Day 9 - Dolomiti!
We woke up early enough to the sound of knocking on all the doors. Everyone was pretty sleepy, even though we didn't have that late of a night.
The kids all slept well and were really excited to see what was on the agenda for the day. We had about a 10 min. walk to the gondola to take us to the tippy top of some of the most beautiful mountains of the world. The Dolomites are a worldwide famous mountain chain of unique beauty that rises in the Northeastern part of Italy. Once we made it to the top, we were at an elevation of about 7,500 ft. The scenery was beautiful! The kids were inspired to sing "Climb Every Mountain..." even though we weren't in Austria!
At the top, there was a stage set up for about 25 choirs to perform one piece each for the crowd. There were choirs from all over, South Africa, Bulgaria, Russia, and more. The kids did a good job mingling with the very few other children's choirs that are participating in this festival, getting to know them and hear their stories about how long it took for them to get to Italy!
Before it was our turn to sing, which was last of all the choirs (choirs sang alphabetically by country in English), the kids practiced yodeling Austrian style, and just soaked up the sun and enjoyed each other's company. Many "selfies" were taken as well as a few group shots. The experience was unreal!
After our performance, we loaded back on the gondolas for the ride down and back to the hotel for some leisurely time, enjoying the sun and the pool. The chaperones ran off to the grocery store and loaded up on salami, ham, cheese, and bread to hold the kids over through our evening concert back at the Gustav Mahler Hall. The kids sounded great at the performance tonight. They were the only youth choir that performed, each of the 12 choirs performing only two pieces. The Finnish choir was very impressed and had nothing but great things to say to Bob about how musical the whole group is and how well trained and behaved they all are. Bob shared these words with the kids and they had smiles grinning from ear to ear. After we performed, a majority of the kids went outside to relax a little while Bob and a few others went to listen to the remaining two choirs, one from Iceland and the other from Israel. While the few of us were enjoying the rest of the concert, the rest of the choir was outside taking many funny group shots. They also made a very clever parody of Ticking Time, playing around with different choreography and just having fun! I am sure the pictures for this entry will help sum up some of the excitement!
Once the concert was over, we were back on the bus to head back to the hotel for our 4 course meal. Tortellinis as primi, salad, beef goulash with mashed potatoes and broccoli au gratin. For dessert, a nice piece of tiramisu. With full bellies, and a fun day, everyone was more than ready for bed and the chaperones didn't have much of a difficult time getting them to bed by curfew... OR so we think...
On to exploring more mountains and hearing more choirs tomorrow!
Off to bed for now!
Click through the slideshow below to view some highlights from today:
