Day 1: 3… 2… 1… choir takes off!

11:46 PM Chicago Time, Saturday March 21

After arriving at Palatine High School at 5:45, everyone checked in with their assigned chaperone. Students have already been paired in groups of two to four with two parent/adult chaperones, and soon everyone was accounted for. We board the school busses then come back out for one last thing, one tradition that every Concer Choir under Steve Sivak has done at PHS before each trip. We sing the National Anthem at the flagpole, surrounded by the parents and family sending us off.

Then we actually are off, arriving at O’Hare Airport and got through customs with a couple hours to spare before our flight, spent walking around and hanging out. For many of us, this is our first time out of the country and we couldn’t be more excited to see what’ll happen in this adventure of ours!

A half of our total group of people, group A, will be flying British Airways and the other half, group B will be taking American. Boarding for us began at about 9 and now we’ve just left the main airport, seated and all ready for takeoff! The awesome accents of the English flight attendants have us drooling in anticipation. We land in Heathrow, London in approximately 6 hours and 50 minutes, while the other American Airlines group will leave in a flight leaving about an hour later.

One of the first things that I noticed when boarding the plane was not only the accents, but also the spelling of favorites on the plane as well. It just gives you a sense of the strangeness of the place where we’re going, that it’s finally happening after months of preparation.

Talk to you later when we wake up in London! Cheerio!

(You have no idea how much pleasure saying/writing that gives me)