A chaperone's two cents

A late night hello from Salzburg. We the chaperones are greatly enjoying your lovely children, the gorgeous spring weather (sorry to gloat for those of you in Milwaukee), some great music and wonderful sights. The concerts in Prague and Budapest were in churches beautiful both acoustically and aesthetically. We had packed houses in both places, of mainly locals coming specifically to hear us. The connection between the kids and the audience was real and heartwarming.
The bus breakdown happened at the end of our Budapest tour, on Gellert Hill. We got to be true Europeans, walking about 30 minutes from the hill to our concert venue, then taking the subway back to the hotel. Meanwhile our amazing driver Alex and two mechanics worked on the bus, which turned out to have a small electrical malfunction they fixed after about two hours. The bus was ready to go early this morning and took us first to Eisenstadt, Austria. At the Esterhazy palace the kids sang Haydn's concert salon, reported to have the best acoustics in Europe. We then toured sites of Haydn and Lizst's life (be sure to ask your kids about their love lives, and about Haydn's skull). We saw some incredible Baroque wooden tableaux of the stations of the cross at the church where Haydn worked. Then forward to Salzburg.
Items of interest: bathrooms, paprika Pringles, lovely chocolates given to the kids by a Budapest concertgoer, the sauna in Budapest, Lloyd (you'll hear a lot about Lloyd!), thank you in three languages, cappuccino machines, bridges, cinnamon pretzels, coins of three currencies, no screens, street musicians . . . Most of your kids say they want to stay here forever,but we secretly know they'll be glad to be home.