Sorry this is Late, it was written on 6/19, but the internet wasn't working

Today was another good day. Thankfully we had a late morning so we were able to kind of sleep in. Although I woke up at 7:45 cause I thought that we were going shopping at 8. Not the case. But oh well. So I ate dinner with the McGreer family because no one else was in the dinning room. That was a fun breakfast. So I went shopping and thankfully I was able to get everything I needed to get. And than for myself I got Harry Potter #1 in Italian. It’s pretty sweet.
After that, we got back to the hotel and I did some early packing because I knew that we would not have that much time tonight and I didn’t want to leave it for tomorrow morning. So I pretty much got everything packed. Than it was off to rehearsal.
Rehearsal today was at the Sancta Maria Magiore, the place where we actually performed the concert. Originally on Monday, they told us that we would not have chairs and that we would have to stand the whole concert, which would be about a two and a half hour concert. Standing for that long in the heat and in a tux did not sound appealing, but what happens happens. So thankfully when we got there this morning THERE WERE CHAIRS. Thank the Lord. Rehearsal went really well so we got out of there on time. We came back to the hotel and had an early dinner, than I came up and took a little nap.
Than I got changed and went downstairs for dinner. Tonight’s dessert was kind of nasty. It was like this like tough pudding stuff that was yellow in the middle and brown on top and it had this coffee flavor….needless to say it was not good.
Than we went back to the Sancta Maria Magiore for the concert. We had to retake the group shot because the camera that the photographer took the shot on on Monday was stolen, so he had to retake it. This go round went a lot faster though because we knew what we were doing.
I forgot to mention this yesterday. Paul Leddington-Wright really kind of likes us, so he gave us the honor of sitting in the front row at rehearsal on Wednesday, although we arrived a little late so some of us didn’t get them, and today at rehearsal and also at the concert. It is pretty cool.
The concert was really really good! The time just flew by. I was expecting it to kind of drag on, but it just whipped on by. Than………it was over……:-( Ugh, I hate this part. You’ve worked so hard on something for so long and now it’s done. So not only do you have that feeling, but this is the last time that you will sing as a group. So needless to day we are all a little depressed. Tomorrow will probably be kind of quiet and filled with a lot of tears. But we know that we eventually will sing with each other again. I don’t know if I mentioned this but Paul invited us to come sing with him and his choir in Coventry, England. Not related to ICMF just kind of like an exchange thing. And he wants this years group to go, so Lord willing that will all fall into place. Well sorry there aren’t any pictures tonight, I don’t have Jenni’s camera with me so I can’t put the pictures on the computer. But I will post some when I get home.
And I want to thank you all who are reading this and have been reading this. It has been a lot of fun writing things down at night. Not only does it help me remember the good times, but it also helps me digest the day and get the most out of it. Thank you also for all the prayers for Jenni and I and the whole group. They have been heard and you will be proud of the work that we have done here in Rome. Please however continue to pray for us as we travel back from Rome back to HOME!!!! Although I am kind of down right now being home, somewhere that’s warm and comforting sound amazing right now. It’s true, you really don’t know what you’ve got until you done have it any more. (Not going to put lost it, because I haven’t lost anything…lol) I LOVE YOU MOM AND DAD, AND KATIE AND MICHELLE……AND MANDY!!!! I miss you all a lot and I can’t wait to see you guys tomorrow!

With much love and appreciation to all who have been reading this and have supported me,
Luke

P.S. I will still continue to write on this blog for the next week or so, doing some more digesting and posting some more pictures. I will also be putting a lot of pictures up on flick, so you can check them out here:

http://www.flickr.com/sohlphoto

This Might be a long one??? 6/18

So today was probably the best day ever since we've been here in Rome, maybe the best day of my life? It was hard to be yesterday after all our adventures, but it totally blew it out of the water. This morning was the first rehearsal with the orchestra. It sounded amazing!!!

