Wrapping up a wonderful gift of a trip...

Well, we're back, but I couldn't let the end of this fantastic voyage (sounds like a great name for a movie, doesn't it?) fall by the wayside for lack of an internet connection while we were traveling. So here I sit at home in the comfort of my man-cave pounding out the last details of "Mona Shores Choir Does Brazil '08."

Following the excellent visit to the Corcovado (the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking all of Rio), we made our way back to the hotel for a brief independent lunch (or shopping or trip to the beach or pool or whatever else we could squeeze in within the 80 minutes we had) before saddling up and bussing our way to Petrópolis. The trip took us out of Rio and back into the mountains that seemed to be everywhere in this country.

We reached Petrópolis at what appeared to be rush hour. The trip took us 90 minutes to reach the city from Rio (an incredible climb through winding mountain roads) and every bit of 30 more minutes to traverse the few miles to where we would perform. The streets were cobblestone and small and our busses were large, but some adroit driving on the part of our Brazilian chauffeurs got us there in time and without incident. The cathedral in which we were supposed to have performed had been usurped by a wedding. However, the theater in which we ended up performing was charming. Very good acoustics, a raked stage with risers, padded (non-squeaking) seats, and hard wood parquet tiled floors were just a few of the niceties that made up our closing venue.

Perhaps most significant was the appreciative audience. Granted, many of them may have been there to see the opening act, a mixed choir of what appeared to be elementary through high school Brazilian students accompanied by a guitar playing choir director (we certainly understand if you don't play guitar, Shawn.) But once the crowd heard our students' voices, the volume of their applause increased by an order of magnitude. I truly believe we did a great deal that evening to cement our reputation as a world class choir, at least within the population of Petrópolis. And, who knows, maybe even farther since our concert signified the opening of the Petrópolis Winter Festival which includes concerts, a plethora of cultural events, shows and workshops, and is apparently quite well attended by many people even from as far away as Rio de Janeiro.

Following the concert, Shawn was presented with a bound booklet containing all of the press clippings that had been published advertising the coming of the Mona Shores Choir to the Petrópolis Winter Festival. I had only a quick glance at it, but it was quite impressive. The organizers really went out of their way to make us feel welcome and at home in their city. Just before we were ready to leave, I asked our English speaking liaison about the very cool logo of the Petrópolis Winter Festival. One gentleman explained that the logo was designed with the idea that Petrópolis had been started by German colonists and that the evergreen tree (created with an eighth note) on the logo was meant to be symbolic of the trees in Germany. He seemed quite pleased when I shared that we had many evergreens back in Michigan and that their logo fit very well with our own aesthetic. When I inquired about purchasing one of the shirts I had seen with the logo on it, she told me that unfortunately there were none to purchase. But then she went and found an extra (which just happened to be in my size) and gave it to me. How cool is that? Anyway, I asked if they would mind emailing the digital file containing the logo to me. Once I receive it, I will put together an order form for anyone from the trip who would like to purchase a shirt with the logo.

We closed the evening with a great meal at a local Brazilian steak house (churrascaria, for those of you in the know) and enjoyed our bus ride back to Rio on contentedly full stomachs. Back at the hotel, some made a final foray into the market, others went back to their rooms to pack, and a few even went back to their rooms to go to bed. The next day part of our group would begin the trip home while those who had come later to Manaus at the start of the trip had part of the day to spend on the beaches of Rio. But, whether we left with the early group at 4 AM or with the later group at 4:30 PM, we would all be traveling home with indelible memories of the past two weeks in a country of surprising size and beauty and majesty and friendliness and fun.

On a personal note, I would like to say thank you to everyone who supported this blog with their positive feedback or appreciative comments or even by simply being there to read it. It was truly a pleasure to travel (and document the trip) with such an outstanding group of students and adults. I am very much looking forward to editing the more than 20 hours of footage I took while traveling with your sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and boyfriends and girlfriends and nieces and nephews and grandchildren and spouses and teachers and friends. I do have other projects still waiting to be completed ahead of this one, but I hope to have the Brazil Trip DVD done by the start of the school year. I will post information about it here, as well as alerting Shawn to post it on his blog and on the Brazil Trip Facebook group he created, once it is complete.

