Day One: Arrival
We loaded the buses at 2:15 AM (Yes, I said AM not PM) on Thursday. Everyone was tired--hair was uncombed, teeth were unbrushed, not a care in the world. We said goodbye to our parents, thanking them for waking up at such a vicious hour to drive us to school. After taking role and pulling out of the school parking lot, we assumed our sleeping positions. I personally chose the floor of the bus--it's much warmer and comfier than the seats (shocker). Around 7:15, daylight began to splash through the bus windows, waking us all. "Good morning, Princesses," our director greeted us. Us being on an all-girl bus, we were allowed to be spoken to that way.
We stopped at a McDonald's somewhere in Illinois, unannounced, uninvited. The employees nearly had a heart attack when they saw approximately 75 people running toward their restaurant. Once we were all finally served (it took about half an hour), we sat down to enjoy our egg McMuffins and CinnaMelts. Once back on the bus, some went back to sleep while others (like me) read a book or listened to their iPod. My goal of this trip was to finish Mad Women, a book I'm reading for AP Lang.
For lunch, we stopped at a mall in Kentucky. We were given an hour and a half to eat and shop, both of which we did. I had some pasta at a fast-food Italian restaurant, and a milkshake from Chick-Fil-A. Nothing too exciting happened at this mall. We got back on the bus around 1:00 PM and headed to Nashville. Around 2:30 we arrived at our destination: the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Hotel in Nashville, TN. Across from the hotel was the Opryland Mall, which just reopened after the floods last year. Diagonal to the hotel was the Grand Ole Opry theatre itself, the place where we would be performing in less than 24 hours.
The Opryland hotel was huge, as big as the Mall of America at least. There were thousands (literally thousands) of guest rooms and a tropical jungle-type-thing right in the hotel. A river ran through it, and there was also an island with shops and restaurants. It was all we needed--we could live in a magical place like that hotel forever. After an hour or so, we headed over to the Opry house to watch show choirs. We saw middle schools as well as women's choirs on Thursday night. We headed back to the hotel and a lot of us went and chilled in the hot tub (haha, a more accurate statement would be we cooked in the hot tub). We went to bed around 11:30--we had a big day ahead of us.
Day Two: Let's Show 'Em What We Got
After getting a good night's sleep and plenty to eat for breakfast, we headed over to the Opry House around 10:00 AM. We were scheduled to perform last that morning, at 1:30 PM. So for a couple of hours, we watched show choirs from all over the nation, including one from Fairfield, OH. We were awed at how fantastic some of the groups were, and each show we saw was unique and had a lot of good features. At 1:00, we headed to the warm up room. We were all hyped up, the nerves took over. Adrenaline began to rush as we stepped out onto the a world-famous stage, where people become stars all the time. Performing live at the Grand Ole Opry was like nothing I've ever experienced before. The feeling of doing something that so many famous people have done and so few non-famous people get to do was amazing. The classic barn backround was just behind the curtain of the band, the wood circle from the original Grand Ole Opry was placed right in the center of the stage, with dust from Hank William Jr.'s boots still on it. I looked out into the audience, and for a moment, I felt like a star. I felt like I was watching a live country music concert at home, on TV, where I have seen the Grand Ole Opry so many times.
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| Image provided by Google Images. |
After performing, we got our pictures taken and then we headed back into the auditorium. We were surprised by lots of clapping and cheering--even a standing ovation. The crowd loved us. We went to take our seats for awards, anxious to know whether or not we made finals. As they began to announce awards, we found out that we won best band, and everyone cheered. Finally they announced the finalists--the tension built as they named five groups and none of them were us. One last chance, we thought. Luckily, the sixth name they called was Happiness, Inc.
After awards, we headed back to the hotel to explore. We had the entire rest of the day to do whatever, 7 hours of free time. My friends and I headed across the street to the Opryland Mall for some shopping. After grabbing a bite to eat, we spent an hour in the gigantic Forever 21, each of us buying clothes there. After that, we ate ice cream and headed back to the hotel. We joined the other show choir members for a while in the hot tub, and then we explored the hotel and took pictures. Finally, we headed to bed. We were all so psyched for finals--but we were then placed in second behind Fairfield. We were determined to fix whatever we could for finals and we hoped we could win Nationals.
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