belgium. i didn't really know what to expect going into belgium. i didn't have any stereotypes at all. i just thought of chocolate, waffles, and beer.


when we arrived in belgium, and were reunited with maria and dave, we were walked to the city hall in our number ones (fancyest dress code - dresses and ties) where we met with many important people. and we were also given some local beer. but this wasn't normal beer. it tasted like peroxcide, and therefore as you might have guessed - it was strong!!!! after one little spot mixed with orange juice, we were a little more awake and giggly then we originally were. blech. it really didn't taste good.


we later found our host family by singing songs, aoife and i were roomates again (we were in tucson) and we met our new host sisters, sare (6) and nina (4). they were super cute. our host mom was super nice. and our house was super modern. like glass everything, sensored lights when you entered the room, and just stuff like that. nothing like home!!!!! ahaha. we had our own bathroom, which was kinda awesome! they were really cool. i liked our my stay with them a lot!

the place where we met everyday, was this crazy building that was being renovated or somethin and it had no heat so we froze everyday. and i was just sooo sketch. like on day andrew and i went and found this room and sat down and talked and stuff but then we'd look up and like - wow i can't even describe it. like holes in the walls. spider webs. dirty matresses. broken chairs. stuff like that. weird. very abandoned house that teens break into to party. sketchy!!!!!!!!!!!!

so the week was really cool. we had an alumni come and talk to us, since his year in uwp he has contracted hiv and shared how he now lives with it. it was really cool. we did this barefoot walk through the woods, which i loved!!! aoife fell in a giant puddle, soaked to her hips!!! hahaha sooo funny.


the show was nuts. there was this huge show the night before us, so when we got to the facility in the morning, there was all kinds of nice stuff all over the place. cigerettes. flyers/programs or something. and all kinds of garbage including lots of rubber utensils. EWWWWWW! maybe some of you will know what i mean by that - got to keep this rates G though. the supercrew was there at 6am to set up the stage and there was still people stumbling around. the last one left at 7. crazy. in the show we had a guest performer and she did her own song in the show and it was incredible!! and then she sang we'll be there with me and brodie. and it was awesome. like goosebumps, shivers, jumped up and down in joy the first time we tried it, awesome. wow. her voice was awesome. it was a lot of fun doing that with her. sabee. thats how it sounded anyways.

on host family day we went into brussels. its a really awesome city. we saw that atonium. or something like that. i have pictures on facebook. its this huge structure that was built for the world expo - like the effile tower. speaking of that. jeff and jonathan stayed with this family that obviously had some money cause for their host family day they put them on a train to paris!!!!!! so for the whole day the two explored paris. i was sooooo jealous!!!!!!!!!!!! but its crazy awesome. anyways we just walked around the city and it was really awesome. ate a waffle and bought some chocolate. then we went out to eat. it was just nice and relaxing.

we didn't leave for the airport till 2am tuesday. so we hng out and did education stuff all monday. and then went to a firehouse around 9ish and hung out till 2. gaby breathed fire for us. convienent place so show us . . . . . and then dave and i took mine and brodies guitars outside and just kinda jammed and almost got run over by a firetruck. it was scary. and then we went back upstairs and all the students - the staff were in a meeting - were all gathered around the room and we were having this crazy cast meeting. this is when we talk about issues within the cast, what people are stuggling with, what we need to work on, and then at the end of this one it was like a giant lovefest. i was kinda angry though cause afterwards some people were like 'its so awesome that the staff wasn't here' but i love our staff. and i get upset when people don't appreciate how much they do for us. anyways. then libby cut my hair. oooo la laa. shes a rockstar.

and then we packed up and headed out. i passed out on dave in the bus to the airport, we got all our stuff together, and then flew to frankfurt, waited for ummmmmmm like and hourish. and then off to atlanta, georgia, usa!!! yay north america!!!!!!

and i'll leave it at that. more later gators!

germany again. wahoo two cities. this one was erfurt. and i loved it. a lot. we got there and sara and johan were there and we met in town hall and it was this crazy old beautiful biulding! and then we had some performers, and this one guy played the piano sooooo beautifully. like wow. it was incredible. and then we got our host families. and ate and drank champane. oh i'm so glad that i haven't lost any language skills on this trip and i can still spell . . . . .. oh wait i missed something. martin came back. hes our cast manager and he was away for two weeks in las vagas with cast b. anyways he came back an told us some crazy news. one of the goals for uwp is to get more involved in the muslim community and get muslim students to travel with us. so martin had a contact in the muslim community in vagas and then cast b ended up 'breaking the fast' in a muslim mosque (right?!?!) with the parishioners (is that just a christain term though?). anyways super cool. like really lreally awesome. and it makes me so excited cause i know that uwp is going to do so many incredible things. okay and then martin gave us some news that related more to our cast. when we're in the states we do a program in schools for kids called 'stand for peace'. and apparentley the UN has a program like it and they are interesting in maybe merging with us. so when we're in new york we're going to a conference at the UN.

AGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGAHGAGHAGHAGHAGHAGH!!!! holy poop! thats nuts!!!!!! sooo cooooooooolllllll!

anyways so yeah i met my host family. and my roommate was amelia from china. and my host family was really awesome. i had a host sister, doreen, whos just 14 days older then me! but its funny cause shes in her senior year. cause i started a year early really, and they do 13 years of school. anyways she was awesome!!!! i loved her!!! and in their house we lived up in this little attic/loft place that was just soooo cute!!! and this is the place where i had wireless which was pretty much awesome. oh and a funny story. on the first night doreen took us outside to walk us to the bus stop so we'd know where to go the next morning, and this guy comes jogging by. and its like it was all in slow motion, and i was staring at him, and him at me, and there was a confused look on both of our faces and then at the same moment "andrew?!"/"kady?!" hahahaha so weird. i was like what are you doing here!? so yeah andrew lanham (staffone) lived on the same street. it was reallly funny.

and now i couldn't tell you what we did over the next couple days. but i'll mention some of the awesome things. wow there's a lot. i loved this city. it's at a tie with espoo, finland for favorite. okay. ummm my ci was unreal. like awesome awesome awesome!!!!!!!! emi from sweden and i were doing the same thing, although there was a lot of others with us in the same facility. so we were told that we were going to be writting a song with students at this music school. so we walk into this band room and there's like six sixteenyearold 'ganstas' sitting down. the music teacher asked us what instruments we played. and some how i ended up on electric guitar and emi on the keys. sooo funny. and so it wasn't a song we wrote. it was a rap. in german. cause the boys didn't really speak any english. and it was just sooooooo fun. emi and i got to contribute what we thought would be awesome, and we got to create the chorus for the song. and it was just tooooooo fun. the boys were rediculous. thought they were all that. hahaha so i made fun of them and pretended to be hardcore rap star too. it was sooo funny. and then on the second day we recorded it. and i have 50 copies of the song on cd. and we got to preform it in the show. soo fun. and just wait till you see the pictures of these boys. haha i love them, oh and after the first day of ci we were done early so we wen't back into the main part of the city, and i hung out with andrew l and jeremy for the afternoon. which was rediculous. if you know them then you understand. hahaha it was fun. oh and at one point as we were crossing a street i was like 'don't get hit by a tram', cause they were really quiet, and i ended up almost walking into one. like jeremy and andrew grabbed my backpack and pulled my back. it was inches, agh. smooth kady . . . and then andrew and i headed home and walked through the maze of house where we lived and found our houses. and it was just really good. i love our staff. and i love getting to know them. cause they really are incredible people. yay love.
ummm okay. there was this crazy beautiful catherdral in the city. and andrew j (i know this is confusing, cause i hung out with both andrews a lot in this city, but L is staff, and J in student) and i went in for awhile and it was just awesome. i love being in churches. i didn't know it till i hardly ever got to be in them. and then we went to the carnival which was in the domplaz square, for oktoberfest, and went on this crazy ride. like it was nuts. i'm suprised i'm still living. hahaha i was squeezing andrews hand sooo hard. it was sooooo fun. hahahaha. i have a video of what the ride looked like/did so you understand more when you see it.

umm our show was nuts for me. i was sooooooo busy! and i don't want this to sound like i'm bragging or anything. cause i actually felt guilty that i did so much. but i'm going to write it down so that i remember, this is in the order of the show. i played ayiko and unspoken on keys with the band. i sang in mic groups for village, sound of peace, and power with. i sang the solo for one to one. i played ounce on keys jumped off and did buckets, and then ran back to the keys and played stomp, keep the beat, and abba. danced go daddy. ran and changed during hana and oye, then did our rap song. stripped again back into normal costume, and sang the fisrt solo for we'll be there. then went back to the bass to play the german song, and then hopped down and sang up with people with the cast. and then in the encore i sing the last solo, which is like a clip of we'll be there. nuts. crazy. awesome, but i really don't feel like i ever need to be doing that much. we have loads of other talent that could do some of it. anyways it was fun for that once.

the next day we had regional learning, but it was basically a create your own, so a big group of us just walked around the old part of the city. and we stopped in a cafe and had coffe and talked. and then aubrii and emerald and i went for a walk to the shopping area cause i needed number two shows. and we found this litle store that had SUPER cheap stuff. emerald and i got winter coats for 6euros. crazyness. that like 9 dollars. and its just nice and plain. mines black. and its all i need. love it!!!!!! and then the three of us went out to eat and we had pizza in this really cute resteraunt and sat there for 4 hours and just talked. it was sooo needed. i loved it., and i love those girls sooooo much. and then we went back and met up with the group and then while we waited for our busses aub and i went on the giant ferris wheel.

and then that night we had free enterance to a 'disco'. a club. amelia was too tired so i headed out on my own and then met up with the group and it was just a lot of fun. lots of dancing!!! and then most people had to leave cause we have a 12amcerfew if you don't have your host family with you. but doreen had come too with some of her freinds so i stuck around and danced with the few that were left. guido. and chris and mitch (both staff). and it was really funny. mitch is a crazy dancer. like i wish you could all experience this guy dancing. its unreal. sooooo funny. but really good. he just gets sooo intoo it. sometimes i'd just sit and watch him. and so then they left. and then we descided to leave too. at about 2ish. and my host mom, being amazing, told me earlier not to worry about breakfast, just come down for lunch. yes!!!!! so i slept till like 11. and the it was our host family day and we went to these mines which were awesome. and we just hung out. andi loved this host family. i was soo sad to leave them the next morning. but we were off to belgium. our last city in europe. wow. hrad to beleve. okay the plane is landing so i have to turn this off. i'll be back though. almost caught up. wahoo!!!

okay so germany. i don't know what i was expecting. but what i got definitley wasn't expected.
our first stop was uelzen. a really small little german town. well. like a summerside. and although by pei standards that's a city, by european standards it's a little town. i was roomed with brenna this week, which was really cool cause i didn't know her that well before. we had two sisters, theresa (15) and tabea (13), and we lived on a farm. like we had cows!!!! and we to to feed them. and we had horses too. i never really felt any attraction to horses before this week, but they were beautiful and soooo nice. they had a big old house and it was really cool. the stairs was like a mountain. soooo steep!!! and they were just an awesome family. brenna and i had a lot of fun with those girls. oh and funny story. cait do you remember that german card game that bop had and we played one night?? me and you and your whole family bascally?!?! and it was really intense and awesome. okay so we started playing this card game and i was sooo confused and first and then it clicked and i realzied that i had played it before with you!!!! sooooo funny!!! cause at the time when we played it i was like 'this is a really random thing, playing a german card game'. and i think its just toooo cool that i ended up in germany like two years later playing the same crad game. hahaha. love it.