Also, I would like to collect the best 10-20 photos from each person willing to share their pictures. I will put them on a disc and create a slideshow of our time together set to music to include with the DVD. While I would love to see all your photos, I fear that with digital technology being so prevalent, the numbers of photos taken (overheard from some participants to be in the 500-700 picture range) would be overwhelming given that we had 118 people on the trip. So, if you would like your pictures included in the slideshow, please choose the best 10-20 and get them to me on a cd labeled with your name and phone number. Please do not email them to me as that would quickly max out my mailbox limits. However, if you need/want to contact me about getting photos in or getting a dvd, you can reach me at velaluz at comcast dot net (I spelled it out so that the bots that roam the net don't slurp it up and start spamming me, but you know how to format an address, right? name@domain.net)

Anyway, thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer even half as much as I have enjoyed the start of mine!

p.s. The very biggest thank you goes to all of the parents, grandparents, and other family members who scrimped and saved and sacrificed to help pay for so many of these students to go on this trip. I hope in some small way this blog has helped you realize what an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime gift you have given your child. Thank you!

The long journey home...

Sitting in the Clarion outside La Guardia airport in New York, I write the final post while on our journey. Perhaps we will post more after we have returned home, but this will be the last while we are actually traveling.

Our last days in Brazil were filled with spectacular sights and wonderful sounds. After arriving at the Othon Palace Rio (located on the Copacabana strip no less!), we found our rooms in the 30 story high rise hotel. Nearly everyone had an incredible view of the vendors that filled the strip each night with the souvenirs we just could not stay away from as well as the waves of the Atlantic crashing onto the beach with that beautiful dull roar that is millions of gallons of water all splashing at once.

We had just enough time to settle in before we were off to dinner and a Samba Show in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The dinner was (once more) incredible, the women were lovely, the costumes were spectacles of feathers and glittering sequins, and we were unbelievably tired. But afterward we mustered our strength to make one more foray into the stalls along the strip for Brazil jerseys and Capoiera sweatpants and local instruments and jewelry and sarongs and purses and paintings and...

On our final day in Rio we rose early to make our way to the Corcovado (the statue of Christ the Redeemer that overlooks all of Rio). The sun was shining, the temperature was in the eighties, and the day was gorgeous. As you might imagine, the wait for a group as large as ours for the tram to go up to the top was fairly long (about an hour and a half), but our choir made the best of it by singing for the crowd in the Tram station. We knew were were a hit when even the mime who stood statue still within the station took off his sunglasses and hat and relaxed against a post with eyes closed to listen to the sweet strains of our students.

After a beautiful tree lined ride up the mountainside in the Tram (where we almost lost our guide when he stepped off at a stop about halfway up), the Corcovado itself was awesome, beautiful, immense and inspiring. We took many many photos of the statue and the vista and ourselves, and we ended our visit with a mini-concert in front of "Christo Redentor." It was a perfect location for several of our songs, perhaps most notably "The Lord Bless You and Keep You."

Well, the busses are here and Shawn is calling us to board, so I will have to finish our story after we return to Muskegon. We look forward to seeing our friends and families and pets and homes. See you soon.

Some of the most breathtaking scenery...

Sorry for the long absence, but our tour took us to the mountain city of Ouro Preto which included limited internet access at our hotel. Plus, we have been on the go almost non-stop since I last blogged.

