were just the three different flights into Portland.  That's it.

The goats - that included me - were first to arrive and had to manage getting to the hotel all by our widdle selves.  Just to make things exciting, one of our members decided to forget his wallet on the plane, and a contingent had to be left behind to reclaim it.  Story is that the wallet was found with four minutes to spare.  Any later and it would have been in Los Angeles.  Well done there.

This is a thing in the airport:

We got from airport to hotel by way of train.  The train ride was actually pretty cool.  Got to see a few nice views, including this, crossing the river:

Made it to the hotel without incident.  As we were checking in, I noticed a familiar face over at the other end of the counter.  I turned to someone else in our group and mutter-whispered to them: "that's Dominick DiOrio."  Very exciting to almost no one reading this, probably, but at the time we were rehearsing one of his pieces for New Music Festival, so most of our group knew his name.  We said hello as he walked by, and he asked if we were the choir from Louisville.  We said yes.  I asked if he was coming to New Music Festival to hear us sing his piece - not unreasonable, since he's at Indiana - but he said no.  He had some conference in Hawaii.  Psh.

Got word from the sheep that they'd be in late enough that we should go ahead and have dinner.  First, we decided to try to find the church we'd be performing at the next day to see if we could rehearse in it that night.  Unfortunately, there was a Black Lives Matter conference being held there.  Y'know, that last sentence out of context makes me sound like a pretty terrible person.

Anywho, some shots from our walk round town:

Ate at a place called Pizza Schmizza.  Also had some beer at a place called Pizza Schmizza.  It was a good place.

The sheep arrived and got dinner too, and all of us convened in a ballroom at the hotel to rehearse.  Well, everyone except the llamas.  Their plane got way delayed.  They ended up getting to the hotel at about 3:00AM.  But anyway.

You may remember that name Ēriks Ešenvalds from the ACDA entry.  He's one of the most commissioned and performed choral composers today and we, lucky group that we are, got to premiere a piece of his at this conference called A Soldier's Mother's Lullaby.  There still isn't an excellent recording of it that I know about, but as soon as there is, it will be inserted here.  It's rull good son.  It'll change ya life.

While going through our music and discussing the day to come, Dr. Hatteberg pulled out his phone to check for a text from Ēriks, who we were hoping to meet up with so he could hear how we were doing on his piece.  Unfortunately it didn't look like that evening was going to work, but Hatteberg kept checking his phone anyway.  As he was discussing details for our performance and gesticulating with the phone in his hand, Dylon interrupted him and asked, "Dr. Hatteberg...are you calling somebody?"

He stopped mid-sentence and looked at his phone.  "...I guess I'm calling Latvia."

He talked to Ešenvalds briefly about rehearsing the next day.  He held it together for the call, but started cracking up as soon as he hung up.  "I just butt-dialed one of the top choral composers in the world."

The next morning, we went to the opening ceremony and first performances at the church we'd been unable to get into the night before.  It was pretty neat aesthetically, but not the best space for performing.  Not enough reverb.

After the morning session was a lunch break.  Hatteberg was certain Ešenvalds was in the church somewhere, so we set out to find him.  At last, I spotted him over by the door and walked over.  "Kent Hatteberg is looking for you," I said, forgetting to even introduce myself.  He gave me a puzzled look.  "I just talked to him."

Oh...well.  Don't I feel dumb.  So I complimented his piece and went on my way.

For lunch, we partook of the local delicacy: food trucks.

It legitimately is one of the things Portland is known for.  A whole city block surrounded with these shacks and trailers, most serving one or another variety of Asian food, for some reason.  I found what I think might have been the only pizza truck and got some barbecue chicken thing.  It was only then that I realized I'd had pizza the night before.  Ah well.  We ate in this little square:

After lunch, we returned to the church to at last have our rehearsal with Ešenvalds.  He seemed to like it.  He even took a picture with us holding his hand in a way that suggests approval of the University of Louisville: 

We pretty much had the rest of the day free until the evening's concert.  I and several others wanted to see the city, so we set out to do so.  First stop: Voodoo Doughnuts.  One of those things I'd been told I had to try.  This was one of the two I got:

The other one didn't last long enough to be photographed.

