Tour--Day 7

So today was another travel day, so we got up bright and early, ate breakfast, and headed to Brno at 9 AM. It was a 3 hour bus ride, which, at this point, is not that bad. I kidnapped Avery and dragged him to Tesco so I wouldn't get raped on the way (at least not by a Czech man... you can't trust Avery...). I put together a lunch consisting of a sandwich (which had a ton of mayo and was pretty nasty), dried kumquats (I wanted to try them, but they're definitely not my favorite thing in the world), a drink, and lots and lots and lots of candy. The candy made me very happy. Lots of gummy bears, chocolate and the reemergence of the HAPPY HIPPO (Marissa, I expect a comment on this and I expect it tomorrow). However, unlike in Italy, these were peanut butter, not chocolate flavor, which made them slightly less happy hippos (but only slightly). But the gummy bears were amazing (obviously, they're Haribo!). so it was a pretty decent bus ride. We got to Brno around 12:30 PM and left for our concert in Kromeritz at 1:30 Pm. It was an hour and a half drive which was miserable after the 3 hour bus ride earlier. We got there around 3 and we were going to play in the Grand Hall of the Palace of the princes. We had rehearsal at 3:30 PM and the acoustics were nightmarish (a 4 second reverberation) for playing a Romantic piece like Dvorak 8. But we really couldn't change the program and Fed was grumpy, so he let us go early from rehearsal. Eileen and I were not really in the mood to play Ultimate with Isaac and the other horns so we walked around. Also, my shoes hurt (Nipunn, don't yell at me, I really do like Ultimate). *Cue the music for one of the best moments of my life* So Eileen and I were walking around and bumped into Fed. He asked us where in the world (well, the town) he could get something sweet ("like apple strudel") and the only place we could think of was the ice cream place next to the concert hall. We parted. Eileen and I saw les Cornos sitting with Beaser at said ice cream place. Se we were talking and saw Fed go in. He came out with this giant piece of cake, so Eileen was like "Fed, I see you got your sweet thing." He took a bit and was like, "Yeah, this is good" and then OFFERED BOTH OF US BITES of HIS cake. I was mad good and sweetened by Fed's saliva. We agreed with him that it was good and he said, "Well, then I'll get you a slice too." We assumed he was kidding, but he disappeared and next thing we know, he's handed us a slice of cake. It was amazing. I am in love with a man named Federico Cortese. No joke. So then we actually had the concert. Obviously, the acoustics were bizarre, but all in all, it was better than anticipated. Until after the piece. We were doing bows, etc and I sat down and smashed my reed on the back of my chair. It was horrible. And then I had to fake the encore. I was so happy Jane is my chaperone because I am going to fix up a reed for tomorrow. Oh the joys of a bassoonist.