We bade goodbye to our excellent hosts and set off for the Washington National Air and Space Museum, taking in the White House from a number of enticing angles as well as many other famous monuments and buildings in Washington. Those familiar with Washington might have been a little surprised when we drove straight past the museum itself, but their surprise wore off as it became clear that there was another museum near the airport which was supposed to be more fun. We excitedly entered the exhibit-filled exhibition. Each exhibit exhibited existential essentials so excitedly we exercised extra examination of exhibitionists. Ralph Allwood told us that he had had bad experiences taking choir tours to museums, but said that this museum was so special he felt he had to take us there, and asked if we could please try to enjoy it. When we entered the museum, certain members of the choir commented that it had really lived up to its reputation: it was simply full of air and space. Annoyingly, there were all these aeroplanes and rockets blocking the view. The choir rose well to Ralph's challenge to enjoy ourselves: John Gowers and James Harkness embarked on a two and a half hour tour of the building with a Vietnam War Air Force veteran, and several members of the choir enjoyed the fantastic simulators: some, including David Goode took it in turns to crash a plane, despite the woman in charge frantically urging them to be careful; one has to wonder whether she was more concerned for the virtual choir members or for the virtual plane they were destroying. Nevertheless, it was a true Wright Brothers experience. A number of interesting objects were purchased at the museum shop. Ralph Allwood bought the shop's entire supply of helicopter toys 'for the junior choral course, obviously'.
The choir managed to pull off an impressive rendition of 'Under the Sea' on the coach, which was at least as good as our performance at Roxbury Latin, despite Adam 'Will you please shut up lads!?' Berman's frequent moans of intolerance. At the airport, we bade goodbye to the dying luggage boys, who were taking their last exhausted hauls of air through lungs crushed by the weight of too many bags. We dropped off our suitcases - there were a few hasty repackings to get under BA's draconian 23kg limit - and headed to security. We must thank James Harkness for drawing the harmfulness of X-rays to the attention of the queue forming behind him, and for demonstrating the alternative possibility of a 15-minute pat-down by security personnel. Eugene Loh had to take a different plane as he was headed for California, so we all wished him goodbye: Tom Norrington's farewell was, as usual, world class - 'See you, Eugene: thanks for letting me borrow your nail-clippers'. Max James did his best to bankrupt ice cream giant Ben & Jerry's, managing to secure a second scoop of ice cream during their '1 Free Scoop' day. Rubin Patel chuckled to himself seeing an entire army of masseurs working like dogs to comfort Adam Berman. John Gowers searched the branch of Blackwell's in vain for inspiration for his blossoming literary career, while his brother was turned down by Travelex trying to exchange $6.25 when the exchange fee was $3.00. As we were about to board the plane, we were surprised to hear that students from a certain college in Cambridge were to board first: this college turned out to be a sixth form college based in St Neots. The flight back was fairly uneventful: I am not even sure if Ralph Allwood observed any 'small discourtesies which [he] realized you simply don't see in America'. James Harkness was furious that his headrest didn't fit the contours of his head as he would have liked: 'I just can't get my seat to fit - look at the recess in the headrest - the shoulder pads are too far forward'. My thanks go out to him for pointing out how uncomfortable it was: I hadn't noticed. The entertainment system did not work at first, much to the chagrin of the likes of Alex Chance and Georgiy Grigorev. Alex Eager awoke from deep slumber to find that his screen had been playing the CBeebies channel for the past three hours. Quintin Beer enjoyed the delights of being sandwiched between Ralph Allwood and David Goode, while for Campbell Donnelly, Jack Eastwood's chu-u-under and Harkness were ro$%&hnd aboat him. The plane landed very cleanly, probably because the pilot didn't want to hear any more complaints from us. Max James thanked the stewardesses, walked down the long corridor, pausing perhaps to look at the HSBC advertisements, and then got into the transit with the rest of us to the main building of Heathrow airport. He casually strolled towards customs, and then came to Andrew Maynard with a surprised look on his face, declaring that he had lost his passport. At last a scenario had arisen which Andrew couldn't sort out, so, muttering 'aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem' over and over to himself he passed the problem to Ralph Allwood. No more was seen of Max; I only hope there's a Ben & Jerry's in Heathrow's 'Unwanted Arrivals' Section.
We passed through customs, with some 18 year old members of B-Block choosing to negotiate the auto-customs service. The woman running this was rather unhelpful, and I am not sure if they actually saved any time. After we had collected our luggage, David Goode passed on a farewell from Ralph Allwood - Ralph was still in the depths of extraterritoriality with Max James. He even added a few flustered words of his own to cheer us up after a long hard and ultimately extremely rewarding tour.
And then we met you, if you are part of the collective body of parents who came so far at so ungodly an hour to pick most of us up from the airport. I hope you have all enjoyed reading our posts! Good luck to Catherine Picton-Turbervill in your new job from all of us on the blog team: maybe one day you will reach the heights of fame attained by your younger brother.
 |
| Ad astra per aspera |
Although you thought you'd ploughed thoroughly enough, hiccoughing through troughs of swill, we have to thank a number of people. First of all, we should thank Ralph Allwood for being the driving force behind the choir, and for everything he has done to get the tour organized. This tour is Ralph's last, and we feel we must congratulate him on having organized so many wonderful tours over the years he has been at Eton. Secondly, we should thank David Goode, not only for all the hard work he has put in to accompany us, but also for the excellent work he has done looking after us while on tour and for everything he has done for music at Eton. Thirdly, we must thank Andrew Maynard, for taking on a very difficult job looking after all of us on tour in addition to his duties as a member of the choir. We must thank all of our sponsors for the tour, and particularly the members of the American Friends of Eton College, for everything you have done to make the tour possible, and for all our contacts and host families in the USA for everything you have done to make us feel welcome. We must also thank everybody back at home, particularly Leila Clarke and Karen James, for the enormous amount of organizational work they have done and continue to do, not just for the tour but for many other aspects of life at Eton. Last, and absolutely not least, let us all thank Philip and Laura Highy for their tireless and efficient work throughout this and other tours: you are amazing.
So thank you everyone, and goodbye from us! May the swill fester for eternity!
No comments:
Post a Comment