Music Tour- Day Twelve

At 3am, we woke up.

Yes, 3am.

No breakfast straight away, either- we had to get dressed, go to the Dawn Service, and sing for our breakfast.

I didn’t know that we were allowed to wear our jumpers for the Dawn Service (though not for the service afterwards), so I didn’t have mine. I found out when we got on the bus, but by that time, I thought that I would be okay without it, and besides I couldn’t be bothered going back to get it or lugging it around Westminster Abbey later. So I soldiered on without it.

When we got off the bus at the Dawn Service, I found that I may have been wrong. Actually, I’m not sure if wearing a jumper would have helped because it was my face and legs that were cold- apparently 120 denier just wasn’t going to cut it for me on a British spring morning. I probably would have been semi-okay for tiredness if I wasn’t feeling so cold. The cold just made me feel terrible, and the terribleness made me remember my tiredness. In fact, I lamented to someone, “This is my first Dawn Service- and it’s probably going to be my last.” Stevie J happened to overhear, and he laughed before remembering that he should be serious and said, “Don’t say things like that!”

Programmes were handed out, but they never reached my end of the choir. If I had had a programme, I would have known that we were to sing verses 1, 2 and 5 of Abide With Me, and I would have known what the words were. Unfortunately, I thought that we were going to sing verses 1, 3, 4 and 5, the way we had practised in choir, and in choir we had been told that we hadn’t had to learn the words for verse 2. That was the first problem I had in the choir. I managed to borrow a programme off someone else later (they at least had someone that they could share with while I didn’t) when we had to sing New Zealand’s national anthem, so at least I had the words for that. When the band played, they left a random pause before the last line which threw everybody off, at least the first time around. I think they may have also done this for the Australian national anthem too. In any case, it was pretty annoying.

After the Dawn Service, we headed off somewhere else for breakfast. I can’t remember what the place was called but I do remember that one of the chaperones or teachers said that it was a “bloke’s club” which is why there were only two ladies’ toilets. (I was lucky enough to go when there were only three or four people in the queue- by the time I left the queue was several metres long!) Anyway, when we got to the place the ten of us found that most of the tables were taken up so, after Mrs F telling us/half-yelling at us to sit down, we accepted our fate and split up. I ended up at a table where I was the only girl. We went up table at a time to get our breakfast, and when our table was called, Mrs Harvey said, “Okay, boys, you can get your breakfast!” I went up to her and indignantly told her that not everyone at that table was a boy. According to her, I was the lucky girl among all the boys. (So she says.)

The next event after breakfast was our performance at Westminster Abbey. There was a bit of panic at first as the instrument van was not waiting for us and some of the teachers were trying to ring up to find out where it was. I was a bit nervous at this- the only time I’d left my clarinet on the van, it failed to arrive! Fortunately it turned out that the van was simply late, and not too late either.

Only Wind Orchestra performed at Westminster Abbey- everyone else was singing at the Cenotaph service. It made things a bit awkward when on the Westminster Abbey programme it said that one of the songs (Thine be the Glory) would be led by our choir- which I soon realised was represented only by us band members! There were some bits in the service which felt a bit drawn out but there were some bits which I found fairly moving, even though I’m an atheist.

The service was followed by a hectic pack-up of instruments before returning to the youth hostel. Eventually we loaded everything onto the buses, and after getting on the buses, a lady got onto the bus and told us that as there would be no eating on the buses and there would be several hours until we got onto the Eurostar, we would have to eat before leaving, so we did. When we returned to the bus, Claire, sitting at the back, said, “If anybody needs to go to the toilet, go to the toilet at the youth hostel! We will seriously punch you if you use the bus toilet.”

On the bus, I played Mario Kart DS with Angus, Boyuan, Jess and one or two other people. Angus was using his sister’s DS, and for some reason his sister had set the DS name to “Lindsay” so everyone was laughing at him for it. I did pretty well at the races but soon it was time to get off temporarily at the Eurostar station. I had a look at the bookshop inside the station even though I wasn’t planning on spending any money (I wasn’t even going to bother finding anything that I could buy with 7p).

