I'm all bouncy with excitement. I have my new harp.

Drove to Chicago on Sun. Only got lost a couple of times. We were at the factory as soon as it openned Mon. morning - it was awesome, harps everywhere. They had 3 for me to try out. I was able to eliminate one within 5 minutes, it just wasn't as good as the other two - it was an ok harp, just nowhere near as good as the other two. It then took me 3 1/2 hours of playing to pick between the other two. In the end, my teacher the sales manager and I all agreed that I'd picked the technically best harp. It sounds amazing and will only get better as the sound board ages. Then we had a tour of the factory. That was really cool, seeing how all the parts are made and the hundreds of little pieces that go into the mechanism. The explanation of how the gold guilding gets done blew me away. And as each harp is custom built they have to keep track of all the harp components for each harp so that at the very final stage they can all be assembled correctly. We then spent the afternoon picking out music and accessories - I bought a new stand to match the harp.

After harp shopping all day we did a Chicago riverboat architectural tour. It was fascinating - I'd highly recommend it to anyone going to Chicago.

Coming back home through customs was really funny. The first customs guy asked us what we had to declare and was like "You spent how much" when I casually announced 21,000. Then they sent us to the inspection area with our amounts written on a yellow slip of paper. The second officer's jaw actually dropped and his eyes got really wide and he was You spent what???? I explained that the big blue thing in the back of the van was a concert grande harp and that they're manufactured in Chicago, and that the whole purpose of the trip was to buy one. Then I got lucky and didn't have to pay import fees on the transport cover which was like another 600 because I'd prepaid for it and had it shipped to the factory so on the reciept it said customer property. So that saved me some money and made me feel better about having to pay import tax on the harp which I was mentally prepared for anyway.

then came the hard part. The harp is taller than me, really wide, an awkward shape and weighs 88 lbs and it had to be gotten into my 3'rd floor walk up apartment! My teacher helped me thank goodness but I can hardly walk from lifting. She basically pulled on the harp dolly while I lifted it from the bottom. I didn't want to throw my back out, so I was really careful to lift with my legs, but I'm definitely paying for it today. But we got it into my apartment safely.

Now my living room is completely dominated by my three harps.

I totally love my new one - it sounds absolutely amazing and it will only get better with age. I played around on it a bit last night but can't wait to really play it today.

--splitimage