Tuesday: The Long Night's Journey Into Day

Dear friends and family,

A mere 24 hours after meeting at SFO, we arrived at our real destination. That was two hours for boarding, eleven and a half hours of party-flight, four hours of layovers, one and a half hours on a small bird from Frankfurt to Graz, Austria, then nearly five hours on a bus through Austria, Slovenia and Croatia to Groznjan, Croatia... and frankly, it was worth it.

First, in the flight across the fields and hills of Germany and Austria, the view was green, simply green. As we were landing a large field/meadow appeared to the left of the plane, at the foot of a large hill, at just the right angle, and I had to shout, "Look, there is Julie Andrews!" which, for generational and tiredness reasons, was not appreciated by any of the nearby, bewildered choir members.

The high speed bus ride across a new modern freeway included floating by dozens of very old villages, vineyards and new houses, flying through two multiple kilometer tunnels cut into the Alps, and viewing Italy across the Adriatic.

All of which was greatly surpassed by our arrival at our new home for four plus days in Groznjan, Croatia. First, the girls from the Carmena Slovenica host choir met our bus, welcoming us to the site for the two choirs' collaborative efforts, namely an isolated medieval village nestled on a hilltop about 20 km from the Adriatic Sea. The buildings, narrow streets, church, plaza and courtyards are all made of hand-hewn and hand-constructed native limestone. The town was started in 1102, with construction essentially finished by 1200. The walls of all buildings, cobble stone walks and streets feel honest to the feet, even if marching wheely suitcases is nearly impossible. In its heyday, I suspect the village was home to a few hundred people, with a church that seats possibly 250. Dan just pointed out that the two of us are sitting in a 900 year old room of stone walls, doing high definition video production and communicating with choir families through the internet.

Largely abandoned following WWII, the town was recently made into an artists retreat and cultural area. Many of the buildings are managed by our hosts: The International Cultural Center of Jeunesses Musicales Croatia (Young Musicians Cultural Center of Croatia).

Dinner was a lovely family style presentation of fresh salad, a subtle but rich beef stew and a light milk chocolate custard. The two choirs met, sang, walked the village and returned to their rooms for 10 pm curfew. I suspect the lack of sleep will bring mostly silence, soon.

Overheard Mason comment: "This town is interesting, it centers on that hilltop church, not a town hall or shopping district." --worth the trip.

An initial observation: the accomodations include bedding unlike that which we are used to, flavors in meals are often unusual, we are constantly hearing people speak in a language none of us speaks, signs are in letters we do not use, streets are not wide enough for more than three people to walk abreast each way, there is no TV, no electronics, no movies, no cokes... and most important: no complaints.   Impressive.

Goodnight

--jcm