mucho hot.

la paz. oh la paz.

first of all mexico is hot. like whoa hot. like 28degress and 7.30am without the humidity.

who's idea was it to tour mexico in augest?!?!?

anyways after that crazy travel day we flew into cabo and bussed to la paz. we stopped along the way and got our first mexican meal - at this little food shop run by this family, we probably gave them the most business they'll get in months! aoife and i didn't want to wait in the line, so we checked out some pastry things that we assumed had meat in them. wrong! they were filled with caramel!!! SOOO GOOD!

so every week some staff members stay in a hotel - we have a vehicle and can go get anyone in an emergency. and back in staging we could request where we'd like to stay in the hotel - i said that i would like to stay in the hotel in mexico twice. so i was in la paz. and man did i luck out.

it was soooo nice!!! and we ended up getting the week with two free days! two sundays! YAY! the first day - the sunday - i woke up to molly walking around the room. so i asked her what time it was. and it was 12.45pm. holy crap! hahaah that travel day had taken a bit out of us! we basically lounged around the pool all day. God sometimes i hate my job . . . . . ;)

so it was me and molly, martin and kory riggs (mexican tour director or some title like that), ken and nathan, and michael and gaby. pretty sweet. and it was so nice to be able to go home at night to a sweet air conditioned hotel room. only downside was that there was no laundry. and there wasn't the week before either. is resulted in me washing stuff in the sink with shampoo and hanging around the room. and that doesn't quite cut it. i did laundry here in cabo for the first time in 2 and a half weeks. i don't think i've ever appreciated clean clothes more!!!!! they smelled soooo good! i was starting to feel like such a dirt!!!

so on monday i had a mic group workshop. mexican medley. basically a medley of popular songs from mexico. medleys are just so tough for mic groups. cause it's just all over the place with key changes and tempo changes. but they picked it up really fast! we also do three of our regular songs in spanish - sound of peace, we'll be there, and up with people. and well we added 'de que color' ('what color is god's skin' in english) and a mariachi moment. agh! learn it all in one week! man.

tuesday we had regional learning. did a bus tour. stopped at a church - was awesome! the cast left to get ice cream but i got to stay in the church and catch up with the big man for a bit. sweet. and then everyone headed out to the beach. i've never felt water so warm!! it was so great - although i'm sure the other beach goers didn't agress - invaded by 100 uppies. best thing was that we had a great game of football in the water!

the next two days were also dedicated to mexican show stuff. i had soloist and mic groups signed out both days. but they're rockstars and learned it so fast! yes!

one of the nights the hotel staff went to eat downtown - along the beach. so we're eating outside and there are these two guys playing a little live entertainment. guitar and bass. and the guitarist was singing. and he wasn't very good. so he's attempting to do hotel californina or something like that and doesn't know the words. so he asks our (me, molly, martin, kory, and nathan) table if any of us know the words. kory tells him i sing. but i tell him i don't know the words to that song. so he's all well what can you sing and i'll play it for you. and i told him that i'm pretty sure he wouldn't know anything that i know, but if he gives me his guitar i can play for myself. hahahah i think he was a little suprised at that! so i get up and sing umbrella. obviously. and i got an otra (encore!). so i did realize by colbie caillat. but i wish that matt was there for that. me and matt kill that song. like whoa harmony central! but it was still pretty awesome. hahahaha just a cool moment that afterwards made realize how much i love my life. just doing a little gig in la paz, mexico. oh and after i was done kory got up and in spanish was like 'if you want to hear her sing more come to the show . . .blahblah blah'! hahahaha sweet. there was quite a few people that had stopped along the melicon (boardwalk and i probably didn't spell it right) - but probably just cause they we thinking 'who the heck is this random white girl singing crazy music?'

anyways. hmmm something else cool. oh we were sponsored partically by coca cola! lots of free powerade! we did an awesome BTS on the melicon with the sun setting over tha water behind us! and the stage was way unstable and during 'keep the beat' i thought it was going to collapse! had a culture presentation from arnab - learned some about bangledesh! sweet!

so this time in mexico we have a lot of outdoor shows.

i offically hate outdoor shows.

yeah they sounds cool - but technically they are a pain in the arse. like getting the stages built. and getting power. so far they've all been in baseball stadiums - and in la paz, where it apparently just 'three times a year', it rained on our show day. so our set up that was already behind due to lack of stage and power, also got put on hold and we had tarps over all the equiptment and man it was just crazy. he had to put rehearsal on hold for awhile cause we didn't want the dancers to slip on the wet stage. and when it rains here - it doesn't cool it off. it just makes it more humid. and it wasn't pouring or anything - just a light rain - so we didn't know whether we were going to cancel or not.

but the show must go on. we did it. and it worked. kinda. there was a lot of mishaps. show wise and tech wise. sad day. but we got through the show. and the mexican medley - was way better then i expected! i was so proud of all my little non-spanish speakers up rocking the spanish songs!! oh and ps. we have jess.

yes. jessica rojas. the most incredible singers i've ever heard in my life. she travelled in cast B07 at the same time as me last summer, and then again this last time in A08. and she's travelling with us for our mexican tour as vocal support. cause this girl is incredible. like wow. you haven't heard someone sing until you've heard her. i get goosebumps every time i hear her. she does this mariachi moment in the show and she starts off with this note that she holds for forever. like she was timed once and it was 41seconds. i can't hold my breath that long - let alone belt a note! jeez louise!

so the show was alright. and michael - aka my boss - was there for the week and so he gave me all kinds of suggestions and advice and stuff to work on. sweet!

and that's about it. i was an extreme amount of lazy the whole next day. and it was good.

peace out.

cut +paste = catch up

i'm not even going to apologize.

i have a crazy job.

so some good memories of the final weeks of denver.