When last you heard from us, we were on our way to São Paulo and then Belo Horizonte by plane. From Belo Horizonte we took a two hour bus ride into the mountains of Minas Gerais (the home state of our Ilse, one of our tour guides) where we reached the city of our home stays, Ouro Preto (which means Black Gold in Portuguese). We met our home stay families at the Ouro Preto bus terminal and much of the anxiety that had built in anticipation of going off to unknown homes disappeared as we pulled in and saw more than 75 smiling faces waiting to greet and meet us. They welcomed us with open homes and open arms and open hearts. And while the reports back ranged from “they were kind of quiet” to “really nice” to “I wish I could stay there longer,” a complete account of what home stays were like is beyond the scope of this blog. So you’ll just have to wait for your student’s return to get all the juicy details. That said, the comments I did hear from kids about their home stay experiences were overwhelmingly positive.

But home stay only accounted for the evenings. During the day on Tuesday, we had a truly spectacular experience exploring the shops and streets of Ouro Preto. This beautiful city is set, quite literally, in the mountains, so getting from one shop to the next frequently requires a climb or a descent along original cobblestone streets. Plus, it is filled with over 13 historic (300 year old) Baroque churches and 9 chapels, so walking (or should I say climbing) tours are almost mandatory. After touring this beautiful city, we each found our own lunch (I can personally vouch for the Bacon Burger and Fries at the “Satelite Lanchonette”) and dug in to shop our feet off.

That evening the choir performed at the Ouro Preto Opera House. Word has it that the OPOH is one of the oldest theaters in the Americas. With three levels of seating along each side and a true raked stage, the Opera House was definitely one of our most interesting venues. The rather loud wood floors and the enthusiastic (some might describe them as raucous) Brazilian crowd made for a less than ideal auditory experience, but our students performed as professionally as always. Following the concert (and what has become the ritual post concert mobbing of our students by their appreciative Brazilian fans begging for photos and autographs), students returned to their home stays for a final night of honest-to-goodness Brazilian life.

Wednesday found us at the D. Veloso School in Ouro Preto where we exchanged national anthems, and performances. Our Ouro Preto hosts performed what seemed to be a Brazilian interpretation of American line dancing to a Brazilian pop song. They followed that with a traditional Brazilian country dance that was very much like square dancing complete with costumes. While we were watching, several of the Ouro Preto students who were not involved in the performance grabbed some of our students and began a conga line through the courtyard. It was not long before the entire schoolyard became one big fiesta of singing and dancing students.

Next it was our turn. Even though we performed a shortened version of our usual concert, the kids at the school just let it all hang out and the energy and appreciation that followed each selection were beyond anything we had experienced thus far. After closing with “Praise His Holy Name,” (who doesn’t love to clap along to that one?) we shared some snacks and drinks offered to us by the school and then said our good-byes. Because the school is located in the one of the lowest sections of Ouro Preto, our walk back to the square in the city center included a vertical ascent of somewhere around 300 feet, some of it on stairs but much of it on the ancient cobblestone streets that wind through this enchanting town. We worked up an appetite with just that walk alone, so we once again lunched independently (the group at the “Satelite” grew even larger on Wednesday) and had time for some shopping and taking photographs. I cannot emphasize enough the incredible beauty of this city’s streets and shops and vistas. It seemed like another amazing photo awaited at the turn of every corner. If you only look at a few of the photos that people have taken when they return, be sure that Ouro Preto photos are among them!

Wednesday afternoon we brought the choir back to the rustic mountain retreat where the chaperones had holed up while the students were on their home stays. After a quick check-in to grab uniforms and shoes, we hopped back on the bus to ride (2 hours) in to Belo Horizonte (Brazil’s third largest city at 2.5 million people) for a concert following a Catholic mass at the beautiful church of Cura D’Ars. Rumor had it that we were brought back to perform at this church by the daughter of the former Governor of Minas Gerais who was now the Vice-President of Brazil after she saw the Shores choir three years ago there. Though they were an older and more reserved audience (we were performing in their house of worship after all), the people from the church treated us wonderfully, plying us with savory and sweet pastries as well as water and Guaraná (our new favorite soft drink and a Brazilian original). After bidding farewell to BH, we stopped along the way for yet one more wonderful Brazilian buffet dinner before returning to our hotel just outside of Ouro Preto.

