The Chattanooga Girls Choir

Day 10
Wed., July 7, 1999

Our last full day in Europe! We left our Paris hotel after breakfast this morning and headed for London. Again we stopped partway there for a quick lunch, and the girls tried to spend their excess French coins (which can't be exchanged) at an adjoining gift shop. When we arrived at British passport control before entering the Chunnel, this time all the girls had to get out of their buses and have their passports checked; most of them were happy to add another stamp to their passport pages. ( They had complained about not getting one in France!) Then our bus drove onto the Chunnel train again. This time, most of the girls got off the bus and sat in the compartment playing cards and chatting. Shortly we were once again on British soil, and by 4:30 (after setting our watches back an hour!), we had arrived at the International Hotel in London. There we had to part with our now-beloved tour guides, Brendon and Malcolm, who had other tours that they had to join. Bus #2 was in tears over Brendon leaving -- and he was more than a bit watery-eyed himself. More than one girl had developed a big-time crush on this charmer! Girls on both buses had pooled their money to buy gifts for their guides; Bus #2 presented Brendon with a plush duck (which he promptly named 'Chatty' in honor of the Chattanooga Girls Choir), and some girls from Bus #1 gave Brendon a plush monkey and gave Malcolm a plush bear. Chitra (our tour director) also presented them both with gifts from the Girls Choir.

The International Hotel was one of the hotels where the Girls Choir stayed the last time they were in England, and the Grace Moore girls that remembered it were delighted to be back. The rooms are larger than our last hotel (not hard to do!) and some even have air-conditioning (unlike most of our previous hotels), and the dinner they served was excellent -- at last the vegetarians were treated right!

At 9:00, the Grace Moore girls held a special meeting in the party room downstairs. It is a Girls Choir tradition for the older girls to do a skit on the last night of tour. This time the younger girls led into the party room by Elsie looking and sounding very much like Brendon and by Faith dressed up like Malcolm (including the cell phone at her ear!). They did dead-on impressions of our tour guides! Then the rest of the Grace Moore girls were individually introduced -- each was impersonating a memorable Grace Moore girl of the past. They had the younger girls laughing hysterically, even though many of them had never heard of these girls -- until now. What a fun way to pass memories on to a new generation of singers! The Grace Moore girls also gave out 'awards' based on various events that occurred during the tour; then they presented every girl with an Eiffel tower key chain. They also gave out special Year 2000 champagne flutes to Mr. & Mrs. Huey, Penny Tullock, and Mr. & Mrs. Chandrasekaran. Malcolm was then called up front and was presented with gifts and hugs, and he and the girls sang a song. He told us over and over again how special this tour had been to him (much to his surprise), and soon he and the girls were wiping tears from their eyes. It's tough to say good-bye to a special new friend.

Debra LaGoo, our wardrobe mistress, had a special surprise for the choir. She presented everyone with a blue 1999 tour shirt with the names of the places we had visited on the front and the names of everyone on the tour on the back. The girls were thrilled! We'll be proudly wearing the shirts tomorrow when we fly home.

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Enjoying one last taste of French food before crossing the Chunnel into England.

Alexandra and Merry Madeline shop for a few more souvenirs of France.

'Brendon' (Elsie) leads a group of girls into the party room.

Grace Moore skit: Dueling sopranos!

The Grace Moore Singers (in skit costumes) with Malcolm.

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