The Porch Swing Ramblings: 2
Washington Wanderings!
Suitcase stuffed to capacity. Passport, visa & phone packed. I was ready to depart! It had been a bit frenetic getting ready to travel! Being out of practise in packing and working right up to the evening before departure had raised the stress levels somewhat, but now I was all set!
So you can imagine my reaction to the email l received as I sipped my very early morning coffee. Four hours before take off and the flight was cancelled! Our contact in the States, who seemed to be perpetually at the other end of the phone, night and day, did her best to rectify the situation but despite her efforts and my dash to the airport desk, I remained grounded! There was no way of reaching Washington until two days later! I wasn’t alone though! My fellow band member and his family were also due to be travelling on the same flights! There was nothing we could do but accept that our delay meant that we lost some rehearsal time and the invitation to the rooftop party was now void!
Fortunately trip number two to the airport proved much more fruitful!
A successful and punctual flight bode well for the first part of the journey!
The change of terminal at JFK was challenging but 3 adults, a toddler, a baby and most of the luggage made it with just a couple of minutes to spare. This is where we parted company though, as mysteriously my connecting flight had been cancelled and I was rerouted to the Dullas International Airport whilst my comrades continued with the original plan to Washing DCA! 🤷🏻♀️
Having landed safely at Dullas, I hopped in a cab which took me to our hotel. Now, I had been warned that there were two hotels with the same name in the city. I thought I had been careful when conveying the address to the driver, but yep, you’ve guessed it…after double checking with him I was at the correct hotel before he sped off, the receptionist couldn’t find my booking! Fortunately he took pity on me, led me through the hotel to a back exit which acted as a convenient short cut and pointed me in the right direction to the correct hotel which to be fair was only a 10 minute walk away!
Once checked in at the correct hotel and reunited with the “Mould” or rather “Mold” family as we would be for the next three weeks, all the travel issues were forgotten and the fun began. As it turned out, some of the others had experienced greater travel issues than me!
We went straight into the tech and dress rehearsal the next day and I met the double bass that was to be my friend for the next week!
The unfortunate thing was that one of my young travelling companions wasn’t well and our drummer and family had to miss the rehearsal to spend 11 hours at a children’s hospital! The fortuity of doing a show whose chorus was made up of health workers could not have been overestimated! These amazing and generously spirited people supported the young patient and family, making sure they were where they needed to be and had what they needed. Our wee patient was pretty poorly but recovered well over the next few days and the full company finally met as a whole just a few hours before opening night! The “Mould” family is just that though, a family. Everyone pulled together and supported each other and opening night was a radiant success!
The following day for me was a free day! I felt very lucky as I dowloaded & topped up my travel card and headed for the metro! How did we tour before, without mobile phones, Google maps and contactless payments?! The only real worry of the day is running out of battery!
I passed my step goal within the first hour of my wanderings through the amazing city of Washington! I was quite star struck by the incredible architecture and scale of so many of the buildings and monuments! A beautiful cloudless sky added to the beauty of it all as I touristed my way from the White House to the Washington monument, taking in the vista of the Lincoln memorial one way and the skyline of Capitol Hill the other.
I continued my exploration the following morning and booked onto a tour of the Congress Building…after discovering that Capital Hill is an area rather than a singular place and that my map of choice had taken me to the wrong end of said area, I grew dubious as to whether I would make the tour! However, as is with the layout of the city, after asking an unsuspecting UPS driver where the Congress building or the Library of congress is and being met with a blank expression and a suggestion to ask a policeman on the other side of the road, I turned a corner and there it was! I was blown away by its grandeur and all of a sudden my weighty bag and overly warm coat was forgotten about in an instant.
After the tour, I headed towards the theatre. It was very warm and I had already quadrupled my daily step count, so braved the Uber scooter experience! I was a bit apprehensive attempting this on my own as I tried to follow the instructions on the app but after a few teething troubles to unlock the scooter, I stepped on and tentatively at first scooted a few metres. My confidence grew and before I knew it, I had scooted right to the stage door! This was a very cool way to travel and as I had now arrived early for the rehearsal, there was time for a slice of the amazing key lime pie from the cafe next door!
So, we weren’t the only UK ensemble on tour in the US! It just so happened that a very good friend was also in Washington DC for a couple of days. She was on tour with her orchestra, the CBSO who were nearing the end of an extensive US tour themselves! (The SCO were also in the US at the same time but we didn’t quite overlap anywhere!). Furthermore, it turned out that Helen’s friend was the cousin of our drummer and she had got hold of two tickets to what was now a sell out show! Couldn’t believe it!
Reuniting after the show, we made plans to meet the following morning before our respective calls and we enjoyed a long overdue catchup whilst wandering round the Washington memorials. What a surreal, beautiful, sunny and fun morning we had!
What an amazing first leg of the tour!