Walking through the rain, we then trekked to Powell's Books, one of the most famous bookstores in the country.  Maybe the most famous.  Maybe in the world.  I don't have stats to back that up though.

With time to get back, change, and get to the church again, that was about it for our sightseeing.  The concert that night was really incredible.  This was my first time performing at a conference with the Cardinal Singers, and it's an experience that'll stay with me for quite some time.  Especially the Ešenvalds piece.  My goodness.  I can usually get through performances no problem, but I had trouble holding it together during the duet portion at the end.  Again...I'm champing at the bit for that recording.

We waited for our turn to go under the church in the basement, which is where this infamous picture comes from:

And here's one from our actual performance:

One of the nice things about going on trips in large groups is that there are so many people to steal pictures from when you get home.

Anyway, after the concert it was time to celebrate.  Somehow we ended up right back at Pizza Schmizza.  I hear it was dollar beer night somewhere else, but I paid full price.  I also paid the price the next morning, but that's a different story.

With the concert done, we had the rest of the trip to just enjoy the conference.  Well, sort of.  Friday morning we went to a session that was supposed to be a conversation with Simon Carrington and John Eliot Gardiner, which is a big deal, but we ended up in the overflow room, so we just watched half of a Skype conversation with Simon Carrington and John Eliot Gardiner.  Not as cool.  Then, since we were going to immediately have our New Music Festival Concert upon returning to Louisville, we spent the next 90 minutes or so rehearsing the pieces for that.  Fun!  But, hey, that's the trade-off.  And we needed it.

After that, we were free to go about our day once more, but for the most part we just wanted to eat and sleep.  That night was another concert, one that we were set to participate in as a quasi-flash mob.  Ethan Sperry, mentioned above, was one of the conductors for the concert, and wanted us to sing with his group on that Ešenvalds piece he had conducted when he visited Louisville, so the plan was to just walk up when that piece came up on the program and join on in.  When we did this, the guy next to me said, "we just got this today."

"Oh," I said, "we have it memorized."  Whoops.

But it went just fine.  Simon Carrington's group then went as well.  Also, this concert was at a different venue, one much more reverberant and...well...church-looking.

There was a contingent interested in more revelry that night but I just couldn't.  We had to wake up at 3am to make our flight, and I needed to still be in good voice two days later for that next concert.  To sleep I went.

The next morning - early, early morning - we got a bus instead of taking the train since, y'know, they aren't running at 4:00.  We had a long day of flying ahead of us, then within 24 hours of returning to Louisville, another concert.  The choir train, unlike the Portland train, she never stops running.

As the plane leapt into the sky, the first of the morning sun blazed into view over the horizon:

Indianapolis, IN: October 14, 2015 - Singin with the Grobes

My first repeat!  But it was a very special circumstance under which I visited Indianapolis just a bit over a year since the first time 'round.  You see, Josh Groban was on tour, and he needed a backup choir for his concerts in Louisville and in Indy.  So a volunteer group from U of L did the Louisville concert Tuesday night, then rented vans and drove up Wednesday to do the second.  It was a fun, quick adventure - the kind I'm finding just tend to happen when you're a part of the U of L choirs.

Anyway, probably the biggest reason to even write this post - aside from the humblebrag about being in Der Grobenchor - is to show you a picture of this big dumb vehicle:

Turns out that's something you can legitimately call a 15 passenger van, rather than a slightly smaller bus, which is what I would have guessed.  Now, since I'm 25 as of this writing, and since I was one of the three grad assistants going on this trip, it ended up being pretty much inevitable that I'd have to be the pilot of one of these things as we caravanned the 30-person choir, plus our choir director, up 65 North for the 2-hour journey from Louisville to Indianapolis.

I've never driven anything bigger than a Ford Escape, so it was quite the harrowing experience.

You do get used to it quickly, though, and aside from being a little bigger and a little higher up than you're used to, it's just like driving anything else.  No prob. 

We left the school just before 2:00 and got there around 4:30, my van first, as I'd passed the others at the Ohio River bridge and hadn't looked back.  Figured out parking, then made our way to the venue, to find this greeting us:

Woop woop.

Oooh!  By the way, the concert was held in this building:

You may recognize that photo from the other Indianapolis trip post, when I couldn't figure out what it was.  Yet again, I find myself building more of a continuous narrative throughout this blog than I intended when first starting it.  Connecting those dots.  How about that.

We did our sound check, which wasn't even a sound check since they just used our same levels from the night before, then had free time to go get dinner.  Most of us ended up going to Bazbeaux, a pizza place recommended to us by Lydia.  Then we hurried back for our 6:00 meet-n-greet with Josh himself.  It was, predictably, brief, but Grobe's got a lot going on, we get it.

We did get the group photo though:

Yay.

More free time.  Went to another restaurant to get a few deserts n' coffees and whatnot.  Happened to be a place right in front of this thing:

Which is still dancing to this day.  A few of us danced in front of it, but I think the only video documentation was Snapchat.  Oh Snapchat.  So fleeting.

Other people from our group came by at a different time and also danced with it, and that video is on Facebook in more permanent form.  But it's not a video with me in it.  So...it will not go here.

Right!  So.  Then the concert.  Which was fun, of course, but we are on stage so briefly.  The performance is mostly just waiting in the dressing room, standing around, chatting, then whup whup time to go rush rush rush sing the stuff okay back down to the room okay more chatting.  After our second song, which was the concert's grand finale *pauses to brush dust off shoulder*, we made efforts to get back to the vans and out of Indy as quickly as possible.  Another two hour drive home - mitigated by a short stop for sodas halfway through - and then a trip to return the vans once everyone was dropped off got me home at around 1:00 AM.  About 11 hours all told start to finish.

A fun time!  And not your everyday experience.  But oh, will it ever be dwarfed by the things to come singing with this group.  Stay tuned.

Fort Rucker and Dothan, AL: August 14-16, 2015 - In Which I Visit My Dear Friend Clayford, Part II

Phew. Wow. This one's gonna be kind of a drop off a cliff after my June/July. Not nearly as exciting or interesting as all those exotic European locales. Oh well. There's still a tale to tell.

When we last visited my Dear Friend Clayford - as you'll no doubt remember, being such careful and zealous readers of this fair blog - he was living in Louisville going to grad school. Well, ol' Clayford done graduated, and he got himself a fancy job with the US army. He now lives on base, or uh, on post - not sure if there's a difference - at Fort Rucker in Alabama.

Now I've never actually been on an army base before, and of course these aren't places you can just waltz into at your leisure, so it was actually kind of cool for me, even if it may seem totally unremarkable to anyone who lives there full time. Had to fill out some forms and get a specialized photo ID just to get through the gate.

The base is essentially the same as any prefab neighborhood - lots of houses that look the same, bit of forest surrounding it, even a pool. Only difference is that there are also army facilities and training grounds at the nucleus of it all.

This is what most of it looked like:

And this is the town immediately outside the base's gate:

Pretty standard small town American south. Seen that view a hundred times.

Got there Friday afternoon only to turn right back around and head out to Dothan, a town about an hour away. Clay was meeting other army friends at this brewery in the middle of nowhere called Folklore. I wish I'd taken pictures of it. It was really just this kind of rickety building back in the woods with like giant Jenga and a bunch of chairs. Pretty good beer, though. Surprisingly good for what looked like an unkempt country backyard.

The next day we went to the aforementioned pool:

Took a lot of pictures from the car on this one. Figured walking around an army base conspicuously taking a bunch of photos might not be the smartest course of action. I might just get disappeared.

Saturday was pretty low-key. Sunday morning we got Bojangles, a restaurant I dearly miss here in Kentucky. Took a few more shots of the base:

Golf course!

Headed out and returned to Kentucky after that. And very soon, into the hurricane-like fray of an assistantship-based master's degree. So it goes.

