We board our buses in two groups for our morning of sightseeing with our french tour guide at 9:00am. This bus tour was intended to give our students and parents an overview of the major historical sights in Paris including Notre Dame, The Louvre Museum, Eiffel Tower (our New Year's Day Marching Concert location), Champs Elysee (upscale shopping district of Paris) and the Arc de Triomphe. We have a few stops, but will be able to better experience this venues over the next several days.
We arrived back at the hotel around 1:00 pm and walked across the street to have lunch at a large shopping mall with lot's of choices including small cafe's, pizza, sandwich shops, bakeries, and even a McDonald's. Most stayed away from McDonald's and tried some french cuisine. Our group enjoyed a variety of baggettes with choices of meats, cheeses and desserts.
Afternoon Rehearsal started at 2:30pm for approximately one hour. We used the time to dust off the instruments, warm-up and review our concert music.
We left the hotel at 4:15pm to our Concert location, the original City Hall of the 14th Neighborhood of Paris. We had time to warm-up and then go to dinner within walking distance. There were many cafe's within a short walk and chaperones escorted their groups for dinner using our Meal Vouchers. Most dined our either grilled chicken with french fries and a salad in various restaurants. These restaurants were very tourist friendly and all have menu items geared towards our type of group. Several students tried local favorites like roast confit of duck, sirlion steak and salads. I have not heard of anyone trying escargot as of this writing, but will probably find out in the morning.
We walked back to our concert location at 7:40pm. Concert started at 8:00pm. We share the concert with the Sterling Heights, Michigan High School Wind Ensemble and the Jefferson County, Colorado All District High School Honor Band and Honor Choir. Our group listened to all the performances before us before taking the stage as the last group at 9:00pm. (I shot some HD quality digital video of our concert which I will upload either on this website or our YouTube. Stay tuned for more...)
Concert was a great success and we closed the concert with a very fast piece with lot's of energy and sound. Much better than rehearsal and warm-up! RCMC rised to the occasion and entertained our audience with a very lyrical piece, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss by David Holsinger, and the spirited, The Light Eternal by James Swearingen. Our group received a huge applause and ended the concert on a high.
We arrived back at our hotel around 10:15pm. A very busy day!
I posted pictures of our Sightseeing adventure, Rehearsal and Concert on our Picture Page. Enjoy!
Rob Smit
