Day #6 + 7: This is goodnight and not goodbye!

Hitting you with a double day blog today! Yesterday was a full free day for the singers to spend with their homestays. The singers reunited with chaperones this morning at the bus stop with rich stories of how they spent their day yesterday. A large group of home stay families took their PEBCC singers to Lego Land while other homestay families took their singers to the beach on the West Coast of Denmark.

By the time we finished singing Homeward Bound this morning with the Danish families, many of them were in tears. Though the wonderful bond we had created with Midtvest Pigekor made it difficult to say goodbye, many singers expressed their excitement to reunite with them in California this fall!

As we departed Denmark by bus, we were regaled with stories of Denmark’s west coast, Legoland, Danish pizza, and Viking archery. Our bus driver, Martin, was a wealth of knowledge and loved the songs we sang on the bus. 

We arrived in Hamburg four hours later and checked into our swanky Renaissance hotel before bussing to St. Markus church for a quick rehearsal before our first concert with our host choir, Mädchenchor Hamburg.

The concert in the small wooden church had beautiful acoustics! It was a pleasure to hear Mädchenchor Hamburg perform their set, and Ensemble’s set impressed the audience. Talented Eric even introduced each piece in German!

The best part of the singers’ day was going out to dinner with a Mädchenchor family host after the concert. The day was long, exhausting, and rainy; the singers had only just met the hosts hours before– yet all of them came skipping back to the hotel with the widest smiles we’d seen in a while. We heard stories of students making homemade pasta with their dinner hosts, exchanging musical games, and eating at restaurants.

The singers should be proud not only of the stamina they demonstrated today, but also of the fantastic concert and wonderful new friends!