London, England: July 3-4, 2015 - Grand Finale

"I know that I am honored to be witness of so much majesty" -Sara Teasdale (by way of Ēriks Ešenvalds)

Alright. It's time to finally write this up. Been home for longer than I was even on the trip. Rested. Recovered. Ready to type this all out.

The Grand Finale of my big ol' EuroTrip was the one place I'd actually visited before, London. I think it was an excellent place to end. I mean, hey, at last an English-speaking country! Although as Georgios pointed out, it is one of the most diverse cities in the world. It is also apparently uniquely situated to be the financial capital of the world, since its business day intersects with both the Asian and American business days, so they get essentially double the market of anyone else. This One Guy said they do like 3 trillion dollars of transactions a day. I found that fascinating.

But anyway, we took the Eurostar train, AKA the chunnel, from Paris into London, which travels very fast and only took like 2 hours. And look what platform our train arrived into:

How appropriate for London.

We made our way to the hostel to drop our bags off since it was too early to check in, then headed to lunch. A group of us walked about a block to a take-out Indian place and got various curries and masalas and whatnot. Ate it back at the hostel. Checked in. Got our metro cards. The standard. Pretty used to the routine by this point. Isn't it odd how even in constant travel, changing languages and cultures every two or so days, we can still fall into routine?

Brief walking tour of London followed next, just to get our bearings in the city. Most of it I remembered. Picadilly Circus. Trafalgar Square. Yep yep, good good.

Journeyed as far as Big Ben/Westminster before splitting off into subgroups again.

I'm sure everyone knows this by now, but it's one of Londoners' favorite gotcha facts: Big Ben is not the clock tower. Big Ben is the bell. File that away for the next time you're a panelist on QI.

We actually had really excellent weather in London - bright and sunny, but not too warm like Paris, all the way until the morning we left. A welcome surprise.

Roughly half of us had signed up for a Harry Potter tour, which I thought sounded cool, but wasn't really sure what it would be. Turns out it was essentially just a standard walking tour of London, but through the lens of Harry Potter. So when we walked to the Millennium Bridge, for instance, we did so because "this is the bridge the Death Eaters blow up in the sixth film!" and not because it's, you know, a landmark. 

Some artist has taken to drawing little graffities on dried chewing gum:

But anyway, the tour was neat. Saw the actual storefront where they filmed exterior shots of the Leaky Cauldron. Saw the block that inspired the hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley. And we ended, of course, at King's Cross, where they've set up a little platform 9 and 3/4 with a shopping cart rammed into the wall for people to take photos next to.  Didn't stand in line for that myself. Did take a picture of where the tour guide said the "real" platform entrance would be if it weren't, you know, fictional:

And that was that for Harry Potter. Next on our list: the Big Night Out London Pub Crawl!!!!!!

I was fortunate enough to have one of my hostel roommates on the Harry Potter tour but not going on the pub crawl so I could give him my backpack to take back to the room and finally, for the first time on the trip, not be the guy up in the club wearing a freakin backpack. But it also meant no iPad and thus, no pictures. And I can't think of a single place, especially not on Facebook, where any pictures of that night might be. Ohhhh well. Whattaya gonna do?

The Pub Crawl was really great, though, and I say this as someone who was very tired of drinking by this point on the trip. We got little laminated cards that we could exchange for a "free" (paid for) shot, then of course we were free to buy any additional drinks we wanted, then after about an hour the pub crawl organizers would corral us up and march us on over to the next place, rinse, repeat. Total of five pubs.

Also, they gave us a t-shirt and markers so we could write dumb stuff all over it during the night. I was glad they gave us the shirt, because it was the only thing even remotely clean for me to wear two days later on the plane home. The markers and drunk people using them, though, meant I would need to wear a jacket over it when that day came.

We met another group from the same travel company on the pub crawl who were on their first night of a London, Paris, and Barcelona tour. They at the beginning, us at the end. Felt like passing the baton.

It was the 3rd of July - although it became the 4th by the end of the pub crawl - and there were American flags everywhere at these pubs, which sort of surprised me. I figure either they have fun celebrating despite it not being their holiday - like we do with Cinco de Mayo - or, more cynically (and more likely) - they're just pandering to who they know is going to be their customer base.

