hermosillo is hot. like on our show day it was about 50 degrees out. we needed a super set up crew that came in at 5am cause it would have been too hot to set up during the day.
i stayed with jessica rojas this week. and my host family didn't speak any english. i think that they were really confused by us. one girl who could speak spanish (therefore communicate with them), but couldn't see (ps. jess is blind) - and another who could see but couldn't communicate with them.
monday driving there was long. like a nine hour day. and then when we got there, we were invited to the city hall of hermosillio. cause that monday was the national independance day of mexico. and it was a huge deal to be invited . . . cause like the govenor of the state was there and we sang 'viva le gente' (up with people in spanish) for the first lady and everything. but it made for a really long day cause we were there til like 11pm. definitley a cool experience.
it was also intern city . . . so the interns run everything. pretty cool. laura ran her own workshop . . . taught a song that she had wrote. in dutch. pretty awesome. and . . . . i don't remember a whole lot else from this week. we had mcdonalds one day for lunch. like it was donated. THAT was a pretty big deal.
oh and hermosillo had an infestation of crickets. like they were everywhere. they hopped into everything you owned. and my host family this week . . . they would just step on them, and leave them on the floor. so there was squished crickets all over the floor. i won't lie, it was gross.
and that's all. peace out.
October 19, 2008
October 14, 2008
tepic =
- catherine from denmark as roommate! costume fashion show to meet host families! they provided us costumes from their homes and we had to wear them and then the host families would just find the students wearing their clothes.
- really cool host fam.
- night out on the town. we got free enterance to this club and it was crazy hardcore. like fancy. like a little more hardcore then the wave. or a lot more . . . and it was fun. the majority of the cast was there and we danced and drank beer (carona was only $2!!!! holy moly!). we went with my host sisters who were only 14 and 16 (i know! crazy mexico ;) and they wanted to stay later then catherine and i. we got home at like 2.30am. and the roosters we already crowing. gross.
- baby turtles!!! one day our ci was cleaning the beach for this group that helps save baby turtles. and they had a little kidy pool full of em. and they were adorable. they were like this big. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CUTE!
- jungleness. tepic was gorgeous! like mountains that were super green and lush. which was such a nice contrast from the dryness of the rest of our mexican tour.
- the most incredible clouds ever. like really. pillowing over the mountains. i've never seen anything like it.
- storm stayed at the ice cream shop. one night the host fam took us out to this homemade ice cream shop. and it started thunder and lightening like crazy. so bad that the streets were flooded and everything. and we were stuck in the shop for like an hour. not a bad spot to be stuck though. and we met our host sister celeste's boyfriend there. but shhhhh her dad doesn't know. ;)
- host fam day at the laguna. it is really a volcano. like water collected in the mouth of the volcano. and you swim in it. CRAZY!!! and it's bottomless. they can't find the bottom. it's nuts. look at the pictures. absolutely incredible.
- egg drop. see video on fb.
and that's all. peace out friends.
- really cool host fam.
- night out on the town. we got free enterance to this club and it was crazy hardcore. like fancy. like a little more hardcore then the wave. or a lot more . . . and it was fun. the majority of the cast was there and we danced and drank beer (carona was only $2!!!! holy moly!). we went with my host sisters who were only 14 and 16 (i know! crazy mexico ;) and they wanted to stay later then catherine and i. we got home at like 2.30am. and the roosters we already crowing. gross.
- baby turtles!!! one day our ci was cleaning the beach for this group that helps save baby turtles. and they had a little kidy pool full of em. and they were adorable. they were like this big. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CUTE!
- jungleness. tepic was gorgeous! like mountains that were super green and lush. which was such a nice contrast from the dryness of the rest of our mexican tour.
- the most incredible clouds ever. like really. pillowing over the mountains. i've never seen anything like it.
- storm stayed at the ice cream shop. one night the host fam took us out to this homemade ice cream shop. and it started thunder and lightening like crazy. so bad that the streets were flooded and everything. and we were stuck in the shop for like an hour. not a bad spot to be stuck though. and we met our host sister celeste's boyfriend there. but shhhhh her dad doesn't know. ;)
- host fam day at the laguna. it is really a volcano. like water collected in the mouth of the volcano. and you swim in it. CRAZY!!! and it's bottomless. they can't find the bottom. it's nuts. look at the pictures. absolutely incredible.
