Every year, one of the music departments go on tour. Last year the band went down to Disney World for their tour and, along with having a blast on the rides, recorded several songs from Disney movies, including Tarzan and The Little Mermaid . Three years ago, when this years seniors were freshmen, the choir went on tour to St. Louis. But freshmen don’t get to go on choir tour, and so the seniors had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. The tour started off with a 7-hour bus ride down to St. Louis early Friday morning, followed by visits to the Science Center and Art Museum of St. Louis. At the Science Center they watched an Omnimax movie entitled Under the Sea . Under the Sea was a beautiful look at the underwater worlds of coral reefs, and how they are in growing danger from humans. “ Under the Sea gave us allowed us to travel to places we could otherwise not go,” senior David Shirbroun said, “and it helped us appreciate our own world.” The next day the choir took a tour of Washington University and did a workshop with one of the vocal instructors there. After the workshop they headed over to Six Flags Amusement Park for what they hoped would be a fun filled day. Sadly, after a ticket mess up forced the choir to stand out side for two hours in pouring rain, looming thunderstorms and a tornado caused all the rides to be shut down for the rest of the day. The choir was forced to return to the Marriott where they were staying, soaked to the bone and pretty disheartened. As the buses pulled out of the Six Flags parking lot they passed a sign that read “I hope you had a Six Flags day!” The term having a “Six Flags day” became a often used phrase throughout the rest of the trip when something didn’t go very well. On Sunday the choir went to the top of the St. Louis arch and then performed at the St. Louis Basilica during noon mass. The Basilica houses the largest collection of mosaics in the world and sounds in the sanctuary have 8 seconds of reverberation, making it a wonderful venue to sing in. "I’m glad the priest addressed the recent scandals," senior Frances Hindt said. "I also liked sitting in the choir balcony and singing because I could see all the sweet mosaics and not pay attention." After singing at the basilica the choir went to a concert put on the the St. Louis Bach Choral Society. The singers were very good, but sadly their music was great to sleep to as well and even Mr. Linn dosed off a bit. "I really liked the Bach singers," senior Sarah Gutowski said. "One of them was named Joseph Gutowski!" A common theme throughout choir tour was getting wet. Besides being rained on quite often while they were in St. Louis, many students went swimming everyday in the hotel’s wonderful hot tub and oddly warm indoor/outdoor pool. "The hot tub was awesome because it overflowed all the time because of all the people in there," senior Robbie Dennis said. The given capacity of the hot tub was 8 people, but at one point after the downpour at Six Flags there were at least 20 people in the tub. On the final day of the trip the tour took the students to the Fabulous Fox Theater. The Fabulous Fox was originally built 1929 as a movie theater and has since progressed through many changes into a performance theater, hosting plays, musicals and even rock concerts. It is also home to a rare orchestral organ that can play as both an organ and many other instruments, including a grand piano, tympani drums and a violin. "The architecture was historically intriguing and impressed me a lot," senior Christian Hurd said. "Also the organ player was very advanced and created a symphony when he went to work." Though there were some disappointing times on choir tour, like the threat of tornadoes while at Six Flags, some poorly planned lunches and a serious lack of bathrobes at the Marriott, choir tour was a great success. Two missed days of school, hanging out with friends and singing in some of the most spectacular places in America all in all made a pretty amazing trip.