okay so on our first full day there we visited a concentration camp. wow. hardcore. bergen-belsen. its one that anne frank and her sister were in. it was a really intense day. we saw a video that was taken of the camp, and its really mind blowing. and then we walked around the mass graves. like one was 2,500 people. that's the audience of our tuscon show. thats the first thing i thought when i saw that number. all the people in tuscon sitting in their red chairs in front of me. wow. and there was sooo many more with numbers like that. the coolest thing of the day though was when i approached sophie, whos from germany, and we we talking and stuff. and then we both found out that both of our grandfathers were in world war two. different places, but they fought in the same war. against each other. and yet this world has changed so much in a short 60 years, that sophie and i could stand in that place, and feel the same way about it, and walk away from it holding hands. and we can be friends. and the japanese and chinese can be friends. and we all can. despite past or present conflicts our countries had or have. so awesome. oh up with people.
the rest of the week was cool. for ci i basically walked around the town with high school students and got to know them. which was fun. and we got to know them. we got a tour of their train station there, which was designed by this really cool artist. and turns out that our tourguide was from canada (we thought his english sounded really good . . .) and he went to school at mount a. how weird/funny/awesome is that!?!? hahaha its sooo cool when you meet people like that. i love it. and we had another band day too. mmm, and thats about it.

the show went well. nothing really stands out. oh except that our german song is AWESOME!!! so yeah we learn a song for every foreign country we go to. and our german song was just unreal. brodie and andrew sang it and its really intense and the chorus is awesome, and during it, one by one, the cast moves to the middle of the stage and 'holds a candle' (flashlight). and its just really powerful. was wir allenine. love love love!!!! and since brodie sang it guess who got to play bass!!!!! YEAH!!!!! soooooo awesome. bass is way more hardcore then keys. just throwing that out there.

and uelzen was just good. good week. oh i had nutella like everyday for breakfast. soooo good!!! but i think it'll be awhile before i'll eat it again. hahah never thought i'd say that!!!

okay. update. today is my last day in europe. not in my life. but in up with people. last night i did my last european show. wow. i never would of guessed that i'd ever say i'd done a show in europe. let alone like eight. and now it's done. and so now i'm going to attempt to finish describing these weeks. i may not finish in this amount of time. twenty minutes. but i'll make whatever little dent that i can.

vimmerby, sweden. a quaint little town. very storybookish. which is ironic because its the birthplace of the stories of pippi longstockings. we were reunited with netta and sokeoun - who were the advance team for this city - and then sent home with our new families. mark, therese, ellinor and isabelle. i was by myself again - sharing a home with this amazing family. mark is from california, and theresa met him there so the two of them were fluent in english. bonus!!! and their daughters, 4 and 1.5, understood everything that i said, although they spoke the language very little. it was my first host family with really young host siblings. and ellinor reminded me sooo much of rebekah. very independant! they were an awesome family. i loved staying with them!

for ci in this city we did a conference with high school student about global warming. it was awesome. we watched this documentry called 'the planet' and it was awesome. i learned a lot. and it got us all veryconcerned and motivated. then for the next two days we were given groups, an issue/question and we had to prepare and small presentation on how to solve it. my groups was 'how do our lives effect the natural environment?'. it was really cool. we made our own statistics, going around the group and sharing how long we spend in the shower, how many lightbulbs there is in our homes, how often we do a load of laundry and such. it was really cool. and then we presented these facts and then offered alternetives. like did you know that swiching just one regular lightbulb to a compact flourecent one saves enough energy to power an entire city. i don't remember from memory for how long or how big of a city, which makes this a little less impressive to say the least. but just cool stuff like that. i have a lot of ideas on what i can do when i go back home that will make a little difference.

tim lane, the ceo of up with people, was with us for this week, talking to the staff and getting to know our cast a little bit. it was really cool and i got to talk to him for a bit about potentially working for up with people in the future. i'm really excited! oh and we had a guest speaker that worked for ikea and during her talk she was like 'hey i'm an alumni, andi had my reunion last year'. so i went up to her after, cause dad had his reunion last year, and asked her if she knew matthew brown. she said she did and i was like' yeah i'm his daughter!' hhaha so they travelled together and actually did advance work together for four weeks in switzerland. cool!!!!!! its so awesome meeting people that travelled with dad. oh legacy kids. (which is kids of alumni)

