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Showing posts from July, 2010

Mexico - Part I - Monterrey

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The next stop for Star Wars was Mexico. I was the most excited and scared for this portion of the trip. I love visiting foreign countries and going further into Mexico than Tijuana appealed to me greatly…however…that country is under extreme duress right now as the government is in a public battle with the drug cartels for control over the cities and the country as a whole. Our tour was taking us to two locations, Monterrey and Mexico City. When I first signed up for the tour I was more afraid to visit Mexico City as a fellow musician I play with in Chicago was shot in broad day there and it is very public that they have a high crime rate but as the date drew nearer for us to go it became apparent that Monterrey was just as dangerous. Apparently a month or so before we got there drug cartel entered a local hotel, demanded a guest list and kidnapped several hotel patrons…some of whom have not been heard from since. Monterrey for years was a mountain resort town, an expensive privileged

Austin via San Antonio

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Saturday morning I said goodbye to Mick. His flight was a few hours after I had to leave on the bus. It was a good visit and I am glad that we were able to work it out for him to get here. Once on the bus I was finally able to test out my new headphones and once again I will say they are amazing! If you travel a lot this is worth the money…but I digress…we were on our way back to San Antonio to play two shows. I was hoping to connect with another college friend (Paul, Shay’s best friend from BU) but due to my schedule and wanting to be on stage early I didn’t get a chance to catch up with him.  Up until now we had had mostly the main assistant conductor, Lucas, as our director. Mark(another assistant conductory) subbed in a few times but today we were finally getting to work with the tour’s main conductor, Dirk Brosse . I think we were all a little nervous about playing for him and it seemed as though everyone was on their best behavior! The two shows went by quickly. Funny thing thoug