Sorry

I would like to apologise for the lack of photos that you were promised, the wifi here has been very unstable and ever days it works for about 5 minutes at a time. I will endeavour to upload various photos to the photo page when we get back on thursday. But as I said on the information evening, "it has indeed been a joyful time for us all". Long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 4

The last full day...
This day has come too quickly, we played at an international school today for students up to 15 year olds. It was a very short concert due to time constraints but it was still so good.
Late afternoon we came back to the hotel to spend a good few hours by the beach, loads of us got together to play some beach rugby, luckily there were no injuries and we have now returned to the hotel for our evening meal followed by quiz and talent show. Tomorrow we shall be leaving at 11am for a 9am arrival on Thuesday morning.

Day 3 - VENICE!

The wifi has seemed to gave stabalised enough for a text update...
Another bright and early start this morning for an hour drive over to Venice, despite a few bumps along the way we manged to get there on time. We then went about unloading the equipment onto a boat... this was quite the surreal experience as we saw ten's of thousand's of pounds worth of our equipment go down a conveyer belt meters above the water.
We then went on a boat tour to Murano where we saw a glass blowing demonstration and many of us splashed out on some special Murano glass work.
Taking the boat back to the main island of Venice we were all let loose for some free time before returing to the church for our penultimate gig, the acoustics were simply astonishing for both the Choirs and Orchestra however the long reverb time did not suit the Jazz Bands, however depite this people still enjoyed themselves. Some of us even found time to go outside and dance by the cannal.
Tomorrow is our last full day as well as our final concert, happily we all get a lovely lie in of about 1.5 hours as well as some time to get some revision done!
Ciao

(P.s. Sorry for typo's, is currently midnight and I may have no concept of the english language at the moment...)

Day 2

Sorry for the late update, the wifi has been playing up all evening. (Actually published this at 11pm... it is now midnight... I love faulty wifi so much)
Today brought the first day of tour, everyone got up for breakfast at 7am for a 7:30 departure time to Lake Garda where we played our first concert right on the waters edge. The view was just spectacular and a whole range of tourists and locals stayed and listened to our various groups perform.
Afterwards we drove to Verona for a late lunch and some of us decided to go see Juliet's balcony which is set to be where Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, is based. "... in fair Verona where we lay our scene".
To finish off the day we played an evening concert at an retirement home where the residents seemed more than happy with the Jazz Bands, Orchestra, Blue Mondays and Choir.

Hopefully tonight I'll upload some photos to the photos page which is accessible from the tab above. But knowing this wifi that could seem unlikely... we'll see.

Day 1

Day 1 is at an end. After 23 hours (not 32...) in a very large coach 70 odd students have arrived in the lovely country of Italy. Stories include Mr Clifford's toilet placed within his shower where multitasking can take place to great sucess, the students have been perfecting their performances for the two concerts tomorrow. Yr 11 and 6th form students have even found time to squeeze in some revision!
Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 in the morning, much to the joy of the students...

Arrivare!

We have arrived at our hotel, rehearsals are due to commense at 15:00 local time, everyone is settling into our rooms and some of us even have a lovely view of the sea...

Ferry Time

About to make the crossing over to France. 20 hours to go. Mr Clifford is very content with his beverage.

All packed

All the bags have been packed in, which was interesting. Leaving in half an hour.

1 Day to Go

Tomorrow we enbark on a mission to the shores of Italy. Bring cases down to the music rooms in the morning and then all studnets have periods 1-3 as normal.