- egg drop. see video on fb.
and that's all. peace out friends.
a stay in cabo?? okay!
okay cabo. first host fam!!! yeah! cause in denver i had the stonesmiths - who aren't really a host family cause i already knew them. and then in breckinridge we had a staff condo. and then la paz i was in the staff hotel. SO . . . cabo was the first real host fam of the semester. YAY! i had my host dad pedro, and host mom lupeta, and host sister rosario (who was 15). and i had host brother pedro and his girlfriend paulina, who didn't live with us but visited often cause pedro spoke english and paulina was trying to learn. and three little host weiner dogs. hahaaha AWESOME!
so cabo was awesome and not awesome at the same time. it was weird in that we were in two different cities - san jose del cabo and cabo san lucas - both combined make up cabo, however the cities are 45mins and we had people hosted in both cities! so on our community impact days we stayed in our respective cities and had seperate morning meetings and CI sites. crazy! and we had two shows this week. one in each of the cities! so on friday we set up the equiptment (in a baseball stadium - let me offically say i hate outdoor facilities), did rehearsal in the 45 degree heat (UGH!), did a show, and then took down the set. and then did it all again the next day! INSANE!!!! and it was so rediculously hot. like whoa. and just the whole two days in a row. usually after a show day you have a free day. not another show day. they usually run from 8am until 1.30am. and so two in a row was rediculous. and outdoor facilities are crazy. we've had so much trouble with overheating, and getting sufficent power, and rain (therefore having to cover everything) and all kinds of crazy. AGHHH!! hahahah definitley kept us on our toes.
regional learning day was also awesome and crazy. we started off by going to a really poor area of san jose del cabo. for a lot of the people in the cast it was the fisrt time they've ever seen poverty like that. i talked to a man there who had seven children, all under the age of eight or nine. they had this tiny little house and he was just so proud of it. he kept boasting to me about the beautiful view of the mountains they have. makes you realize how great you really have it, when people like that are just so greatful for what little they do have. we kinda stuck out here and so after awhile there was a lot of little kids following us around - so we started playing games with them. and it was really fun and cute. and then i found this little baby and she was just four months old and her mom let me hold her and she was just the cutest.
then after that we drove out to the middle of no where. like a two hour drive. and the guy in charge hadn't told us where we were going so there was a whole bunch of us staff in a 12 passenger van and we were all going nuts wondering where we were going. so we made it to our destination - a mango farm. with a waterfall. but we had to walk like a kilometer to get there. but it was awesome. and the students loved it.
so then we drove back to cabo san lucas and we got on a cruise! like a mini one - but it was still awesome. and we watched the sunset on the water and they had a live band playing, and i had my fish caviar ever (like this thing was swanky, it was sushi with caviar). and we all just got to hang out and it was great. took a lot of jumping shots on the deck!
one of the ci's was crazy. it was grandparnets day there and we were going to help out serving them food and such. and i was told that we were going to perform two songs accapella. so i was all ready for that. had my singers ready and such. and then when we got there the director guy asked where our costumes where! he was expecting a full BTS with costumes and the whole shebang! and we started yelling at mitch (education coordinator) and so we started getting on the phone and trying to figure everything out and it was really nuts. in the end we just did what we were told we would be doing. one to one and viva le gente (up with people in spanish). and then we helped make up the plates of food in the kitchen. it was SOOOOOOO hot. like rediculously. like sweat dripping down my face. i had to get someon to take over for me a couple times so that i could go wipe my face off so that the grandparents didn't get a side of sweat with their meal. gross.
on the host fam day we drove out to this secluded beach that was gorgeous! we couldn't go swimming cause the waves were too crazy but it was really nice. hahahahah and they had asked me at the first of the week if i drank tequila, and i said no but i like beer, so they totally bought some beer and we just sat on the beach and listened to music and i took a nap and it was awesome.
the travel day this week was a little nuts. so la paz and cabo are in the baja penninsula (i know, i know, i can't spell for crap), so we had to bus back to la paz (3 hrs) and then take a ferry to the mainland (6 hrs) and then bus to Tepic (11hrs). GOOD DAY! hahaha ugh. but the ferry was awesome. had some good best friend time with molly, just sitting out on the deck and talking, ended up getting sunburnt. once it got dark me, mols, dave and matt all went up to the top deck and looked at the stars. it was awesome! and we saw the best shooting star any of us have ever seen. like it was incredible.
