We made it - Hello Spain!

We got into Madrid around 2:00 in the afternoon. Four of us followed the signs, we thought, to the baggage claim, but ended up outside and we weren't sure how to get back in. We finally found everyone else and got our bags. Tom Johnson was the last to get all of his luggage and realized that the most important piece of luggage (the microphone stands) were no where to be found. After a few minutes, Tom realized that they were lost! Perdito! But, we had to get moving.

When we got on the bus we were reunited we the rest of the choir. We were so happy. And we were greeted with a cheers and clapping. What a reception.

The bus ride to Salamanca was 2 hours and most of us slept!

WE are finally here!

Rehearsal this morning was nice. The choir is so happy to start making music. Pictures will so follow when I figure out how to upload them to the lobby computer. So far, my iPad is not connecting successfully!

Walking tour, then a concert tonight. The adventures continue...

Take 3: after breakfast

And we're now at the airport for the 3rd time planning to fly to Spain with a hop to Frankfurt on the AirBus A380. I can't wait to see how big this plane is!

We are in good spirits after an impromptu rehearsal of a familiar favorite tune with a new twist. Daniel will be so proud of the work we have done. We have not wasted our time at all and have grown more as a choir in the last two days as we try to get to Spain.

Other fun things from the last day in SF:
- there was a tattoo convention at night
- there was a beauty pageant for little girls this morning
- Comicon / X Men / Jerry Springer look alike show
- an Arrogant Bastard taste off
- an early morning run
- a visit to the gym
- some liquor induced inappropriateness. (what happens in BurlinSpain stays in BurlinSpain)

We are so ready meet up with our choir family.

There is a silver lining...

So, uhgggg! We were not booked on that flight tonight! What! Are you serious? About 15 members of the choir are already headed to Spain, while the rest of us still wait to figure out what went wrong in terms of booking our flight! 3 of us (not me) got on to this 9:05p flight and will be heading over tonight. The rest of us are getting our guaranteed boarding passes for tomorrow afternoon. This is not a trip for the high strung! How we get from Madrid to our gig in Salamanca is another story. But those of us still here in San Francisco will not be there for our first concert, which was schedule to be in Madrid. Me siento decepcionado.

On the happy side, we will be traveling in style on the new Airbus A380. Tom Johnson is a licensed pilot and thinks this is so cool. He drooled on my iPad when I showed him this photo.

We will get there eventually. In the meantime, I'm really getting to know my fellow singers. We are sharing the same pain.

To the airport, Take 2

The check-in counter will be open for our flight in about 40 minutes and we're lined up like groupies to a mid-night premiere. We really want to make sure we're on this flight and successfully make it to Munich, then on to Madrid. During lunch, we talked about the disappointment of not being in Spain, past choir tours and how this is really an opportunity to just be with people with whom you enjoy hanging around. And even though there was that moment of annoyance when we just got to our hotel rooms to rest at 3:00 am then got that call to tell us that we were meeting in the lounge at 4:45 am. At that moment, some of us felt that it was going to be tough to get back up get going. Then the call came that we would take the next 9:05 pm flight to Munich. At least most of us got a good night's sleep.

The 9:00 breakfast and the walk to downtown Burlingame filled some of our time. Then we checked out and stored our bags and walked back to the Broadway Grill where we had a really nice lunch with some fun conversations. Tom Johnson, our recording engineer, told us he had spoken with the captain of the flight last night. He says that they have a panel that they monitor that has to do with engine control and 3 of the 4 engines came up to 95% of take-off power but the fourth one was under 50%. Both pilot and co-pilot had eyes big as saucers because this is highly unusual. Tom says that he could feel the plane abort take-off and Rick Mixon, sitting next to him, heard Tom say, "That's not good."

Here's hoping we will be in Spain tomorrow! Most of my friends outside the choir world are asking, "Are you there yet?"

Adventures in Madrid, scratch that... BurlinSpain

So we are still going to Spain. we are just delayed a bit. The choir was split into three groups. Some of us are heading out around 7:30a the second group around 2:15p and the rest of us, hopefully, will be on a very crowded flight at 9:00p. We are spending our day getting to know the locals in sunny downtown Burlingame. Starbucks anyone?

We are ready to go!

Everyone got to SFO at the right time. Even though we have 2 more hour until our flight, we raring to go. There is no singing yet. Tom Johnson, the recording genius on tour with us, brought a super compact state-of-the-art recording equipment. I'll get a picture later.

In the meantime, we decided to pose in front of security and a defibrillator station. We are so happy.

Testing my iPad!

posted by Ruth Butterfield-Winter

So here I am on Wednesday night. In two days we will be on the plane heading to Spain. I thought I would just take my iPad to Spain, but first I wanted to test it to make sure this blogging would work. So far so good.

Let's see if I can add a photo!

OK we're good to go! Now back to packing and organizing!