The beginning of the end

School went back on Wednesday, and now that I've survived the first three days and experienced at least one class in each of my subjects, I can now write a little bit about them, though to be honest, now that I've started writing, I don't really feel like it. Oh well.

English Literature
Even though I usually hate anything to do with English as a subject, I actually enjoyed myself during these first few classes. We were given a booklet which included two short stories called Light is Like Water and On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl and the opening of a book called The Bluest Eye. We read and discussed The Bluest Eye and Light is Like Water in class and, I have to say, I found the class discussion interesting. Hopefully the discussions that we have on our set texts are the same.

Maths
Maths feels the same as it did last year, mainly because most of the students in the class are the same as last year, and the teacher is also the same as last year. I'm still sitting next to Jane who is the inspiration for the Hublub Monster in Kayleuetski's world, so class is still interesting as always.

Maths Specialist
Well, actually, I can't really say all too much on this subject since we haven't really had a proper class yet. We spent our first class getting course outlines and migrating to a different room as someone had stolen the little air conditioner in our room. (It's a heritage building, so they couldn't put air conditioning in the roof or anything like that.)

Chemistry
I actually feel smart this time round in Chemistry. Not because I'm the smartest, but because I seem to be one of only a handful of people brave enough to answer questions. I've already warned the teacher that a) I'm a perfectionist and b) I'm scared of everything in the chem lab, though the latter may not be too much of a problem because I'm determined to take this as an opportunity to Go Forth and Conquer.

Music
We started off music this year with a bang: we had to sing in what was to be a whole-school assembly in the amphitheatre but ended up being only a senior school one in the auditorium due to the weather. It was great to have Miss C back again, because she made warming up our voices so much fun.

As for the actual classes- music, like always, likes to be different. So while Stevie J's computer says that there's only one class of Western Art Music, that one class is split up into two. I'm with Murphy Minor. On Monday and Friday, we do Aural and Theory. On Tuesdays, we'll have Composition with Ms Hamer, and Thursdays is Music Literature with Murphy Minor. (Apparently, it's now called "Cultural and Historical Perspectives," but "Music Lit" sounds better and is easier to say and remember.)

Chinese
Our Chinese class has only 18 people in it, and that's including the Year 12s.

Yes, we have a split class. That sums up how much interest people at my school have in learning foreign languages.

Music Tour- Day Twenty

Our five-hour stopover (actually, I think that it might have ended up being closer to four because of the delay at Paris Airport) at Dubai Airport was rather uneventful. We were provided free food by Emirates because it was such a long stopover, so first we searched for the location of the free food. We had to ask for directions, but the directions were very helpful.

The food wasn’t too much- mainly sandwiches and fruit- but we could take however much we wanted. I think I just took a fruit or two. While we were in the queue, Katie asked the people working there if they were working all night, as it was midnight in Dubai at that time. She was so insistent with this odd question that Karri had to tell her repeatedly to stop it.

Later on, I had a yoghurt snack from Pinkberry. I’m not sure what else I ended up doing for the remainder of the stopover. By the time we had to meet back at the departure gate, everyone was exhausted and most of us were sleeping on chairs or on the floor, apart from Angus who went to buy himself an iPod Touch. Next to the wall, a random traveller was sleeping on a mat that he had brought himself- well prepared!

The whole idea of having to endure another 11 hours of flying after a 5 hour flight and a 5 hour stopover was just... awful, to say the least. In a tired voice, Karri spoke the three words that were probably going through everyone’s minds at that moment:

“I... hate... flying...”

When we had gotten our boarding passes checked, we went down the escalator, and proceeded to sleep on the floor of the lower floor of the gate, until Mrs F yelled at us to “start acting civilised.” Eventually, we got on the plane, which was thankfully on time. I had a window seat again (I hate window seats). Max, who had aisle seat, fell asleep almost immediately.

As soon I had thought that the seatbelt light had gone off, I rushed down to the toilet to brush my teeth using the amenity kit I had been given (I had been waiting for this opportunity during the five-hour stopover!). I only realised the seatbelt light hadn’t gone off because there was an illuminated sign in there telling me to go back to my seat, but the flight attendants didn’t seem to care.

Later, we were served breakfast. It was hilarious when the flight attendants tried to serve Max breakfast because he was just like, “No, I’ll be fine, I’m not hungry.” I asked him if he wanted to swap seats but he said no. I think he was too tired to do that as well.

After a while the cabin lights were dimmed and it became quite dark. I decided to take the hint and use my eyepatch and recline my seat to get some sleep. I think I might have actually succeeded, but to what extent I am not certain.

When it was soon time to land in Australia, we were shown a video about quarantine rules. We had to see the same video twice because we were flying Emirates: first in Arabic with English subtitles, then in English with English subtitles.

The first thing that we had to do once we had gotten off the plane was to queue up for immigration. Someone said something about the airport having boarder security, to which we replied, “Yes, every airport has border security!” They then said that they were talking about the TV show called “Border Security.” Mrs F said, “Well, let’s just make sure that we’re not on it!”

