Believe it or not, this is the first chance I’ve had since Saturday afternoon to post! So, this will be a summary from the first 2 (ish) days of what’s shaping up to be an awesome tour!
After a train, a plane, a relaxing layover (that meant we could add Germany to our list of countries visited) a shuttle from the gate to another plane (for many of us that was a first – we even boarded using a set of stairs) and a final short flight, we finally arrived in Prague! We even managed to arrive with most of our luggage – one of our wonderful adult companions had a lost suitcase which finally arrived 36 hours later, but one of the other choirs lost 14 suitcases on the flights, so we’re counting ourselves lucky!
With (most) of our luggage in hand, we met our rockstar tour manager, Stefano, and loaded the bus to check into our hotel. First order of business was steaming most of our dress shirts (the boys now know how to use a steamer) and then a great buffet dinner at the hotel. We were all exhausted, but everyone hung in there until about 8:30 when we were finally allowed to go to bed!
On Sunday morning, after a 
buffet breakfast (our hotel KNOWS how to do a buffet), 
it was off to our first rehearsal with Dr. Dilworth and the other festival choirs. It’s been less than 24 hours and we’ve already made some great friends in the other groups – particularly with Florida Singing Sons, our bus buddies. From there, it was off to the city center for some lunch, followed by our first concert of the tour at St. Simon and Jude church. We shared the stage with the Florida choir and our old friends from Children’s Choir of Washington – both groups will be with us all the way through Vienna.
After the singing, it was finally time to tour old town. 
We saw the oldest active synagogue in Europe (dating from the 13th century), the Charles bridge, a great view of the castle (we’ll tour that tomorrow), ending with the apostles giving us a show at the astronomical clock.
Finally it was time for dinner, and we were ready! It was a bit more of a walk than any of us really anticipated, but on the upside we definitely got in our steps for the day (I’m officially at 15,402 for the day). It was totally worth it though – we ate at U Fleku, a famous restaurant and cultural site here in the city, where we had beef goulash for dinner. Most of the boys even liked it!
Finally it was back to the hotel to hang up our concert attire and off to bed – for everyone but me, because I finally got a chance to write the blog. I can confirm that Tiny Ty is also having a great tour – our families can check out photos of him and all his PBC Tour Choir friends on our SmugMug page in the 2021-22 choirs and events folder (if you’ve forgotten the password for this year’s folder, just ask)! We’ll keep uploading photos throughout the trip – there are about 215 at the moment, plus a few video clips.
That’s all for now – time to get a little sleep before it’s time be up tomorrow!
