Our final day and concert, in Ljubljana
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2007
1
8
Trip End
Jul 10, 2007
Ljubljana,
Slovenia
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Our faithful guide Edward (alias Andre)
In these and other ways, travelers cope with the tension of the inevitable glitches with levity - getting a bit "punchy" but staying loose at the same time among caring family (fellow travelers become as intimate as family in many ways, but not intimate enough that you not quite likely to let yourself completely lose your composure in a fit of pique).
But it's also a time when minor irritations than would have blown over earlier in the trip trigger complaints that can become magnified in an instant. Our nine hour trip from Budapest to Ljubljana, Slovenia (five hours longer than projected by our tour company) added greatly to this factor. We were clearly spending two much time on the bus. The next morning, our planned trip to Bled went ahead with a German-speaking guide (we borrowed a student intern at the hotel to do the translating) and without the promised pre-paid voucher. (Our guide Edward used his expert negotiating skills to work out a new voucher with only a half-hour delay - the boat trip to an island with a medieval church in the middle of this beautiful, crystal clear lake was priceless in the end!)
But the good news was that Slovenia in general and Ljubljana in specific was a very pleasant surprise. As soon as we crossed the boarder from Hungary, every house, restaurant, and business had window boxes overflowing with cascades of flowers on every window. The capitol city itself is heaven for those who love to stroll around old towns designed for pedestrians. Gelato stands (only 1 Euro per scoop) were ubiquitous, and reasonably priced shops with interesting souvenirs appeared just in time for last minute purchases (too much time on the bus, not enough time for shopping was the typically American complaint in many quarters of the bus). And the weather was gorgeous. Our guide Edward was in love - he kept asking the locals how much apartments went for. It seems that Slovenia under Tito faired better than other eastern block countries, and after Tito somehow managed to survive the horrors of Milosovic, who quickly lost interest in Slovenia and turned around to attack Croatia instead.
The rehearsal in the Franciscan church that afternoon was another story - the most difficult rehearsal of the tour (which is usually the case with last rehearsals!) The church and organ were quite similar to the one in Budapest, but the organist and the promotion of the concert were not. The organist refused to play unless we sang from the choir loft, and sensing a melt-down with no happy escape would result if I pushed further (she seemed to be quite the sensitive type).
The choir loft in the Franciscan Church
We headed up to the loft, where we crowded onto built-in choir risers on one side of the organ. The choir still sounded magnificent in the church, but it was very difficult hearing the organ being that close to it. This may seem an incongruous thing to say - that one can't hear a huge instrument when standing right next to it, but the sounds of an organ come from a large range of locations, and unless you have a little distance, it can be difficult to hear clearly enough to stay in tune. The rehearsal began to disintegrate, coming to a head when the ever-so-patient director lost his cool with the bass section for singing consistently too loud. A switch of the sopranos to the outside steps and the basses to the inside seemed to solve the problem momentarily, and by the time the concert came around, the level of intonation was generally much better, though there were still times when it was hard to tell what key the organ was in.
The audience for the concert turned out to be very small - the only promotion we saw any sign of was the enthusiasm of a few students from the university choir who were unable to persuade as many of their fellow students to come as they had hoped (but we still had some wonderful conversation after the concert). With over 800 choirs in a country of only 2 million people, our tour organizers had been unable to find a community choir for us to sing with who might have also brought an audience.
But when we came down the narrow spiral staircase from the choir loft to sing our closing set of spirituals from up front, the audience applauded us all the way to the front. "Hark I hear the harps eternal" rang out resoundingly in the cathedral space. "In bright mansions" was more heavenly than it had ever been. I caught myself looking up to the glorious painted ceiling in the middle, and choir members say they saw several audience members in a similarly prayerful pose. The silence at the end was precious, and the longest we had allowed ourselves yet. This spiritual, and our encore "Swing low, sweet chariot" had become "our songs" on this tour - the musical moments that will long hold all the memories together.
Thank you for following along with us on our journey. We're waiting in the Venice Marco Polo airport now, ready for the long flight home, bringing much more to share with you when we see you soon in person. As long as the flight will be, the cliché seems somehow truer than ever: it's a small world, after all.
View of Franciscan Church from across the river
- TL 
Comments
Wonderful Diary!
Enjoyed greatly following the adventures of the travelling BCCS. Tom's descriptions of what was being seen and what was being felt were excellent. Will we change our rehersal space to a bus from now on?
Mike Noland