After passing through passport control, I took my luggage off the conveyor belt and could leave instantly as I didn’t have to wait for the instruments to come out of the hold or carry a percussion instrument. I proceeded through quarantine, in which it looked like I had a bit of everything because I was being my usual overcautious self, but everything went through without any problems. On the other side of the door, I found a whole bunch of parents clapping and cheering, and I just stood there for a couple of seconds, a little overwhelmed, not knowing in which direction to walk next. Soon, I saw my sister running towards me and thus I escaped being in the limelight, the subject of the applause of a bunch of overenthusiastic parents.

Music Tour- Day Nineteen

That morning, after breakfast, we all carried our suitcases down to the buses. As a result of moving the lighter, larger items to my suitcase and the smaller, denser items to my hand luggage, my suitcase was so light that I could carry it with one hand and my clarinet with the other. According to Mrs F, I looked like I was strolling down the stairs! Once I had taken my suitcase to the bus I offered to help some other people with instruments but nobody seemed too overburdened.

On the way to the airport, we had a quiz which included questions such as “How many hand towels did Jenny buy in London [to make up for the hostel’s lack of towels]?” (114 if I remember correctly) and “How long was the train ride through the Channel Tunnel?” (apparently it was only 30-45min!).

In the queue for check-in, Stevie J asked me how I was so I said, “Better than before leaving Canberra!” and when he asked why, I said that it was because I used to be afraid of aeroplane toilets. His response was something like, “Oh, they’re just a walk in the park now, aren’t they?”

Hilarious. It’s even funnier when you consider how much room you actually get to manoeuvre in those things.

When I had to check in, I tried to lift my suitcase with one hand again, except somehow I managed to accidentally swing it around and bang it into the counter twice before placing it on the conveyor belt. Funnily enough, it wasn’t because I’d gone even lighter than 15kg- my bag weighed 16kg or something, but the guy didn’t care. I think we would have only had to pay if the whole group (including instruments) ended up being overweight.

After I had checked in, we all compared seating allocations with each other. Someone commented on how it was probably going to be a big plane. I told them that when I was bored I looked up what type of aircraft, I found that we would be going on an A380 (currently the world’s largest passenger plane) for the flight. I then proceeded to be the most annoying person on Earth by telling them all about what happened to a Qantas A380 theyear before (one of the engines exploded).

Once I’d gotten past security, I had a job to do: I had to buy my sister’s makeup for her (she’d given me the money to do so, and a list of what she wanted). It was easy enough except I didn’t see the mascara she wanted the first time I went in. Fortunately, I decided to have a closer look and found it.

We then went to get lunch at a shop further down the airport. The shop had a variety of meals that required heating up in the in-store microwave. I got a hamburger, which was pretty overpriced, but I guess I should have expected that considering that that was pretty much the only food shop in the terminal (if not the only one). If I remember correctly a couple of other people had pasta. Once I had finished my hamburger, I finished off my chocolates, but not my lollipop.

Our flight was once again delayed for about an hour. When our plane arrived, however, there was some excitement and photo-taking amongst nerds like me who get excited by big planes.

Once I was on the plane, I sat down in my allocated seat, which unfortunately was a window seat, and listened to “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd. Not long after, Mrs F came and sat down in the aisle seat. Perfect timing. Soon, a year 12 boy came and sat between us. When the plane took off, the year 12 boy left and Mrs F and I were left with a spare seat (the plane was big enough so that there were plenty of spare seats available). Mrs F told me that I could have that seat as I planned to try and get some sleep on that flight as it was night time back home and I wanted to adjust my body clock.

Needless to say, my attempts were futile. I couldn’t sleep because my old phobia continually tried to haunt me. Eventually, I listened to the second movement of Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony (it’s played at the end of The King’s Speech, and it’s a piece of music that says to me, “Go forth with courage!”) and went to visit my old No. 1 fear. I told it off for not being loud enough (!), then went back to my seat to try and sleep again. Some turbulence came and felt as if it was rocking me to sleep, but unfortunately the seatbelt light came on and I had to sit up properly.

Later on, when I waited in the queue for a second time, the toilets decided to really “go for gold.” Two flushed at once and they both sounded loud even in the queue! When I was at the front of the queue, I decided to “walk off my nervous energy” and started pacing with the first couple of lines of a song I had written going through my head:

“Harsh it is, the path you travel lonely,
Fear awaits, but forward you must journey.”

As I turned around to walk off a little more of my nervous energy, I found, with some irritation, that there was a vacant toilet before me. To be honest, I think that’s possibly the only time I’ve actually felt annoyed at seeing a vacant toilet.

When I returned to my seat, I had an epiphany telling me why I was the most annoying passenger on aeroplanes.

I am the most annoying person on aeroplanes because I never shut up about aeroplane toilets. I never shut up when I’m IN them either, as I’m always singing or taunting them to calm myself down.

