New Things

Tonight after a two day journey, I'm in Lithuania.  Its been quite a trip so far... let me back up and give some background.

Two weeks ago from today, I left Sioux Center with the Concert Choir and traveled to Minneapolis.  From there we flew to the Netherlands and spent two amazing weeks touring and singing in places that I can only hope to stand again.  We stayed with hosts which was one of the best parts of the tour.  I don't think that I can even begin to describe the experience now, so perhaps I'll try to go into more depth about it later.  For now, suffice it to say that it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Yesterday, we all returned to the Amsterdam airport to go our separate ways.  Many people were returning home, but many were also traveling.  When I packed my bags, I knew that I would be overweight for my inter-European flights, but the people at the ticket counter nicely waved me through.  I said good-bye to Jake and Piper (who were also checking in at the same counter for their flight to Spain) and took a last look at the last familiar face I would see for several weeks.  My flight from Amsterdam to Riga, Latvia was a little late and when I arrived and tried to find my connection flight, I thought that I had missed my connection.  However after desperately trying to mime "did I miss my flight?" to a large Latvian woman who spoke no English, I found my gate and arrived in Lithuania on time.  I took a taxi to my hotel and sat down in my room, alone for the first time in days.  I was incredibly homesick and lonely... probably the result of having an entire choir of people around me for the past 2 weeks.  But this morning, I walked from the hotel to the bus station in Vilnius, and boarded a bus heading for Klaipeda to join the rest of the group.  After a four hour ride and getting chewed out by the driver for Lord knows what, I met the first friendly faces that I had seen in 2 days.  They took me to join the group.  Everyone seems really friendly and nice, and I think everything will be okay once I get settled in a bit and the awkwardness of the first couple of the days goes away, but for now I feel really overwhelmed and kind of intimidated.  Tomorrow we have 6 hours of class and then we have our first test on wednesday, which also adds to my feeling of overwhledness.  Everything will be okay.... thats what I need to keep telling myself... Because its true!

I think I will stop writing now because I need to do some homework and be social.  I will try to write more specifics later.