i had such a long bus ride cause there wasn't enough room on these buses for everyone. martin and anthony had flown to arizona to pick up one of the vans and were supposed to meet us down there, and me, gabe and dave had voulenteered to stay where the ferry dropped us overnight to meet them in the morning to drive to tepic, but they got stuck at the border. SO dave, gabe and i ended up on a 11 hour bus ride. like one that stops at every town, turns on the lights and lets people off. we got off the ferry at around 10. we go to bus stop and there was one leaving at 11.30pm. but we decided to compared prices with the bus station down the road. it was sketchy. but when we got back they had sold out of tickets for the 11.30 bus! UGH! so we had to wait until 12.30. GROSS. but we met this guy from BC who is just backpacking around. actually trying to make his way up to montreal, cause his girlfriend is going to school there. random eh? he was pretty cool. so we finally get on this bus. and it's FREEZING! like dave and i are shivering in our seats. and we're all curled up into balls, trying to make ourselves are comfortable as you can in a bus. and so at one of the stops the lady next to me gave me her polarfleece sweater. cause she had a blanket too and saw that i was obviously freezing. hahahaha cause who thinks to pack a sweater for an overnight in mexico??? anyways i loved her. a lot. so being a little bit warmer i got more sleep. oh and we made a stop at some random town in mexico and the bus driver told us to get out cause he had to get gas. so he dropped off everyone at this busstop, and it's 5.30am, and says that he'll be back in 20mins. totally took like like 40mins. and gabe and i were freaking out that he came back and we had somehow missed it and now we were stuck in Godknowswhere, mexico. but he finally showed up and we headed off again. i slept the majority of the bus ride. dave shared his music, listened to the Once soundtrack. good stuff.
so cabo was awesome and not awesome at the same time. it was weird in that we were in two different cities - san jose del cabo and cabo san lucas - both combined make up cabo, however the cities are 45mins and we had people hosted in both cities! so on our community impact days we stayed in our respective cities and had seperate morning meetings and CI sites. crazy! and we had two shows this week. one in each of the cities! so on friday we set up the equiptment (in a baseball stadium - let me offically say i hate outdoor facilities), did rehearsal in the 45 degree heat (UGH!), did a show, and then took down the set. and then did it all again the next day! INSANE!!!! and it was so rediculously hot. like whoa. and just the whole two days in a row. usually after a show day you have a free day. not another show day. they usually run from 8am until 1.30am. and so two in a row was rediculous. and outdoor facilities are crazy. we've had so much trouble with overheating, and getting sufficent power, and rain (therefore having to cover everything) and all kinds of crazy. AGHHH!! hahahah definitley kept us on our toes.
regional learning day was also awesome and crazy. we started off by going to a really poor area of san jose del cabo. for a lot of the people in the cast it was the fisrt time they've ever seen poverty like that. i talked to a man there who had seven children, all under the age of eight or nine. they had this tiny little house and he was just so proud of it. he kept boasting to me about the beautiful view of the mountains they have. makes you realize how great you really have it, when people like that are just so greatful for what little they do have. we kinda stuck out here and so after awhile there was a lot of little kids following us around - so we started playing games with them. and it was really fun and cute. and then i found this little baby and she was just four months old and her mom let me hold her and she was just the cutest.
then after that we drove out to the middle of no where. like a two hour drive. and the guy in charge hadn't told us where we were going so there was a whole bunch of us staff in a 12 passenger van and we were all going nuts wondering where we were going. so we made it to our destination - a mango farm. with a waterfall. but we had to walk like a kilometer to get there. but it was awesome. and the students loved it.
so then we drove back to cabo san lucas and we got on a cruise! like a mini one - but it was still awesome. and we watched the sunset on the water and they had a live band playing, and i had my fish caviar ever (like this thing was swanky, it was sushi with caviar). and we all just got to hang out and it was great. took a lot of jumping shots on the deck!
one of the ci's was crazy. it was grandparnets day there and we were going to help out serving them food and such. and i was told that we were going to perform two songs accapella. so i was all ready for that. had my singers ready and such. and then when we got there the director guy asked where our costumes where! he was expecting a full BTS with costumes and the whole shebang! and we started yelling at mitch (education coordinator) and so we started getting on the phone and trying to figure everything out and it was really nuts. in the end we just did what we were told we would be doing. one to one and viva le gente (up with people in spanish). and then we helped make up the plates of food in the kitchen. it was SOOOOOOO hot. like rediculously. like sweat dripping down my face. i had to get someon to take over for me a couple times so that i could go wipe my face off so that the grandparents didn't get a side of sweat with their meal. gross.
on the host fam day we drove out to this secluded beach that was gorgeous! we couldn't go swimming cause the waves were too crazy but it was really nice. hahahahah and they had asked me at the first of the week if i drank tequila, and i said no but i like beer, so they totally bought some beer and we just sat on the beach and listened to music and i took a nap and it was awesome.