When the plane landed, everyone got up before the seatbelt sign went off. (Who doesn’t?) Mrs F said, “No, you can’t stand up! The seatbelt sign’s still on! You know the rules!” As if in defiance, Murphy Major, who was sitting in front of Mrs F, got up, stretched, and looked at Mrs F right in the eyes while casually talking about how much leg room the seats had!

Music Tour- Day Eighteen

(I think I could actually flesh out this one a bit more, but it's 9.01pm now and my head hurts after being on the computer for 8 hours- major procrastinating!)

On our last full day in France, we went back to Paris. In the morning, we went on a river cruise down the Seine, accompanied by commentary in five or so different languages including English, French, Chinese (Mandarin) and Japanese. I kept up with my tradition of taking photos of the underside of bridges as well as the wonders that could be seen on the banks of the Seine. The chaperones advised everyone to go to the loo on the boat as there wouldn’t be too many opportunities later, so we did. I saw the sign that said “To flush- close the lid and push” and from the words “close the lid” I instantly knew that it was a vacuum toilet.

So I did the unthinkable. I closed the lid, washed my hands, opened the door, covered my ears and kicked the button.

I unblocked my ears at the end and was glad to hear that I hadn’t blocked my ears for no good reason. I kicked myself all the way back to my seat, however, as I was ashamed at having given in to my old fear. I was going to flush away some used tissues I had in my pocket from my cold in order to make up for it, but unfortunately there was a queue each time so I would have to wait until the flight the next day.

After the cruise, we went back into the buses and were dropped off somewhere else in Paris. We got into our tour groups and walked around. We went to a souvenir shop before crossing the road to another road with a few food places and souvenir shops. We passed an Asian restaurant, and some people in my group insisted on having sushi, because it totally makes sense to go to France to eat Asian food! I just had my packed lunch, but I couldn’t be bothered peeling my orange because it was too messy. I thought it was just me being domestically challenged, but when I asked if anybody was good at peeling oranges, everybody said that they weren’t. (Later, when I returned home, I overheard some other people complaining about peeling oranges. I can’t explain how relieved this made me feel.)

After lunch, we met up again outside a souvenir shop at the end of the road. A few fire engines were now on the little road we were on, but we couldn’t see the fire so we assumed it was on the next street. When everyone was together, we went for a walk to the front of Notre Dame de Paris (we didn’t go in). We then set off for the Metro train so that we could take the train to the Eiffel Tower. Our train was a double-decker train, which fascinated us. Someone said, “Why take a double-decker bus when you can take a double-decker train?”

On the train, we passed a station called “Pont de l’Alma.” As Ashleigh was obsessed with the Llama song at this stage, I wanted to take a picture of the sign because “L’ALMA” looks a little bit like “LLAMA” and it wouldn’t surprise me if “l’Alma” was pronounced something like “lol-ma.” Unfortunately I forgot to turn off flash and the random person sitting across from me glared at me as she probably thought I’m one of those people who takes pictures of people without them noticing for the laughs. I don’t think I sounded very convincing when I said that I was taking a picture of the train station as there wasn’t much to take a picture of.

When we got off at the Eiffel Tower, one of the chaperones started talking about which way we had to go to get to the Eiffel Tower. Claire said, “I don’t think we’re going to miss it- it’s a 300m tall tower!” As expected, we reached the Eiffel Tower with little difficulty.

At the Eiffel Tower, we were given tickets. Each A4 sheet of paper had two tickets, so we were meant to go up in pairs. Unfortunately, in the massive queues on the tower, I lost my partner who was holding our tickets, but someone else with a ticket had lost their partner so we partnered up, hoping that our partners had partnered up with each other. If I remember correctly, my new partner’s original partner decided to go down early, so that solved the problem.

The queue was absolutely ridiculous, but at least there was a good view throughout it. At long last, we reached the summit, where we went onto the (enclosed) balcony and took pictures before joining the queue to go back down again. In the queue, when I looked behind me, a couple of people from our tour group were holding those special brushes with built-in toothpaste which allow you to brush your teeth anywhere. Actually, they weren’t just holding them, they were brushing their teeth with them! One of them remarked, “This is a strange place to brush our teeth!”

Around the small room at the top of the Eiffel Tower were flags from different countries with their distances from the Eiffel Tower. There was also a map showing the different floors of the Eiffel Tower in detail, including a toilet on the 7^th floor. I pointed it out to Xanthe, and she asked, “How does it flush?”

Eventually, we got down to the second floor and queued up in a much shorter queue for the lift down to the ground floor. As we boarded the lift, a little panel that displayed weight. Karri commented on this, saying, “I refuse to believe that we all weigh 4.2 tons!” I suggested that it might be including the weight of all of the metal that the carriage is comprised of, and she said that that made sense.