Eventually we got back on the bus and the bus drove into the train. I was excited about going on the train because of course it’s a totally new experience. I also thought that there would be carriages for vehicles and then a passenger part of the train, but I was wrong. The train we were on was entirely for vehicles. There were 17 carriages (if I remember correctly) with toilets at either end, though I’m not sure if the toilet carriages were included in that count. We were in the second carriage, not counting the front carriage with the toilets (which apparently were vacuum toilets but I didn’t need to use them).

Our ears all popped as we went downwards into the Channel Tunnel. Although I don’t usually get claustrophobic, I did feel a little hemmed in because the train didn’t have any windows. I went out of the bus to take a bit of a walk to the toilet carriages and back. I had a bit of an odd fear that I would get trapped between two train carriages and fall between them but it was okay because most of the time someone would be opening the door on the other side so I didn’t have that to worry about. It seemed like only an hour before we had to reboard the buses to resurface but apparently it was only about 45min or less!

We drove out of the train into France, and then north into Belgium. Apparently there’s a sign indicating the border between the two countries and we shouldn’t blink or else we’d miss it. I think I blinked because I didn’t see it. My first indication that we were in Belgium were road signs in Dutch, especially the one pointing towards Ypres (Ieper in Dutch). Eventually we arrived in the beautiful Belgian town which apparently got practically rebuilt after WWI. We headed towards our different hostels. Bus 3 and Bus 4 shared the Salient School Hostel, and it wasn’t too much of a walk, which was good. After listening to the talk about rules and so forth, we headed up to our actual rooms, where I began to make a list of pros and cons about the place.

There were only six of us assigned to room 3, and it was a room designed to fit ten, so it was pretty comfortable. One of the bunks was pretty isolated, so we divided the remaining four bunks among us. I had a bunk to myself so I took the bottom part. My suitcase stank pretty badly due to the clothes that didn’t dry properly while I was in London, but Julia O possibly had a worse problem- one of the liquids in her suitcase spilled over half of her clothes. Once we were set up, we went and looked in one of the other rooms, where they weren’t so lucky- they had one of the attic rooms which looked quite cramped due to the slanting roof but at least there was the novelty factor I suppose.

Other good things about the hostel included the showers. Larger rooms had two showers, and since our room was meant to fit ten, that included ours. We had two showers for six people, which was as good as the shower to person ratio in the hotels. The showers were quite good as well. We also had access to computers downstairs (though they had AZERTY keyboards which were pretty annoying for us English-speakers used to the QWERTY variety), with free internet and calls to landlines. Finally, we had sole use of this hostel, as well as the hostels that Bus 1 and Bus 2 were occupying, so we didn’t have to worry about security.

There were some drawbacks, though. Firstly, we had to carry our suitcases up the stairs. I’m pretty weak, so I was glad that I only had to carry my suitcases up one flight of stairs. I felt sorry for the people who were sleeping on the 3^rd floor. Also, the next day I found that we were to have continental breakfasts as opposed to the full cooked breakfasts that we had been having previously. All in all, though, the hostel was a pretty comfortable place to stay.

Music Tour- Day Eleven

Although Sunday was yet another free day, we had a tour of the Tower of London scheduled in the morning. Bus 3 and 4 were first, followed by buses 1 and 2 later on. This was fortunate for us because that meant that we could have the rest of the day to explore freely without having to worry about being anywhere at any particular time (though we had to be back to the hostel fairly early-ish due to the early morning the next day).

At the Tower of London, we waited in the absolutely massive queue for the Crown Jewels. That must have been the longest queue I have ever been in. The queue went through some of the other rooms of the building, out the door, snaked around for a bit and then stretched out down the path from one wall to the other. Outside, someone got their photos taken with one of the guards. In the rooms, there were little videos playing displaying some information about the crown jewels so that you had something to do while waiting. When you actually got to the jewels, you had to go on a conveyor belt so that you didn’t stand gazing at them and holding up the queue. The end crown, if I remember correctly, was only worn once because the king or whoever had to wear it complained that it was too heavy!

