In the summer of 2017, my son Benjamin received a letter from the Missouri Ambassadors of Music. He had been nominated by his current instructors at school to participate based on his technical ability and citizenship. Our family immediately set about researching the opportunity and in light of its significant cost, well outside the range of our normal expenses yet affordable, began to plan.
The Missouri Ambassadors of Music (MAOM) is ultimately organized by a company in Colorado, Voyageurs International Ltd. They have approximately 32 states that participate and each summer, a group of Ambassadors from the selected states meet, organize, practice and then travel. Each state sends a Concert and Jazz Band, Choir, and String Ensemble on a 16 day tour of Europe that is precisely scheduled to balance the performances and the numerous opportunities to explore, taking advantage of the many sites and activities that are unique to each location.
Our tour would begin in London England, move to Paris France, Cranz-Montana Switzerland, Vaduz Lichtenstein, Seefeld Austria, Venice -Italy, and Rothenberg, ultimately departing from Frankfurt Germany. Ben’s responsibility would begin with a 3 day boot camp where all of the Ambassadors would gather and work through the details of the performance material and get to know each other.
Ben meets his roommate, Day 1 I have never been a person to discount the opportunity of world travel or my place in the world as it exists with a global community. I studied multiple foreign languages, art and history, in addition to completing a secondary education focused on technologies. I stay abreast of world news and do my best to gather information from diverse sources daily. Before this opportunity, I had never really thought much about how travel might be on the exact other side of the world and never really addressed the impact it might have on me and on my perception.
Like all parents, I would never dream of denying my child any opportunity especially one earned by merit and suddenly there I was, passport and boarding pass in hand, nothing left to do but confront the unknown and to push firmly against the limit of my prejudice.
prejudice (prĕjˈə-dĭs)
n.
The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions
I was to become someone who ‘had’ from someone who ‘might, one day in the future, if I played my cards right’.
As the camp came to a close, the anxiety of my commitment consumed me. We had to arrive at the airport at 4am to begin the boarding process and the Farewell Concert which to place that evening ended around 8pm. I had been packed for 3 days by that point but was still struggling with charging power packs, packing wet ones and sanitizer, and downloading my Spotify playlists. I would simply have to sleep on the plane.
Approximately, 200 students and staff, in addition to a group of parents were travelling. While standard flight times should take about 8 hrs, this group was departing in 4 flights from two international airports. The effort to arrive organized planned in long layovers to allow for variance in departure time.
Our first stop was Minneapolis , where we would stay for 8 hours until departing at 5pm CST for Heathrow Airport in London.
Layover Blues Did I mention that Ben had never been an airplane before?
Apparently, it was no big deal and I am crazy…
In my opinion, the travel was the worst I have ever experienced. There was nothing wrong with it at all and the service was amazing but I could not sleep upright and with the exception of a few hours collapse, listened to an audio book and watched everyone around me sleep. Ben assumed an upright fetal position and seemed to sleep well, the time awake being spent plugged in to the in-seat TV monitor and movie service. The food was fantastic and I turned my thoughts to our arrival.
Arrival Our flight group would be the first to land. We would pass through customs and board our coaches bound for Windsor England, the summer (and preferred) home of the Queen. We arrived just after 7am GMT (2ish in the morning CST) and it took approximately 2 hours to get through Customs. This was not due to any short coming in strategy, just an unbelievable amount of human traffic. After more than 24 hours of it being recycled, we could finally breathe in tramontane air.
Our trip to Windsor served two main purposes, the opportunity to explore a thousand year old castle and a staging ground for the second series of flight groups to meet us. Somewhat delirious and without so much as a stop, our group arrived in Windsor to find the castle flying the Queen’s colors. She was in residence and security was noticeable.
Exhausted and affected, Ben and I chose not to stand in line for the castle tour and instead walked around the castle walls and took in the shops and surrounding area.
Our time spent in Windsor drew long and I began to regret not getting in line for the tour. If we had, we could have seen St. George’s Chapel. However, having just a week before hosted the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, the chapel was closed to the general public.
Ben and I walked down the street in step and shoulder to shoulder with actor Andy Serkis who joined us exiting a local shop with sons in tow. I enjoyed not reacting as best I could and Ben puzzled at his “non-celebrity”, we mused it would be quite different in the States. We met the other groups in front of a pub, older than the United States.
Our hotel in London was the Copthorne Tara in Kensington. Our arrival broke two of the elevators, as all 5 coaches disembarked with luggage. We had just enough time for a group meal in one of the banquet halls and then by coach ( Green Bus Forever) we left on a walking tour of Hyde Park, where we saw Royal Albert Hall, Princess Diana’s memorial and Kensington Palace.
My phone had died and Ben got into trouble with his group of friends. Sleep deprived and moving to slow for any cross walk, looking the opposite way we should consistently, our black jacket clad amoeba finally divided and at 9pm we settled for what sleep we could. Our next morning began at a reasonable hour.
Our first full day in London was a performance day, Ben was in the Concert Band and the group traveled to Watford for a gazebo performance in Cassiobury Park. I was not aware of the concept of “Coach Life” but I would soon be an expert. The size of these vehicles and the shape of the roads, round-abouts, and driving on the opposite side of the road had certain novelty that later gave way to dangerous 160 degree turns on steep mountain roads. Our group’s care of the interior of the coach vociferously demanded, although not thoroughly understood on that first day.
We returned to London proper for the Ensemble and Choir’s performance at St. Matthew’s, Bayswater. I cried during the choir’s performance, overwhelmed at the the grand yet understated elegance of the architecture and the seeming perfect marriage of the choir director’s musical choices to it. Each participating instructor had traveled with group’s before and the value of that prior experience was immeasurable. This and the undeniable skill and ability of each performing student gave proof of how amazing this trip could be.
I shot some video but took very few pictures that day. I emailed home and interacted with my fellow adult travelers, staff and parent alike. It was difficult for the coaches to travel in the city proper and it seemed a meme of being the first to leave and last to arrive was dawning. We would dine that night in London’s South Bank and enjoy the river views from The Eye in a relatively free evening. We took taxi’s back to the Tara after sundown.