At the bottom, we had ice-cream (I ordered in French again, and the person who served me helped me with my pronunciation) and wished Julia farewell as she would be setting off with her family for Italy and then Dubai. It was soon time for us to go back to the hotel. As we left, I saw Alex T in the next bus pulling a weird face with his mouth open and eyes wide, so I pulled the same weird face back at him, and we both started laughing. (When I got the chance, I said to him, “Nice bus face!”)

That night, we had a meeting about the journey home. Mr Hey said that the luggage limit was 30kg (the economy class allowance for Emirates), and we would have to pay if we went over that limit. The lady who organised our tour (at least the parts in France) was there, however, and she said, “It says here that their luggage limit is 15kg due to the instruments and it’s 30 Euros for every kilogram over!” I was a bit worried about that seeing as my luggage weighed somewhere around 18kg last time I checked, so as soon as I was able I moved all of my items that are light but take up a lot of space into my suitcase, moved all of my smaller, denser items into my hand luggage, threw out my old shoes (which is what my mum told me to do anyway) and my toiletries as I knew that I would get toothpaste and a toothbrush on the flight home. The bins outside were pretty full once everyone had lightened their loads.

Lights out was at 11pm, but at 5 to 11 Jess C and I could hear people talking really loudly down the corridor. At 11pm, Jonty and some other people started singing “Joshua fight de battle ob Jerico” at full volume. Nobody came to tell them off, which surprised me greatly. When the singers finally did get told off, that was no problem for them- they simply moved outside and, according to people who saw, were dancing really strangely.

It turned out that all of the teachers and chaperones were in the other building.

Music Tour- Day Seventeen

On our second morning in France, we went to Amiens via the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, a fairly large war memorial. It had a tower which we climbed up. There was a good view, but it was a view of gravestones (as well as other people from our tour group). We stopped another time to have a lunch which was slightly rushed if you factored in the toilet queue as well. At last, we were back on the bus and off to Amiens.

When we arrived in Amiens, I was told by the bus driver to put my clarinet onto Bus 3 with all of the other small instruments, which I did gratefully as it saved me the bother of lugging it around with me. Our first stop was Notre Dame d’Amiens, which we were given a tour of. It was an enormous cathedral, with large stained glass windows and plenty of sculptures and decorations.

Following our tour, we were given time to explore Amiens in small groups before meeting at the Town Hall (l’Hôtel de Ville). We went down to the road the town hall was on as it had a lot of shops in it, and turned right and right again to another small street with some stalls and shops. At one of the stalls, Jacinta saw some mini suits and she and Boyuan were talking about buying them for their younger brothers. At one of the shops, I saw a bag pinkish in colour that caught my eye, and I debated for a little over whether or not to buy it. In the end, I decided to buy it because I had bought very little up to this point.

Once we had left this store, we went back to the main road and walked in the other direction. We saw a shop called “Claire’s Accessories,” so we took pictures of Claire standing in front of it. Some people bought crêpes at a crêpe stall. I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t get one. We then headed off to McDonalds for a toilet stop, and although access to the toilets is meant to be via a password provided on the bottom of your receipt (to stop people like us who don’t want to go to public pay toilets!), some nice people held open the doors for us so we didn’t have to pay a cent.

After leaving McDonalds, we continued down the road and stopped by a pâtisserie. I bought a caramel macaroon because my sister told me that I had to have at least one macaroon in France. I ordered in French, and was very proud of myself until I realised that I couldn’t understand the shop assistant’s reply and had to guess by her body language. A couple of other people bought macaroons as well.

Eventually we came to a junction with a double-decker merry-go-round. For some reason, that excited us. I spoke in broken French to the merry-go-round attendant because he was curious about what school we came from and why we were in France. We then proceeded to go onto the merry-go-round. Some people didn’t want to go on but when we found that the tickets were cheaper if a certain number of people went on, we dragged them on too. I sat on a swinging bench on the top deck. As our ride neared its end, we caught sight of Mr Hey who was watching us from below and shouted greetings down to him.

It was now time to head back to the Amiens Town Hall. Unfortunately, as we headed over there, it started to rain, which spoiled our plans of having a concert outside the town hall. We were shepherded into the town hall, where we were provided with food and drink. As it started to clear up, we warmed up our voices. Later we had a sort of mini-concert on the steps of the town hall and we had our photos taken, both while we were singing and after we were singing. As you can imagine, the former looked rather odd due to the positions of everyone’s mouths.

We were given a short amount of time- fifteen minutes or so- to roam the streets of Amiens again before heading back to Notre Dame d’Amiens. I had remembered the way we had taken to get to the street with the town hall, so when we passed that road, I thought the others intended to do a quick spot of shopping. Later I found out that this was not the case, and we all realised at once that we had not taken the most efficient route of returning to the cathedral.

Upon returning, I noticed, to my horror, that some people already had their small instruments with them. I asked Mr Hey where Bus 3 was because my clarinet was on it, and he scared me further by saying, “No buses are carrying instruments.” Later on, however, he told me that he realised that Bus 3 was, indeed, carrying instruments, and it was going to arrive when we would actually be performing.