A bunch of people from our group had left after the third pub, for some unimaginable reason, so it was just a small contingent left by the time we were ready to go. Caught a red double-decker bus or two and followed someone's Google Maps bearings to get back to the hostel. Fell asleep. Apparently I abandoned Sam at the last pub.  Sorry Sam.

The next morning was another bus tour, like Paris, but this tour guide was decidedly livelier, so it went much better. It was also interspersed with getting out and getting coffee, so...yeah. Think they got a better design for their tour. Went up to this rooftop shopping complex place:

Here's the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral:

And here's the Globe Theater:

Didn't see a play there but...I did take a photo of it!!

Ended the tour by going to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard:

With their ridiculous hats.

Before the local guide departed, I asked her about the evensong services held both at St. Paul's and at  Westminster Abbey. I went to the one at Westminster back in...2009? Whenever I was here with my family years ago, and as a fan of choral music, I definitely wanted to go to one again with what I assumed would be a renewed appreciation. She told me they were both at 5:00 in the evening, but that I needed to arrive early to get a good seat.

After the tour and the changing of the guards was over, a few of us crossed through this park to go find a pizza place somebody knew about or had heard about or something. Using Google Maps got us pretty close, but we couldn't find it despite being right on the dot. So we asked the first passerby where it was.

"Oh it used to be here, but they closed a few years ago". Welp.

We went anyway. It was now burgers instead of pizza, but still delicious.

We rode the bus out to this area with some like shops and touristy things, which as you know is my favorite thing ever. So I said goodbye to the group and headed out on my own. My intention was to see some of the museums, which in London are all 100% free, but with subway rides and needing to fill something out online for the travel company, I basically got to go into the National Gallery, use their wifi, and leave.  Oh well. Pretty sure I've been there before anyway. Either that or the British Museum. Whatever.

I had to leave early enough to get a good seat for evensong. I had decided to go to the one at St. Paul's, since I'd done Westminster before. Figured out my subway route, figured out where to go from the stop. Got to the cathedral and saw people going in a side entrance, so I figured that was it. Turns out I had gone into the basement, which is where like their cafe and whatnot is. But while I was down there, I could hear the great booming organ and choir from above, which was confusing since it was only about 4:15 at that point. I wondered if my guide had gotten the time wrong. Went back outside and around front to ask if the service had started yet.

"Oh, we're not doing evensong tonight, it's cancelled for a special service."

DAMN it!

I made my way back to the subway station, desperately trying to connect the many convoluted dots that would lead me to Westminster, and decided I might as well go for broke. Got about halfway to my destination and - yep, you guessed it - got on the wrong train. In my defense, it was one of those trains where two lines merge into one for a few stops, so I assumed it didn't matter which one I got on. Guess they showed me!!!

I only went one stop before realizing my error, but it cost me crucial minutes that I didn't have. Switched back to the correct line and finished my journey. Power-walked over to the abbey, trying to find the correct door to go in. Had I not done this before, I might not have found it, but luckily I had hazy memory to rely on!

Went up to the man in the silly costume at the gate. He asked if I was here for the service, I said yes, and he directed me in. Inside, more funnily-dressed people guided me down toward the front where the service itself was happening. Had to wait for a pause in the singing to take my seat. Got there maybe 5:10. I wasn't the last one to arrive, though, which made me feel better. Well, at least until the end of the evensong when I picked up a program left on one of the seats to find that the only piece I had missed was Tallis's If Ye Love Me. What!!! That's my favorite!!!

But it was lovely nonetheless, and for anyone else whose childhood was steeped in high Anglican tradition like mine was, it's an opportunity not to be missed.

I had arranged to meet everyone else at the restaurant for that night's farewell dinner rather than return to the hostel since, with the evensong, I would never have made it back in time. I got there first, sweaty, tired, backpack on, and waited. Moments later, everyone else showed up, clean, fresh, and dressed to the nines. So it goes.

