And so the second half begins...

But first, I get to reflect upon my absolutely MARVELOUS Spring Break!!! Oh, yeah, btws, this is Nell! ;D

So you see, I'm in this awesome group called the Vanderbilt University Concert Choir. Cool, you already knew that. But really, if you love to sing or just love listening to singers, come check us out, join us, or just attend our concerts! :D But let's move on. Every spring, we are fortunate enough to go on a tour to random awesome cities. Washington D.C., Orlando, Chicago/St.Louis, and New Orleans. We go sing at churches and high schools to advertise what is the amazing Vanderbilt!

This year, we went to Chicago and St. Louis! See, look at our awesome tour shirt. (The blank spot has all of our names.) It was pretty amazing, honestly. Our Vice President did a magnificent job planning it, and we had plenty of choirites from both places to help us find awesome places and have fun times. One of those awesome places was... oh wait for it, wait for it....

THE ZOOOOOOOOOO!

It was FREE! Guys. I really love zoos. Like. I really really love zoos. And let me tell you, Lincoln Park Zoo was pretty amazing, actually! So I went with 7 other wonderful people who were just as excited to go see the amazing animals. It was a really enormous zoo, but somehow, my legs held up rather well, which was super exciting! Our lovely bus driver took us there, too, which we were really fortunate he did. Yay for awesome people! So, how about I show you some of the awesome animals we saw? Are you ready? It's going to be a lot!

So I'm actually really proud of this picture...  

Have some fearsome ants (aka choirites).

MEERKAAAATS! 

Ok, this aardvark was too cute.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, you may see a prime example
of the primates Homo sapiens in their natural domain.  

This guy kept stretching out his neck. He was great. <3

So, I should've paid more attention...
This animal I have never seen before, and it looks super awesome, so I am sad I do not know its name. 

I introduce you to Mr. Dwarf Caiman.
I will own one one day, that I can promise. 

All righties, so there is the end of THAT onslaught of pictures! That was just a very small portion of what was at the park, actually. We were quite fortunate in the weather, in that it was a bright shiny day in Chicago, and that a lot of the exhibits were actually indoors. It was amazing! Something even more amazing and a "what the heck" moment? I ran into some friends there! They were on ASB (Alternative Spring Break; it's a great program that you should check out if you like to volunteer), and they just happened to be at the zoo during their short break at the exact time we were there.
... What.
So yes! I saw some awesome band folk, and it was super exciting to see them.

We had a random snowball fights as well, and I got to hug an awesome little hippo statue, because hippos are awesome. Basically, the day was full of win, as you can see below in our final group photo.

But anyways! Enough with the zoo. The rest of tour was amazing as well. One of the schools was cancelled due to snow, so one set of choirite parents invited us to their home and feed us as they had planned, and then we sang for their family! Their dog barked at the beginning of the Alma Mater, but let's be honest, it was really loud. I dunno, it just would be really cool to have a university choir singing in your home, don't you think?

VUCC in the Basilica

One more highlight from this trip, though (since I overloaded on the zoo). Our choir sang at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. .... Wow. Just. Wow. That was phenomenal. I wish I could share a video here, because the reverb lasted for 7 seconds. Meaning it echoed for 7 seconds. That's a long time. All the pictures inside are mosaics; no paintings at all! Furthermore, 95% of these mosaics were completed by a father-son duo over 76 years. Isn't that crazy? Basically, it was a very powerful concert. In fact, our tour guide complimented us grandly in stating we were one of the best groups she had heard sing in the Basilica!

As per usual, the end of tour became rather emotional as we held banquet, where all the highs and lows (sharps and flats, haha, get it?), funny quotes, sweethearts, and Secret Buddies (like Secret Santa, but over an entire week) were announced. Then on Thursday, we left St. Louis for Nashville, were my Tata came to pick me up to go home. The rest of my week was relaxing at home, and it was exactly what I needed.

Now, here's to a good second half of the semester, for all of us!
Nell signing off.