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“Best served chilled.”

 

The third day of our USA tour was the earliest start so far, and at 4.30am the choir members crawled into Greensboro airport and began the quest to find some caffiene. A rather bumpy flight to Dallas was followed by a short connecting flight to Lubbock, and our arrival in west Texas began as smoothly as the flight. A catastrophic failure of the luggage spewer meant that our short and highly cherished period of free time that afternoon was quickly consumed, much as our bags had been by the machine. Spirits were low.

But this was not to last. The livery of the shuttle which sped us to the church (a cartoon cowboy holding two crossed rifles) was suitably invigorating, and when we arrived at the First United Methodist Church there remained little memory of the early start 7 hours earlier. A football location was quickly scouted and we were able to burn off some steam. Lunch was a veritable feast of Southern hospitality – Texan BBQ and apple pie – after which more sports instigated an impromptu round of burp-or-vom.

FUMC's sanctuary proved to be a gloriously spacious and beautiful church; a pleasure to sing in. The 4 o'clock afternoon concert saw our first performance of Bax's 'Mater Ora Filium', and was met with fantastic reception by the audience; a standing ovation, and a solo bow for one of our Art Historians, baritone Laurence Booth-Clibborn. After a cookie and punch reception our outrageously generous homestays took us out for a full-on Texan dinner, complete with steak and unlimited free refills, and we discovered many new things about Texan cuisine: for example, rattlesnake bites (unfortunately) contain no actual snake; Texan butter must contain cinnamon (and be on everything); beef is a way of life; steak and shrimp is a thing; and it's commonplace for a sweet potato to come with marshmallows and salted caramel.

Nursing our swollen bellies, our heads hit the pillows as fatigue did our central nervous systems, prompting a collapse of all conscious motor function and a thoroughly well-deserved night's sleep. Next stop, Philadelphia...

 

Joshua Pacey (Can Bass 1)