Je suis retourné!

It was a wonderful and exhausting trip to France. A lot of stuff happened so I won't write about it all here.
I will list the places we sang at: Institut Universitaire du Technologie (Cherbourg Manche) auditorium, Saint-Lo, the Normandy American Cemetery, Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Notre Dame Cathedral, as well as unscheduled impromptu performances throughout Mont Saint-Michel.
The Sainte-Mere-Eglise concert was the best by far. It's hard not to sound good with acoustics that perfect, but we were all especially keyed up that night for whatever reason.

Notre Dame was a surreal experience to say the least. The performance was slightly tarnished when our second song nearly fell apart entirely. This was due to the fact that the organ has a significant delay that none of us were prepared for. Fortunately the rest of our songs were a capella, and we performed them without incident. Afterwards, our director was swarmed by people from about a dozen different countries, all of them very gracious and pleased with the performance.

Our time at the Normandy American Cemetery was very moving. The people of Normandy have an incredible love for America. Everywhere you go in this area there are American flags flying side by side with the French flag. This only cemented my aggravation with the treatment France receives by mainstream America. The stereotype that the French are rude to American tourists is completely off from my experience. We were welcomed throughout Normandy with open arms. I'll talk more about our time at the cemetery some other time.

Singing at Mont Saint-Michel was fantastic. If you've never been there you need to put it near the top of your list. It's an incredible spectacle. Again, the rooms we sang in had amazing acoustics. We were also very popular with the Japanese tour group that followed us around.

That's just a few highlights from the trip.
You can go to these links for the pictures:

Premier
Seconde
Tiers
Quart
Cinquième
Sixième
Septième