#5

After spending last year's 4th of July in DC, I really wasn't expecting much from the Vernon Hills fireworks show tonight. Perhaps we were just really close, but the fireworks were loud, big, and bold. I also saw some new types of fireworks; this show was surprisingly good! To make up for the fact that I haven't taken pictures of really anything since I've gotten back, I put my camera on burst mode (to try to get some semi-decent shots of the fireworks) and ended up with around 1,500 photos as a result. Note to self: just bring a DSLR next time.

























Afterwards, we went to a park in the nearby town and lit some sparklers. I again regretted not bringing a DSLR because we couldn't do long exposure with the sparklers. Oh well, it was still fun. Holding the sparkler was scary at first, until you realized it wouldn't burn down to your fingertips.




It was a good night with good people.

50 Shades of Green: Day 15

Day 15: June 28, 2016

Today was a whole day of traveling. We wake up bright and early to grab breakfast and then we drive from Edinburgh to Stranraer to board the ferry back across the North Channel back to Northern Ireland.

The ferry ride was more rocky than the ride to Scotland and I felt unsteady on my feet. The ferry has nice amenities: movie theatre (free), arcade, restaurants, massage services...it was very comfortable. However, on the deck, the motion of the boat was less noticeable, so I did spend a considerable amount of time outside, despite how cold and windy it was, just because I felt less nauseous leaning on the railing. It probably has something to do with the fresh air.

Other than going on deck, we spend most of our time playing card games. We’ve finally managed to play enough Euchre matches and tournaments to the point where none of us really want to play anymore. Well, none of us except for Eric, who plays Euchre on his phone when there isn’t an actual Euchre game going on.

After the ferry, we get on the bus for another 2 hours to Dublin, where we stop at Taylors Three Rock for our last supper. Here, we’re served delicious Irish food and treated to a show of an Irish band and 6 Irish dancers.

Irish people, from what I’ve noticed, really love clapping (whenever we play Irish tunes at concerts, the audience claps to the beat), and we clapped often to the beat of the tunes played by the Irish band. The dancers pulled some MYA people to dance with them and it was fun to see Joelle get spun around and for Natalie to show us some twirls.

The band is comprised of three members: one guitarist who also sings, one percussionist (term is used loosely) who also sings, and a “wind” player, who played the bagpipes and the penny whistle for us tonight. We also find out that he makes his own bagpipes…how cool is that?

The band asks for song requests and Neil yells out “Whiskey in a Jar.” They also play “Bang, Bang Rosie” and other traditional Irish tunes. They also find out that we’re musicians and ask us if any of us want to play with them. None of us brought our instruments into the restaurant, except for Alex, who was paranoid that the changing temperature and humidity in the bus (that it would get hot) would hurt his clarinet. We made fun of him for bringing it in, but all of us were cheering and clapping and telling him to go onstage to play.

So Alex has a jam session with the band and it’s supercool. They perform U2’s “With or Without You” and they give Alex three or so opportunities to solo. Then they ask Alex to play an excerpt of something and then Chris yells out Yiddish Dances, so Alex plays a few lines from Yiddish Dances.

After the really fun dinner, we return to DCU and it feels like we’ve only just started our tour, since this was the first place we stayed at…which is a little sad because it was the last day and it’s still shocking to think that these 2 weeks have flown by so fast.

50 Shades of Green: Day 14

June 27

The whole MYA group takes a group near Edinburgh Castle and then we have 4 hours to roam. First, we go get lunch at Nandos, which is this restaurant specific to the United Kingdom. Eric and I try out all the hottest sauces by dipping chips (French fries) in each of them, and they’re actually not that spicy.

Our group then splits up because some of us want to try haggis while others don’t want to and so they spend more time wandering while I go with some people to find a restaurant that serves haggis. Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste bad at all. Maybe it’s because I’ve ate weird things like liver before, but the taste of haggis wasn’t unpleasant at all. It’s very rich so anything more than two bites is too much, and I would never want to eat this often, but it’s not that gross.

We then get some ice cream, where I try this flavor called “Scottish tablet” which tastes a lot like caramel and toffee. We stop at some souvenir shops and gape at the TV because it’s showing a concert of this band of Scottish bagpipes that call themselves the “Red Hot Chili Piper” and because none of us are able to actually play bagpipes, we were mesmerized by the fact that noise is being made even when the bagpiper is breathing. We enter Edinburgh Castle and walk until we reach the restricted area, where you need to pay to continue inside the actual castle. It costs 16 pounds per person and we are all broke, so we just take pictures in the “free” area, and then wander around. We meet up with Sean, a chaperone, and we walk around some more, finding a candy shop where lots of us try bricks of macaroons, tablets, and fudge. Eric buys this candy that’s a lot like those Valentine’s Day sweethearts hard candies. It looks like broken pieces of chalk and it actually writes on chalk because Eric tested it out and rubbed out “MYAC” on the cobblestones!

