by Hannah Coombs | Jul 23, 2015 | South Africa 2015
We may have only been back for a week but I am already thinking back to tour and to the amazing things we did. We will be thinking back to this and all the other tours we go on throughout our lives as they are significant memories to us. It is when we get to see the wonders of the world and meet people who could be our friends for forever. It opens us up to new experiences and adventures that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to come by. When we think back we will have fond memories of giving concerts to sold out audiences, playing with musicians from other amazing orchestras, spending time with our friends – old and new – and visiting, learning and seeing the sites of South Africa. When I think back to American 2011 and Europe 2013 these are the types of things I remember with a smile on my face. But each tour is different, memorable and incredible so its own reason, with their own unique stories and memories but in the end they all come down to one thing – the AFO family we create while on tour. ...
by Hannah Coombs | Jul 21, 2015 | South Africa 2015
I have had such a good time sharing my experiences with you all during the tour and I don’t want it to end. So I thought, why should it? We have so many friends across the globe who – I assume – would like to keep updated on our activities throughout the year and to hear all about the developments for our next tour. Therefore, to keep you informed I am going to continue to blog posts. I hope you all keep reading and enjoying. Thanks for all your support so far. –...
by Hannah Coombs | Jul 21, 2015 | South Africa 2015
Now that tour 2015 is over we have time to reflect and one thing I keep thinking about is how many amazing people it takes to put something as elaborate as a 17 day concert tour together. I would like to take the time to thank as many people as I can for making South Africa 2015 such a great experience. It has been over two years in the making and the biggest forces diving the planning and preparations have been all of the orchestra’s Directors. Our Tour Manager Euan Terras has sent email after email chasing up leads and making sure everything has been in place ready for our arrival, and he did a superb job. As have Kathleen Terras, Wallace Galbraith and David Moore. The tour isn’t possible without adult supervision to keep an eye on us and we had so many great Tour Parents with us on tour this year. Each Tour Parent brought something different to the trip and helped to make it a wonderful tour. What makes a tour are the people around you and there were so many fantastic personalities in the orchestra and we all got along so well. It was great to get to know and talk to so many people that we haven’t spoken to before. We really do become one large family during tour. A large part about tour is travel and this wouldn’t have been possible without the many bus drivers we had from both ProTours and Dodds. Every driver we had was friendly, helpful and professional. Stewart Travel did so much work for us before we left...
by Hannah Coombs | Jul 19, 2015 | South Africa 2015
Post tour depression is real folks and it hits even the best of us. We come home from tour and being so used to being around people 24/7 to being by ourselves in our rooms uploading tour photos to Facebook. We may be happy to sleep in our own beds, have uninterrupted WiFi and our Mum’s home cooking but we still miss living out of a suitcase. But its won’t last long as we will have a reunion in just over a week for the League of Astonishing Strings concert in Ayr Town Hall. The sun set over Arran may be beautiful but can it compare to the sun rise over the hills in Kariega. –...
by Hannah Coombs | Jul 19, 2015 | South Africa 2015
We landed in London Heathrow early in the morning with some very tired looking faces. We didn’t have a lot of time between flights and we still had to get through border control and security all over again. By now we were experts and were able to get through reasonably quickly and made it to the gate on time. Our second flight was spent signing various tour folders with personalized messages and writing our names on tea towels. The bus home from Edinburgh airport was much the same, we stopped at a service station to switch the folders to the other buses and buy lunch. But this time with Pounds instead of Rands, that was weird. The bus journey felt short, but that may have been because I barely looked up from tour folders. But before we knew it we saw the smiling and waving from our loved one, all excited to see us. We were home! –...
by Hannah Coombs | Jul 19, 2015 | South Africa 2015
We were all packed and ready to go, but that didn’t mean we wanted to leave. It was our last day and it was going to be spent shopping in a local mall and craft fair before heading to the airport of our over night flight. The craft fair was great with loads of stalls filled with perfect souvenirs and gifts for friends and family. And all for the right price, if you know how to haggle. I think I saw almost all of AFO there and we definitely confused some of the stall vendors a bit walking around with our matching polo shirts on. They might have thought the same people just kept walking by all the time, not know just how many of us there were. We then hunted for lunch, no Zebra today unfortunately, just a Subway for me. We then went for a walk around the mall and my small group found a few members in a sport shop buying some rugby jerseys. Myself, Scott, Ronan and Kirsten then went to the arcade to see what we could find. We ended up spending the rest of our time playing mini golf. But not just any mini golf. It was lit up by neon painted statues and if you were afraid of clowns this was not the game for you, but we all had a great time. Then it was back to the buses for one last time in South Africa.We checked into the airport, in possibly the quickest time we have ever done and had some free time to shop around. Some people even stopped for...
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