After so many nice dinners along the way on this trip, the food itself at this final place failed to impress, but the event itself was great. Got to hang out with everyone one last time. At Georgios's insistence, every single person stood up and made a toast one by one. I don't honestly remember what I said but if I had to guess I'd say it was moving, cinematic, emotional, and indescribably poetic. Then, last but not least, Georgios himself stood to give his final toast, and in true Georgios fashion, dispensed a bit of wisdom:

"It's not where you travel to, but who you travel with." Well said Georgios, well said. And I can't be sure, but I think there may have been a "yes or yes?" Somewhere in there too.

Back at the hostel, Bri had too many bottles of wine to take home, and needed our help in dispensing of a few of them, which we were only too happy to oblige. Sadly, the patio area at the hostel closed, and there was no drinking in the lobby, so eventually we resorted to sitting bunched up on the long wheelchair ramp in front of the bulding, passing around the bottles, telling stories, hanging out. One by one people peeled off to go to bed or head downtown for one last raucous night out. The group got smaller and quieter, and eventually - when there were maybe a half dozen of us left - dissolved altogether.

The next morning it was grey and rainy, which is the typical London weather. Our transport to the airport was a hired driver taking a group every hour, so half of the people were gone by the time I woke up, and the other half were asleep. I rode with the Alaska girls to Heathrow, then lost sight of them checking in and going through security. Boarded my flight. Flew to Minneapolis. Finished watching Interstellar on the way. It was kinda cool being in Minneapolis again so soon. This was my last stop on the last trip I took! I remember that Carribou!

What was weird was that it felt like the right time - like, time of day - back in America. I had boarded my flight at around noon in London and spent 8 hours on the plane, but it felt like it should be about 3:30 in the afternoon when I landed. Guess my internal clock was just as ready to be back as I was.

And I guess that makes it sound like I didn't enjoy the trip, which is of course untrue. I know I'm quite lucky and fortunate to have been able to go on a trip like this. The last couple posts made it seem like more work than play, but I really did have the time of my life. I got to see a hell of a lot of amazing places and check off quite a few items from my bucket list. I've now been to all of the Big Five European countries (supplemented by my youth group pilgrimage to Spain in high school). I've seen Venice, I've seen Amsterdam, I've seen the Swiss Alps. And with this introductory Euro-tour out of the way, the door is wide open for further exploration on my own.

But constantly moving will wear on anyone. Not having clean clothes or a shower to yourself will wear on anyone. And the feeling that you have to fill your time, all the time, is mentally exhausting. Even when you had free time on this trip, it wasn't really "free" so much as "self-guided". How could I go back to the hotel and rest when this is my last day in Paris, or in Italy? Sure, it will wear me out, but I can't come all the way here and not see the sights!

So you get worn out. It happened to me. But I saw what I wanted to see and had all kinds of fun, and from this vantage point, more than two weeks on the other side of it, it was beyond worth it. What I'm happy to say, too, is that I don't miss it. A lot of times after a trip I have this ache to still be there, but for this I didn't, and I think that's because I got everything out of it that I wanted to. The ache comes from the regret of what I didn't accomplish, and when there's no regret, there's no ache.

Lydia was nice enough to drive me home from the Louisville airport once I got in at around 8:30 PM. Hit the bed pretty much as soon as I walked into my apartment. Went back to work the next day. Surreal quickly shifted back into being routine. But I rested, recuperated, and recharged. And slowly but surely, the itch to travel is coming back. I read about far off places. I whizz around Google Earth intently. I wake up on empty days wondering where I could make it to and from by nightfall.

And before you know it, I'll be off again.

Paris, France: July 1-2, 2015 - Reminder

Oh, Paris. Paris, Paris, Paris. Paris was a dream. More specifically, a nightmare.

The phrase "hot mess" describes most of us pretty well right now, in more ways than one. Funny what dumping poison into our bodies on a daily basis and not sleeping does to a person. Not to mention Bri's mystery spider bite, Tess's bum knee and my swollen stubbed toe. And Steph got sick. And Allie got sunburned.