After coming out of the building, we had lunch and were given some free time to explore the Tower of London (which, incidentally, is made up of several towers) as we wished, though we had to be back to the spot we were eating by a particular time. After eating lunch I decided to explore the central tower which displayed lots of old weapons and armour which were quite interesting to look at. Towards the end of it I needed to go to the toilet, so I waited to go downstairs in the super slow-moving queue and then made a beeline for the toilets (at least the queue for the toilets was relatively fast-moving!) before dashing back to the meeting point. I ended up being exactly on time (to the nearest minute, at least- not sure about seconds).

When we left, we decided that we would head for the British Museum. The British Museum is absolutely huge, and it’s free to enter. We had time to visit the China, Korea and Egypt rooms before it was time to head back downstairs. When we did head back downstairs to our meeting place (under the banner which said “Australian Season” on it), we were told that we were allowed to have another 30min to explore, but it was a bit pointless since the museum was so large we wouldn’t be able to do very much with half an hour, especially now that we were away from the exhibits, so we went to the gift shop instead. I had £5.06 left to spend by the next day, so I spent £4.99 on a Horribly Famous book about Julius Caesar and was left with only 7p, so I had spent my money fairly neatly. (I found another 1p coin when I got home, so now I have 8p. Whoop-de-doop.)

As we left, the other members of my group decided to stop by some of the souvenir shops. I had a look around as well, to see if there was anything that 7p could buy or if anybody was 7p short of anything. The cheapest item available was 10p, and that was a postcard.

Finally, we returned to the youth hostel for dinner. That night, Diffy and I were the sensible ones. We both set our alarms and made plans to go to bed at least semi-early. Xanthe and Boyuan, however, decided to go to Jess’ room. I decided to go after them and give them one of the keys to our room so that they did not have to wake us up when they returned. I gave them an awful fright when I went over there. When I knocked, I heard agitated whisperings: they thought I was a teacher! I waited while some of them hid and the rest tried to look like they were almost ready for bed. At long last, the door was opened, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I handed Xanthe the key and headed back to my room to hopefully get some decent rest before the next day.

Phobia Awakens

I have mild composer's block. So this section isn't quite finished yet.

And I apologise for the terrible quality voice over and my retarded voice :P Ah well this was a test run.

Music Tour- Day Ten

The previous night, Stevie J had told us that breakfast would be served at 8, so I planned to get up at 7.45. I changed my mind, however, and got up at 7.30am instead. This turned out to be a good thing: at 7.48am Stevie J came to our room and told us that the buses were waiting for us! We hurriedly made our final preparations to set off. Unfortunately, the clothes we had hung up to dry didn’t dry properly and were instead starting to stink, so we all had to set off smelling odd.

When we got to the ground floor, Tori said that about 10 people were late, so at least it wasn’t just our room. Everyone was equally confused. When we got on the bus, some of the chaperones were “tut-tutting” us and other people said, “Well, you guys took your time!” The ten of us who were late were understandably annoyed. After a little bit of asking around, we managed to piece together what had happened.

We were the first bus back, so Stevie J was simply telling us the original plan for the next day. After everyone went off to their rooms, the adults on our bus went to the shops so they missed out on being told the change of time. By the time they found out, they assumed that all of us had been told. We weren’t: some people went around door-knocking the next morning at 7.30am warning everyone that they had to be on the buses by 7.45am, but they missed two rooms: my room of 4, and Jess B’s room of 6. In any case, I’m one of those people who isn’t comfortable when things don’t go to plan, so this didn’t go down too well for me.

We set off for Westminster Abbey. Wind Orchestra set up facing an orchestra from New Zealand. The three songs we practised were our “war memorial” songs- three slow songs that sap all of your breath if you’re playing a wind instrument. They were Handel’s Largo, Blessed Are They and Well Met, My Own True Love. After practising, we went outside and I began to nibble on some of the biscuits in my brown paper bag- the only breakfast I got that day (this was possibly the first day in my life in which I didn’t have breakfast). I was told to put my clarinet in the pile of instruments to be loaded on the instrument van so that I didn’t have to carry it around London. I did, and watched the instruments being loaded onto the van until mine was safely loaded on. As I watched, I felt an odd sensation: I felt a sense of loss as my clarinet was parted from me.