Dinner was at what seemed to be the refectory of a nearby university. The food was pretty good, at least good enough to make up for the fact that the person who was meant to have opened the refectory in time for us arrived late. After dinner, we walked to a smaller cathedral which was practically right behind the university refectory. This was where we would have our concert that night.

If I remember correctly, Bus 3 was a little late, but I was glad to be reunited with my clarinet, and Boyuan was glad to be reunited with her violin. I performed with both Wind Orchestra and Chorale that night. Not too many people arrived for the concert, and the coughs that punctuated the gaps between Chorale songs didn’t exactly make for our best concert ever, but I don’t remember our playing being terrible either. Symphony Orchestra’s playing of Small Town was made a little spooky by the trumpet players’ utilisation of the balcony at the back of the auditorium, which made us wonder where the trumpet sound was coming from.

On the bus home from Amiens, I just played my DS and occasionally tried to peer out the window with little success due to the darkness outside. Part way through the drive, I heard Kieran yell to Angus, “They’re talking about how the 50^th Battalion’s a herp derp!”

I had no idea what “herp derp” meant, but I was a little sick of the phrase since I’d been hearing it from the mouths of the boys since Hungary, so I just sighed and kept playing. Eventually, however, Angus got sick of the “herp derp” talk and yelled at the other boys to stop talking about the 50^th Battalion. Their response was as to be expected:

“Okay- 60^th Battalion!”

“51^st Battalion!”
“55^th Battalion!”
“40^th Battalion!”

Music Tour- Day Sixteen

On our first morning in France, we went to Paris. We were dropped off near an obelisk near the Seine and were given a couple of hours of free time. The Louvre was nearby, but Jenny said that the queue can take several hours and Claire said that the last time she went to France her parents, who were art enthusiasts, went to the Louvre for three days in a row, so consequently she wasn’t all too interested in the Louvre any more. We went to the Musée de l’Orangerie instead, which was a smaller art museum nearby. There was a good view of the Seine nearby, so we went to have a look in small groups so as not to lose our place in the queue. Nearby, a tour group from another school walked past wearing fluoro yellow jackets. We were grateful that we didn’t have to wear them!

I’m not an art enthusiast at all, so all this museum left me was the question of why there are so many naked people in art. I did find some paintings which interested me, though.

After the museum, we went for a walk to the cathedral where we would be playing next. On the way, Stevie J and Tori insisted on having a photo taken in front of a water fountain which they apparently visited as children. Once we had reached the cathedral, we were allowed to split up into small groups to explore the surrounding area and perhaps go shopping. This was a fairly expensive district so all we ended up doing was window shopping and meeting up with other groups which had arrived. Eventually, it was time to go back to the cathedral. On the way, I crossed when the pedestrian lights were green, which was a bad mistake on my part considering that I was in France and pedestrian lights don’t take turning traffic into account (turning traffic doesn’t have turning arrows to my knowledge, drivers turn when it’s safe to). First, I almost got run over by a white van rounding a corner and then I almost got run over by a motorcycle going in the opposite direction (in some roads in France, bikes and buses have special lanes and have to keep left instead of right). When I told Blake later, he said, “Okay, so first you almost get run over by a paedophile, and then you almost get run over by a bikie?”

At the cathedral, which was l’Église de la Madeleine (the Church of the Madeleine), Jess B met up with her family before we had a rehearsal. Only small instrumental groups were performing as well as Chorale. The acoustics in the church were great, especially in Joshua Fight de Battle ob Jerico.

Following the concert, we were driven down the Champs-Élysées to l’Arc de Triomphe. At first, I was a little scared that we would have to cross the roundabout, known historically as the Place de l’Étoile, but according to Wikipedia is now called the Place Charles de Gaulle. This roundabout is notorious as being one of the most difficult for motorists because not only are there three or so lanes in the roundabout, there are also twelve lanes leading in and out of it. If you don’t know what you are doing, you are in trouble. I didn’t have to worry for long, however, because we were soon led to an underpass that led directly to the central island where l’Arc de Triomphe stands.

Every evening, at 6.30pm Paris time, a ceremony known as the La Flamme ceremony takes place. Wind Orchestra performed our three ceremonial pieces (Largo, Blessed are They and Well Met, My Own True Love) as well as the French national anthem. After the ceremony, which I didn’t understand any more than I understood the one at the Menin Gate, one of the soldiers complimented us on our performance of La Marsellaise (the French national anthem).

After the ceremony, we were given some free time to wander down the Champs-Élysées in fairly large groups. We went to a few stores and I tried on something at one of the stores, but after experiencing just how annoying it was to go clothes shopping while wearing formal uniform, I gave up and just window shopped (though I did buy some earrings). Towards the end of our free time, we bumped into Murphy Minor who told us about the Sephora that she just visited, and all of the other girls in my group were excited about that so they insisted on visiting even though we didn’t have any time, much to the chagrin of the boys and I. It didn’t help matters that the Sephora store on the Champs-Élysées is massive either.