- i went to see batman twice - once with gabe, phil, joris, cody, and cody's friend ryan. and then once with the stonesmiths. good movie.
- the dress rehearsal. it was rough to say the least. during the first song one of the students tripped over the power cord. cutting all sound halfway through the song. but i was really proud of them cause they kept running on stage smiling - singing loud and proud! yay!
- the rest of staging is a blur. everyday was so busy with walk throughs and run throughs. i was leading vocals and working with the band. add in numerous staff meetings and workshops. then when we started putting the show together - dance, vocals, band - it equalled crazy. by the time i got home at night i was beat.
- i got to hear steve farber talk again. he's awesome. inspirational. i love him. stevefarber.com.
- some people came to visit and i got to see all kinds of friends at the dress rehearsal. jeremy farber (yeah steve's son) who was the video tech for my student cast came and visited for a week or something. it was aweasome seeing him. and then callie, abby, vanessa, and jordan were all at the dress rehearsal. good times.
- i have my first intern!!! my 'awesome' intern! cause her name is laura assums (yeah - pronounced awesomes!). hahahah it's awesome. she's from belgium and an absolute sweetheart! She was almost called my mucus intern though, cause on the description sheet Scotty spelled it ‘mucis intern’. Kinda hilarious.

so the next week we got out on the road. holy shit. i was really nervous and excited. we were in breckinridge colorado, this beautiful little mountain town. it was GORGEOUS!!! like driving to the school in the morning we'd drive my this lake with the mist coming off it, with a mountain on one side and on the other side a whole bunch more of them, some with snow on the top! it was cold up here too. like it hailed twice and snowed once. in augest!!! but i love it so much. definitely going back there someday!

the best thing about the week was that there was a staff allocation (which means living arrangment???). we had two condo's!!! i was in one with molly, dave, matt, rafa, anthony, and nathan. molly and i ran in the minute we got there and called the master bedroom - had our own bathroom! hell yeah! it was an awesome place. big screen tv and a hot tub! alright! i wish that we could've been there longer - it was awesome to be able to go home at night and just hang out with everyone. we watched A LOT of olympics! and one night we worked on picking the 'call song', which is the song that they play 15mins after the show to let all the students know that they have to go to their respective 'job's - either interviews or strike. and so you hear the call song, run up on stage and dance your butt off and then get to work. so this song is kinda a big deal. like you hear a lot of it. and it has to be something really fun and danceable. so the pressure was on. we spent about 2 hours in the living room, all with out laptops, sharing our ideas. it took forever. and so towards the end, when it looked like we weren't going to find one we'd all agree on, i jokingly suggested mambo #5.

and now that's our call song. true story. started off as a joke but we totally wen't for it. hahahaha i love it.

as a departing gift, the stonesmiths had crazy generously given me a starbucks gift card as i left - and i'm embarassed to admit i used in all in that 5 days in breckinridge. i needed a lot of caffeine.

our first show went AWESOME! sooooo much better the the dress rehearsal. like whoa better. like tommy spauding (our ceo and president) came up to the show team afterwards and congratulated us on how much we had accomplished in the 5 days since the dress rehearsal! YAY!

most of my week was focused on the mexican medley. so yeah. mexico was our second stop on the road and we had a 7 minute medley to teach the students. hahaha as if they hadn't just learned a two hour show eh??? so the last two weeks that had consumed a lot of my time. i was teaching the cast spanish vocals (umm ps i'm terrible at spanish), mic groups how to sing them in four part harmonies, and finding soloists that could learn spanish in two weeks and also had good voices for the parts. EEEEEKKKKK! but although i'm kinda jumping ahead of myself here, i'm proud to say we did it for the first time last night and it went awesomely! like there's still some cleaning up to do - but WAYYYYY better then i thought it would be!

so yeah. that friday (in breck), we got in at 9. after being at the show facility the night before until 1ish. i had to go back to the condo during the day cause we had a family donate it to us and so we wanted to leave it nice and clean, but as it was so late the night before we had to do it during the day. so dave, matt and i headed back and vaccuumed and mopped, did all the laundry and dishes and stuff like that. we were in for a real long day here. we - the whole group - were in a meeting room at a resort there. until 4 in the morning. eeeeewwwwww. cause our flight was early saturday. and that's just inconvient for host families so we did the first overnight. what an adventure. i was hoping to get some sleep but no such luck. but i did sleep a little on the bus from breck to denver. it was a long day though. to say the least.

and so although i'm still not caught up i'm going to leave here. i'm going to save and then go out and use the internet (which only works near the pool - yeah that's right! wait till you hear about this week's allocation!). i haven't checked facebook in days - i'm dying here!!! hahahaha.

love to all!!