As we’re wandering around, we see a streetperformer who is doing juggling acts with fire. He puts humor into this performances (it’s a little dirty but it flies right over the heads of little children), but it was entertaining and his impressions of jugglers from different countries (Irish, German, American, British) were also funny.

We load the buses and head towards our hotel. After spending 2 nights in a hostel, everything has been so wonderful, and today we spent the night in the same hotel chain as the one we stayed in Glasgow, Premier Inn, and I just want to say that it’s wonderful to have soft beds with no bugs, wifi in the rooms, and workable, hot showers that don’t turn off every 8 seconds.

Ethan and I go for a walk because he wants to see this tower that apparently has 287 steps. I didn’t really want to stay in a hotel and I wanted to walk around a bit, so I agree to go with him. I was dumb enough to trust him without looking up a map to get directions on how to get there and I was also not thinking and didn’t bother to even ask him for the name of the tower. Ethan also is pretty bad with directions and has a bad sense of direction in the first place. Anyways, so apparently he hears directions from our tour guide to take a left, go on a big street, and then go straight. So we leave the hotel, take a left, go on a big street, and as we’re walking, we notice that things are getting more residential and the buildings are no longer stores, but apartments.

So yeah, we’re lost, we don’t have wifi so we can’t look up a map now, and we don’t even know the name of our destination so we can’t ask anyone about it. We end up walking around, passing by the University of Edinburgh, and then walking back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we do make it back in time for dinner and at the table, I look up the tower and realize that it’s a tower that I actually found really cool and would have loved to go to. Oh well.

We had freetime at the hotel before curfew, which is 10pm because we have to wake up really early tomorrow to go back to Dublin.

50 Shades of Green: Day 13

June 26

We have this morning until 1:15pm to explore Glasgow. However, at 1:15pm, we need to be down at the buses in concert attire to go to our last performance at University of Glasgow.

It’s definitely a relaxed morning because we take a walk towards Buchanan Street. There are rows of shops and we end up stopping by this Scottish store to buy junior bagpipes but we all have difficulty even inflating the bag…However, we did get to see how a bagpipe is supposed to be played and as wind players, we’re all fascinated by the bag and the double reed that lies inside the bagpipes.

We stopped to eat dinner at this burger joint called Bread Meat Bread but we were short on time and this was a sit-down restaurant, and there were 9 of us ordering, so it ended up we put down the money, the guys got a headstart on heading back to the hotel because wearing a tuxedo has a lot of parts, and the girls were supposed to stay and wait for change. However, they never really gave us back change and kept looking at us weirdly as we were sitting there, and it was 11:50 and we still weren’t getting change back, so we decided to just leave. All of us run back and we do make it down at the lobby in concert attire by 1:15. We’re also not entirely sure how tipping works because the receipts are a little different, so perhaps the extra 5 pounds we put down was just taken as a tip?

We play at a chapel in University of Glasgow. We first set up, then talk through our program tonight, and then we have 2 hours of nothing until the concert starts with jazz combo. We all feel a little worried that we didn’t rehearse, especially because though our performance of Nimrod went well last night, we just need to rehearse as an ensemble in general and there is always so much we could do better at each concert. I wander around campus by myself and pass by some jousters before finding the Huntarian Museum, complete with all sorts of historical, natural, and scientific artifacts.

I then run back to the chapel, run around the building a few times trying to find the entrance that is unlocked, and make it back in time to set up and walk out to the chapel to hear jazz play.

The stained glass is beautiful and the acoustics are lovely. It felt surreal knowing that this was jazz’s last performance, but they did a very good job. Then it was our turn to go. So as Dr. D had told us yesterday, today we perform Academic Festival Overture conductorless. And we played it well last night so we’re cautious and alert, but it starts off well as Owen gives the downbeat. Everything is going smoothly and sure we are counting, but we’re listening even more. And then it hits the section around rehearsal I where it’s a quiet section and then suddenly there’s a pause because no one knows who is cueing who. David (1st chair cello) looks to Owen (concertmaster) for the cello cue, but Owen isn’t even playing. Alex doesn’t know when to come in because he’s looking at David for the cue, and so there’s this grand moment of silence and we are all freaking out. Then Nick starts playing his bassoon quarter notes and everyone gets back on track and we end smoothly. Perhaps the pause wasn’t obvious to the audience members who didn’t know the piece, but to all of us performers, because we were panicking, it seemed so long and ominous.