But the worst thing was that we arrived in Paris in the middle of a freak heatwave. It was over 100 degrees when our train pulled in on Wednesday, and we had to stand around in the sweltering heat while Georgios got our metro tickets. Everyone felt like they were melting. Luckily we had an air conditioned bus to the hotel, but when we got into our rooms, the power went out. By the time they fixed it, we were back out in the heat and on our way to the walking tour of Paris:

Whatever monument that last one is is undergoing restoration, so they put it in a box.

We then took the confusing mess of a metro to the Eiffel Tower area to prepare for our cruise of the river Seine, which was scheduled for 8:00 PM, giving us around 10 minutes for dinner. Most of us ran to a grocery store, but I couldn't find anything that fast, so instead I had to settle for Subway. First night in France and I'm eating fast food.

Finally we get to the boat, only to have the attendant tell us our group was too big for the 8:00, so we had to wait for the 8:30. So once again we had to just sit in the heat and wait. Finally we board for the cruise, and according to Georgios, they were using a different boat than usual, so instead of the nice double decker with plenty of room, we get stuffed into this crowded boat like sardines:

Of course I get stuck in the middle!

I know, I know. I've learned this lesson before. Gotta remember my Indianapolis trip with Emily, gotta remember the Virginia trip to Newport News. This is the nature of travel. Sometimes it's pure bliss, but sometimes, things go totally wrong. Gotta be prepared for that. The trip is still worthwhile.

Plus, we did stop at a French chocolatier, and Georgios bought us all macaroons.

So it wasn't ALL bad.

I essentially just commiserated and drank on the cruise while other people took photos and oohed and aahed at the sights. Most people in our group bought wine at the grocery store, and many of them were willing to share. I drank a warm rosé and some cheap sparkling and waited for the cruise to end, marinating in my own sweat. I took zero pictures.

Finally, once the cruise ended, we were able to go up in the Eiffel Tower, and the Paris stop became a little better. The Eiffel Tower is MASSIVE, by the way. Everyone knows what it looks like, but for me at least, the scale I imagined it being was way off.

Bought the tickets to go up. In line, the security guard tells us we can't bring any glass up there. That was a problem for the many people who still had multiple bottles of unopened wine on them. The guard would not let us leave them and get them on the way back. We had to consume.

So I had to help chug a bunch of warm, cheap wine as fast as possible. Awful. 

But going up was pretty great. We reached level two right at dusk, so we got to see the city just as it was lighting up. Speaking of lighting up, the tower suddenly started doing this:

We then got a second ticket for the very top, which was definitely worth it. The view:

Spectacular.

On our way to the bottom, our group got fragmented, so it ended up being just four of us together going back. We successfully figured out the metro lines to get us to the hotel, and we had almost made it...when the trains stopped running. Apparently the cutoff is 1 AM. Write that down.

So, we had to walk the rest of the way. About 30 minutes, so not horrible. And we met up with the rest of our group along the way. Asked a local for directions. Got a little lost. Classic Paris experience.

The next morning, we had a bus tour of the city with a local guide. This was a bad idea. For one, it was very early, and almost everyone had been out late. Second, and more importantly, the guide had a very soothing, monotone voice that literally put all of us to sleep. I'm not kidding. One hundred percent of us were asleep at some point during the more-than-two-hour bus ride.

After the tour, most people had signed up for an optional tour to Versailles, but I had elected not to. This was the third and final of the extra excursions you could sign up for when you booked the trip. I'm sure seeing the palace would have been impressive, but I was more interested in seeing things, you know, in Paris. Eiffel we had checked off the list the previous night. I had two other destinations on my must-see list, and with everyone else headed for Versailles, I had to manage seeing them on my own.

The first was the Louvre museum. On my way, I crossed that one bridge with the love locks on it:

There might be more than one of those bridges. I don't know.

Figured out the metro no problem. Finally got there:

The line to go in through the pyramid was huge, but luckily I had been told about the secret side entrance called the Carousel. No line at all. Got my ticket, got lunch, and got in way before I would have even hit the pyramid if I had waited in that line.

