Italia: Day 9.

"Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities
 where one can clearly see the passage of time."
~Jerzy Kosinski

Ah, the beautiful city of Arezzo!

Our hotel room felt much smaller in Arezzo, but it was still clean and nice. Our hotel, Hotel Domenico, was tucked up on a Tuscan hillside in a suburb southwest of the city of Arezzo called Monte San Savino.

Our first rehearsal space happened to be a morgue. No kidding. In fact a few from our group, ran into a body awaiting embalming when they were looking for the restroom.

An old-fashioned hearse.

At the 59° Concorso Polifonico Internazionale Guido d'Arezzo, we are competing against several other (like 10 or so) choirs from Japan, Estonia, Germany, Colombia, Indonesia, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, and a couple other countries.

I'm having such a great time with the Salt Lake Vocal Artists! We have spent time walking around Arezzo, shopping, eating gelato, and just having fun together. These are great people. We have been going back and forth from the center of town via bus to our hotel for meals (not one of which included seafood of any kind).

Arezzo is a quaint town with a beautiful city center, replete with cobblestone streets and narrow alleys, just as you'd imagine in Europe. It is tucked into the sweeping hills and green countryside of Tuscany. It's just beautiful and the people are so kind.

Looked a bit like an LDS missionary tag from afar. Up close you can tell I'm just a Coro Partecipante. :)

After our first day of competition, we were thrilled to learn that we placed first in both categories! We were at a very informal dinner when a few of the competition workers began to announce that day's winners. It was rather weird because we had no idea that the announcement was going to be made and not all the choirs were there. But, we were happy to have some results!

What a great first day in Arezzo and first day of competition! Just two more days! Ah, Tuscany.
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