so although this was a really cool city, it was a bad week for the cast. on sunday i found out that someone back home is pretty sick. and it really sucks hardcore that i'm not there. and then brodies grandmother died. and olga's dad, whom she doesn't see often, died. and then to top it all off. faith's mom died and she left in the middle of the night to fly home. and we didn't get to say goodbye. it was a really rough week. and it took me this long, although it did happen, to start a prayer list. on the bright side, everyone seems to be okay now. olga went home for a week, her and her mom sorted stuff out. and we just found out that faith will be returning to our cast in atlanta. we'll see her tomorrow. yes!!!! we really weren't sure if she was going to come back - and i can't even decribe how excited we are to be getting our sister back! cause thats what its like here. what hurts them hurts you. and someone is always there for you. when you just need to cry about something, theres always someone there to hold you. learned that. it may be the last place that i wanted to break down (ie the bus), but it happened, and i got loved. by more then one friend. but one that really was above the rest was jeff. and let me just say on the record that i love jeff. i love everyone here. agh! what am i going to do in december?!?!?!? its a damn good thing that i'm going home to some incredible people - cause otherwise i think i'd go through awesomepeople withdraw. agh. not going to think about it.

oh but a cool thing. astrid lingrid world. if you look at my pictures its the place were everything was either really big or small. sooo fun. astrid was the woman who wrote the pippi books. and it was just a cool place. and then before the show we had a fun rehersal. we all dressed up in pippi like costumes - like pigtails, really bright unmatched clothes, and just funness - and did all the songs in a funny way . . . like ounce of positive, which is like blues-ish, techno style. hahhaa. and one to one, which is r+bish, rocker style. i nearly lost my voice screaming that one!!! it was a lot of fun, a good break from our usually long, detailed rehersals. i loved it.

anyways that was basically vimmerby. wow. i need to learn to keep these shorter. bah.

okay and one more. still really behind but this is a start. oh and i just put a whole lot of pictures on facebook. gallup, tucson, phuket, and namphong. okay here she is.


okay so we got off our awesome cruise ship and we were in stockholm sweden. and we had like 6 hours free time to just walk around the city. it was soooo awesome.

stockholm is beautiful. we were basically in the old city, and it was just incredible. there was a big group of us walking around - me, jeff, johnny, jalee, justen (we have soooo many J's!), danielle, dave, libby, emerald, alex, lena, andrew, and aubrii to name, i think, all of them. it was really fun, we didn't do mch really - dave, alex and i got away from the group for a little while cause we found this really cool side alley and was just crying to be walked down and explored. so we did that and walked around and then we found this huge old church and we went inside and i loved it! pretty sure it was catholic, and alex thought so too, and it was just awesome to be in a church. dave and alex were awesome and waited for me cause i just sat down in a pew for a little while. and then somehow we ran into the rest of the group and so we kept on walking and we got to this place where there was water and you could see a lot of the city. and so we all sat down and had our feet hangin out over the water and i loved it. ummmm and then we ate and then we got split up cause libby wanted to get her monroe peirced (upper lip) and so most people went with her. and then as we were walking dave and i found a music store so we both went in and looked around and wished that we were rich so we could buy like a million cds. but we're not so we left empty handed. and so then the two of us walked around some more, just turning on streets when we felt like it and talking, and then it was time to meet everyone so we headed back. some people in the group were staying to live in stockholm, cause jonathan lives there, so they stayed behind and then the rest of us got back on the bus (we had the coolest bus driver! hahah this lady was halarious!) and headed out to soditelja (killing the name, sorry sweeds), which is a city (bout the size of charlottetown) thirty minutes out of stockholm. we got to see faith and zeljka, who were on the advance team here, which was awesome and then we got our host families.

this week i lived with emily (netherlands) and sherlock (china). we had an awesome host family, the fallstroms, who lived out in the countryside. their house is 100years old this year and its name is 'the gingerbread house'. soo awesome. emily and i slept out in this little cottage/bunkhouse like 20 feet from the house. sooo awesome. so we slept out there on matteresses and had our own little bathroom and it was just awesome. we had two host sisters that lived at home, 20 and 15, and they were super nice. the youngest one, lovisa, has a cd out. just a demo but its really cool. their house was sooo homey, big kitchen that was just warm and cozy, and then they had a piano (i'm pretty sure every family in europe has a piano, everyone i've lived with so far - four families - has had one!), and then this crazy awesome theater room. with a huge projection screen and old theater seats - so cool.

