Blog Entry: 9 July - Geneva to Riga, Lativia

What a day! The boys (and staff) all received a wake-up call from the hotel at 02:30, yes you read that right (early in the morning)! Our flight from Geneva to Paris was at 07h30 and we had to be at the airport at 05h00. The boys were told that they HAD to be packed and ready in the hotel foyer at no later than 03h15, as we still had to pack all the luggage into the buses and do room checks  to ensure that they leave the rooms in an acceptable condition and to check that nothing is left behind. The staff had to drag quite a few boys out of their beds at 03h00!  We boarded our coach in Geneva for the last time at 04h00 for a half hour trip to the airport.

Check-in for our flight on Air France to Riga opened at 05h30. This is when our Kearsney College Choir Tour Drama Number 2 made its entrance: Air France would not allow us to take our hand luggage bags in the cabin (they said the bags were too big). They wanted to charge 70 euros PER BAG to check it in to the hold. That’s 70 euros times 69 bags….  At this stage Mr Moerdyk was looking around for the nearest exit to bolt out of the airport and Chef was typing frantically on his phone while not saying a word. Luckily Mrs Coleman was still functioning properly and she managed to calm the frantic attendant at the check-in counter down. We were allowed to check-in our hand luggage for “free” but we had to pay penalties for the extra luggage - our instruments.

We boarded our flight to Paris at 07h30 for the hour long flight. Our next flight to Riga was at 12h30. At this stage the boys were famished as they had not had breakfast yet! But there was unfortunately no time between the flights to have any lunch either as it took an hour to get to our check-in gate and another two hours to check in. Once again we were fined for the instruments, but this time also had to pay for the cabin bags to be checked in. What a business!

Our boys were real troopers though, and we had very few complaints about their empty stomachs. They checked in seamlessly and we boarded our plane to Riga at 12h30. Luckily we could buy food and drinks on the flight to curb the worst of hungry spells. Most of the boys had a welcome sleep on this three hour flight – waking up at 02h30 is a tough call even for teenagers!  We landed in a balmy 28 degree Riga at 16h00 (15h00 South African time, as we are now one hour ahead).

Enter Kearsney College Choir Tour Drama Number 3:  49 pieces of our luggage had not arrived with us in Riga and were still in Paris!  Apparently the plane was too heavy and so Air France just decided to bump off a few pieces of luggage –(incidentally, these luggage pieces were ours, containing all the boys’ concert uniform and the Folklore competition is tomorrow evening)!

At this stage, Chef’s face turned three shades whiter and Mr Moerdyk’s eyes were darting left and right (I think he was scouring the exits again). J Thankfully though, the ground attendants told us that there was another flight from Paris landing at 22h30 and that all our (lost) luggage would be on that flight. 

We decided to go to the hotel to check-in and that the staff (excluding Chef) would return to the airport later to fetch the luggage.

We have a few parents who joined us on the tour today and awaited us at the hotel. They offered to organise supper for the boys and managed to get each boy a scrumptious chili con carne pizza for dinner, which we had in a lush park just opposite the hotel at 21:00 while the sun was still blazing outside.

Chef was anxious to have a rehearsal with the boys after supper and chose a secluded spot in another area of the park for this purpose while the rest of the staff went back to the airport to fetch the rest of our luggage. 

Thankfully all our luggage arrived safely on the late flight and we arrived back at the hotel with at 23h30 to give the boys their bags before they went to bed. All is well again!

Tomorrow is a very big day for the choir. It is our performance in the Folklore Competition tomorrow evening at 20h50 (19h50 SA time).  So, please pray and hold all thumbs for tomorrow night. The boys have have worked extremely hard, are super-prepared and feel very blessed to be in this breathtaking European Capital of Culture to defend their Championship title!