First Williamsburg Concert

On Friday the 13th we awoke to blue skies and headed out for a walk around Colonial Williamsburg, which looked more like Ye Olde English village than America (for once not a McDonald’s or Wendy’s in sight!). Thank goodness our jet lag wasn’t bad, because we had our first concert that evening at a Methodist church in Williamsburg with string players from the Williamsburg Youth Orchestra. The concert began with Bertie Allison playing the audience in with his bagpipes, followed by the clarinet ensemble directed by Neil Hamilton playing the first movement from the Klezmer Suite by Alex Ciesla and ‘I Get Around’. Julian Scott brought some sophistication by playing Handel’s Oboe Concerto accompanied by the Clarinet Quartet. The strings then took over with the crowd-pleasing Palladio by Karl Jenkins and Irish and Scottish traditional folk songs. A saxophone ensemble played two pieces, ‘Welcome Dance,’ and, ‘Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue,’ much to the enjoyment of the audience. The evening then finished with full ensemble performing a bunch of Scottish folk songs arranged by Dr Coad.

Concerts two and three

Saturday the 14th started off with a trip to a typical huge American shopping mall, with bargains being grabbed by all due to the strong pound. We performed our second concert out of four, and this was certainly one of the best. This was in another church which was modern yet quite grand. After a great pot-luck supper with lots of fried chicken and pumpkin pie we moved into the little basketball court in the church where we shot some hoops then moved on to a full-on game of dodgeball. Just after that we went back into the church to hear the resident hand-bell choir who were participating in the next day’s service, playing the Chorale from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Sunday the 15th featured a lazy afternoon kicking the rugby ball around in a park on the way to our third concert. Many hidden sportsmen were revealed, such as Tom Macdonald, who threw the rugby ball in Americanfootball style about thirty metres! Also Tom Macleod proved he wasn’t totally hopeless by ‘kicking’ with his left foot (without changing direction). The concert in the evening was the best received and attended, and there was a standing ovation at the end. At the pizza party after the concert Stephen Armstrong regaled us with stories of college life with Dr Coad (and their fellow-student Stephen Fry!)

Concert Four

Monday the 15th was the day of our last concert of the tour, which took place in a high school near Williamsburg. This put into perspective the difference between American schools and Scottish schools. Two thousand students cram the hallways between periods, so we had to get out before the bell went out of fear of being trampled! Their school hall was like a modern concert hall, which gave us a fine venue to finish our tour. We also got a taster of their school’s band, which had two sousaphone players and two conductors, whose method of direction looked more like they were taxiing aircraft! The students then had the chance to ask us about life in Scotland, and were surprised to find it was remarkably similar, but were envious that we still have the chance to study Latin!

Windmill Point

We moved onto, what was for some people, the highlight of the tour: Windmill Point. Some friends of Stephen kindly invited us along to their beautiful lakeside house. We ate lunch on their pier and went rowing, played boules and croquet, and went swimming, which resulted in Malcolm MacNeill slicing his foot open on the rocks and a short visit to hospital, where he was sewed back up with thirteen stitches. Nathan Haller-Shannon also managed to repeat the slicing but fortunately only had to endure a good dosage of peroxide to clean the wound, while Stephen played Debussy’s soothing Arabesque No.1.That evening we celebrated Robbie Gray’s sixteenth birthday with a trip to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, and then to top off the evening we went for a spooky ghost tour around Colonial Williamsburg.

Washington

On the Tuesday we visited Virginia Beach, a resort town opposite the biggest airbase in the world, where we visited the aquarium. We ended up spending most of our time in the afternoon in Starbucks (another great American institution) due to the inclement weather. To make up for the disappointing afternoon, we paid another visit to the mall (for those shopaholics who couldn’t quite finish all their retail therapy the first time), followed by a delicious meal at a restaurant specialising in crab (with thick, juicy steaks also available). Our drive to Washington D.C. the next morning was made twice as exciting by the fact that we were drinking Mountain Dew (the drink with so much caffeine it’s illegal in the EU!), and because it was another birthday: Calum’s seventeenth. On our arrival there was a strange sense of déjà vu as we found that some of us appeared not to be booked into the hotel, but with the problem sorted, we ventured into the capital of the world’s only superpower.

Final Day

We did all the classic sights: White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, Taco Bell! In the failing light we paid a moving visit to the Vietnam War Memorial, where we looked through the books of remembrance for possible relatives. A spot of latenight latenight shopping was available for those shopaholics who had not yet run out of money, at an even bigger mall.

On our final day, having bubble-wrapped our instru ments again, we headed towards the airport, visiting the Smithsonian Air Museum en route. Plenty of photos were taken in front of the many planes (including the F14 Tomcat made famous by Top Gun), and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, and we watched an impressive IMAX movie about the US Air Force. Having purchased a postcard for EA’s Squadron Leader, we made our way across to the airport, where after having sorted out all our new purchases so that we weren’t over the weight limit, we boarded the plane home. Sleep ensued.