Thankfully our tour planners set aside Thursday as a kind of free day to choose what you wanted to do. Some students chose to sleep in at the hotel while others were up early, heading into town to explore and shop and take photos. For those who slept in, busses were available later to ferry them into the city. Eventually, all of the group made it into Ouro Preto for one last round of shopping and sightseeing. (For some of us, we’re still not sure how we’ll get all our purchases home, but we’ll cross that bridge once we get to Rio.) Dinner that night was at a quaint restaurant named Casas dos Contos. Located down a small side street of Ouro Preto and set in the side of a mountain, Casas dos Contos had some incredible Minas architecture with low, wood beamed ceilings and lots of copper and iron ornamentation on the walls, plus the view was spectacular. Typically, all of our meals included the first drink for free and subsequent drinks that could be purchased individually. However, Casas dos Contos had pitchers of water and Coke and, you guessed it, Guaraná on the tables for us to drink as much as we wanted. At the end of the meal, we were told that the unlimited drinks came at the price of having to sing for the staff. Never a group to turn down an opportunity to perform, our students serenaded the waiters and cooks with our three opening pieces. The combination of full bellies and the small restaurant completely filled with joyful voices was delicious. It felt as though the music wrapped around us like a soft woolen blanket and brought bitter-sweet tears to the eyes of several of the parents in the room. I can only imagine what passers-by must have thought about the beautiful sounds radiating from the tiny restaurant off a perfectly ordinary side street in Ouro Preto.

Back at the hotel that evening, we hosted a group of students from the D. Veloso school to an evening of fun and games. Between the volleyball and the soccer (on the basketball court) and the Capoiera performances which even some of our kids tried (not to mention the ping pong and billiards and snacks and just sitting and trying to break the language barrier), we made some new friends, learned a few things and had a great time!

As our bus winds through the mountains on the 8 hour bus ride to Rio de Janeiro, our trip is also starting to wind to a close. We have one more concert to perform, one more show to see (Samba in Rio) and one more sightseeing tour before we begin our journey home. But for now I will close so I can go back to watching some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen...

If this half is amazing, then...

Friday was a travel day for us. We flew from Manaus to either Brasilia or São Paulo (depending on which group you were in) and then connected on to Salvador. Once in Salvador, we took busses to the Othon Palace Hotel. And they're not kidding when they use the word Palace in the name. The OPH Bahia (Bahia is the state that Salvador is in) is a wonderful five star hotel set on the Atlantic Ocean. And Salvador is a marvelous city with both old and new.

On Saturday we toured part of the old city. The area is named Pelourinho which translates to "whipping post" because it contains the town square where the whipping post for slaves was located. Salvador was a major hub for the importation of african slaves into Brazil during the colonial period. We walked down cobble stone streets, saw a couple of cool, old churches (important from the early Catholic influence in the city) and learned quite a bit of history in a short amount of time.

We lunched and shopped (and shopped and shopped...) at the Mercado (market). One of our guides (yay Wilson!) even took us down into the tunnels that were used for bringing in the slaves and what a gift of "living" history that was! Some of us had a few problems with using debit cards, but we have been pulling together and lending money to those who need it until they get to a machine that works for them. From the number of packages I saw coming out of the Mercado, the shopping part was a rousing success. The lunch was somewhat interesting from several accounts. I did not have personal experience of it, but Cindy Twining said that the hamburgers had yellow lettuce and green tomatoes and some were actually missing the meat! It is sometimes interesting dealing with other cultures.

On our return from the Mercado, the kids swam, the adults napped and the rest did whatever Brazilians do in the middle of the day. The swimming was apparently quite refreshing because that evening our students gave what the venerable Shawn Lawton called "a performance that was beyond words" at the UFBA (the federal university located in Bahia). Perhaps another reason for the spectacular concert was the incredible acoustics of the space we were in. Or maybe it was the fantastically appreciative crowd who turned out in surprisingly supportive numbers because this is actually a big holiday weekend in Bahia and most people have fled the city for their smaller home towns and villages.