i had vocal workshops the first day there, but the second day i did ci. we worked with students that went to high schools in the area - and had groups of diverse students, beacuse theres a lot of immegrants in the area - and did teambuilding activities and fun stuff like that. cause they're having a problem with groups and gangs based on ethnicity, so us being such a diverse group, we did activities with them and showed them how we can all get along and be awesome. and then in the afternoon we played football. or soccer. it was sooo fun! our group was awesome! hahah they made me goalie. HAHAHA! but the kids we really good so the ball never really got too close. i did manage to save a goal though! YES! we placed 2nd out for four in the tournament we had. haha it was a lot of fun.

on the show day we also had a bts. a backing track show. so basically a mini show where we don't use the band, just the backing tracks fr the songs we use. it was in the street, like a closed off shopping street, and it was FREEZING! haha it was fun, all of us had to strip down and change basically out in the street. we had a stage though! yay! we did quite a few songs. haha i had to dance keep the beat. which is the hardest cast dance. and i'm terrible at it. but i got to sing one to one. overall it was a lot of fun. freezing in our show costumes, singing and dancing for people walking by! hahah i loved it!

and then the actual show. i think it went really well. this was my internship city, so i was running around a lot. me and aimee (dance intern) had to semi-run the rehersal, and then me, aimee, and jaakko (band intern) were in charge of green room. which is the time before the show when we get all pumped and do team building activities. so i taught them some new games, i don't know if you remember this one cait, but when you stand in a circle and look at your feet and then at the count of three you look up into someones eyes. and then if two people are actually looking at each other then they die, so they have to go into the middle of the circle and have a big death scene. hahaah it was soooooooo funny. and we did 'a boom chicka boom' (yeah girls camp!). and more funness. it was awesome. and then every green room kiki does this cast c break down thing, and she always leads it, but this week i did. it was sooo unbelievably fun. me shouting at the top of my lungs (i'm suprised i managed to sing after!) with the whole cast circled tight around me. wow. so cool.
and then the show which went over really well. i love the show. it goes by soo fast though now. like we do 'ayiko' and then before i know it bordie, emi and i are sing 'we'll be there' and its all over. its crazy.

on our free day we got to sleep in a little bit. oh ps. before i lived here with him, i really didn't know sherlock at all. but this kid is a genius! like on the first day hes like, 'so kady, your from canada, big country, 9.96 million square kilometers'. holy crap!!!! he memorizes maps. he LOVES geography. its nuts. he sooo smart. it was really cool living with him and getting to know him. and emily too, but i knew her fairly well going into it. anyways yeah free day. my host parents, rolph and nina, took us into stockholm and we went to the vasa ship museum. oh and we met up with andrea, cause shes living with rolph and nina's daughter and her boyfriend. so this museum was awesome. this ship sank like in the 1620's and was brought up from the sea in 1950. it look like something off of pirates of the caribbean. it was awesome. and then we went on an elk hunt, a drive around the countryside looking for elks. didn't find any. some deer and sheep though. fun day.

and then we left. another travel day. this one not too bad. like 8 hourish i think it was. pretty decent. haha i love travel days cause we get to go on the bus. its the most consistent home in our lives right now. once a week we get to live on there. haha i love it.

okay i right now want to appologize. i know the blogging has been crap on my part. sorry. but my internet access isn't always reliable. and these things take awhile to write. and i don't want to be using my host families internet too much. but in this city (erfurt, germeny) my host family has wireless. YESSSSSSS!!!!! so i'll try and catch up. happy cait?!?! haha (oh and that dream is too funny. i have ones where people from back home are travelling with us too. funny). okay so i had written some blogs and then just saved them on my laptop . . . so heres finland.


ok so after thailand we were off to findland. home of the sauna. and santa clause. could it get any better?!

so basically i was in love with finland right from the get go. when i walked outside of the airport with brodie and johan (their host mom gave me a ride to my new house) and i was a little bit cold . . . .agh heaven! going from 45 degrees to 14 degrees. incredible.

