Day 31 through 36 - Quito

We've officially been here a month!!  We're finally in a new country, and we are finally a group by ourselves.  We arrived at the airport in Quito and were greeted by representatives of the Casa de la Musica (the venue we are performing at) with giant YOA signs, and they all have badges that say YOA on them.  It is nice to finally be somewhere where the focus is on us, rather than FJC.  We understood the need for that branding in Colombia, as it was the first year they were getting started, but towards the end I was hearing some musicians saying they wished they were wearing YOA t-shirts instead of FJC ones all of the time.

We had a concert immediately the first day we got to Quito, which was a bit interesting, since the musicians had no time to adjust to the 9,186 ft elevation.  Even with all of that, the orchestra played amazingly, and our principal conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto squeezed every last ounce of emotion out of the group.  He was exhausted by the end of it, as I think were most of the musicians. 

I'm officially South of the equator now!  I don't know if I was for sure at any time during the Colombian portion (I might have been, I'll have to look it up) but I definitely am now!  15 miles South of the equator, to be exact.  Thank you wikipedia.

We stayed here in Quito almost a week, and yet somehow it was just as crazy busy as if we were moving from city to city each day.  I am getting extremely exhausted, and am really feeling the wear and tear of not having a proper day off for a month.  Everyone here with me in the orchestra is really nice, which is a huge blessing, because otherwise I think I would be really having a hard time with people.

I know I have been lax on the pics lately, so I will try and make up for it now with some of the highlights of Quito. As always though, I have been uploading my pictures pretty religiously to Picasa, so you can check on me there if you haven't heard from me on my blog lately.


The plane to Quito!  I thought security was going to be back to normal on this international fight, but I was surprised -  super lax still.  No taking off shoes, no pulling out laptop, no throwing away full water bottles...



Art at the airport



My giant bed at the Hilton Colón.  This has been the most comfortable bed so far on the trip.  Really nice hotel.



Bernardo, David, Victor, and Ben at lunch.  The food here is a huge buffet, with all of the possible choices you could ever want.  Amazing.



The Casa de la Música where we were rehearsing and performing.



Hopefully you can see this, because it is awesome:  Instead of barbed wire, the people who can't afford fancy pokey fences just glue shards of glass to the tops of their walls around their houses.  Some of them get all artsy and make it with different colors of broken glass.  Not a bad security system for almost no cost.



Yey for mountains!!!



Getting ready to go out for Board member Rolf's birthday party.



We are a goofy group of girls- Stella (intern), me (me), Ana (photographer), and Sarah (musician) at Board member's birthday party.



Rolf and his cake with a stick of dynamite on top! hhahahhaa.



Abe (principal cellist) dressed up and did his hair goofy for the party, and luckily there was an artist there to document it! 



Cerviche.  Apparently they like putting popcorn in it here.



Lunch at the Casa de la Música



Ladies and gentlemen- PHILIP GLASS!!!!!!!!!!



More cerviche.  It just tasted like salsa to me. 



The girls found out how to get up into the little golden overlooking room place to the hall we were in for this event with the Ministry of Patrimony in the historic quarter of Quito.



Some cool grafitti on the bus ride.



I didn't get a better picture unfortunately, but this woman is the US Ambassador to Ecuador, and I got to show her around the venue and introduce her to our musicians.



Check out the tacky buses we got to rock in Quito.



Art on the way back to the hotel.



I had to buy new shoes (long story... don't want to talk about it...) and apparently I have giant feet compared to these people.  These were the only black heels I could find in my size, but I like them a lot actually (and they were only $18), and felt pretty cute in them.  I also got the funny fake fur jacket for $25.  They had it in lime green, which I ALMOST got, but this one was more practical, and looked good anyway.



Art in dedication to Jose Marti.



ME AND MAESTRO PHILIP GLASS!!!!!!!!!!  How awesome is that?!?!??!!?  (you have no idea how long it took me to work up the courage to ask for a picture... hahahah)

Ok, well, this post is late in arriving (I'm actually in Lima now), and I get to go do a city tour (FINALLY! Something touristy!!), so I've got to split.  Laters!

Hugs to all,

Love, Emma.