Sunday, 6 December 2009 2:55PM Dublin, Ireland
We arrived safely to Dublin. I had Thursday off, the first thing I did is sleep in, it was the latest I’ve slept on tour (10 AM) then I went to some the malls, and looked around the city. They use Euros here, so I had to be even more careful of what I bought. I was doing the exchange of everything. Things are really really expensive here. I thought the UK was bad. I found TK Maxx, which is like TJ Maxx in the states. One good thing about being in Europe is that they have bigger shoe sizes. It’s pretty much impossible for me to find shoes that fit in the UK. Anyway, on tour you get really tired of wearing the same shoes. I found 2 pairs of adidas for less than $40. I checked the price like 5 times because I didn’t believe it. I had to get them because adidas for $40 are rare. Adidas fit my feet properly that’s why I always have them. I even found girls! I’m always buying guy shoes because they don’t make female in my size a lot of the time. Because I have to be careful of weight for going to Germany and Edinburgh, I sent my old shoes home, and 1 of the new pairs, they are white, and I’d like to keep them that way, so I thought it was the best idea.
On Friday we went to the Dublin Zoo for the second time. Some it was the first time because they weren’t yet with us. We have a new Auntie! I meant to put it in. Her name is Stacie, she is from Texas. Lauren has left us, which we were very sad about and miss her very much, so Stacie has come to be our Music Supervisor for a few weeks, the children have to learn a few new songs for their performance in Cape Town in January and we needed someone who has experience to teach them. She has toured before many times, so she’s great with the kids, and we are all very happy to have her join us, even if it’s just for a short time.
The zoo, yes, we started off having a camera in our face recording everything. It was pre- Germany, everything in Germany is going to be recorded like a reality TV show, it’ll be interesting, I’ve never been much of a camera person. Just act normal, right? It was good for the children to experience it ahead of time, they have only dealt with it once before on a cooking show they were on when we were in Belfast.
First we went to meet the elephants, that was so awesome. They are my favourite animal, so I was quite excited, we thought we might get to ride them, but they weren’t that type of elephant. We weren’t even allowed to feed them, although we were quite close to them. We learned some interesting things, and the kids had really good questions. They kept asking things about what would happen if they got sick because they just recovered from being sick, so it’s what was on their mind, it was funny.
Then we got to meet the 2 day old giraffe, it was still taller than me! It was so cool to have a giraffe so close to my face. I’ve been close before, but it was when I was 6 or something. You forget what it’s like. We had a sea lion showing off to us, which was quite funny. Met the sleeping tigers again. (They were sleeping when we came in June) I saw one up, but then he lied down to sleep when we got to window, so I know they were alive. Haha.
Then we ate and all of a sudden it was dark, that’s what happens in the winter...
Our special visitor then came to meet the kids, they were very curious who it was and had been waiting all day. We had explained who Santa was to the best of our ability. It’s hard to explain it to a young child who hasn’t grown up knowing about it. Either way, he’s still a very exciting guy to meet. Especially when he has presents! So they were a bit hesitant when he showed up, but they got used to him quite quickly. Our kids adapt to just about anything, they are amazing. We failed to tell them that children usually sit on his lap, so they shook his hand and stood beside him for a photo. The zoo made key chains for each of them with Santa, they don’t know yet, it will go in their stocking :)
We let them all open their gift together, which was a monkey, with the velcro hands and feet, and a box of dominoes, they really like monkeys so it was the perfect gift. Most of them know dominoes as well.
The kids performed for the staff and children of the zoo, it was their Christmas party, but there were a lot of people there, it went really really well. They also gave all the kids a huge box of chocolate and CD players! We have hidden them and are saving them for Christmas gifts. Very exciting stuff!
Yesterday we performed a few songs at a french restaurant here in Dublin. They took 20% of all sales of the day to donate to the choir as well as all their tips from the day. We also had many large donations from spectators. We ate dinner there, which was really great and they invited us back for lunch. It’s the kids new favorite restaurant. Le Bon Crubeen in Dublin. I suggest it if you are ever here. It’s nice food, really great staff and inexpensive as well.
Dublin isn’t what I expected. It’s much more European, very multi cultural, a lot of Americans and Australians here. But it still feels like I’m in Ireland, the accent is very hard to understand. I have had trouble many times in the last few days trying to figure out what people are asking me. I’m getting much better at accents though. I’ve also figured out the different coins, some of them look quite similar though, but they all have something different about them. It’s not so bad when you know what you are looking for.