We then set off in our bus groups to explore London. Our group went shopping for a bit and then to the park outside Buckingham Palace for lunch. If I remember correctly, we heard a fanfare and could make out the shapes of soldiers marching near the palace. After that, we went to Oxford Street and, while we were at H & M, we saw a protest march pass by. When we were done shopping at H & M, we went into another shop and then took the tube to St. Paul’s Station. We stopped off at a café to have milkshakes before heading off for St. Paul’s Cathedral.

St. Paul’s cathedral has several floors. The first long flight of steps took us up to a ring-shaped floor called the “Whispering Gallery” because apparently whispers can be heard from the other side. Julia O came up here with us, but when we went up to the next gallery, she went down because she’s scared of heights. Jess C went down as well to keep her company. I can’t remember what the next gallery was called, but it was outdoors and afforded a good view. The last gallery was called the Golden Gallery, and to get there, you had to go up lots of metal steps above… the unknown. It was a little scary at times, particularly because you were trapped in a way: you couldn’t go up or down  because so many people were in the way. At the top, I walked around the Golden Gallery, took a few photos, and bumped into the attendant at the exit who was trying to get as many people to go down as she could so that more people could come up. I told her to tell my group that I’d gone down.

At the bottom, we saw Jess C and Julia O waiting for us. They told us that they could hear Stevie J talking through the headsets so they were eavesdropping on them as much as they could.

When everyone was downstairs, we headed back for the tube station. First, we took the train to Bank and then took the Waterloo and City line to Waterloo. The Waterloo and City line is the best train line ever- it only has two stations! Waterloo Station itself is huge as it also houses trains going around England, so we got lost looking for the correct bus. We ended up having to take lots of tube trains until we finally found the right bus! At the end we were exhausted from public transport, and were grateful for getting back to the hostel. We had some time to get ready for watching Wicked, which was a really good musical and had everyone saying, “That was wicked!!” at the end of it.

Music Tour- Day Nine

Friday was the day we travelled to Bath via Stonehenge.

As we left, we got a view of the Buckingham Palace gardens. Angus said, “Now here’s a photo opportunity I’m not going to miss!” and got out his camera, but soon a bus came and blocked his view. “Oh no!” Angus exclaimed. “Bloody bus!”

We had a rest stop on the way to Stonehenge. At the rest stop, some of the boys had decided to annoy Scotty. They asked me to help by taking his bag and hiding it under the bus. I didn’t do that, but I did run around the buses until I lost him and then ran back on the bus and hid his bag in the toilet. When Scotty got back on the bus, I had to tell him where I put his bag.

Eventually we got to Stonehenge. It was a lot smaller than most people expected it to be. We were given headsets but I don’t think anybody listened to all of the information- there probably wasn’t time anyway. We took several pictures of people in such a way that it looked as if they were holding up Stonehenge with their arms and also a couple of pictures of sheep on the hillside. (Yes, we went to Stonehenge to take pictures of sheep.)

After an hour or so, we set off for Bath. Our first stop in Bath was Parkview Gardens, where we gave a concert for an hour. Halfway through the concert, Jonty went to the cathedral in Bath because Mr Hey said that there was going to be a special Good Friday Mass there. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was cancelled or something so he had to come back and play Marche des Parachutistes Belges. His piccolo wasn’t warmed up so it was extremely out of tune when he had to play. Poor Jonty!

After the concert, some of us left our instruments for the chaperones to look after while we had a guided tour of Bath, which didn’t last for very long. At the end, we had a little bit of time to get an ice cream and watch a horse and carriage tour pass by. Right before we went back on the bus, I asked if there was a toilet nearby because I wanted to avoid using the bus toilet as much as possible, but it was probably going to be a fair distance considering we had to be on the buses soon. In any case, there was going to be a stopover on the way back.

When we were near the buses, I got my clarinet back from the chaperone. When I got on the bus, Alastair had given us another reason to avoid bus toilets.

He dropped one big stinker in there.

