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Center Stage: South Africa Tour Day 9
Delicious! The Glee Club enjoys a private breakfast before their Pretoria City tour. Pretoria is located in the northern part of the Gauteng Province of South Africa. It serves as the country's administrative captial, one of three capital cities in South Africa.�۬
Our first stop on the Pretoria tour was the Kruger House. Kruger House is the Pretoria residence of Paul Kruger, a former President of the South African Republic. Many of the furnishings are the originals.
Outside the house, two stone lions stand guard. They were presented to President Kruger as a birthday present in 1896 by Barney Barnato of the mining industry.
During our tour of Pretoria City, we passed by the Embassy of the United States of America. The U.S. Embassy is the largest in South Africa.
The Glee Club, family and friends posed for another group picture in the gardens by the government buildings.
Our next stop was the Voortrekker Monument. The Voortrekker Monument is a massive granite structure built to honor the Voortrekkers, or Pioneers, who left the Cape Colony in the thousands between 1835 and 1854.
We entered through a black iron gate and found ourselves surrounded by 64 ox-wagons made out of granite. At the foot of the Monument stands a bronze sculpture of a Voortrekker woman and her two children.
Each year at Noon on December 16, the sun shines through an opening in the dome inside the monument and illuminates the words "Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika," which is Afrikaans for "We for Thee, South Africa," on the Cenotaph in the bottom of the hall.
Our final stop was the Blue Crane restaurant. The food was so good that the local birds tried to snatch it off our plates!
After the tour, it was time to hurry off to Linder Auditorium for our final performance of the year. The Linder Auditorium, situated at the Education Campus of the University of the Witwatersrand, is widely recognized for its acoustic merits. It is also the home of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
Three other South African male ensembles performed that night, and we all joined together in song for ���God Bless Africa�۪.
Glee Club alum and PMO staff member Steve Schlenk poses with the seniors after their final performance. Congratulations seniors!