By the time we made it back to the restaurant we were to meet at, I thought we were the last group back. (I don’t think we were, as later on when I went to get non-carbonated water I think I saw some other people from our tour group queuing up.) The food was pretty good, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to taste my dessert. I thought that I should go to the toilet before finishing my meal so that I didn’t get held up later, but the queue was far too long and moved far too slowly. To make matters worse, there was no toilet paper left by the time the last few people went so Murphy Minor had to give some tissues to people (unused, of course!). I had had tissues in my pocket, but unfortunately they were all used up due to my cold. I also had a full toilet roll in my bag (I find toilet rolls are better than packet tissues as packet tissues never seem to be absorbent enough for my nose, and besides Mr Hey had scared some of us, including me, by saying that there isn’t any toilet paper in public toilets in Hungary) but as we were told to bring only what was necessary to a crowded street such as the Champs-Élysées, I had left my bag on the bus and brought only my camera and the cleaning cloth for my glasses.

When we left, it was a rush to get back onto the buses. We were told to cross at the junction where the pedestrian lights were green, but I knew that it didn’t make too much of a difference because it’s France, so I made sure to look before crossing anyway. (I became a decent jaywalker in France because of the terrible pedestrian lights.) There were a couple of other people ahead of me because they’re more confident in their jaywalking abilities than I am, but I am a pretty good runner too, so I caught up to them. Eventually, after these annoyances, it was another hour or so drive back to our hotel in Senlis. The annoyances and long drive were pretty minor compared to the rest of the day, so overall I had a pretty good day with the bonuses of performing beneath the Arc de Triomphe and in the Church of the Madeleine.

Music Tour- Day Fifteen

On our final day in Belgium, we packed up and moved our suitcases downstairs in preparation to leave. It was raining, so instead of walking down to the buses as was our original plan, we had to wait for the buses to come to us and park illegally in the small road so that we didn’t have to carry so much in the rain. As we hurried on to the buses, I dropped my neck pillow in the gutter. I picked it up and resolved to wash it at the earliest opportunity.

It was a long trip from Belgium to France, during which we stopped several times. Our first stop was at two graveyards. Buses 1 and 2 went to one and buses 3 and 4 went to the other. A former student of our school was buried at each graveyard. One of the girls from Bus 3 was a distant relative of one of the former students buried at the graveyard that we visited. We had a small ceremony where the student gave a speech and we sang the school song and the national anthem. It wasn’t all too fancy, but it was certainly a very moving experience. If I hadn’t had to conserve my tissues due to the fact that I had a cold at this point, I would have shed a few tears.

Our next stop was a graveyard seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, a distant relative of Angus’ was buried at this graveyard, so we stopped for a short while to give Angus and his dad time to look at the graveyard register to find the grave and pay their respects.

Stop number 3 was at a fairly large town. If I remember correctly what Stevie J said, this town was called Lille. We had an hour or so to have a breather, eat, find a toilet and do a little bit of shopping. The toilet was a pay toilet and required 40 cents. The smallest change I had was a 1 Euro coin, so I shoved that in the change machine. I counted the number of 10 cent coins that came out to ensure that I didn’t get ripped off.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...

7, 8...

9...

10...

11!!

After we all made a trip to the toilet (our tour group made for a long toilet queue!) we had a look around the shops. We went into a game shop and saw Pokémon Black and White in French (Pokémon Noire et Blanche). We also had a look at some jewellery stalls, but none of us were really in the mood for shopping that day so we went back to the entrance where Stevie J was. Stevie J said, “You can tell that French people really like clothes, judging by the fact that 90% of the shopping centre is clothes shops!” (That’s probably the same for all countries though.) We ended up playing Cheat around the shop directory on the bottom floor until the security guard asked us to move off to the side. He asked us in French, so it was pretty good that we had Camille with us to translate.

Soon, we were back in the buses for the long trip through several toll booths to Senlis, where our hotel was. As we were waiting to receive our room keys, a few people who had already received their keys were making a big fuss about how there were double beds in the boys’ double rooms. Oddly enough, nobody was making a fuss about the double beds in the girls’ double rooms.

The hotel was more or less divided into two halves, with reception and half of the rooms in one building and the other half of the rooms in the other. I was in the same room (in the second building) as Jess C and Boyuan, and although we only had three in our room, we had a double bed and a bunk bed. It was fairly cramped in our room, but there was still just enough space to manoeuvre our suitcases, my clarinet and Boyuan’s violin.

Once we were settled, it was dinner time. After dinner, we went for a walk down to the fair. When we got there, it seemed as if the fair was closed, so we walked on past the cathedral in Senlis. It seemed huge to us, but then Mr Coy told us that the one we would visit in Amiens in two days would be three times larger.