Our Sunday started with another spectacular breakfast (I found the room where they make the omelets here... yum!) in preparation for yet another boat ride. The group boarded two schooners curiously (though quite inappropriately) named "Sinking" and "Hopeless" and sailed off into All Saints Bay. Our weather was gorgeous: warm and sunny with a little breeze while we were on the boats. (Yes, parents, we did remember our sunscreen.) This time it was to Monk Island where we learned some history (mostly about how the indigenous tribes cannibalized the monks who were exiled to Monk Island), roamed the soft sandy beach, swam in the ocean, explored the tide pools for crabs and sea shells, and drank Guaranâ. It has quickly become the new favorite drink among the Mona Shores Choir. From Monk Island we sailed to another island (sorry, I don't recall the name) where we ate yet one more wonderful buffet lunch. We're being fed so well, I am beginning to wonder whether we won't need an entirely new wardrobe by the end of the trip to accommodate our (adjusted) waistlines...?

Unfortunately, we were a bit behind in our schedule all day long, so we really had to scramble to shower and change when we got back to the hotel. But, everyone did a great job of rushing back to our busses in time to head to dinner at a Brazilian Steakhouse named Baba Gula. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a Brazilian Steakhouse or churrascaria, it is a restaurant serving grilled meat, offering as much as you can eat where the waiters move around the restaurant with the skewers, slicing meat onto your plate. Of course, all of this meat is in addition to the overly large buffet table which seemed to have twice as many choices as any other we had encountered up to that point. And to make the restaurant an even bigger hit with our group, they served ice cream with fruit for dessert causing many of us to wonder whether we had in fact died and gone to heaven.

Following this most recent incredible meal, we were treated to a performance by Brazilian Folklore Dancers. If that name sounds a bit boring to you, perhaps you'll recognize the more common name for the dance they perform: Capoiera. Let me just say that the multiple standing ovations that the kids gave to the performers hardly goes near describing how much they amazed and entertained us all. When we have all returned home and you see photos or even a clip of it on the dvd, you'll have a better idea. But this was an event that only being there would allow one to truly comprehend the power and magnificence of what these people do. This trip continues to amaze and excite... And we're just hitting the halfway mark!

To those following along at home, all the luggage made it. Mr. Dake no longer has students in need of disciplinary time. We will deliver the messages you write in your comments to the kids. And things are going very well.

We head off to the state of Minas Gerais tomorrow and the students have their home stays. My only problem (besides needing more time for blogging) is that I am running out of superlative adjectives to describe our experience. It is an incredible, fantastic, outstanding problem to have.

What's big and wet and cool and hot and...

What an incredible couple of days it has been. Tuesday morning (after another spectacular breakfast) we walked across the driveway of our hotel to the docks on the Rio Negro where our group of 120 boarded three large boats which, incidentally, were staffed by another set of outstanding cooks as well as other crew members, and began our journey to the rainforest.

Appropriately enough, it was raining at the time. But then the fact that the smallest of the three vessels was worth more than $1,500,000 and they were all multi-leveled with sleeping compartments done in fine wood and with game rooms with large screen flat panel TVs playing James Bond movies went a long way toward taking the kids minds off the soggy weather. We cruised down the Rio Negro toward where it joins up with another tributary to form the Amazon River, lunching in the gorgeous wood floored dining room and it was a grand adventure.

We stopped at a small village about a 1/4 mile in from the river and experienced a wonderful tribal music and dance presentation in a hut out of the rain. We also had an opportunity to purchase some local handicrafts which we took advantage of all too zealously. After being thoroughly entertained by the indigenous people, we walked back to our boats in the rain.

Eventually, the rain gave way to simply cloudy skies, so some of us went for a dip in the Amazon. From the third deck of our boats! What a rush it was to see the river flying up to meet you! And the water felt great! There were tons of photos taken as we plummeted into the dark brown water (from whence the Rio Negro, Black River, derives its name) and even some video. (Sorry, no time to post photos yet; it's all I can do to keep up on the written part of the blog.)

