"O Canada, our home and native land. True patriot love..."

I'm back! Wow, Canada was amazing! Really gorgeous. But before I start rambling on, I need to start from the beginning.

On Sunday (June 29) the selected 41 kids from our Cantare group took a bus to Newark Airport. When we got there I was like "Yay! Gerard Way was born in this city!" but I didn't say it out loud because I knew my friends would roll their eyes and dismiss everything I said after that, assuming it would relate to MCR. :D So we took a plane to Seattle, Washington and then took a bus to Vancouver. I spent the whole time vegetating while listening to Pretty. Odd. The hotel in Vancouver was nice. We were staying in a terrible part of town, though because all there was was liquor stores, "adult video" shops and tattoo places. On my birthday my dad took me to an awesome rock shop where I bought some MCR, Evanescence and Nightwish T-shirts. When we were able to shop, we took a boat ride to a cute little island where we window shopped. The sailor was flirting with our assistant conductor, Sophia so we nicknamed her Lophia (his name was Lowen). <3>

On Tuesday, we left for Powell River. We took a bus to a ferry, the ferry to an island, the bus to the end of the island, then took another ferry to another island and then took a bus to our hotel. This hotel was very small and unreliable when it came to hot water. But we had so much fun. We rehearsed everyday and we did a concert where we met the other choirs. We saw them around rehearsals, at lunch, and basically anytime we were around the competition building. There was the Seattle Children's Choir, Crystal Children's Choir, South African Youth Choir, Kotori Choir, Ragazzi Boys Choir, [an Estonian choir whom I don't know the name of], Phoenix Girl's Choir, Island's Chamber Choir, and the Columbia Children's Choir.

We had an amazing experience. One rehearsal we found a snake in the alto section, so we nicknamed the alto's, "The Snakes". Our conductor, Elizabeth, drilled us around the clock. We were terrible and it seemed we would never win. The Contemporary Category was horrendous, but we did really well in the Children's Category. I was part of the sextet echo choir in the Folk and Cultural Category, but I think I did well. We learned so much from watching the other choirs and becoming friends with them. We played a game called Run Run Baby which spread like wild fire and soon every choir (at least under the age 20) knew how to play, and it brought us so much closer together. We laughed and talked and ate and sang together so much, we didn't even feel like we came from different states and countries.

We ended up not winning first our second place in any category, which was disappointing only because we had the hardest music. But the South African choir was amazing and so were the Estonians. We were best friends with the Kotori Choir who were mostly five years old and from Japan. There were GREAT. They won first in Children's. We made so many friends from so many choirs, it was great.

I also got incredibly close to everyone in our choir and I learned so much from everyone. Anthony taught me how not to be scared during a solo and that will forever change my life. I learned from people and about people, but I can't list everything because this post has already been too long. But scenery isn't the only beautiful thing in Canada. There's so much your missing out on, I can't begin to describe. But we grew so close through this trip, it will change us forever.

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P.s. I'd like to say hello to meh who is my second Mormon friend from our choir. I promised her I'd mention her, so here it is! She's a great friend and she's incredibly funny. "Mormon coffee in the morning!" (don't ask)