the travel day this week was a little nuts. so la paz and cabo are in the baja penninsula (i know, i know, i can't spell for crap), so we had to bus back to la paz (3 hrs) and then take a ferry to the mainland (6 hrs) and then bus to Tepic (11hrs). GOOD DAY! hahaha ugh. but the ferry was awesome. had some good best friend time with molly, just sitting out on the deck and talking, ended up getting sunburnt. once it got dark me, mols, dave and matt all went up to the top deck and looked at the stars. it was awesome! and we saw the best shooting star any of us have ever seen. like it was incredible.
i had such a long bus ride cause there wasn't enough room on these buses for everyone. martin and anthony had flown to arizona to pick up one of the vans and were supposed to meet us down there, and me, gabe and dave had voulenteered to stay where the ferry dropped us overnight to meet them in the morning to drive to tepic, but they got stuck at the border. SO dave, gabe and i ended up on a 11 hour bus ride. like one that stops at every town, turns on the lights and lets people off. we got off the ferry at around 10. we go to bus stop and there was one leaving at 11.30pm. but we decided to compared prices with the bus station down the road. it was sketchy. but when we got back they had sold out of tickets for the 11.30 bus! UGH! so we had to wait until 12.30. GROSS. but we met this guy from BC who is just backpacking around. actually trying to make his way up to montreal, cause his girlfriend is going to school there. random eh? he was pretty cool. so we finally get on this bus. and it's FREEZING! like dave and i are shivering in our seats. and we're all curled up into balls, trying to make ourselves are comfortable as you can in a bus. and so at one of the stops the lady next to me gave me her polarfleece sweater. cause she had a blanket too and saw that i was obviously freezing. hahahaha cause who thinks to pack a sweater for an overnight in mexico??? anyways i loved her. a lot. so being a little bit warmer i got more sleep. oh and we made a stop at some random town in mexico and the bus driver told us to get out cause he had to get gas. so he dropped off everyone at this busstop, and it's 5.30am, and says that he'll be back in 20mins. totally took like like 40mins. and gabe and i were freaking out that he came back and we had somehow missed it and now we were stuck in Godknowswhere, mexico. but he finally showed up and we headed off again. i slept the majority of the bus ride. dave shared his music, listened to the Once soundtrack. good stuff.
September 4, 2008
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.
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!!
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!!
July 20, 2008
parking lots and singing parts.
i don't remember thursday.
this is the thing about up with people. you do so much in one day that it's nearly impossible to ever remember. wait . . . maybe i wrote about thursday already. i don't know. jeez louise.
so friday we had a road staff meeting the whole morning. talked about all kinds of stuff. and in the afternoon we had drivers training!!! whoot.
so basically we drove out to broomfield . . . like 30 mins away . . . to this high school's empty parking lot. i was told that i would be able to drive the truck (that holds our equiptment), but gaby crushed my dreams and told me i wasn't allowed to. cause you have to have an american drivers liscence. dumb.
so gaby and jared has set up a course for us to drive through . . . the truckers went first and then the van drivers. the whole thing took like 4 hours . . . with the 15 road staff and 10 field managers. so we got to sit in a parking lot (in like 95* heat) just to complete an 8 minute test. man it was hot. matt and i went to his house at one point . . . to get drink for everyone so that we wouldn't pass out . . . and we got his guitar. so that wasn't too bad.
i don't think i failed - but after three attempts at paralele parking i still couldn't do it. but they had this thing with two rows of tennis balls . . . and you had to drive your passenger side wheel through (threw? thru?) and i only knocked down 3 of 20. usually when you hit one they all go flying. so that was kinda cool.
once i got home that night we watched a movie. the illusionist. can't say i love it. BUT my host grandmas dog was down in the den watching it with us and i found out that she has an extreme fear of feet. like this dog HATES feet. whoa. hahahaha kinda awesome.
saturday was probably the first whole day that i spent doing 'my job'. we had a discussion with the cast explaining internships, i helped teach cast vocals (we'll be there and oye el boom), and lunch i talked to all those interested in being my music intern and answered their questions about it, i hung out with the band (help teach some electric guitar . . . who knew i could?!?!), listened to some singers, and then had our first hometeam meeting.
hometeams are like small groups that we break into to talk and such. cause sometimes people feel more comfortable sharing with a small group then one of 110 people.
so me and martin and yui got hometeam 5! alright! we've got an awesome group and we just spent the time hanging out and getting to know each other better.
matt picked me up right from the bus stop and we headed out to boulder to see their community theater group perform Urinetown. it was hilarious!! highly reccomend!
and then home, ice cream, card games, and sleep.
now i don't know really what's the deal for today . . . we'll just have to wait and see.
