June 30: Jane's Birthday and Concert #1

Happy birthday Jane, we love and appreciate you!

We spent our first night at Hostel Mitte and ate breakfast at the adjoining café. We sang to Jane as well as one of the bistro owners, as his birthday was yesterday. We then proceeded to a two-hour rehearsal preparing for our first concert of tour (held in the beautiful “Red Church”). We had a lunch of potato fritters and beef, after which we went sightseeing!

Potato patties and beef in yummy sauce!

Outside the Petrov Cathedral

Hollis and Luke in the main square near our hostel

We first visited the breathtaking Petrov Cathedral. There, we sang Ave Verum Corpus and walked up over 120 steps into the bell tower of the cathedral where the entirety of Brno was spread out before us.

After walking around the city for we were led to the Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) where we were treated to an in depth explanation of the school by an intriguing English professor withy a great sense of style- snazzy, if you will.

The backstreets of Brno

We eventually returned to the hostel to change into our concert clothes. We walked to the church for rehearsal with the amazingly talented Lumir Choir and performed a large selection of our repertoire. After that, we walked to a restaurant with great outdoor garden area seating and had some lentils and green beans in a yummy sauce with bread. We also had watermelon infused water, which was delicious and sweet.

Tasty lentils and bread!

Everything in Brno is in walking distance to each other, so we were able to walk from the hostel, to the concert, to dinner and then back to the hostel. Although everything is nearby, we have definitely been walking a lot and getting our steps in. Zach has been tracking our steps on his smartwatch and he told us that we walked a total of 17,500 steps, which is also 9.28 miles!

Wairua Tapu

Akai Hana

Before going to our rooms, we reviewed our tour books and attempted the pulse activity again. Unfortunately, we failed to get the pulse both ways around the circle again, but we will try again tomorrow! We also said goodbye to Daniela, who is our Czech Republic tour guide and Emmie’s mom. Thank you, Daniela, for being such an amazing guide! We will all miss you very much. Finally, we headed back to the hostel for our final night in the Czech Republic. Tomorrow we will get on a bus and start our journey to Croatia with our first stop being Zagreb. We will miss you, Brno!

-Izzy + Sarah

Our collaborative piece with the Lumir Choir

Singer of the day: Somachi for confidently performing his solo in the Jamaican Folk Song Medley; an example for all the singers.