We are in the heart of the city, it’s so loud outside, so many noises, but I still seem to fall asleep each night. I wonder if when I return home from tour I’ll have trouble being in the same bed for a long time. I doubt it...
I’m feeling much better, my stomach isn’t hurting anymore, it was finished about half way through yesterday. I pretty much had to fully clean out my body to get rid of it. I’m not sure what caused it, but I’m glad it’s gone. I don’t want it again. I’m just being careful what I eat, so it doesn’t come back.
We are getting everything ready for Germany now, we leave early Wednesday morning. I’m really interested in what it’s going to be like. Most people we are with there won’t know English so that’ll be fun. Never mind struggling with different accents in English, we have another language this time. It’ll all work out though. We are just doing 2 songs on the TV show, but we are there for 3 days, so we are hoping to find some fun things to do with the kids if we have free time. We don’t know if they have things planned for us or not, so I’m going to look online and see if I can find anything.
I probably won’t blog until I get back from Germany, we will be quite busy there, and we don’t know if we will have Internet where we are staying, or time to go on it.
Take care all.
Sunday, 13 December, 2009 3:08PM Drogheda, Ireland
Update:
Monday the people at Paddy’s Palace took us and the kids to the cinema to see a film (theatre to see a movie) haha. It was their first time in the cinema, they were excited, but nervous. Some of them didn’t like how it was so dark, but they all got bags with goodies, so that made it much better. Over half said they would want to go again.
Tuesday we took the kids to the play at the park for a few hours because it was a nice day. After that we took a walk to the National Museum. It was mostly full of historic things in Ireland, lots of old everything. Some of it was really neat to see, but most of it was boring for the kids, and even for us. We didn’t stay too long. Later in the evening the staff invited the kids to come and sing Christmas Carols, they only knew a few, and didn’t know all the words, so I spent some times teaching them We Wish You A Merry Christmas, Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town ahead of time. It didn’t stick so well, but we had lots of fun. They got the kids a bunch of souvenir gifts.
We all went to bed early because we had to wake up early for our 6:30AM flight to Germany.
Everyone was so tired; we all slept on the flight there. When we arrived, Ray was there to greet us, it was nice to see him again. Then we went through the doors to have the camera crew filming the children. We were met by a German Celebrity, (I can’t seem to find her name online) they didn’t want any shots with the chaperones in, so it was funny to see the kids react when we weren’t there, they didn’t really know what to do. We went to the hotel in Koln where we stayed (and just happens to have one of the nicest breakfast buffet’s I have ever seen, I’ll miss it. Then we took a rest, and then she took the kids and us to Fantasia Land. It was really fun. Everything was decorated for Christmas, and they had real snow put under all the trees, I thought it was real at first, I mean it was, but just didn’t come from the sky, they had some machine making it. So the kids rode a few rides, and they did a bunch of filming and interviews with the kids, again the chaperones were not allowed in any shot, it was really hard to stay away from the kids for the whole day. We really didn’t like having to just give them away to the crew.
We came to Germany for the kids to perform on a show called “World Vision’s Big Show for Little Stars.” So all the filming was to make a video clip for the show. Thursday the kids rehearsed in the morning and then we all headed to the tv studio for the day. We had to do sound check and dress rehearsals for the show on Friday night. It was a really neat experience to get to see how everything is done for a show. Let me just say, it’s so much work! Everything takes a really really long time, and you have to be so patient with people. It’s not always easy just waiting, especially with 23 kids. Friday morning was the full run through of the show, so we spent the day at the studio again. The kids got some nap and play time in which was nice, the show was really great. It was a competition for children, there were 5 other acts. A boy from Australia who sang, a girl and boy from Columbia who did Salsa dancing, a boy from India who could solve a Rubix’s cube in 30 seconds blindfolded (it was real), 3 drummer boys from Georgia (the country), a girl singer from Norway, and a breakdancer boy from Seattle. They were all really good. We placed in second, and the breakdancer Jay won. Our kids were really happy, they liked him the most. They didn’t really understand that we were competing even though we explained it to them, but they were excited to be on tv.
We are now back in Ireland, and I have yet another stamp on my passport :)
We had a concert today, it was our last church concert, it was hard not to cry. I’m really going to miss these wonderful children. Our last concert is in Belfast, and then it’s camp of fun. I’m really excited, we are going to have another birthday party, scavenger hunt, baking, crafts, and maybe even a water park. We are also do our own Christmas on the 21st with the kids before they go.
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