(The Sancta Maria Magiore ----->)

I have never sang with a full orchestra before, but it is soooo much fun! Thankfully today was in a air conditioned room, which they do not have a lot of around here. After rehearsal things kind of went down hill for a while. You know how you get when you are around the same people you are not normally around a lot for to long? I love these people to death, but I think everyone was getting tired of everyone, well that all ended after today.
Today was our two mini concerts. After getting changed for the concert (black pants, tux shoes, black socks, white oxford shirt with tie), I was already sweating by the time I went down to the basement of the hotel to warm up. Than after warm up we had to walk about ten minutes to the Sancta Maria Magiore. If I was sweating then, multiply it by ten by the time I got to the church. It was kind of gross.
So the first mini concert went......ok. Not the best. We only had twenty minutes and we drastically undertimed a lot of the songs. The poor alumni didn't even get to really sing here. Wait on the Lord was good, and so was Sicut Cervus. But than came Lux Aurumque. It was really kind of rough, so we thought. And than Ave Maria. We were a little out of it after Lux Aurumque because we were kind of discouraged. By the time Ave Maria was over we sand Wait on the Lord, and than our time was up. We didn't get to perform like the last two songs we were planning on performing. So we went to the coach (as Adrian would call it. He's our spazzy tour guide if I haven't talked about him yet. He is a wealth of knowledge, but he kind of stresses everyone out. He's a good guy though), and we were bussed over to the Pantheon.

(<--- The roof of the Pantheon)

The Panthen is GINORMOUS!!!!!!! And gourgeous. We had 25 minutes before we were to start so we got some gilatto and some water. After discussing same changes in staging, we went into the Pantheon. (A little side note. There was this poor bird that was in the pantheon flying in circles around the dome trying to find a way out. It kept on trying to land on the little indents in the ceiling, but there is not way you could, they are sunken in the wall so there's no ledge to sit on. He almost made it out of the whole at the top of the ceiling a couple of times but never successfully made it. By the end of the concert.....................................he had died. It was kind of sad actually. Thankfully it wasn't a dramatic death. We didn't see him again till when we were done. He had sat on this ledge of the wall about 30 or so feet up and just died. Actually it look like there might have been a little bit of a crash landing, but at least he didn't fall to the ground on people. Moment of silence for the bird..............................................................moving on!) So the Kenyan choir was singing when we got into the Pantheon. The choir finished and it was our turn. Thankfully we could take our time with the music because we were the last group to go, so we could do pretty much what we wanted.
We first sang The Word was God with alumni. It went well
Than we sang Sicut Cervus, that went really well.
Than, dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Lux Aurumque. By the end of the piece I was grinning like an idiot. IT WAS SOOOOOOO AMAZING!!!!!!! Not only did we sing really skillfully, but the sound just reverberates off the walls like there is not tomorrow. It was gorgeous and Mrs. Bauchspies was really pleased and shocked.
Than the big song. Ave Maria. Again AMAZING!!!!!! The best we have ever sang it. That last chord just hung in the air for no joke like five or so seconds. And that overtone was just there ringing. It was gorgeous.
The one frustrating thing about this venue is that a ton of people are going in and out of the Pantheon taking pictures and talking. But by the time we finished Ave Maria, everyone was pretty much quiet and had walked towards the front where the pues are and were standing and listening to us. A lot of people said that people were shushing other people, which was really cool to hear.
The rest of the concert went great. This Little Light of Mine was really really good too. AGH!!!! Everything was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!
By the end of the concert we were all smiling ear to ear, and Mrs. Bauchspies even cried a little after Apple Tree. It was the best concert by far we have done all year.

(Adrien, the festival's chaplin and I after our Pantheon concert ---->)
At the end of the concert all these people were taking pictures of us. People we didn't even know. It was soo cool. The coolest thing though was that Paul Leddington-Wright, the conductor of most of the big concert came and listened to us at Sancta Maria Magiore. He really liked us there despite the flaws. And right before we started to sing at the Pantheon, he walked in and he had come to listen to us again. He loved it. He said we were top notch. And he even invited us to come to England to do an exchange with his choir and tour around England. OH MY WORD!!!! YESS!!!!!! And all these other people were coming up and telling us how much they enjoyed it. It was really a great time! But sadly the last time the current Madrigals sang together as a choir. :-( But it was a good note to end on (don't mind the corny music puns).

