Day 29 & 30 - Bogota

Wow. Longest few days so far on the tour.  I snuck an hour or two of sleep in Bogotá, but I had a lot of preparation to do for the concerts the next day, as we added an 11:00 am concert at the last minute to allow for all of the guests that wanted to see the orchestras. I had a SPLITTING headache all day, and we didn't get our bags until very late at night, so I didn't have any ibuprofen to take care of it with.  We have a nurse on tour, but I was so busy trying to get my work done that I wasn't able to track her down for some Tylenol until around 7 pm.

After finally getting a little sleep, the next day was also pretty wicked.  We had two concerts, and I had to manage giving tickets to our VIPs, even though there wasn't a structured ticket office.  I literally had to stand amidst a crowd of people who wanted tickets, with a sign that said YOA, looking for our board members and other people that I had no idea what they looked like... Stressful man.  Especially when all of these people are asking me questions and wanting tickets... in Spanish... 

It all worked out in the end though, and I got to relax at a cafe next door during the second concert, because there were absolutely no seats left in the house.  Stella and I bought our bus drivers chocolate and rum because they were so awesome and this would be the last time that we would see them.  They were really nice, and appreciated the present a lot.

We also had a cocktail party back at the hotel after the concert, but I didn't get to stay at much of it, and actually missed the regular dinner, because we still had work to do late into the night.  I just worked in the lobby so that I could say goodbye to all of the friends I made with the musicians and staff of the FJC orchestra.  There are some wonderful people in that organization, and it was a pleasure to work with them.

Now starts the second half of our tour.  It is almost like a second tour, as now it is just YOA, we will be starting new repertoire, and now we will be able to be in Quito for almost a week, instead of moving from hotel to hotel each night.  Can't wait.

Hopefully I'll have more time to post pictures with these blogs soon, but for now I'm just happy I have been able to write anything!  My brain has been pretty fried from excessive work paired with lack of sleep, so please forgive all of my ridiculous typos and terrible sentence structure.   You get the idea...