By Suzanne Laurent
LONDONDERRY — The Brennan triplets — Wes, Josh and Adam — are still catching up on their sleep as their mother, Deb catches up on the laundry and more than a week's worth of mail.
The family is home from their adventure with the Lancers Marching Band in Beijing with memories they will often share around the dinner table or with their neighbors, the Leonards, who also made the trip.
Deb and her husband Mark joined the trip as followers — parents and other family members not chaperoning — as did Tom and Michele Leonard. Their daughter, Melanie Leonard, 22, joined the family in New York and went on the trip. Their son, Matt, Leonard, 16, plays bass in the band's drum line.
Wes, who was looking forward to eating rice in China, would probably not care if he saw any for a while, he said.
"There was rice with every meal, even breakfast," Deb Brennan said.
She showed pictures of a table with a glass lazy Susan offering various dishes of Asian cuisine.
"There was tons of food, three-quarters of it though were unrecognizable," Michele Leonard said. "We had Mark be our taste tester."
By the end of the eight-day stay, even the adults were longing for some Western food.
In total, 254 students, 34 chaperones and 50 followers made the 6,000-mile journey, 16 months in the making, to take part in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Musical Cultural Festival.
When asked what they enjoyed the most, Adam Brennan said he liked the acrobatic show on their final night.
His brothers agreed, but all three said performing on the Great Wall was their favorite memory. It was on the top of the list for Matt Leonard as well.
After four performances and visits to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the group visited Chengde, a town northwest of Beijing.
That excursion was memorable for most because while on the hunt for some American food, about a third of the band and a group of chaperones found themselves waiting out a flash flood and then trekking back to the hotel in knee-deep water.
"As a chaperone, that was probably the most unique and memorable experience," said Karen Robinson, a video and radio teacher at Londonderry High School. She made the trip with her recently graduated twin sons, George and Christopher.
"The kids were encouraged to relax and given some Chinese money," Robinson said.
"Most of us headed up to McDonald's. We had just placed an order when lights went out and we were told there were no French fries."
Robinson said the lights came back on and then they were told the restaurant was out of beef.
But that wasn't the worst news.
"We were upstairs eating and looked out the window and there were sheets of rain," Robinson said "We saw cars floating."
"I told the kids that they probably had flash floods like this all the time, but then I heard a woman tell a girl she had never seen anything like it — there went that theory," Robinson said.
Eventually, all made it safely back to the hotel where some students had been stuck in an elevator when the hotel lost power.
Robinson said that earlier in the week, one of her radio students was able to send back recordings of interviews with the students about their flights and first impressions.
The interviews were aired over WLLO, the Londonderry Educational Outreach radio station.
"One of the things that was very cool for me was getting feedback from John (her husband) about the radio spots," Robinson said.
"It was one of the first contacts that parents had back home from the kids."
During the trip, Richard, who will be a senior in the fall, continued his interviews. Meanwhile, other students wrote blogs on the band's Web site along with parent Mary Wing Soares. E.J. Lee, who just graduated, sent in videos for those back home to enjoy.
Mark Brennan said the band members looked so professional in their uniforms.
"The first concert was hard on them," Deb Brennan said.
"They had to stand in the heat for a long time in a school field and some kids got sick."
She praised the members of the Friends of Music who made sure the group had enough water during performances and took care of those who became ill from either the heat or stomach upset.
"I talked with Julie (Lee, president of the Friends of Music) today and she is lost without having spreadsheets full of things to go over," Deb Brennan said Tuesday.
"When we first arrived at the Loong Hotel in Beijing, the students were all assigned to the wrong rooms and Julie sat down in the lobby and rearranged everyone."
Robinson said the kids did a lot of bonding on the trip.
It seems the adults did some bonding as well with their tour guides.
"We gave ours — Peter was his English name — a pair of drumsticks when we left," Robinson said.
The Brennans said their tour guide, Qiang Lu, was unanimously voted the best tour guide in China by their bus — Bus No. 7.
"We're going to send him a care package full of things from New England like maple syrup and a Red Sox hat," Deb Brennan said.
Londonderry High Music Director Andy Soucy echoed the thoughts of many.
"We almost didn't want it to end, but it felt so good to be home," he said.
"This project was an ambitious one and to see it come to fruition and all the wonderful things that happened made it the best trip in my career."
Soucy said his best moment was performing on the Great Wall.
"It was such an emotional high," he said. "Think of how many centuries ago that was built. I don't know if that moment can ever be surpassed."
Soucy said he especially enjoyed the cultural exchange of the Londonderry students with the Chinese students.
"They were exchanging e-mail addresses," he said.
"Another memory was when we performed the Chinese national anthem and then ours," Soucy said. "It created a bridge to put the two anthems together on the same stage."
Everyone was happy to pull off Exit 4 in three groups Friday evening and Saturday morning, where the Londonderry police escorted the buses to the high school. There, a group of volunteers had a special welcome home celebration complete with assorted American standbys.
"That was the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had," Mark Brennan said.
It will take the travelers some time to get over their jet lag from the 12-hour time difference and to digest all that they saw and did.
"When they performed their last performance in Chengde — it was truly a grand finale," Robinson said. "It was magnificent."
It was also the last time the graduating seniors performed with their bandmates, including George and Chris Robinson.
"I cried through the whole thing," Robinson said. "I knew it was coming, and it hit me. I saw other parents of seniors reacting the same way."