(<---Some of the guys taking a picture fromt he floor looking up at the top of the dome of the Pantheon)
I really need to start cutting stuff because this is getting really long. So after the concert, Mr. Torggler treated us to dinner at this family owned reastraunt. The nice thing was that is was outside of "tourist" Rome. So we kind of got a feel for the real Roman lifestyle. It was lot of fun. While we were eating, this guitar quartet played the whole dinner. They walked around from table to table playing for the people. John Noh knew like all the songs they were playing, and all of them were in Italian. So John was singing his lungs out with these guys and he had the time of his life. Even the guitar playing singer people really liked him. Dinner was really good and filling and than we came on back to the hotel and we had devotion and than went to bed.

Well it is past one o'clock and I need to turn of the computer and go to bed. See you guys Saturday! Much love!

P.S. Please pray for Jake. He went back to the hotel after we sang at the Pantheon and missed dinner because he is not feeling well. When we got back from dinner, he said he was felling better but still not great. So keep him in your prayers so that he can sing tomorrow at the final concert!

(John singing his heart out with the singing guitar quartet guys)

It's Going to be a Short One 6/17

(The Trevi Fountain from Tuesday night)

So you already heard how my morning was, so there isn't a whole lot left to tell. After we got back from the Papel audience, we had a good 4 or 5 hours of free time. So it was really sweet. Eddie, Jake, Denise, Alex, Cassie, Jenni, and I went and walked towards Sancta Maria Magiore, and kept on going trying to find this soccer store that Alex, Jake, and Eddie wanted to go to. Well because Italians take a long time for meals, they were closed for two hours for dinner. So we decided to go back towards the hotel and get a map so that we could walk to the Spanish Steps again to go do some shopping. After many stops at little knick knack shops, we split from Eddie, Cassie, and Jake who were going to wait to go back to the Soccer store. So Alex, Denise, Jenni, and I made the nearly half an hour walk towards the Spanish Steps. We finally made it and we met up with Amber and Aryn. I have never seen so many designer stores in my life. There was Gucci, Prada, Giorgio Armani (sp?), Chanel, Burberry, and a TON more. So we went into Giorgio Armani and Burberry. I felt soooo out of place. Guess how much a pair of underwear cost at Burberry? Just guess.....................152 euros. That's INSANE. I did however really like their style, but that's crazy. So after that Jenni and Alex went off to do some more shopping, and Amber, Aryn, Denise, and I waited on the Spanish Steps for Hunter and Kiersten (who apparently had already left), and Mrs. Wachter, McGreer, and Burns. After we all met up, we went to the Metro station. It's a pretty good deal. 1 euro for a 1 way ticket. Man I am telling you those trains are packed. We literally had to squeeze through the door and push our way through the people in order to make it on. And what was even more hilarious is that when we had to transfer to the next train to make it to our stop, that train was even more packed. so we finally made it back to the hotel. After we ate dinner, we headed off to the International Choir Concert. A select few choirs sang a few songs. They all did a good job. But the one choir from Texas, who sang the last half of the concert, was INSANE. And what added to the insanity was that they played the organ. IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UGH, the sound was HUGE!!!!!!! I soooooooooooo want to learn how to play the organ. So the concert ended at 10:30 (it was a pretty long concert, two hours in all I think). Than we got back on the bus, and VWALA, we're here.

(Just to show you how hot the sun was today at the Papel Audience ------>)
Well I better get to bed. We have a pretty early morning tomorrow because we have rehearsal at the Sheraton tomorrow for three hours, and than we have our mini concerts and Sancta Maria Magiore and the Pantheon. And than Mr. Torgler is taking us out to dinner (he is way to nice!)! So we only have two more full days left in Rome and I am really going to miss it. I could definantly see myself living here! :-) :-) See you all soon!