The concert goes well after that. For me personally, I was more intune yesterday on Nimrod than I was tonight, but other than that, our performance went well, we delivered a reasonable amount of encores, and then we were off and back to the hotel.

The realization that this was our last performance of the tour hit me really hard. For me, it also means my last performance with MYA as a high schooler, and since I’m not music majoring, the opportunity for me to perform in a such high-caliber ensemble will be very rare. I was very close to crying during Nimrod (also because Nimrod is also a very familiar piece that I know by heart), and I definitely was quieter during the concert and for a little bit afterwards.

After we get back to the hotel, we all crash Alex’s room and they sightread Mozart’s Octet Serenade (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn), which was quite something. Obviously they were sightreading, but tuning was pretty bad and over the course of that hour, improved a bit.

After dinner, we go back up to Alex’s room, but then later go across the hotel to the Baby Grand Bar and Grill where jazz is playing because I saw a video of Dr. D playing the bass at the bar via Camille’s snapchat. Sadly Dr. D wasn’t playing (he played one song and we missed it), but we got to see Neil sing, and also hear some awesome pieces.

50 Shades of Green: Day 12

June 25, 2016 (just so I don't mix up dates)

Eric and I have currently beat Hannah and Alex twice and because we’re so obnoxiously clueless when we play, this was an extreme blow to their pride and so they’ve been demanding rematches. Eric and I play them again and we lose to them, making the score now 2-2 and both groups tied.

We drive to the docks at Stranraer and on the bus ride, we start a new Euchre tournament. Annika and I play Hannah and Eric and we continue our game on the ferry. Eric gets seasick but he forgot to take his medicine before he got onto the ferry, so he took it as the ferry started moving. Thankfully he didn’t puke. After the game, we go out to the deck to take pictures and get some fresh air, and out on the dock, the rocking motion of the boat is less noticeable.

Afterwards, we play some more card games, wander the ship, and then the 3-4 hours have passed and we arrive in Scotland! As I’m getting off the boat, there was this sharp pain that would radiate out from my right shoulder blade, and by the time I got to the coach bus, it was unbearable and I caved and asked Clara for Advil, even though I turned down her offer only 10 minutes prior. The bus ride from the dock to Glasgow was very scenic because it was along the coastline for much of it, but I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus (the left side had a great view) and my right arm hurt so much that I couldn’t take pictures. It was about a 4 hour drive and 2 hours into it, people started dozing off.

We get to the hotel and we have some time to relax before we have to head out. I use this time to take a hot shower to try to relax my shoulder muscles, which eases the pain somewhat. After spending two nights in a hostel, it is such a relief to be able to take a burning hot shower. All of us change into concert attire before dinner, and then we drive to the Glasgow Community Center Hall for Concert #8.

Since we’re in Scotland now, we aren’t playing our Irish songs anymore and we pull out Barber’s Adagio and Elgar’s Nimrod. We only set up when we get to the venue and we don’t rehearse, which makes us all really nervous for Nimrod especially, since it’s been more than a week since we’ve rehearsed that piece.

We were told that the concert wasn’t really publicized, and it really wasn’t publicized because only 15 people showed up in total. However, the acoustics were nice, the jazz played well, we played our best, and everything sounded good. Nimrod went surprisingly well; tuning was pretty good, probably because everyone was listening especially hard for intonation and balance because we were all nervous about performing this piece without getting a chance to play it through. Dr. D gives the pep talk about how it’s not how many are in the audience, it’s who’s in the audience, and that he’s proud of us because we still played our best despite the low turnout.

Afterwards, we have some time until curfew, which is later (11pm) because there is nothing scheduled for tomorrow morning so if we want, we can sleep in until 11am or even a little later.

50 Shades of Green: Day 11

Today was a free day with no concert, and so after breakfast, we had time until 12:30pm to explore Belfast on our own (in groups though, of course). My group left relatively early and started walking in the general direction of Titanic Quarter. We also stopped at the Victoria Square to see the dome ceiling and at Belfast Waterfront to take some photos of the Lagan River, and we made it to our destination. We had walked pretty far at this point (at the end of this trip, we had walked a total of about 4 or so miles), and so while the group turned back, Eric and I ran to see the SS Nomadic, the sister ship of the Titanic, and then we ran back to catch up with the group as they headed back towards the hostel.