My first stop in the Louvre was obvious. I had to see the Mona Lisa. For most of the exhibits, they have signs pointing you in the right direction that say like, "Greek sculptures" or "Italian paintings", but for the Mona Lisa, they just have a picture of it and an arrow. They know what people are here to see.

Down this hall:

And into the room:

As close as I got:

It is pretty small. And it's not even the most impressive thing in the room. But it's the most famous painting in the world, and we still have it! The actual paint that DaVinci put on the canvas. Pretty cool.

After seeing it, I was free to wander around at my own pace and actually, you know, enjoy the Louvre. Some stuff:

That statue changes depending on the angle you look at it from. Hard to explain. Like, it seems to be going forwards or backwards. Should've gotten another picture.

The hall of naked people:

Babe Ruth:

This ugly thing:

The other iconic statue everyone comes to see, the Venus de Milo:

A sphinx:

Honestly you could spend years photographing everything in the museum. I'll cut it short here. I left through the pyramid:

Next, I boarded the metro again to my next destination: Notre Dame. 

There was another massive line to get in, and I almost skipped it, but I'm glad I didn't. Ultimately, I figured that I wouldn't want to leave Paris saying "yeah I could have gone into one of the most famous cathedrals of all time but I didn't want to spend 15 minutes in line." That would be ridiculous.

Inside was spectacular. Definitely beats Frankfurt and Munich:

Did my usual thing that I do in these churches: picked a seat near the front, took it all in. There was an intersting little like, mini-museum around the back behind the chancel that told some of the history of the catheral. Started building it in like 1165. How can anything be that old?

As I left, there was a newlywed couple taking pictures:

Don't think they got married at Notre Dame itself, although holy moley what a venue that would be.

Navigated my way back to the hotel and took a much-needed shower. The aforementioned stubbed toe had appeared by that point, and I'm sure walking around on it for about four hours didn't help it. So I sat myself on the bed and chilled out. Took a short nap. It was wonderful. At 6, I met back up with everyone downstairs to go to our gourmet French dinner. Asked them how Versailles was. Apparently that same droning guide from the bus tour had gone with them, and they said that the palace was cool, but the tour was pure torture. Two people had even gone ahead on their own just to get away.

The gourmet dinner was probably the highlight of Paris. We were there at the same time as another group travelling with the same company, but on a 25 day tour rather than our 16. It was like looking into an alternate reality. What if this had been my tour? What if these had been my friends?

We were the only ones in the place, and we filled it completely. I got french onion soup and chicken in wine sauce, with chocolate mousse for dessert. Tried escargot (it was pretty good!). Wine was brought to the table in pitchers with free refils. Musicians played and sang and got us to sing along. Once again, Chelsey got up and sang, and Georgios danced. It was a fun little callback, a nice reminder of our time in Italy.

It was also a good reminder of that lesson I'd learned many times before: you take the good with the bad. Paris was awful for the first several hours, but it got better, and was still a good experience to have. What if I had given up when it was bad (if that had been an option)? I wouldn't have seen Paris at night from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I wouldn't have seen the Mona Lisa or Notre Dame. And I wouldn't have eaten that delicious meal, singing and getting rowdier by the glass with two tour groups. 

It was a worthy trade-off. The cost of the trip isn't only money, but also the time and effort paid to get to those wonderful moments. And it's almost always worth it.

But I will say this: Paris wasn't this dream destination people expect it to be. It's noisy and crowded and touristy, and once you've seen the sights, it really is time to go. You have to be prepared for that, or you will be severely let down. That's the other side of the coin. These experiences are worth it, but you might not think so if you don't have realistic expectations going in. That's essentially what I've found throughout this whole trip.

After the dinner, I took the tram home with a few people and crashed in my bed. Paris wore me completely out. Got up this morning, and hopped on the train again. We're almost done with this thing. One more stop, then it's over. I've had a great time, but I'm honestly ready to return to the states. 

I can't imagine how those people on the 25 day tour are surviving, much less the people on the the 35 day one, which is the biggest this company offers. Now that would be a nightmare.