Additionally, the bus toilet wasn’t a vacuum toilet: it was worse. It was one of those toilets that had a flap which opens directly over the septic tank, so you can smell of the contents when you flush.

Everyone was cursing Alastair for stinking up the back of the bus. Eden sprayed Eau de Cologne everywhere.

After most of the smell had diminished, Stevie J came on the bus holding a Buffet R13 case, asking for me! I was dumbfounded: I thought I had already put my clarinet into the overheads! Upon further inspection, I saw that Stevie J was indeed holding my clarinet. Confused, I opened the overhead locker and took down… Adrienne’s clarinet! Everyone had a good laugh at the confusion between the identical clarinet cases.

Finally, we set off. On the way, Eric had motion sickness, giving us yet another reason not to go into the bus toilet. At this point, I decided that I would do whatever I could to avoid having to clean toilets for a living.

Eventually, we stopped off at the rest stop, and, after making a massive fool of myself when I bought food, we set off for the youth hostel for the night.

Music Tour- Day Eight

The towels that were meant to have arrived the night before were still missing. Apparently there were some communication problems between head office and the youth hostel. In the end, Jenny (one of the chaperones) had to go out and buy over 100 hand towels using the emergency money.

That day, we set out for the Globe Theatre. We went around in groups. The lady who showed us around said that the original Globe Theatre burned down 14 years after its construction in the Great Fire of London. The Globe Theatre that stands today is an fairly accurate replica built by following blueprints and drawings of the original Globe. The main differences between the current Globe and the original Globe are the exits: there are fire doors and more of them. (In fact, quite a lot of doors that I saw in London were fire doors.) We went inside the actual theatre itself and the lady explained that you only had to pay a penny to stand on the lowest level of the theatre, and it was often crowded. People on the upper tiers would yell insults at the people on the bottom such as “Penny-stinkers!” or something like that.

After having a look inside the theatre, we were taken to another building a short way down the road. We went through some acting exercises and we were shown an example of a script during Shakespeare’s time. Actors wouldn’t get the full script- they’d just get a cue script, consisting of the actor’s lines and the last words spoken before each of the actor’s lines. We all had a go at using cue scripts. It was pretty difficult because I felt that I was concentrating too hard on listening for the cue words and not really taking in everything that was being said. Another difficulty was that a character might tell a character not to grab on to them, and since cue scripts don’t have actions written on them, people only realised that they were meant to grab on to another person after the line was said.

We had lunch in a small park next to the Globe Theatre overlooking the Thames. We got a good view of the Millennium Bridge- in fact, it was almost directly in front of us.

Our itinerary said that we were going to walk to Australia House for our next concert, but we ended up driving instead- probably because of all of the instruments and concert uniforms that had to be transported. Apparently the parts of Harry Potter involving Gringotts were filmed in Australia House.

We had to get dressed in partitioned-off corners of the basement floor, which not everyone was too keen on doing since if you stood at the right angle you could probably see inside the other gender’s dressing corner (no, I didn’t try this). After getting changed, some people began warming up their instruments. One of the Low Foul Winds decided to play an ostinato on their instrument- F, C, F, C, F, C, F C D E. Cookie then joined in with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in the altissimo register (the high squeaky one). Senior Wind Orchestra played Pastime with Good Company, Fantasy on an Australian Folk Song and probably one or two others as well which I’ve forgotten. After the concert, some people were able to meet up with relatives.

We boarded the buses yet again, this time our destination being the London Eye, a.k.a. giant Ferris wheel. While waiting for the bus to leave, I saw the London School of Economics through the window. I took a picture of it for Mrs Reilly, the enthusiastic economics teacher who went on Canberra Tour with me (I felt sorry for her, but then again I feel sorry for anyone who has to go on the same plane as me). Then it was off to the London Eye.

The queue was hideous, even though our tickets were pre-bought. The queue was actually in two parts, and there were people in the first section who would highlight the tickets so that when you went to the second part the people there would be able to see that you weren’t a queue jumper. We boarded in groups of about 10. Due to the size of the wheel, and the fact that it had to go slow enough for people to get off and on, it took a while to get to the top. Julia O had a fear of heights but she was brave about it and got on anyway. Finally, it was back to the hostel for dinner and sleep. By this time, the hostel didn’t seem so bad after all. It must have just been the shock of the first night.