We went to St. George’s Market (it was on the way back), and met up with many MYA people as well. It was a farmer’s market and there were stalls for everything: antiques, fruit, vegetables, fish, poultry, meat, jewelry, clothing, paintings, books…

We wandered around until 12pm and then as one large group, walked back to the hostel. There, we got onto our coach buses and took a bus tour of Belfast, which took us around Belfast. In West Belfast, we stopped at a Peace Wall and signed our names and wrote quotes in permanent marker, along with many others who did before us. We stopped quickly at Titanic Quarter to stretch our legs for 10 minutes (where we all just mobbed the gift shop and ended up not buying anything), and then went down to City Center and also saw Queen’s University.

We had freetime basically for the rest of the day. Before dinner, we passed the time playing Euchre and after dinner, we walked back to Victoria Square to wander around, visit some stores, visit the top of the square, which was a lovely aerial view of Belfast, and then we played some Euchre before walking back to the hostel. I think Euchre is consuming our lives, but it’s fun, and the only equipment it needs is a deck of cards.

Tomorrow we get on a ferry and travel to Scotland!

50 Shades of Green: Day 10

Today we drove 2 hours from Londonderry to Belfast. We entered Ulster Hall (where we played Concert #6 tonight) and unloaded our instruments, before grabbing lunch at nearby cafés. It’s a little disorienting seeing prices here because since they’re now in pounds, and pounds are worth more than both euros and USD, everything looks cheap, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s really not that cheap.

We had rehearsal for an hour this afternoon with the Irish baritone, Peter Corry. Obviously as a baritone, he had a different vocal range from Paul Byrom who was a tenor, but at the same time, I think his style was not something that was super appreciated by us and he could have connected notes a little more? Regardless, rehearsal went okay I guess, thankfully we didn’t have to play Rocky tonight (because the trumpet parts in the beginning are super inconsistent and they always frack and the whole orchestra worries about that part), and instead we played Academic Festival Overture, which is even better because the hall has wonderful acoustics.

After orchestra rehearsed for an hour, jazz combo rehearsed with Corry and a lot of us walked around the hall (it used to hold boxing matches) and some of us played Euchre (card game). Then we headed to our hostel. After living in nice college dorms and hotels, a hostel was super … uncomfortable, to say the least. We did have to ask the front desk for towels (there were limited towels), pay 50pence for a bar of soap, and our room is absolutely tiny and 4 people are in my room (two bunkbeds) and we share an extremely small bathroom and shower. There are no tables at all and we have a mirror and sink directly in the room. I guess we don’t have it awful because some rooms have to share bathrooms.

Again, like with the last hotel, wifi doesn’t work from the rooms and you have to go to the lobby to access it (in the previous hotel, only the ground floor wifi didn’t work and I happened to be in the ground floor…which meant I was sneaking out in the lobby past curfew to quickly post pictures to facebook). Other than that, and the showers being basically a room with a showerhead, and no curtain, and therefore no place to put a towel, it is manageable. Definitely not comfortable though.

Dinner was some meh Indian food (which is silly to think that we’re eating Indian food while in Ireland), but at least the chocolate cake was good. We then (in concert clothes) went to Ulster Hall, the orchestra stayed in the dressing rooms and waited back there while jazz performed, and then at intermission, orchestra went up and played.

During the wait backstage, some of us in orchestra started a Euchre tournament and Eric and I (the two people newest to the game and thus not very good at playing) were randomly paired together (we essentially drew partners out of a hat), but despite our dysfunctionalness, we still managed to win one match! So we’re up on the bracket (the bracket will continue for the rest of the trip…it’s how we kill time, namely busrides and boring waits).

Concert first half goes well. So Academic, Hovannes, and Hoedown. Then when Corry comes on stage, no one knows what piece we’re supposed to play when Dr. D gives the downbeat, so all of us are scrambling to flip to Phantom of the Opera and play. It’s a disaster. And then the songs are kind of meh, and afterwards, Dr. D gives so many encores that sure it’s fun to play Irish songs and all these encores, I guess, but at the same time, it was perhaps a wee bit too much and the audience just was tired and ready to leave.

Tomorrow we have a free day and no concert, so we’ll be exploring Belfast. We’ll spend one more night in this hostel before we head for Scotland!

Oh yes, voting for whether UK should leave or stay in the UK was today from 7AM-10PM. Results will come out tomorrow. I'm ashamed to say I don't know much about it, but as we're driving in Northern Ireland, I've noticed all these billboards and signs saying either "Leave" or "Stay" and some even list reasons for their respective sides.