A Trip to New York

I had the amazing opportunity to go to New York City with the Mineral Wells High School choir where I work.  We saw many things, Union Station, Empire State building, Macy's, Time Square (and I had a gluten free cheese cake from Juniors! YUM) Museum of Natural History, Central Park, West Side, Statue of Liberty, China Town, World Trade Center Site (New Yorkers do not like it called ground zero) Saint Paul's Church, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Intrepid Space Museum (where we had our first concert), The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (our formal concert), Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, Rockefeller Center, NBC Studios, Radio City Music Hall, FAO Schwarts, Trump Tower, and more.

Many people have asked me what my favorite thing in New York was.........I truly enjoyed everything except China Town.  I tell those who ask, I have a couple of  favorite moments.  My first favorite moment was when we were at our first Broadway show "Wicked," and I noticed the look on our students' faces.........it was priceless.  Most of our students would not get an opportunity like this and just the fact that some were actually on this trip and experiencing everything we had made me tear up.  The other moment was when I was directing the High School choir at the largest Gothic cathedral church in the world.  The acoustics were amazing.  We performed the song Festival Gloria.  Very fast in places and very slow and majestic in other places.  The last page of the song crescendos to a fortissimo (very loud) and is fast and when they held the last note and ended, the sound of their last note continued for 7 seconds, the kids and I just stared at each other in astonishment and we even smiled and enjoyed that moment as long as we could.  The rest of the concert was great but nothing will top that song.