but i'm going to back up a little bit and try to remember something from the like 12 hour flight from bangkok to helsinki. and the 6 hour bus ride to bangkok. ummm jeff, vero and i slept together on the back of the bus to bangkok. and then we stopped and had breakfast, and it was supposed to be pancakes but turned out to be like a breakfast sandwich. a little disappointing, but the sandwich was good. umm and then airport. i forget it. they're starting to all blend in my memory. oh well. my plane date was martin, our cast manager, on one side and then sara on the other. i got to talk to martin quite a bit which is really cool cause most people don't really get to know him that well cause hes so busy. but he's martin brennan, and i'm kady brown, so we always sit near each other on the plane trips. its really cool. and then at one point i watch some oc with jonathan on his ipod. and colored a picture with him. it was a beauty and the beast page, and jonathan maganged to make it dirty. no suprise. what a guy - you guys wouldn't even beleive it. hahah you'll just have to meet him someday. umm and then at one point i went and sat next to andrew and we looked out the window and it was all desert and crazyness and i realized that we were flying over the middle east. i think it was kazikastan. i can't spell that. hopefully you know what i mean. anyways super cool. it was kinda then that i realized that i'm actually going around the world. we went over russia too. too cool. anyways and then helsinki, and in the airport we had like a hug-fest, cause in thailand girls and guys aren't supposed to have any physical contact, so we couldn't hug and it really sucked, so in the airport we went nuts. much needed. and now i'm back to finland.

okay so brodie, johan and i left the airport. and took some pictures in the car. and then i met my new host family. ok so for every place we go we get a little slip of paper that tells us who our host family is, any kids they have, their address, who our roommate is (if any) and pets and stuff. so i look at the pets section, and usually you just expect dog or cat or soemthing. but i fell in love with this family as soon as i saw what pet i had. a hedgehog. hahaha too funny. his name was juan. one night he hid in my hoodies pocket for like 45mins. so cute! anyways i stayed with krista, a pe teacher, her husband (and i'm not going to attempt to spell it cause i would butcher it!) who inspected crashed vehicles, vera (12) and santo (10). anyways they were super cool. oh and this was the first place where i lived on my own. no roommate. it was awesome. my host parents were really good and english, vera and santo were pretty shy to try around me though! hahah they were so cool. we did a lot of sporty stuff. like biking, and i learned how to throw the javalin (can i spell?!) and how to play finnish baseball. which is the same but different. and too hard to explain now. i had a lot of fun. i love finland!!!!

ok so after the show (in espoo, finland) i was running around looking for kiki (my boss for my vocal internship), and someone was like 'hey martin's looking for you up at the alumni reception'. so i was a little confused. but i went up and found martin in the midst of like 40 alumni who came to our show (YEAH!), and he introduced me to a lady jawna (again, butchering names) who travelled with my dad! yay!!! and she gave me a huge hug and i guess dad had emailed her and asked her to give me one from him and it was just too cool. and i met her daughter who was like 9, and we took a picture. and then she thought it'd be funny if we called dad. so we did and i got to talk to home!!!! and this happened to be on rachels birthday . . talk about convenient. so she said hi to dad and then let me talk to mom and dad for lik 10 mins. which was soooo awesome. cause i hadn't since la. loved it. love finland. like honestly i could live there. it was soooo awesome.

umm on my free day we went to this historic island. like it an old fort. kinda like lunemburg in cape breton (girls camp cait!!!). it was awesome. and i took like 100 pictures. agh! ran into a whole lot of people when we left. and then went to look at this awesome lutherin church. it was huge. and there we ran into vanessa and andrew (staff one) and we admired a guy sitting on the side of the church reading the newspaper without a shirt on. interesting . . . . i took a picture. and then my host families car broke down. weird . . . so we walked to the underground and then took a bus home. and then we went to the park and i learned to play finnish baseball. and after awhile vanessa and andrew showed up again and they played too. and we were all terrible and it was fun (although i managed to hit the ball more then i expected).