As we walked back, we discovered that the fair was, in fact, open. A couple of people bought some lollies and things from the counter. Someone had a go at the skilltester (you know, those machines where you have to pick up a toy with the claw that can’t pick stuff up to save its life). Amy had a lot of goes on the Pokémon skilltester but to no avail, though apparently she has actually won stuff from skilltesters in the past. Eventually the climax of the night came: some people wanted to try the “ejection” ride, so the people working at the fair started it up for them. Two people could go at a time. When Jordyn and Courteney went up, one of them screamed. To this day, I have no idea who it was. Apparently it was Jordyn. If it was, that was one high-pitched scream, though I probably shouldn’t be too surprised: apparently Jordyn’s voice went up two octaves after the wedgie he got from the Big Swing on Health Camp.

Eventually the teachers decided that it was getting late and we had to head back to the hotel. On the way back, some people crossed the road at a junction because no cars indicated to turn into that junction. A truck then drove past, honking loudly, and the people on the road screamed and quickly ran off the road. The truck didn’t turn. I expected that the drivers of that truck laughed their heads off to wherever they were going. 

Music Tour- Day Fourteen

On the morning of my birthday, at breakfast, Jenny wished me a happy birthday and presented me with a gift of Belgian chocolates! These six chocolates were cat-shaped, and there were two white chocolate cats, two milk chocolate, and two dark chocolate. Later, as we prepared to leave the hostel to visit the “In Flanders Field Museum” that morning, while Stevie J was teaching someone how to tie a tie, Murphy Minor gave me two more presents: a chocolate dog and a pink and white large spiral lollipop, which she warned me not to eat all at once. It was great being showered down with gifts!

At the museum, Mr Hey mentioned me and two other people who had their birthday on the same day. We then got to enter the war museum and I took my time looking around and reading a lot of the information (though don’t ask me to recall any of it!). I think most of my friends had left by the time I left but I wasn’t the last one to leave.

We then had a little bit of time to spare at the hostel. Some of my friends were already walking around Ypres at this point while others were looking at manga stuff on the Internet. It didn’t occur to me to leave the hostel on my own (because I’m lame like that), but I did have some washing to catch up with (because I’m doubly lame like that). I think I also used that time to send a few emails as well on the annoying AZERTY keyboard the hostel had while listening to the Narwhal Song that some other people from my tour group had playing on the computer that they were using. In the end it was probably a good thing I didn’t see where the others were or that would have ruined the surprise for me when they came back: they presented me with a lovely ladybird cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to eat it at that point as we were about to go to Fromelles in France, and I wanted to save it for later because it almost looked too good to eat!

Oddly enough, although I hadn’t felt motion sickness at all earlier on tour, I felt slightly ill on the bus on my birthday, of all days. When we stopped at the first war memorial, I gladly took a breath of fresh air. This graveyard was rather small compared to the other ones that we had visited, but it was still fairly substantial. I wonder what Archduke Franz-Ferdinand would say to all of this? (I’m pretty sure most if not all of the graveyards we visited predominantly consisted of graves from World War One, and I think the death toll for World War Two was supposed to be higher.)

When I had finished looking around, I joined some of the others who were standing around near the bus. Someone went to the toilet on the bus, and not long after they did, we heard a whirring sound and then the splash of water hitting the road! Of course, that just led us to pretty bad conclusions. Sarah said, “Okay, guys... nobody do a number 2 in there!” Eric later tried to reassure us that that water was simply tap water waste or something.

We visited another two war memorials after that. The first was very small and didn’t have any graves (to my knowledge)- just a sculpture showing a man carrying a wounded comrade to safety. The second was larger. Eden borrowed my camera at that point so he could take 11 pictures of the door of the war memorial. Apparently the door was “cool.”

Our next destination was another town, Radinghem en Wappes, or to be more specific, a cathedral in Radinghem en Wappes. We had a rehearsal here for the concert that night. Wind Orchestra wasn’t playing, so I just warmed up with Chorale, and ate bits of my (now partially squashed) cake when I had a break. We then got to have a quick rehearsal on stage, after which Mr Hey called the three birthday girls to the front, and Chorale sang “Happy Birthday” to us- in four-part vocal style, which sounded really nice and was by far the best I’ve ever had this song sung to me.

Dinner soon followed and was prepared by the local people. It was only sandwiches (ham sandwiches and cheese sandwiches) but that was probably to be expected as there were so many of us to be served. The cakes that were served for dessert tasted pretty good though.

Following dinner, we got changed and had to walk to the cathedral in concert uniform. If I remember correctly, it was a pretty cold night, and I was quite grateful for my black wrap. In this concert, we got to sit on small chairs to the sides if we weren’t performing which allowed us to see what the other groups had to perform. Senior Wind Quintet was of particular interest to me because they played one of the songs that Junior Wind Quintet was learning before it ceased to run.

