Busy Busy Busy

Thursday.
Kelsi and I woke up to a wonderful Dutch breakfast. Breads. Gouda cheese. Chocolate hagel. The best coffee ever. Hard boiled eggs. And don't forget the orange juice! We were back on the bus with everyone else by eight o'clock to Gouda. We were able to spend time in the open market in the town square before rehearsing in the magnificent St. Jan's cathedral with it's amazing and famous "Gouda windows" I haven't seen so much stained glass in my life. The church dates back to the 1600s, and it's windows survived the Protestant reformation and the World Wars. Look them up on line! The church sexton gave us a special tour, and made us laugh with his silly jokes and total randomness. After caring after the church for 30 years he was very interesting to listen to, and was very informed on all the windows and details. At noon we gave a small 45 minute concert. My host mum came to listen, so it was nice to see a "familiar" face in the crowd. Singing in an old cathedral is an awesome experience. The acoustics were incredible. The people in Gouda provided us with a wonderful sack lunch which we ate outside on the church lawn before getting back on the bus for another drive, this time to Dordrecht. ...on the way to bus, several boys yelled at us in horrible English..."Heylo we get to smoke weeeed here, eh? You want to smoke some weeeed? hey hey?" It was just a tad amusing.
When we arrived in Dordrecht our group was split in two...thank goodness, for guided tours. Walking down the streets with just 25 people is a little bit better than walking around with 50, although it still feels like a parade. An embarassing loud American parade. "Hey look at us! We're stupid tourists!" Dordrecht is the oldest city in Holland and is also Dordt College's "name-sake."After our tours we were greeted by a city official in the the town hall. There was a catered brunch, and we were presented with gifts. Apparently we're a pretty big deal? President Zylstra was also with us at this point, so he gave a "short"statement, and presented the city official with a gift? We had no idea that any of this was going to happen so we were a little taken aback at all the formal things going on. That evening we met up with Dordt Alumni Europe Tour for a catered supper which was very good. And at eight o'clock we gave a joint concert with a local choir and musicians in the church/cathedral at Dordrecht. There was an absolutely HUGE crowd and singing in another cathedral gave me chills. Dr. Zylstra spoke at the beginning of the program and asked the mayor of Dordrecht to come stand on the platform with him so he could present him with a gift. AND while moving out of the mayor's way, Dr. Z fell OFF. The crowd gasped. The Concert Choir laughed :S
Thursday night was another looong evening, we didn't get home until 1100, and then stayed up talking and drinking wine with our host parents until 1230. It was a busy but beautiful day.