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Today’s blog starts with the disclaimer that, contrary to its title, the blog will only be that of half a day, as our humble bloggers were woken up by the dulcet tones of the bedders, sorry house keeping, at the early hour of 12pm. One of us decided to venture out into the great unknown of Columbus, while the sun streaming in through the window was a bit much for the other who promptly went back to sleep (not before making unrealistic lunch plans). Our brave adventurer then walked all of two blocks to the RiverCenter (sp) for Performing Arts, where she settled in for a mere 6 hour practice. Meanwhile, back in the biggest bed ever, our bright eyed soprano finally decided to leave the hotel. Seeking her natural habitat, she made her way to a suitably instagrammable coffee shop, surprisingly bumping into the rest of the choir (#mostbasicchoirincambridge). She then broke free from the two block parameter of hotel and concert hall, walking down to the fierce torrent of the Chattahoochie. Feeling #inspired, she felt prepared to join our still-practising-organist for the afternoon’s rehearsal... In fact, the whole choir arrived at the venue that lunchtime feeling the most refreshed that we’d felt all tour; in that one night we had all had approximately the same amount of sleep as we had collectively had over the last five days. We tried our hardest to remember this feeling of freshness at 4 am the next morning, but that’s a story for another blog. Our 4.5 hour rehearsal was somewhat gruelling. This may have been what prompted Jonny to start jumping on top of the counters in an effort to exhibit his keenness for a particularly challenging aspect of GrahamogrophyTM, (though others managed to combat this by walking around said counters). Another highlight of the rehearsal was Graham whipping out his tambourine and shaking it in front of a rather bemused choir, which he clearly enjoyed. After a dinner full of meat, cheese, more meat, more cheese and the first glimpse of a salad that we’d seen all tour, we all got prepped for our first concert. It went well, despite some danger registrations from the organ loft, the basses forgetting that number 6 comes after number 5 in twelve days of Christmas, and the whole choir forgetting that you are supposed to start singing after the introduction to ‘Torches’. After the concert we all headed back to the hotel, with the exceptions of Isaac and Howard, who decided to take a walk of epic proportions; 1.5 hours to be precise, only returning when the rest of the choir had already returned to the dreaminess of their double beds. By Matilda ‘first draft’ Mills and Ellie ‘autocorrect’ Carter