Essen, farewells and the journey home

After the amazing concert in Berlin, I knew that it would be very hard to follow up. The train ride was fun since we watched more episodes of Family Guy and I passed my black book around for people to sign.

Our hotel in Düsseldorf was very close to the train station, but the neighbourhood was pretty sketchy. There were a lot of stripclubs, porn shops and gambling places 0_0"

It was an hour ride to Essen to the Philharmonie. The centre was recently renovated and the acoustic was beautiful. Helmuth said some words at the end of the rehearsal to thank us for making beautiful music together and making the music our own. The concert was definitely the most difficult for me to sing, because I knew that it was the last time that this amazing group would all be together.

I had heard a rumour that Maestro Rilling would not be coming to the reception after the concert so Donald and I went to speak to him immediately after the concert. Of course, I had no words to express what I felt so I expressed my emotions with tears. I asked him to sign my black book and gave him a hug.

The reception was fun, but we had to walk back to the hotel afterwards and what was supposed to be a 20 min walk turned out to be almost an hour. Luckily I was with Andreas, Marnie, Noemi and Brynne so we kept each other company. (Pssst - Käsemanstrasse!! LOL)

Back at the hotel we had an awesome party in the lobby where we said some goodbyes and just had a good time. After Dan and I helped Brynne to bed, I ended up staying up until about 4am before heading to bed. I woke up at 8am to see my friends off. Andrejus said it best - there is no such thing as goodbye, just until we meet again. All the same, it was extremely difficult to say farewell to many people.

The flight home was (as Phil put it) a crappily written epilogue. The planes were uncomfortable, flights were delayed and everyone was exhausted. We followed the sunset for what seemed an eternity... I wish it could have lasted forever.