Adventures in Canada

Editor's note: Due to sketchy internet connections in Canada and my penchant for international traveling, this post was written on Monday but posted on Thursday. Hey, just be glad you got it!

Greetings from cold and dreary Toronto! This post comes to you from My Hostel Room. Yes, a hostel. I’m getting too old for this shit.

Anyhoodle, I’m fresh off my latest audition triumph. This morning I drove my friend’s car over to the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto to audition for Tanglewood. I’m very pleased with how it went. By the end all the auditioners were looking at me, which is a good sign that I managed to catch their attention. After my second piece I got a satisfied-sounding “mmm, thank you!” Always a good sign.

So will I get in? It could go either way. But I did a great job. Frankly, I’m amazed at how great a job I did because things did not go so smoothly in the wee hours of the morning leading up to the audition.

Read on, my friends, read on.

I did not plan this trip out too well. By yesterday morning I still didn’t know where I was going to stay. This turned out to be good because I learned on Saturday morning that some of my friends from Turning Stone were also planning on a trip to Canada on this very same weekend! What are the chances! So early yesterday morning before my long day of lessons I finally booked a hostel for all of us to stay in. I got a quad for them and a single for me.

So I teach my lessons all day (after driving the two hours home from Oneida the night before [after a full day of work] and getting back at 1 in the morning). I have an intense lesson myself in preparation for today’s big event. Then I gather up my things and drive the two hours back to Oneida to pick up the others.

Need I mention that by this point I’m exhausted already?

I pick up the peeps and we finally get on the Road to Canada at about 10 p.m., which means we won’t get into Toronto until about 2. And my audition is at 10:20. Like, I have to be up, showered, breakfasted, dressed, makeuped, transported to a strange and scary place the whereabouts of which I have no idea, and totally prepared to sing opera to the best of my ability by then.

Well, by the time we actually get into Toronto and find our hotel it’s 3:15 (I blame the kilometers-per-hour). We get there, get our keys, and when I open the door to my room someone is sleeping in it! Ah, the joy of hostelling. I go back downstairs and the guy at the front desk, who I’ve already labeled as not-too-bright, can’t find me another room. Oh, he tries and tries, while I stand there silently weeping inside.

We end up bunking all together with one of us on the floor. It was fine, but they wanted to have a giggle-fest sleepover. I told them in the middle of a giggle session that I would murder them. They quieted down after that.

I’m pretty proud for nailing the audition on four hours of sleep with a persistent chest cold that just won’t quit. And for not killing my roommates in cold blood. I'm finally learning to control that temper!

So that’s my audition story. We spent the rest of the day exploring Toronto together. Actually, I should say that we spent the rest of the day eating and drinking our way through Toronto! It was an exhilarating and exciting day.

This brings me to my latest life lesson. Last night as I was leaving my apartment in Oneida I could only think about how tired I was and how I wished I didn’t have to make this trip. But then something rose up inside me that said “what an adventure you’re about to have!” This upbeat voice is strange to me, but it was absolutely right. I could choose to be upset about the scary feelings and great energy expenditure of the trip, or I could choose to see it as the adventure that it really is. What a gift to be able to up and drive to Toronto in the night with friends in order to manifest my destiny. This trip is the end result of my hard work and my dreams.

The moment is here, and I grabbed it and lived it fully for every second.

That’s something to be proud of. Here’s to the adventure!