Music Tour- Day Seven

This day was the day we would go to London. First, however, we had to spend our leftover coins. We walked over to the marketplace in groups. Over there, we split up further. One group decided to go into the market building first, while we decided to go down the street. I decided to look for seven or eight key-rings for my friends that were around 250HUF or less (I had less than 2000 Forint on me). I found some, but was then hurried along because our group decided to go and explore the market building in the remaining time we had. I followed along because I figured that I would be able to find key-rings the same price or cheaper in the building, but unfortunately this turned out not to be the case.

Upon returning, we had to do some final touch-ups to our packing before putting our suitcases out in the hallways. The chaperones then came up and checked our rooms before giving us the all-clear. We were lucky to be the first group- by the time the second group came back from the marketplace, they found that their cards had stopped working because it was past check-out time and they had to get their cards reprogrammed. We then had to load the buses before heading for the park. The bus driver was nice enough to open the bus for me to put my clarinet down so that I didn’t have to lug it around.

At the park, I learned how to make a daisy chain. After that, we climbed up the man-made hill-shaped thing (not sure what to call it) in the middle of the park to watch the mini game of soccer going on below us: two little Hungarian boys against two of the boys from our tour group. At the end of the game, the two little Hungarian boys took their shirts off, which got a few comments from some of us.

After that, we were yelled at by some Hungarian man. We don’t know what he was saying, but it was probably something along the lines of “get down from that hill,” so we got down from the hill. Angus played something or other on the ukulele and Amy updated her travel food diary.

Finally, we were taken to Budapest International Airport. It took what seemed like forever to check in all 166 of us. Security had two entrances, so we were sent in different directions so as to avoid overcrowding one of the entrances. By now, I had become accustomed to the security drill, so everything was all right.

We emerged into the duty free area. One of the shops had a promotion in which you could play roulette for free and win sample chocolates. Some people decided to play. I made a joke about what Mrs F’s reaction would be if she saw. She did see, when she came up through security after having finished directing everyone through different entrances. “You know what we always say about gambling,” she said. “You never win!” We told her it was free, and then she said, “Well, that’s alright then,” and walked on.

We had a look at perfumes, and then we went to the loo before meeting the rest of the tour group again, half an hour before our flight which was generally the time to board. We all headed in the direction of our gate before realising that we had all overlooked one thing that would hold us up: passport control.

It took us a while to proceed through passport control. Some people got to go through quickly because they had UK passports. I was the last person to go through. By the time I had joined the end of the queue for the boarding gate, there were only a few minutes to go until the scheduled time for our flight.

There is something inexplicably hilarious about 166 people delaying a plane all at once. Especially when the plane in question only has 168 seats.

We had to watch the safety video twice: in Hungarian and in English. Some people commented on how weird the people on the video looked (on Youtube, someone wrote “The Sims fly with Malev!”). The creepiest person was the stewardess who was pointing out the sign on the toilet door saying “no smoking” because the expression in her eyes was… odd, to say the least. And we had to see her again when the video replayed in English.

Safety videos are hilarious. I love how they tell you all the things that could go wrong and then at the end say, “Enjoy your flight!”

We were stuck on the tarmac for a while. I surmised that this was because we had probably missed our original take-off slot and had to wait for another one. In any case, it seemed to take forever.

The flight passed fairly uneventfully. When the flight attendant came around, I was practically deafened by the engines so Dianna, who had the aisle seat, had to relay what the flight attendant was saying to me, who unfortunately had the window seat.

As soon as we landed, I heard someone saying, “Wait, why is JJ panicking?” As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, we knew: JJ made a dash for the toilet. Meanwhile I was sitting in odd positions because I was waiting for an opportunity to use a normal toilet. (And, just like when I went to Sydney, the airport toilets were worse: in Sydney they were louder, and in London Gatwick they weren’t as clean.)

I followed the crowd to pass through security and get my luggage. Once we had collected our luggage, Mr Hey came around, saying, “Open the blue door and see what’s inside!” Someone said something along the lines of, “What is this, Play School?” Mr Hey just smiled.

