Tour--Day 5

Today was our second day in Prague. I slept in until 8:30ish (unfortunately on tour, this is sleeping in), ate breakfast, and partied. Okay, not true. Heather, Kenny, Patrick, and I went over to the shopping mall to try to find a Czech jersey. But alas, it was to no avail. The only ones they had were not that attractive, so we chilled and went to the Mozart house, where he spent time in Prague and wrote most of Don Giovanni. The house was very ornate and I saw MOZART'S HAIR! Well, hairs from his wig... but nonetheless, very cool. They also had some of those olden time bassoons so I took a picture (which I don't think was allowed... oops!). We then hung out in Motzie's backyard and took some AMAZING pictures (like Kenny herding... cows... (wow, inside joke, sorry bout that)). We then took the bus into Old town in Prague and got free time. I bought a little bassoon statuette made of glass, which was expensive, but it's a bassoonist, so it's totally worth it. I jusst wish it was a girl, not a guy, but I'll survive. I also got various souvenirs for various people that will not be announced here (and they won't know until they get back from mathcamp...). We then had a rehearsal which was absolutely petrifying. Cecile was sick so I had to coer the first part in the Mahler, including the 3rd movement. Like, I knew the part, so it wasn't horrible, but I was playing most of the stuff in context for the first time. Luckily, Cecile was there for the concert, so the concert went well. But Mark came up to me and told me I did a good job covering and Fed really praised me. And best of all, Fed had his 2-3 year old nephew conduct at the end of rehearsal, which was incredible. We have the beginnings of the next Fed, which is beautiful. I want to marry this kid (ya know, except that he's like 3). We then got a bit of free time for food. Liam, Eileen, and I got gelato and we went to this underground grocery store, where I got a huge bottle of water. Then we had our concert in Smetana Hall, which went surprisingly well. The Mahler kicked some patooty and on top of that, the audience was pretty mch sold out so we even had a good audience. So other than not playing the whole scenario went well. I saw my parents who wonderfully gave me 500 Kc (about 35 dollars) and my mom started to tell me a story about how she saved Fed's life (it turns out that she was on the same train as Fed to Prague on day 4. Apparently she got off the train and someone started to scream asking if anyone spoke Italian. My mom doesn't but she knew that Fed was on the train so she asked for the name on the passport and low and behold it was Fed's. She found a BYSO person and gave it to her. Fed thanked my mummy at this Smetana Hall concert (isn't blogging from the future wonderful?)). But before my mummsy could tell me this fantastic story, I got pulled to go to dinner by a chaperone (aren't they wonderful?). Dinner was rather bizzare (the soup was good, goulash was interesting, and dessert was fruit pasteries, which is lame when it looks like chocolate). And on top of a weird dinner, I sat with STRING players (okay, so it was Amalia, Avery, Sarah, and Jessica), but string and wind players never intermix. Integration is a silly concept. Then we got home and we slept.