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.