I went beneath the blue sign (the blue door was staff-only) and found myself in the foyer of the terminal. We were all crammed against roughly one third of the open space. Eventually we were allowed to move directly outside where we formed bus groups. Three people joined our bus and were assigned numbers for the count-off.

At long last, we made it to the buses which took us to the Thameside Youth Hostel, which was to become our home for the next few days. The hostel came as a massive shock to us after the luxuries of a hotel, a shock which we didn’t cope with particularly well. A diary entry written the day after (probably the next morning) says it all:

We’re in London now- arrived here last night. The youth hostel hasn’t given us a very good impression of London. I was expecting the youth hostel to be as nice as the one in Sydney, but my goodness, I was wrong.

It all started when we were waiting for Mr Hey to finish talking to Bus 3. Dougal leaned out of the window, yelling, “This place is a hole!” When we went in, we were told to take the stairs if we could, so Xanthe took the stairs while I had to take the lift. I got to Room 211 first and stood waiting in the small, unwelcoming corridor until Xanthe came (there were only two keys between us, and Xanthe had one of them).

It took a while for us to work out how to turn on the lights. Thankfully, we could do so- many of the boys’ rooms did not have lights in the shower at all. Everyone ran around the hostel for a little while, yelling, “This place is an (insert word here) hole!” Eventually, a chaperone shut us up by telling us that there are normal people in the hostel, and some are in room 108, which was behind us.

There are some good things to be said about the hostel. One is that their water tastes normal. Another is that their hash browns taste nice. Last, but not least, the beds, while low to the ground, are still decently comfortable.

Our discomfort was made worse by a major stuff-up by the hostel. We had not been told to take towels (though some people brought them anyway). Mr Hey knew that hostels generally did not provide towels, so he called the hostel and paid them in advance. Alas- when we arrived, only 30 towels were available, and I didn’t get one of them. After asking around, I was told that there would be towels the next morning, so I planned to take a shower before leaving the next day instead and went to bed that night feeling a little uncomfortable.

Music Tour- Day Six

That morning, I checked my itinerary. It said that we would board the buses at 8am. The noticeboard in the foyer of the hotel said that we would board the buses at 8.20am. At 8.06am, I decided that I would go with what the noticeboard said. It turned out to be 8.20am, but I was late anyway.

We headed off for the markets in Szentendre. Almost as soon as we arrived, a few of us needed to go to the toilet so we set off looking for one. We asked one of the shop owners and he gave us directions, but we missed the turnoff and went too far. We asked another shop owner and they gave us better directions to a different toilet.

After coming out, Diffy decided to leave a tip. She left some coins in a few random currencies. When Jess and Dianna came out, we noticed the horrible truth- we were actually meant to have paid 100HUF! Dianna paid, but neither Jess nor I had change. Jess and I were a bit worried that they would notice that we hadn’t paid. (However, a little later I bought an ice cream and I don’t think I got enough change, so I guess it evened out.)

When we were walking out, we passed by a shop with some massive pencils (roughly 1m long, if I remember correctly) outside. We stopped to have a look. Jonty came by and showed us a special wooden box that required a fairly complex procedure to open. His had his name engraved on it.  The shopkeeper then showed us some of the other boxes he had, and how to open the boxes. He then showed us an even bigger pencil and allowed us to have our photos taken with the pencil.

We met up later on the buses. A few of the boys had bought model gas masks and quite a few people had bought the special boxes. The bus then took us to the Skanzen open-air museum. This museum consisted of rebuilt villages modelling the old architecture in use a few hundred years ago (I think). Each group went to different parts of the open-air museum before returning to the café for lunch. Just before we did so, though, we all found ourselves sitting beneath a tree. A few girls were talking about the manga Alice in the Land of Hearts and they said something about Alice going out with a Mafia guy. Angus overheard, but not knowing that they were talking about manga, said, “WHAT?!”

