Phew.

I haven't had internet for 3 days. It's been kinda nice. It's about 1:30 AM. I have to be awake at 7. I'm currently staying with a choir friend in South Kensington. He doesn't have spare keys, and it requires keys to leave the flat, so I have to leave at 8, too. Let's hope spare keys show up on the set soon, because this is going to get really old really quickly.

Stayed in Lucia's flat north of King's Cross last week. Watched too much QI and Top Gear. Played tour guide for Dr. Howes and his wife. Walked all the way from the flat to Trafalgar Square, all through the National Gallery, back and forth outside, all over Covent Garden, partway back. I can't even estimate how far I've walked in the last week and a half- especially this last week. All I can say is that I SURE can feel it. Not pain, but the endurance.

Thursday night was my London Symphony Chorus audition. In short, I didn't get in because my high notes sounded "too pinched." I was instructed to take 1 or 2 "more" voice lessons and go back to him. Funny how I've never been told that, before, huh? Oh, well- now I have many many open evenings in my schedule.

Still, I am/was pretty devastated by this idiotic failure, so I made my way to the post-Bart's pub at Covent Garden, the Lamb and Flag. Perhaps you recall this from my going away party last summer. Same place.

Of the 1000's of pubs in London, I ran into 2 people I knew. One was Martin, the principal contrabasoonist of the Royal Opera. He played with the LSO on tour in Granada last summer and Dublin last week. We hadn't ever formally met, but obviously recognized each other. He was still wearing his tails, as he'd come straight from the Barbican after he finished the first half of the final Gergiev concert. It appears as though I have a strange way of serendipitously running into bassoonists. Better than violists, I guess.

The other person was a girl from the New London Singers. She walked in with the gang that came in with Martin- they kind of knew each other somehow, too. We made that awkward "hold on- I know you..." eye contact, but didn't take long to realize how.

I had a balcony seat (ick) to tonight's LSO concert. Got to the door and was given a Circle ticket! If the concert isn't too popular and there are few people in the balcony, they give the extra Circle tickets and close off the top floor. An American guy sat down beside me. The rest of his group was at the end of the row in front of us. I asked where he was from. "America." "Well, yeah. Where?" "Ohio." "You're kidding me. I go to Bowling Green." "I go to Bluffton." "I'm from Findlay." "Some of those guys are from Findlay."

3 random coincidences in a matter of days. Let's see what's gonna happen this week...