Synthesis Tours Brazil!!!!

On our way to Sao Paulo sem children (sem still means without in English, right?). We are on a big bus full of people from the church and our Catholic friends from Michigan. 

Firstly we are sadly under-dressed. I had two minutes to get dressed before we left. I am in a jersey skirt, a t-shirt and a jersey jacket. My friends are in floor length dresses with lace and sequins.  Princesses and the Pauper. 

Oh well. I also wore black on new years eve which represents bad luck. There is no hope for me. 

We of course hit traffic. And of course we are late. How do the Brazilians handle it?

 

They are chatting and laughing and having a great time. 

How do the Americans handle it?  We keep checking our phones to see how far we have on the map and dwelling on the fact we are late. 

 

 

Are we there yet?

I was getting a little worried myself.  I have looked forward to this for months and hated to miss 30 minutes or more of their music.  But really what can you do.  We are on a bus.  We are not driving.  We get there when we get there.  Worry is just wasted energy.  And in the end, we did get there when we got there, and they hadn't started playing yet. 

I had a chance to say hi to some family friends before the concert started, Jory and Brittany friends of my sisters family and the director of the group, Ray Smith friend of the family for many, many years and really a legend in his own right. 

Such an enjoyable night.  It was SO good!  I was so proud of this group.  They were so professional and fun to listen to!  And they played such a long night!  8:45 to 12:20, with a couple breaks for the brass players.  

I knew it was a Gala, with dancing and such.  But I never told Jamison because I didn't want him to have an excuse not to go.  (Oh, we got a BYU student visiting friends on our city to babysit for us.  Thanks Lindsey!)  One of the first songs was Frank Sinatra's It Had to be You, Jamison said he would even dance with me on that one.  We made our way to the dance floor and at the very moment we stepped on it, the song was done.  Oh well.  I guess Jamison's prayers were answered.  

The night was just SO enjoyable.  

Guarana at every table.  Later they brought out small sandwiches too!

The dance floor at the beginning.

 

 

 

The dance floor by the end!

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It was such fun to watch the Brazilians dance.  They are really good.  In all sorts of styles.  

Dean Martin's Sway

Impressive Guitar Solo

 

Impressive Sax Solo (my nephew's saxophone teacher, and super nice guy!)

A sampler of Dancing Styles.   I love the side step guy who did this dance step all night.  What a trooper!  plus the guy in a gray jacket behind him whose footwork is impressive!

Girl from Ipanema  This one made we start to tear up.  Jamison would play it often to try to convince me to move to Brazil.  Grace memorized this song in Portuguese in school this year.  Then Ray Smith starts to play flute along with it and I just realized what a great experience all this was.  

(In contrast, Jamison mentions, "It's a bit surreal that I am sitting in Sao Paulo listening to a band from Provo, in a  building full of Mormons." )  The band also was taking requests, we joked, "Do they know Utah Man?" 

(In super contrast, we imagine our friends from Michigan thinking, "Can you believe we are in Brazil with friends from Utah, listening to a bunch of white kids (except one) play great jazz, with a building full of Mormons.")  We joked about him having to step out to get a beer during the break.  They were good sports and really enjoyed the music.  Our friends were Tim and Andrew, Tim works at Autoliv, but also plays the drums, and Andrew (Tim's 19 year old son) plays the electric bass (and does online college here) .   It think they were both very impressed.  I know I was. 

 

Dancing and Sandwiches!

The guys made a couple of sandwich runs.  Tim mentioned it looked like piranhas when the brought out the sandwich platters.  They were gone fast!

We were warned on the bus that it would depart at midnight (Cinderella-esque)  So when it was 10 minutes to we went down to the floor, listened a little more and then upon threat of being abandoned in Sao Paulo, went to find the bus.  It pained me to leave before their playing was finished, but I also didn't want to walk home.  

But of course we didn't find the bus until 12:20, so i could have stayed! 

But the bus ride home was gratefully uneventful.  I slept like a rock, I woke up once thinking we were still in Sao Paulo, and two minutes later we pulled into the parking lot.  Awesome. Apparently if you stayed awake it was a really bumpy ride.  (poor Jamison).

But just an incredibly enjoyable night!

We got home at 2 am.  The kids were all asleep.  Lindsey said everything was good.  I finished cleaning up all the undone things I left (dishes, clearing the table, etc.) because we had a church barbecue at our house the next day.  

(OK since it is the next day, I will mention, we must be turning Brazilian, the barbecue was scheduled 10 am - 1 pm, most of the people arrived at 1 and stayed until 3 pm.  No problem.  No checking our phones.  Just enjoying the company of some really great people.)