wild horses can't keep us from singing

This morning we had a quick rehearsal in a park next to our hotel in Szekelyudvarhely--a park dedicated to Hungarian heroes, whose busts listened to our singing. It was a good place to practice because our next performance, later in the morning, would be outdoors at the annual Worldwide Unitarian Gathering.

Soon a small crowd gathered to listen to us. Then a tour bus came and quite a large crowd massed at the entrance to the park. Beth, our director, offered to cut the rehearsal short so that the group could tour the park, but they offered to wait. Our last number is the Szekely Anthem, that Aviva mentioned in her last post-- the one that everyone knows by heart in spite of the fact that it was against the law to sing it, even after the fall of the dictator. Of course many people joined in, and after we were done, the waiting tour group sang it back to us, and we sang again with them.

Maybe one of us has a picture of the park??

The Worldwide Unitarian Gathering featured a worship service, greetings from 2 Bishops that were more like sermons, and lots of entertaining groups such as ours. It kicked off with a brass band, followed by men in traditional Szekely attire, on horseback. It got very exciting when two stallions, standing next to each other, decided to show off. They started kicking each other and rumpussing rather wildly, right in front of where we wee sitting. One of them stepped on Aviva's foot, but fortunately, not hard enough to break anything. Another choir member's back pack got trampled too; the container of yogurt in a ziplock bag was completely smooshed, but the bag is still good.

Wild horses could not deter us; we sang very well, staying in key the whole time, and delighting the audience.

We had plenty of time after singing to shop around for handcrafts and souvenirs, and then on to Marosvasarhely and another concert tomorrow morning.