Hello everyone! I am so very tempted to put off writing this because of how tired I am, but so many times this summer I have sat on ideas too long and not written anything.

I apologize if this article is scattered, I've been basically up for like 30 hours.

To update you, Westminster Choir is on a school trip to Oxford, England to work with 14 different conductors in a choral institute and represent the school in this amazing country.

My tradition for travel has been to write about it here on Steem for all of you here, and for my beloved friends and family back home (and elsewhere). Without any further delay, let's discuss day 1.

Traveling to England and Jet Lag

I was extremely agitated yesterday upon waking up (or however long ago it was since time has been weird). I was not ready for this trip, and to be honest, I do not like flying (6 ft 3in + 6 hours in a cramped seat = shear pain and sleep deprivation).

I had a bad dream where I was the only one in the choir not wearing a tux, and woke up sore and in a sweat. I texted my friends to check if we needed our tux (I had thought we didn't), and thank God I did because we did need it. So I got the tuxedo, and did all of the packing.

Then I watched the last episode of Breaking Bad with my parents before leaving for the airport.

The Philadelphia Airport

Arriving at the airport was a mixture of excitement for the trip to come, happiness at seeing my friends again, and dread for the plane ride.

We sat around waiting in the airport for a bit, got milkshakes, played a card game called "president", and boarded the plane. When I saw my seat, I was ready to cry because I had received a middle seat, but luckily enough no one else was sitting in my area so I had 3 seats to myself, including a window seat. This was my first time with access to the window seat.

Right before the takeoff began, I looked out to my right, and saw such a splendid sight: a rainbow almost perfectly formed in line with the wing of the plane. Never have I leapt to take a picture as fast as in that moment. The picture was pretty good, but did not do the scene justice. This moment was created to be enjoyed, and made me reflect on the majesty of God's creation.

This prompted me to listen to movements from Haydn's Creation during the takeoff. That has always been the music I associate with the wonder that is taking off in a plane. I almost always listen to it when I am observing the majesty of the world from a plane. More on that to come.

The plane ride

Nothing too spectacular happened on the plane ride there. I watched a comedy called "Dog". Then tried to sleep. When I couldn't sleep, I watched tutorial videos I downloaded on AI and sound editing. Man is the curation AI a complicated problem. I may have thought of a way to get it working, but just you wait until I release the post talking about all of the things I've tried that have failed. You may have thought I've been inactive or given up, but I've just been trying and failing for months for different reasons.

Anyway, when I reached England, I observed the landscape from above, and I could see the agricultural abundance that long ago caused many a feud over the rich land of this island. The landscape was not as prominent or bold as the Bavarian landscape in Germany, but rather subtle and eloquent. It makes me chuckle now thinking about the fact that that's kind of the difference between the English and German peoples too in a way (though obviously that is not facts, but rather just the trend in my observations of the two cultures). The landscape was quaint and didn't immediately strike me as belonging to one of the biggest empires in history, though none-the-less, it does, and is rather beautiful!

Arriving in London and Taking the Bus

When we arrived in London, I believe the captain said today's temperature would be an all time high. Just our luck I suppose, though the heat wasn't as bad as I'd expected from that comment. I got a picture of the plane from inside and we took a bus to Oxford from London. That took about an hour.

On the bus, my friend and I played Monopoly. When we got to Oxford, we walked from the bus stop to the place we're staying complaining about our luck coming to the UK the one week there was a heatwave.

The Room and Polo Shopping

When we got to the room, I took a 10 minute nap before it was time to go polo shopping. Unfortunately, my polo wasn't in at the store yet, so I have to walk back later this week. I then got pounds from a local conversion place, and I stopped at a store that sold croissants on the way back, and realized the people working there had French accents (I think at least). It was pretty cool to realize they probably are from France, and the food was probably closer to the real thing than I've had before.

First Meeting and Tea Time

When I got back, I took another 20 minute nap, then explored the building we're staying in with my roomate. There were some cool rules. It seems to be a catholic church. At 2:30pm, it was time for the first rehearsal, and boy were we tired. All we did was listen to the leaders talk about the week, and learn the stuff we need to know for the week.

After that, it was tea time. I will admit, British tea time was cool. I really liked the tea with sugar and milk, and they gave us "cakes" not American cake, but little British sugar are objects. I can't wait for tomorrow's tea time.

First Rehearsal

During the first rehearsal time, the professor explained his warm up philosophy and warmed us up. He then explained his philosophy for standings (choosing the order sections stand in). The basic premise is to put people next to other people their voice is naturally in tune with, and place the voice at the center you want to build the section's sound around. We are split into two choirs for this trip (so we're not singing all the time), and he basically just explained it as he went with both choirs. As always, it was a cool process to observe. I think the conducting students were impressed.

We then broke off into our two choirs to sing material for the conductors (there are 14 of them. Some went with my group, others with the other). My group had to go without an accompanist and was a capella. We had trouble with some of the pieces and need to review them for tomorrow. Though Jet Lag was certainly a factor in our lack of skill in my opinion. I will hopefully practice tomorrow morning before we get started.

Oxford then Dinner

My roommate and I walked to Oxford to find a British outlet adapter since I brought a European one that is apparently different. I found one, but was late to dinner as a result.

For dinner we had a buffet style setup, and my area of the table talked to one of the conductors who is from South Africa. We talked about the rep we like, and what pieces she likes. We also talked about our majors and college.

Time before last rehearsal and last rehearsal

During the free period between dinner and the last rehearsal, I watched the psalm for today from my church back home because I was mentioned in the comments on Facebook. It was pretty cool because Gustavo talked about when we went star gazing, and Psalm 19. That is the same psalm which inspired part of Haydn's Creation (which I discussed earlier). After that, I took out my computer to work on this article, only to find it broke in the suitcase. So now I'm typing it on my phone and sending it to my dad to format (please set yourself as a beneficiary haha). That was frustrating.

After that, I went to the last rehearsal where each conductor conducted a short excerpt of the piece they are working on with us. That was cool to see all of the different styles; though we were walking corpses at this point.

Seeing my aunt and uncle

I then went out with my aunt and uncle who texted me and said they were in the area. We went to a local pub and got cokes. It was fun to see them and call all of our relatives to tell them I'm in England.

I then finished this article, and will soon crash.

Thanks for reading this! 25 percent of the rewards will be burned, and hopefully tomorrow will be more thorough and less rushed. Good night everyone!

(Posted by @remlaps)