Stellae Boreales – An Ottawa Suzuki Strings Violin Ensemble

What an activity packed day!  I managed to sleep in until 8:35am!  When I got up I quickly threw on some clothes and went downstairs to the amazing breakfast buffet.  In the morning from 7 - 10am the hotel always has a ton of stuff laid out (smoked salmon, waffles, fruit, boiled eggs, bread, cereal, yogurt and more) and you can pick and choose what you want!  After a scrumptious breakfast, I went upstairs to pack.  We wouldn't be coming back to Hotel Baron, so we had to pack a set of casual clothes, your muisc, your violin, your stand and your swimsuit and towel!  We left in our concert blacks. My grandma, Arlene, Michelle, Jezlyn and I went on a rather unsuccessful shopping trip before we had to meet in the lobby.  The one benefit of that shopping trip was that I changed my money into kroners.  After that we all got on a bus to Hallgrimskirkja because it was raining.  At Hallgrimskirkja we played a very short concert. I thought that the concert went very well!  It was an amazing experience playing in such a huge and beautiful church!  The acoustics were okay but not brilliant.  We ended up with quite a good turn out!  Since Hallgrimskirkja is such a big tourist attraction many people who came to go up in the tower watched our concert first!  After the concert we were given coffee, juice and cookies!  We then got back on the bus and went to Hotel Lind for lunch featuring smoked lamb on pita.  After lunch we went to a music school to meet up with other Suzuki students.  We had a practice for the concert that we were to play in the park.  We watched the blobbly seals get fed before we headed to the tent where we played the concert in.  The seals were so cute flopping and blobbing from the land to the water!  It was amazing to watch!  They made funny sneeze-snort sounds!  We played the concert.  On the last piece we couldn't find our music and everyone else started.  So we had to play it by memory.  We then went back on the bus to go to the swimming pool.  It was a little awkward in the change rooms because we had to shower naked.  We had to wash thoroughly with soap before getting into our swimsuits.  It was awkward to us who weren't use to it.  Swimming was great fun!  There was a water slide that was very fun!  It started like a normal water slide then it was dark, then dark with white bands, then dark, then dark with multi-coloured stars, then it becamse normal again and you popped out into the pool!  My friends and I did that quite a few times then we did some baskets with a ball and a net that was hung above the water.  This experience was very pleasant even though it was an outdoor pool because the water was quite warm!  After our swim we went to Hotel Lind for dinner, then back to Hotel Baron for a well deserved rest!
UM

today was a very long, fun day :) the best part of it, was that we got to sleep in until 9am.  At first we had a concert in the Hallgrimskirkja church, and we had a very large audience. after that we went to have lunch at Hotel Lind, and after that we went to a waterpark, and it was really fun there as well.
AK

Today, we finally got the chance to sleep in, and it felt great. Our day started off with a short concert at Hallgrimkirkja with our largest audience yet. Following lunch at Hotel Lind, we had a joint rehearsal with the Islandic Suzuki group and a joint concert at the family zoo. After the joint concert, we had the option of going swimming or attending Elaine's masterclass. I choose to attend the masterclass and heard works by Haydn, Bruch and Viotti. Overall it was a great day!
MM