Back on the boats, we traveled further down the Amazon to the "Queen of the Jungle", a floating restaurant in the middle of the Amazon rainforest where we, you guessed it, ate another in what has become a long line of outstanding meals with no end in sight.

Dinner was followed by cayman (like a crocodile) hunting in the dark in a group of 15 person river boats that were much like motorized canoes. Also a blast and very cool to be on the Amazon at night. One of the highlights for me was when we stopped and shut off the engine to hear the sounds of the rainforest while floating gently on the river beneath a nearly full moon.

After an overnight on the big boats, we awoke before sunrise to get back in the canoes and experience the waking of the river up close and personal (ask someone about the sloth) followed by breakfast and the trip back to Manaus by the afternoon. (There really was much more to that than just a single sentence, but it is after midnight and did I mention we were up before sunrise?)

After returning to our hotel, we swam and cleaned up and headed for the Teatro Amazonas (an opera house in the middle of Manaus) for our first concert. It is a perfect location to showcase the beautiful voices of our amazing choir! And what a perfect end to our day...

Tomorrow we travel to Salvador. If the past three days are any indication, it will be amazing!

Manaus is...

Around 2PM today the last of our groups arrived at the beautiful Hotel Tropical in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Everyone arrived safe and sound. Meanwhile, Kevin Dake (our disciplinarian) had a "fun" day sitting inside with several students who had "earned" detention by missing too many rehearsals.

And now a word from our guest blogger, Tim Zinger:
Well hello. Today was a blast. Woke up at 9:00, had a great breakfast. We had frash made omelets, fruits (the pineapple is great!), and a ton of other food (some i ate not even knowing what it was). Then we swam and chilled for the whole day by the pools. Tonight we had a dinner buffet that was awesome! Again, I don't know what I ate but it was good! The dessert was extra good. We did a little kareokee tonight and now we are just lazin. I am too tired to type anymore so have a great night!

As Tim said, it was all about the food and the swimming and lots of walking (this place is huge) and the fun. That's it really. Manaus is fun!

Shawn is getting the parents together for a chaperone meeting, so we'll sign off for now. We're working on posting some photos and maybe even some video. Keep watching for more details.

The Wait is Over...?

It was a beautiful Monday morning. The moon was out, round and yellow. Unfortunately, it was not quite 3AM. But the students gathered in a large circle surrounding both the parents who came to drop them off and those who came to accompany them to Brazil. The gentle quiet of the night was highlighted as the first strains of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” rose and swelled around the circle, tenor, bass and soprano weaving in and out, lifting the parents, lifting the students as they set off on a trip they would long remember.

Personally, I slept through most of it. Not the singing, the bus ride. But by many accounts it proved to be an exciting beginning to our trip. Some said we started flying even before we reached the first airport, others commented on the numerous semis dodged, others still described it as just a bumpy ride. I can say it was pretty cool on bus 3 (the fun bus), even for a June morning in Michigan. But we wrapped ourselves in blankets and sweatshirts and shawls and whatever else we could find, and dug in for a bit of shut-eye. In any case, we made it to Chicago O’Hare all together and all in one piece. And just in time to hurry up and... wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It is surprising how much time it takes to process one hundred twenty passengers through ticket and passport checks and the issuing of boarding cards. To entertain ourselves, we took turns weighing (and re-weighing) our luggage and carry ons. While there is a fifty pound limit for luggage on most international flights, we were delighted to learn that Brazil is the one exception, allowing seventy pounds for each passenger’s luggage. This was particularly good news to me when I discovered that I had over-filled Angie’s bag by eight pounds! My fault for stuffing some of my video accessories into her suitcase when my reached the limit. Oops.

Then we waited (waded) through the TSA line to check our carry on bags, laptops and liquids. All in all, over three hours later, Kevin Dake made his way through the security screening as the last of our group to reach the gates. Where we will... wait.

As expected, the kids are great, the adult company is great, and, even at such an early stage, the trip is great. Hey, even the wait is great!