PSYO: The Brave and the Bold

     Bravery is an interesting thing. For some, bravery might be heading off into a dangerous or scary situation, for others it might be diving headlong into the unknown. For the contingent of PSYO guys, bravery was walking back into that dreaded cafeteria for breakfast. After a surprisingly good night's rest, we boldly went where no PSYO student would ever want to go again. Although some thought afterward that the quality of the food was even worse than dinner the day before, it was definitely a matter of opinion. To the hotel's merit, they offered slightly modified versions of otherwise American cereals. Although these modifications did cause the cereal to become gooey after a few minutes of saturation in milk and practically without flavor, it was (in my opinion) quite appealing in comparison to some other offered foods which looked quite terrible and tasted even worse. Quite surprisingly, our already late departure time of 10:15 was moved back to 11:30, offering us a very relaxed and free morning. We utilized this time playing and watching pool and ping pong (made all the more entertaining by malfunctioning equipment) and, for some, the beach.

     When it came time to depart, the group assembled in the lobby of Reuben and got on the buses for a trip to lunch. Lunch was held on board a (stationary) pirate ship called Mr. Baba (no clue where the name came from). Despite my very un-Asian distaste for fish, the fish soup that they served to begin with was bearable. While waiting for the main dishes to arrive, a group of dancers and musicians, dressed in traditional garb, served as the meal's entertainment. When they came to the lower deck where we PSYOers were eating, they even pulled in a few kids to add to the fun. The rest of the food, which consisted of chicken, fish, and strawberry yogurt, was quite pleasant.

     We hurried out of Mr. Baba's and into our buses, because apparently the local police were scheduled to block the road next to our performance venue in order to allow the whole group to cross the street with instrument and bags. When we arrived, the police were there sure enough, and our rather dramatic crossing of the street made us feel very important. We had a quick brush up of a rehearsal, stashed our goods downstairs, and then headed off (already) to dinner. Although many were appalled when they heard dinner was being served at “the hotel”, it turned out that dinner was actually on the beach which stood on hotel property. Whew. Dinner was a definite contrast to the other meals from the hotel. Although some of the food still tasted rather foreign, several of them tasted genuinely edible. A passing breeze and the soothing sun made dinner the most positive experience of Varna up to that point for myself.

     We headed to our transportation when dinner was over, and returned to the concert hall, changed into our classy black concert clothes, and got ready for the finale of our tour. I won't go into much detail regarding the character of the audience, as it was pretty much identical to the past two. People on the sidelines, sold out seating, etc. I'm very pleased to say that the Varna concert was quite possibly the best of our entire tour. We ended up playing all four of our encores, Hungarian Dances 1 and 5, Trepak, and Hora Staccato. During Hungarian 5, the audience started clapping with the music (resulting in much laughter within the orchestra), and then Maxim even began conducting the clapping, resulting in even more hilarity. By the time we had left the stage, we had received at least five standing ovations from the audience. After a refreshing reception (and lots of pictures), we left for the hotels. Our tour has officially ended, but we can be certain that it ended with our absolute best.

-Philip

Sorry that there's still so few pics up. Wifi last night was so slow that Gmail took over a minute to load, so I figured uploading pics would be a lost cause. The internet seems to be a bit better tonight, so hopefully I can get some stuff up soon.

https://picasaweb.google.com/philipsheegog/MrsTangSPictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCL3IzOTcyvWOqAE

https://picasaweb.google.com/philipsheegog/Bulgaria630?authkey=Gv1sRgCNmwpcnRmfWBEQ