When I was growing up, one of my father’s favorite activity was gardening—he cultivated cymbidium orchids and had a hothouse in the back yard full of them and of all varieties. He also loved going to nurseries and botanic gardens. All of my growing up years when he would say, “Let’s go see some flowers!” my sisters and I would moan and groan. How boring we thought it was!

So what is it that I did on my last day in North Carolina? Why, I decided to go to JC Raulston Arboretum on the grounds of North Carolina State University, not far from the airport!

I was able to get an earlier flight than originally scheduled so my connections weren’t quite so tight. Still, I ended up stopping in Newark and then going all the way to Zurich before backtracking to Amsterdam. And what do you think I did after checking into my hotel? Why, going out to hunt for flowers to photograph!

Today it was so cool and beautiful I ended up walking all the way to the Concertgebouw, about 2-1/2 miles away. I went to a free lunchtime concert by the Concertgebouw Orchestra which was more like an open rehearsal. Still, I would say that the Hall was completely filled and since the Concertgebouw holds about 2,000 people, it was good that I stood in line for about 40 minutes so I could get a seat. The orchestra played “War and Peace” by Prokofiev, which I suspect they will be playing when I come to the formal evening concert tomorrow night.

Of course I was drawn to the organ, which I heard briefly on a tour of the concert hall afterwards. When the hall was built in 1883 there was no such thing as the science of acoustics so it was simply beginner’s luck that the hall is now considered as one of the acoustically perfect in the world, as there was no especial attention paid to acoustics at the time. At one time the interior was deep-cleaned extensively which meant getting rid of a microscopic layer of dust and the musicians complained that the echo increased by half a second! I don’t know what they did to fix it, because they certainly weren’t going to put all the dust back!

When the Concertgebouw was built, it did not originally have a basement, so there was nowhere for the musicians to change. In fact, a picture was taken of one of the instrumentalists without any pants—and the audience was already starting to come in!

Ever since, there has been an elaborate complex of artist suites and warmup rooms in the basement. We visited the guest conductor’s room which not only had a comfy sofa, coffee machine and a piano; it also had a toilet and shower. All of the soloists’ rooms also came with pianos.

I was also very interested to learn that there are separate warmup rooms for the various instruments.

For example here is the room for the double basses where they change and tune before the concert. There are also separate rooms for the woodwinds, the brass, etc.

The orchestra and soloists also have a private restaurant below where they can have a snack and drinks after the concert. Isn’t that great! They don’t have to drive anywhere afterwards when they want after-concert munchies!

We also went up to the attic above the stage so we could see where recording microphones and the lighting is manipulated.

I spent the afternoon at the Van Gogh Museum and decided to take the tram back to the hotel.

Oh my aching feet! Look how far I walked today!