Scenes in Petaluma

The first order of the day yesterday, after the 500 mile drive of course, was to move my daughter back into Sonoma State University. She has her work cut out for her:

After dropping the girl's stuff off at school we headed over to Petaluma to see a performance by these folks:

They are the town band from a pretty small village in Italy, Monte Urano, home to about 8,000 people and the place where a lot of shoes, purses and other leather goods originate. In 2007 a member of this band was an exchange student at Sonoma State, and the town invited the Sonoma band to come to Italy for a tour. In March of 2008 my daughter traveled for 10 days in Germany and Italy and performed in several concerts. The band has now come to America to perform and last night they were at an Italian Festival in Petaluma.

The concert was emceed by Dr. Brian Wilson, the head of the instrumental music department at Sonoma State.

The band was set-up on a blocked off street in Theater Square, part of Petaluma's Theater District, a collection of theaters, shops, apartments and restaurants.

It was a terrific concert and earned them several encores. They even played a medley of Tijuana Brass hits, including Taste of Honey, Spanish Flea and Tijuana Taxi, something I can't say I was expecting from a band made up of town folks from a village in Italy. They also played a medley of Neapolitan classics which sounded like something out of the wedding scene of The Godfather. It was very enjoyable.

In order to get to the concert site we crossed a bridge over the Petaluma River. From here you can sail all the way out to San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean under the Golden Gate Bridge. Here are some scenes of the waterfront area:

I think my daughter's favorite part of the evening was having a chance to catch up with some of her Sonoma State friends that she hasn't seen for 3 months. She finally feels like she's home again.

Today we hit a couple of stores to get her the stuff she'll need to finish up her room and stock her fridge, and then we say goodbye again before driving home tomorrow. It's always hard to leave her behind.