Uruguay

We came to Uruguay on a boat from Buenos Aires. This boat took us for three hours on the Rio Plata, a huge river. The river looks like a Great Lake -- you can´t see to the other side. The Youth Orchestra of the Americas will perform tonight in Montevideo, and then we will all scatter to the winds and to our respective home countries. We will play Mozart´s Magic Flute Overture, a Schumann piano concerto, and Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov with Maestro Marcello Leningher, a very young Brazilian conductor. More than half the orchestra is sick. That includes me, but I don´t think I have the crud as bad as other people. But I think we are all very tired and ready to go home. Some of us already have. One violinist, a Serbian-Canadian, had her passport refused when she tried to enter Uruguay. It was really sad -- she has to stay in Argentina and try to get home some other way, and miss the last concert.

I have most of the day tomorrow to explore what I can of Montevideo. My flight leaves at 5 PM and arrives in Portland at 11:30 AM on Monday.

This tour has taught me a lot of things, and not just musical ones, and I´m looking forward to reflecting on those things as I come home.