April 24, 2012 It's a bit of a sad day when you only first realize it's your birthday until someone else wishes you to have a happy one. I honestly forgot until Michelle wished me a happy birthday on the way down the lift to the lobby of the hotel for breakfast. I should interject now, simply because all of this is being written in a sort of stream of consciousness that showering that morning was an absolute joy as was putting on fresh clothes. After breakfast, we loaded up the bus to head to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We were split into our Londoners groups again, but again Matt had an errand to perform, so Michelle and I were split up again. We stayed for most of the ceremony and were quite surprised when the military band, red coats, bear hats and all started playing several songs from the American songbook like, My Way and New York, New York. We didn't realize just how warm and welcoming the British really are. We left a little early from the changing of the guard to avoid the crowds. We made our way to Victoria Station which is nearby and then found a nice pub to enjoy lunch. I ordered fish and chips which were delicious.  After meeting back up at the coach, we drove off to Milton Keyes, a suburban-type city that was built in the 1960's. Michelle and I, and nearly everyone on the bus napped during the drive. It was a little strange to see because almost everything you see in England is so very old and all of the was quite new. We rehearsed in the Church of the Cornerstone, ate dinner and gave our concert. Before the concert, I was invited along with Dr. Staheli to meet the Lord Mayor of Milton Keyes. (You can always spot the Lord Mayor of any British city because they are always finely dressed and wear a big gold chain and pendant around their shoulders. He seemed a very jovial man to me and I was pleased to meet him.  The concert we gave came off very well. The audience seemed so receptive. There really was a great spirit there. I thought we sang extraordinarily well. So much polish returned so many pieces that we haven't spent a lot of time with lately.  I want to take a moment to talk about some of the stresses I'm dealing with, but that I think I'm dealing with rather well. There are several things that are normally handled by the tour manager. Since our tour manager this year is the head of Performing Arts Manager and has been at that job for the past 31 years, you'd really expect him to know his stuff. Strangely, many things seem to be forgotten and many of the responsibilities of the tour manager are sort of falling into my lap. I'm ok with it. It is a little stressful at times, but really only because we haven't settled into a grove yet in which everyone knows exactly what to do. So I imagine those stresses will continue to ease, at least I hope so. I'm lucky to have Michelle to keep me in a good place. Oh those sorry saps who have to tour without their spouse and those sorrier saps who don't even know what it's like to have a spouse in the first place.

A return to the fog is a return to the blog. London Foggin' Bloggin Part II April 23, 2012 We arrived in England at about noon today. I must say that I was absolutely exhausted. Even though I took Sister Hall's advice about staying awake during the first flight and taking a sleeping pill for the second, I got absolutely no sleep. In fact, I even took a little more than the suggested dosage to ensure a good sleep. Finding comfort on that plane was absolutely impossible. I barely got a wink. So I knew I was really for a treat.  After arriving, we spent some time making our arrangements with our coach to head off to our hotel. It became clear from the start that the was a bit of a learning curve before this choir becomes a well-oiled machine. Getting everyone accounted for and getting luggage on the coach was a bit chaotic.  Sister Hall's biggest priority was to keep everyone awake the whole day so that we can overcome jet lag as quickly as possible. So ten minutes after checking in, we were off to make the necessary purchases in a foreign country (getting money exchanged, international cell phones, etc.). We only had a short while before meeting up again so that we could go into the main part of London. We broke into several groups of about 6, each headed by an expert Londoner. These of course were the people who had studied abroad here two years ago. Since Matt had another commitment, Michelle and I had to split up and each head our own separate group, even thought I had specifically put us together. Seriously, we would make the best tour guides ever. Oh well. I took my group on a big long walk to make sure they wouldn't fall asleep. We walked to Trafalgar Square, saw Big Ben, toured the National Gallery, went to Covent Garden and to Picadilly Circus. I let my group split up for about ten minutes at each location so that they could experience London independently and so that I could have little bits of time to take photographs with my new camera. What surprised me the most was how much energy I felt just being in Londontown. It was incredible being back. At nearly every turn I saw something that reminded me of my time here two years ago. Some memories were quite poignant. I passed a pub on the corner and as soon as I saw it, I recognized it as a pub where Michelle and I had snuck in the back door to use the toilet without having to buy anything at the pub. That's just one example. After a few hours of walking around, we met up at the bus and headed back to Bayswater, which is the area around our hotel. On the way, Michelle noticed one of our favorite London restaurants and realized how close it was to our hotel. So we got to go back to Masala Zone for the wonderful favors of India. We splurged a little bit since we had eaten lunch the day before at the airport with the Biggs' instead of using our per diem. So it was in the budget. After a wonderful meal, we went back to the hotel and absolutely crashed. It was the best night of sleep even though we were in the tiniest hotel ever. Seriously, everything was so tiny. Seriously. I woke up only once at about 4:00 am. I was really worried because I knew I needed to get a real night of sleep. I quickly told myself to relax, not freak out and just sleep. It worked and I didn't wake up again until my second alarm went off.