That night, we had our first overseas concert, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest. I can’t remember everything we played but I know we did play Nessun Dorma (in fact, it was a requirement to play something Italian) and we played Pastime with Good Company in which one of the soloists was unfortunate enough to squeak. Right before Wind Orchestra’s performance, Miss J asked me if I was feeling excited. I said no- I generally try not to have adrenalin pumping through my body wherever I can. (After Canberra Tour, I got very sick of that of that stuff rushing through my body.) Chorale was the last to perform that night. After the performance, we had to prepare for the river cruise that night in the rooms where we had dumped all of our stuff (an idea that nobody liked, but hey, it was better than getting dressed on the stage which was what Mr Hey’s other suggestion was).

While waiting outside the Italian Cultural Institute for the order to move to the buses, Angus started singing a song which I assume he made up.

“Bang, bang, bangitty bang, bang bang bang bang ba-bang bang!”

When asked to shut up, his response was, “It’s a pretty cool song though! How often do you get to hear a song sung only to the word “bang?”

Nora came by and we all greeted her. There was great excitement as she told us that she would be accompanying us on the river cruise!

Once on the bus, Angus diverted his energies into singing the tune of Viva la Musica to the syllables “herp” and “derp,” which in my opinion was far more annoying. At least we didn’t have to sing the “bang” song in Chorale.

When the bus got going, Eva told us some of the things on the menu on the river cruise. One of them was chicken. At being told this, everyone groaned in an almost joking manner- we had been served chicken almost every day, if not every day, since coming to Europe. The meal was a buffet, though, so if people were truly sick of chicken they could easily choose something else.

Towards the end of our meal, we heard random thumping noises from the upper deck. Later on, when we moved up there, we realised what it was: every time we approached a bridge, a bunch of people would move up towards the bow of the boat. When the boat passed beneath, those people would then proceed to stampede down the boat. Meanwhile, I took plenty of pictures of the undersides of these bridges, as well as the amazing views of Budapest at night. Eventually, we all returned to the hotel, exhausted yet happy, to pack for the upcoming journey to London.

An Intense Meal

(Based off a real meal in Hungary)


Aaaannnnd... it's dinner time! In the leftmost seat, we have Andrew! In the rightmost seat, we have Boyuan! May the eating commence!

Down the hatch each bite goes... but not without each diner staring at the other! Ah, yes, here come the narrowed eyes, the tense jaw, the lack of a smile! But wait- is that a laugh escaping from Boyuan's lips?

(10 minutes later)

After ten minutes of intense staring, we have come to the end of the main course! Our two diners must now prepare themselves for the upcoming predicted-to-be-equally-tense dessert. Wait- what's this? They propose a sculling competition with the carbonated water! All right then- the contestants are ready- on your marks, get set, SCULL!

Down it goes! 100mL down, 200mL... oh no, Boyuan has stopped to laugh- she'll have to pull herself together if she hopes to beat Andrew! Right, she's started sculling again... the score is now 400mL to 250mL... 500mL to 350 mL... and SCORE! Andrew reigns victorious!

***

INTERVIEW
Reporter: So, Andrew, how do you feel about your victory over Boyuan tonight?
Andrew: *BUUURRRP* <-- the result of drinking too much soda water
Reporter: Hmm... I see. Have you got any tips for an up-and-coming sculler?
Andrew: *BuuuURRRrrrp*

French vs. Chinese

One of the massive differences between French and Chinese is easily outlined in how you ask for food at a restaurant.

French: Je voudrais [insert food here], s'il vous plait.
Chinese: Wǒ yào [insert food here].

In the French version, "voudrais," a more polite form of the verb "vouloir" (to want) is used. After the name of the food, you say "s'il vous plait," which means "please," and in fact it's an even more polite form of "please" ("s'il te plait" is more informal).

In the Chinese version, you literally only have to say "I want."

Here are the two statements, this time translated into English (I'm not really sure what to call them, because you're asking but you're sort of asking indirectly by saying what you would like rather than asking if you can have that particular food).

French: I would like [insert food here], please.
Chinese: I want [insert food here].

Chinese is so blunt sometimes. In the Du Du Xiong books, one of the pigs is called Xiǎozhū féiféi which literally means "little pig fat fat."

And that is why I like learning Chinese.