so i don't remember if it was monday or tuesday but it was one of the best days ever. we went out to the woods for regional learning. and just walked and it was near a lake and it was GORGEOUS! oh my goodness. and we made pancakes over a bonfire. and then as we were hiking i stopped and sat on this rock that looked over the lake and forest and it was incredible, but then i realized that the group had left. but dave and sophia stayed behind too. and then we got lost. so we walked and walked, and somehow ended up getting back to where we were supposed to be before some of the group. weird. really weird actually. but it was awesome and we had a good time and talked lots. and i just loved it there!! i didn't realize how much i LOVE being in the woods. but i do. i love it. and then we went to this other spot on the lake where there was a sauna. two really. guys and girls. so we stripped down and sat in there - like 14 of us all crammed in there. and then once we were good and hot, put the bathing suit on and then run out and jump in the lake. agh!!! like 10 degree water. it was sooooooooo unbelieveably cold. soooo fun though. and then after we did that a couple times (i just actaully jumped in the water once, all the other times i just sat on the dock with my feet dipped in the water) we got fully dressed and some of us sat out on the dock and cuddled/talked and it was really nice. umm it was me, aubrii, johnny, brodie, aimee, jalee, libby, olga, and i don't know people cept coming and going. and then we walked up the hill a little bit and had these huge hotdogs and they were good. and okay funnyness. sweden has invented a plastic banana holder. so that your banana doesn't get squished in your bag/purse. and its really funny. and andrew (staff one again) and emi (from sweden, owner of the banana holder) had a flight with it. cause it's kinda shapped like a gun. haha oh i can't even describe how funny it was. and vanessa sat there with her knees tucked up inside her coat (or was it jeremys coat?!) and then jeremy came up behind her and tipped her over. and it was really funny. and he did it more then once and she couldn't really stop it. haha kinda mean, kinda funny. thats jeremy. anyways and then emi and i gather people and we played hide and seek. good time. and then we all went home and i had reigndeer for supper. and it was really good. poor blitzen . . . .

okay so yesterday and then next two days were like the best 3 days of the trip. and they were all in a row. so maybe they weren't the BEST, but because they were in a row it was just awesomeness. SOOO GOOD. so on this day we got on our 'ferry' to sweden. they told us it was a ferry. well hell if this was a ferry i'd sure like to see they're crusie ships. this was definitley a cruise ship by my standards! SOOOO BUG! i mean big. wow. i was rooming with emi, jin a (from south korea) and kim (from germany). and for such a huge ship the rooms really were tiny!!! anyways we did a little mini show in the casino, and then after we went out to eat, got all dolled up and such and it was a lot of fun. and then after . . . . ummmm hing out with a whole lot of people crammed in one room. andrew (student), libby, emerald, jeff, vero, johnny, brodie, aimee, justen, jonathan, and then some people came and went - lena, jalee, aubrii, shannon, jordan, and probably more. and then after awhile we went up on the deck and hung out. but it was cold. so we went to the club and danced. oh and before this at some point aubrii, jalee and i sang opps i did it again (brittney spears - incase you filtered it out) kareoke. i think it was right after dinner. anyways the dancing was soooo much fun. we had a good time. and then we went up on the deck. and i hung out with andrew. and then when i decided to sleep, at around 4ish, i went into y room and emi had just gotten in to and so we got into bed and talked for a bit and then slept like babies. we shared a bed cause the room was so small that we holed down all four beds there was no room for our giant suitcases. so we shared a top bunk. thank goodness i didn't fall off. and then after about 3 hours sleep, waking up to look out the window and see the ocean rolling on by (which was awesome!!!) went and had breakfast with jeff and andrea. and then our cruise was over. good night though. i loved it.

and then we were in stockholm sweden, which was the third day to the three day awesomeness. but right now its eleventhirty and i have to get up at six tomorrow cause its the 12hour travel day to germany. and i don't have an alarm clock so i'm literally praying that i wake up. cause i need to be there at sevenfifteen. agh! we'll see. buti had a coffee around 3 today. bad idea. cause i'm not tired at all. hense the book i just wrote for you all. it was originally going to be really short. agh and here i am still typing. okay goodnight. love you all. times ten to the power of 198731275912. i know, big number eh? true story though.

and i just did a word count on this and its over 2000. thats longer then most of my high school essays. holy moly.