Mid-Day Post 6/17

So far, today has been.........HOT! Good grief. It is about 10 degrees hotter than what they had anticipated. Sitting in the sun for four hours, two and a half of which we waited for the thing to even start. All in all though it was fun. Our seats were really close to the front and I was three seats away from the center aisle seat. But when the Pope arrived, the two girls where by the wall and I was really close. So the Pope makes a few turns around the crowd in his Mercedes Pope Mobile (I feel like some hero theme song should come on), and than his final drive is up the center aisle where the Pope Mobile drives up the stairs and behind the podium where he sits and preaches. But since I was really close to the aisle I got this sweet picture. I did not zoom in to take this picture, he was this close.

(The Pope waving to everyone from his infamous Pope Mobile)

Even though the sun took it out of me completely, Jenni, Alex, Jake, Eddie, Alex, Sarah, and I are going to grab something to eat and than go shopping. Than we have dinner at the hotel tonight and than the international concert at 8:30. I will post something tonight after I get back. See you guys soon! Much love!

P.S. Michelle, How did your first softball game go?

It's Fresh, It's new, it's....My daily post 6/16 (Sorry it's sooooooooo long)

(Giusi's color of the day.....GREEN! We totally called it)

So today started off with going to rehearsal at an Anglican church, which obviously is outside of ancient Rome (because it’s protestant). It seats I think 280 or so. Try stuffing over 300 of us in there, with no air conditioning, and singing our hearts out, which gets very hot. Yeah….let’s just say I got a little warm (A LOT!). Rehearsal actually went really well. Everything sounded really good. The only thing that was wrong is that we NEED to watch the conductor (Paul Leddington Wright). We are all sooooo worried about getting the notes right, the rhythms right, and the words right, that we are not taking our faces out of the scores. So that was the main problem today. He would slow down, those who were watching would slow down, and those who weren’t, fell right off the train tracks, and it would sound terrible. But all in all, it was good.
After that we had to go find lunch. It is semi-hard to find a take out restaurant around here. Everywhere you go they have tables. The Italians are big on taking their time about meals (I think I might have mentioned that before). But we found this sandwich and bar place where I got a club sandwich and who knows what Jenni got. It looked gross. She ate half of it and than asked the question “……what am I eating?” I honestly couldn’t tell you what she was. It looked like meat, but it looked like liver or something. It was nasty! Oh, we ate lunch on the Spanish steps which was really cool.
After lunch we bussed over the Vatican City where we went in the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and the Basilica.

(Mrs. Bauchspies and Angela waiting to go back to the bus to go to Vatican city ----------------------------------------------------->)

The museum (the part we saw) was really cool. Tons of artifacts and they had these HUGE tapestries that depicted different scenes from the Bible. A few were really kind of depressing. Some depicted when the Pharaoh ordered that al the baby boy’s to be killed, and they showed the guards like killing these babies, and it was pretty graphic. It was…..interesting. One thing that was really interesting was that Giusi had to explain all the paintings and such that are in the Sistine Chapel before we got in there, because you are not supposed to talk in the actual Chapel. Once you walk in there, it is breathtaking. The room is pretty empty but the walls are massive and the paintings are soooo elaborate. Everything is soooo detailed and soooo well done. It took Michelangelo four years to do the ceiling, and six years to do the Last Judgment (I don’t think that that is the actual title) painting. I learned a lot in the museum, too much to write.
Next was the Basilica. It was GINORMOUS! You walk in and you feel like an ant. It was really cool to see Michelangelo’s Pieta. It is really detailed and gorgeous.

