Sunday, Jan 27th

Well, this week has been filled with illness. Bryn started getting a sore throat on Wednesday and by bedtime he had a fever. We didn't know how bad it was and we had 6 students over for pizza. Hopefully none of them caught it. Maia, Nik, Kyla, Alicia, Kelsie and Amy were here and we had a great time visiting and hearing about their internships. We also played the category game.

Bryn's still feeling poorly, has had a fever off and on for 5 days and has a deep painful cough. I started getting the same thing on Friday night and have had a fever yesterday and today. No fun. I haven't had a fever in years. I think it only got to 101, but sure has made me miserable. Ryan's got the bad cough today, yikes. Thankfully we didn't have any big plans this weekend.

Thursday, Erik attended a lecture on Music and Memory, with 4 of the students, at the Royal College of Music. He said it was very interesting.

That evening we had 3 tickets for "Rajaton", an a cappella choir from Finland. They were part of the London A cappella Festival. I was on the festival website during the day and saw an invitation for anyone to come at 5 p.m. and learn music to perform at 6:15 that night to kick off the festival. I talked Ryan into coming with me. It's a good thing too, because he was the only tenor there the whole time (ironically he's a baritone, but he sang amazing at tenor). There was another tenor that came in time to learn the second song. We learned the songs by rote and performed "Shut de door" and "Run Children Run". It was so much fun! There was lots of amazing singers and the director, James Davey, was awesome too. There were about 25 in the choir and we got to perform each song twice, once on the stage in the foyer and once above the main area. Thanks for coming with me, Ryan.

Then we listened to another free group, Seidaccordo, and then Ryan and I went to Nando's, a chicken place the boys love, for dinner. We had seats in the balcony, which was just one row of chairs, and our seats were right above the performers. They were absolutely awesome. You should listen to them on youtube. They've been together for 15 years. They sang many songs in Finnish, loved those songs. And quite a few in English. They introduced one song, by saying they love Swedish songs too and then they sang Fernando by ABBA. There were 6 of them, 3 guys and 3 girls. They could sing so quietly and used their mics and reverb to great advantage. I can't say enough good about them, a class act. We all just sat there with our mouths open in awe!

Friday, we served Turkish delight, fruit and bread for the LC group meeting. Then Erik and I went to FIE to start getting plans in place for the LC trip to Oxford on Feb 16th and the LC trip to Scotland the first part of April. It's great to have FIE's expert help with planning and booking, etc. Erik went on a walking tour in a Jewish neighborhood with the students for their Global Diaspora class. They ended up in a deli and got to sample some interesting food. Then he had a meeting with the 8 students from LC and several others and the professor who is leading a weekend trip next weekend to Lille, France.

Friday night, Erik and I went to another A cappella concert. This time "All the King's Men", a UK college group sang 3 songs to support "The Magnets". They were both good, especially the beat boxers in the Magnets. Wow! Then afterwards there was another free performance by 30 basses, called the "Woofers". This was led by the 2 basses in the "Swingle Singers" They put it together for the weekend and they were quite good. I've never heard a choir of only basses. They sang several spirituals and the dwarve's song from the Hobbit!

Saturday, I skyped with Kari and Jared for an hour while Erik and the boys were at the Ripley's Believe it or not museum. They loved the museum and Ryan did really well at this laser game they had. I hadn't talked with Kari since Dec 30th, so it was great! They are now with the Blanz family in Sippersfeld, Germany. Nice for them to be in a home instead of hotels. They have had a good adventure, by the end they will have been to 13 countries: UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Brussels, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Luxemburg, Ireland and Wales. Pretty impressive. Some of their highlights were a hike near Barcelona, the Brazilian meal with Benedikt and friends, and skiing in the Alps. They will arrive here on Sat and stay with us until Feb 15th, you can imagine we are greatly looking forward to seeing them.

I also got to skype with Tore and Patricia, Annika, Linda and Edgar, so that was very nice. Last night, Brenda messaged me that my mom had to have an appendectomy. Crazy. She came thru surgery well and will probably go home tomorrow. Sure hope your recovery goes smoothly, Mom! You've got a DR close by so that's handy. I wish we did right now to listen to our chests.

Hopefully we'll all feel better by tomorrow night as we're taking the students to the musical "Billy Elliot" and then Bryn's 18th birthday is on Wednesday.

Still loving London,

Carla

PS Forgot to say that Bryn and Erik joined Club Kensington, a local gym. Bryn needs to get in shape for lacrosse and Erik's been enjoying doing more weight training, but especially he's enjoying the infrared sauna they have.