We returned to the hostel pretty late after this concert. On the bus, everyone in Angus’ room yelled at him to do his travel diary on the bus so that they didn’t have to shove him in the bathroom again. When we got back to the hostel, it was 11.30pm the first time I checked my watch. We were served waffles for desert, following which we didn’t have a specified lights out, it was just “go to bed as soon as you’re ready.” I don’t remember exactly what time I did end up going to bed, but it was almost definitely after midnight.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is following me everywhere!

So, I start reading Frankenstein, and what do I see on the bottom of page 21?

"I am going to unexplored regions to 'the land of mist and snow'; but I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety, or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the 'Ancient Mariner'. You will smile at my allusion; but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for the dangerous mysteries of ocean, to the production of the most imaginative of modern poets."

My comments:

1. Some "allusion" this is! Did the narrator want to be any more explicit in which poem he was referencing?
2. The word "modern" in the last sentence is just further proof that 200 years ago didn't seem like 200 years ago back then, it seemed modern. According to the appendix of Frankenstein, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was written in 1798. Frankenstein was written in 1818.

Music Tour- Day Thirteen

We spent our first morning in Belgium touring battlefield sites, starting with Hill 60 and Hill 62. Before tour, Mr Hey had warned us that if it had rained at all in the past week, our shoes would get muddy so we should bring old shoes that we wouldn’t mind throwing out after visiting the battlefields. It hadn’t rained, however, so I could keep my shoes with me for the rest of the tour.

Anyway, the first hill we went to (I can’t remember whether it was Hill 60 or Hill 62) was absolutely beautiful. We went to a clearing with a man-made lake in the middle. Apparently, the lake was caused by a mine explosion during World War One. On the other side of the lake, we could see many trees shrouded by mist. It’s hard to capture its beauty using words only. In fact, not only a picture could give you the full sense of what it was like there- you’d have to go there to get the entire effect. It’s odd how such destruction could have caused such beauty.

The other hill had a fairly convoluted landscape, again due to the battles during WWI. Some of the bunkers still remain there. You could tell which bunker belonged to which army due to the directions they faced.

After visiting the two hills we visited several other war memorials. The situation was the same- beautiful scenery in a place that exists to remember those who lost their lives during the war. Who would have thought that the death of an Austrian aristocrat could spell the death of so many others?

We had a little bit of free time in Ypres. I got some Belgian chocolate from one chocolate shop but then found out that the chocolate shop we had visited before that had had a special deal where you could get quite a lot of chocolate for only 10 euros! I was a bit annoyed at myself for that.

After that, we had a concert in the market square. Wind Orchestra was performing, as well as the Saxophone and Jazz ensembles. After playing Fantasy on an Australian Folk Song or Waltzing Matilda (can’t remember which one it was that we played) one of the members of our audience yelled, “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” I was surprised at this- I didn’t know that so many Europeans knew the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant!

Wind Orchestra performed last. After we were finished, we all packed up and headed up the road towards a restaurant to have dinner in our group of 166. I think we practically took up the whole restaurant. I think we had steak or some other kind of meat served with chips, which is basically what we had the night before (vegetarians had had omelette that night, but I’m not sure about this particular night).

This restaurant was where we all had our most awkward toilet experience ever (well, those who needed to go had an awkward experience anyway). The toilet was a unisex toilet. Basically, the door opened to reveal the urinal and a sink, and there was another door which led to the toilet itself. Nobody used the urinal, and I don’t blame them. It was barely concealed by a screen- in fact, the people sitting across from me at my table could see the urinal clearly. In the queue for the toilet, the boy behind me asked the waiter if that was the only toilet in the restaurant, and he said yes. The boy then said, “Good, because I’d feel awkward if I was queuing up for a girls’ bathroom.” I didn’t say anything, but I thought, “How do you think I feel?! There’s a urinal here!”

After dinner, we went back down the road but instead of going all the way back to our hostels, we stopped at Menin Gate, an arch-shaped memorial. Wind Orchestra was playing its memorial repertoire again for the ceremony, while the choir, which was present this time, sang. Quite a lot of people were watching the ceremony. I didn’t understand what was going on a lot of the time, but at least I understood what I had to do, unlike at the Dawn Service where confusion abounded.

When the ceremony was over, there were some Australian army people there handing out badges, stickers and balloons. I considered getting a badge for Tyko but by the time they got to me they had run out so I took a few balloons instead. As we walked back to our hostels, I heard someone behind me say, “Wow, what time does it set in this place?!” I looked at my watch and understood what they were talking about- it was 8.50pm and it still looked like 5pm on a summer evening! (I’m not sure what time the sun actually did set because I wasn’t paying attention.)

Lights out was 10.30pm, half an hour after the hostel manager said we had to be quiet otherwise the neighbours would complain. At 10.32, Mrs F came to our room and asked us why the lights weren’t out. She must have been pretty exact considering that our room wouldn’t have even been the first one she would have visited! I must commend her for trying such tactics on a group of teenagers on tour.