(<- Eddie, John, and I in the Sistene Chapel)

Everything is really elaborate. Gold and marble, and precious stones. Sheesh. Although it was very impressive, I think it might have been a little overdone. No offense to the architects (which included Michelangelo) or the artists, but it’s…very ostentatious. I was creped out a little by the “incorruptible” saints or popes. There they are lying there in glass, dead, for a long time, and they don’t decay. It’s a little weird. Well we heard you could go up in the main dome of the Basilica and most of us wanted to do it. So we went to but tickets and it was 5 euros if you walked the whole way and 7 if you took the elevator the first half of the way (you have to walk to the roof of the Basilica and than enter the dome and walk up another couple hundred stairs. Well, not knowing how far it went up, I got to the first ring of the dome (it’s at the base of the dome) and was a little intimidated by the height of it. If you don’t know, I have a thing against heights.

(<- Sarah stood in the light that came throught the huge dome, and this is what happened, I thought this picture was really cool!)

I’m fine if you put me on a roller coaster, but if I am standing still high up, with just a small gate thing holding me from falling over the edge, noooooo thank you. So than everyone is like “Come on! Let’s go to the top!” My heart sank. “The top?” I thought to myself. Than I remembered this lady talking about going up the dome and apparently it’s a tight squeeze. And to be even high up the dome than where I was……….NOOOO SIR-EEEEE” So I walked, by myself, back down. I felt a little lame for not going to the top, but you put me in a tight space up really high, I don’t think so.

(<- Resting after a lot of walking around Vatican City)

So yadi yadi ya, if I keep on expounding on stuff you guys are going to be reading a freaking novel.
So we came back to the hotel, we got diner, which was a little frustrating, amazing lasagna but poor and slow service. Than after dinner (which took three hours!) we went to the Trevia Fountain. It was really pretty. It was about a twenty minute walk from our hotel, but it was worth it. I threw two coins in and apparently since I threw two, I am going to find my true love…..YEAH!!!!!! hahahahaha. I told dad not to be surprised if I came home with and Italian girl. Than he cracked a joke saying it would be Giusi…..ewww. No offense to her, she is a really sweet and knowledgeable lady, but she is like forty years older than I am. Hahahahaha. (I will put pictures of the fountain on tomorrow, I don’t have jenni’s camera which is the only way to get my pictures on the computer!)
Well I better get off. It is like late and Adam is asleep and I don’t want to wake him up. Love yall and see you soon.

P.S. Apparently there are a lot of people reading this.
WARNING: My spelling and grammar isn’t top notch…hahahahahahahaha! Some of it I do on purpose, but some of it is just my lack of grammatical and spelling skill.

Monday 6/15 Broken Down!

So today was awesome, despite the fact that the camera battery died towards the end of the tour, so I couldn’t finish taking pictures. And you should be proud, I haven’t taken multiple pictures of the same thing. Giusi (pronounced joo-zee), our tour guide, walked soooo fast for an elderly lady. She was booking it. So there wasn’t much time to take a lot of pictures.
Before we headed out this morning, we had continental breakfast at the hotel, it was……interesting. Apparently it is “American Style”, don’t really know what that means. But the eggs were kind of gross, and the bread was really hard. But they had this fruit like you get in the cans. You know the pears that you get in the can that are in the syrup, yeah that was fresh along with peaches. And than they had this straight up juice, with no added anything. Like they just squeezed the orange and that’s it. Except it was like a mixture of citrus fruit, then they had pineapple juice, that was really good. Trying to communicate with people in Italian is really hard :-)! I try to get bye with my little knowledge, but its not enough. I am pretty good at ordering, but when they ramble off a question I just stare at them with this confused look and say “Scussi?” (I hope that’s the right spelling. Adam isn’t in the room so I can’t spell check it by him!). Then they have to try and get by asking their question in English. I feel bad, oh well!
(<- Giusi)
We did go into the Coliseum (actually the what it was originally called the Flavian Amphitheater), it was SOOOO COOL!!!! Oh my word. That thing is huge. And than we were walking down Via Cavour, the street our hotel is on, and you look down the road and THERE IT IS. It is really kinda weird to see pictures of it all the time, and than your there and you can’t believe that it is the actual thing. It is HUGE though. Than we walked through some of the ancient ruins, mostly the Forum. They had soo many ruins and everything was sooooo big. How did they build stuff that big like 2000 years ago? Its insane. One interesting thing that we saw is the former Temple of Mercury. It is now a church. In the middle ages I think they converted it into a church. They were originally going to tear down the columns, but since it was soo well built, they would not come down. So you can actually see the marks that the ropes made when they were trying to tear them down.
So when you are walking through all these ruins, you are sitting here thinking, why did they have to tear everything down (or dismantle them, as Guisi says)? Apparently, the Coliseum, after the games were cancelled when the faith of Rome became Christian, was obviously not used for anything. So beggars lived in it and prostitutes lived in it. So eventually trees and weeds started growing in and around it. So when St. Peter’s Basilica was built, they took the stone and marble to build it. And then the Christians also defaced and chopped the arms off of the statues of emperors and god’s because of the pagan religion. And with all the other buildings, when something new needed to be built, they took stones from the old structures. Kind of sad.
Tomorrow, we are going to look at the prison were Peter and Paul were held. And than we are going to the Vatican tomorrow also. But I took a lot of pictures of the Coliseum and other stuff, which I have included (hopefully) on this post.
Okay, so tonight was the Farewell Banquet. Adam and I sat a table with two Kenyan women, two groups from Texas, and one group from Chicago.
(<-Jenni and I at the Colesium)
We got these saweet necklaces from the Kenyan women, and from the other Texas people I got a “I Texas” bumper sticker, a Texan Flag poster, and a key-chain of the Texan State flower, I think. And than from the Chicago people, I got a CD from their choir, a postcard from Chicago, and a White Sox bag. So there was this group “Orpheus” from the Ukrain sang a blessing before dinner and than sang two songs at the very end of the concert. They were amazing (they were an all male octet choir). And there was this Indian male quintet group that sang these gospel songs and they were really good too. It is weird to hear these gospel songs coming from Indian people. I know this sounds weird but they sounded “gospely”. They sounded like a black male choir singing gospel songs. It was really cool. In the middle of those two groups and after dinner, we sang. We first sang “The Word was God” and they really liked it a lot. Even though we thought the room was going to not do well with acoustics, it actually was really good, and there was a mic so that helped a lot I’m sure too. And than we sang the revamped “Jing-ga-lye-ya” and the crowed LOVED it. They were laughing and enjoying it the whole time, and we got the first standing ovation of the night. Thankfully we sang with A TON of energy, so that helped the whole song as well. Than when we were talking to people after-words and they were like “Where are you from?” and when we responded that we are from a High school, they were flabbergasted. It is really cool to flabbergast people. So the dinner ended and we all left, although the majority of us could not find Adrien, our tour director, or the other like five people from madrigals. So we sat outside in front of the hotel for like ten or so minutes waiting for Adrien and the bus and it never came. Finally Adrien rushed out of the side of the hotel that we were on all confused and told us that we were supposed to have met on the other side of the hotel, which non of us knew. But it all worked out and we are back at the hotel.
Tomorrow is the first mass choir rehearsal and we are rehearsing in a space that holds 350 people, and there are like 320 of us. So it’s going to be a tight squeeze, than we have free time in the evening and than we go to the Papal audience on Wednesday.
Well Katie is hopefully buying her car tomorrow!!! I am looking forward to that ride home Katie, so you better have it!

See you soon!

P.S. Mom you should be proud, I put Adam’s and I’s shirts in the bathroom and turned the shower on cause there is not iron here, it worked like a charm. THANKS FOR THE GOOD ADVICE. Also, the calling card definently doesn’t work. Sammie’s does, and I did the exact same thing she dialed but it says that we would be charged calling internationally and it didn’t even ask for the pin. So sorry! I’ll try and call you tomorrow!

OH, I forgot to mention. So I felt like a total tourist. We wore these things called “Whispers” and it was a receiver with an ear piece and Giusi had the microphone, so here we are all thirty of us with these things…..it was nice but kind of weird.

(Aryn and the Whisper)