<3
this is the thing about up with people. you do so much in one day that it's nearly impossible to ever remember. wait . . . maybe i wrote about thursday already. i don't know. jeez louise.
so friday we had a road staff meeting the whole morning. talked about all kinds of stuff. and in the afternoon we had drivers training!!! whoot.
so basically we drove out to broomfield . . . like 30 mins away . . . to this high school's empty parking lot. i was told that i would be able to drive the truck (that holds our equiptment), but gaby crushed my dreams and told me i wasn't allowed to. cause you have to have an american drivers liscence. dumb.
so gaby and jared has set up a course for us to drive through . . . the truckers went first and then the van drivers. the whole thing took like 4 hours . . . with the 15 road staff and 10 field managers. so we got to sit in a parking lot (in like 95* heat) just to complete an 8 minute test. man it was hot. matt and i went to his house at one point . . . to get drink for everyone so that we wouldn't pass out . . . and we got his guitar. so that wasn't too bad.
i don't think i failed - but after three attempts at paralele parking i still couldn't do it. but they had this thing with two rows of tennis balls . . . and you had to drive your passenger side wheel through (threw? thru?) and i only knocked down 3 of 20. usually when you hit one they all go flying. so that was kinda cool.
once i got home that night we watched a movie. the illusionist. can't say i love it. BUT my host grandmas dog was down in the den watching it with us and i found out that she has an extreme fear of feet. like this dog HATES feet. whoa. hahahaha kinda awesome.
saturday was probably the first whole day that i spent doing 'my job'. we had a discussion with the cast explaining internships, i helped teach cast vocals (we'll be there and oye el boom), and lunch i talked to all those interested in being my music intern and answered their questions about it, i hung out with the band (help teach some electric guitar . . . who knew i could?!?!), listened to some singers, and then had our first hometeam meeting.
hometeams are like small groups that we break into to talk and such. cause sometimes people feel more comfortable sharing with a small group then one of 110 people.
so me and martin and yui got hometeam 5! alright! we've got an awesome group and we just spent the time hanging out and getting to know each other better.
matt picked me up right from the bus stop and we headed out to boulder to see their community theater group perform Urinetown. it was hilarious!! highly reccomend!
and then home, ice cream, card games, and sleep.
now i don't know really what's the deal for today . . . we'll just have to wait and see.
<3
July 15, 2008
sweat, tears, but no blood yet.
okay so i won't lie to you. i really do want to be writing this right now. but i know i'll be kicking myself in the pants next week if i don't . . . cause i'll probably have like 3987 million to catch up on.
so i only have two days to catch up on. wow. this is like a record.
yesterday was the first offical day for the students. like we met after the airport. and at opening session. but this was the first full up with people day. alright . . . bring it on!!
sweet. so. we had the first morning meeting (where we give any announcments, share if there's any guests, sick calls, or birthdays). we had two birthdays right off the bat - yay danielle and veronika!
wow. yesterday is already fuzzy. hahahaha the days are so full it's so hard to remember what happened. OH! so the road staff went over the rules in regards to host families. like cerfew and how to handle offers of alcohal and yada yada yada (when was the last time you heard someone say that?? yada? it's been years for me). oh and we did ice breakers. like fun games in the ballroom. like . . . ultimate being (make me teach that someday).
i missed lunch cause we had to practice for another little introducion to the show. but i eventually got to eat.
we performed the gypsy dance and the song 'shine the light' for the students. the dance is AWESOME! crazy fun. and the song is unreal. me and eric lentz (one of the producers of the up with people show, and the writer of the song) played guitars and then there was like 6 of us singing with me and jen on the solo's. pretty sweet.
and tuesday . . . . hmmmm. i actually lied when i said i was going to write monday and tuesday. cause now it's thursday. gross. so here's some of the highlights:
i don't remember tuesday. this is why i can't leave this too long. cause it all blends together. i'm trying to remember one thing. OH!!! modules. basically auditions. so the students have like 5 modules - dance, vocal, speaking, tech, and costumes. and i was in the vocal ones. taking notes. judging who might get a solo and such. that was pretty cool. and then went over into wednesday too.
the culture jam was on wednesday. basically all the students can showcase something from their country or culture. like we have a salsa, ethiopian, japanese, native american and thai dance. singing in all kinds of different languages. and all kinds of cool stuff. pretty sweet. except it meant a late night. like i didn't get home till 10. 7-10. gross. hahahaha but not really.
today we did a stereotype activity. people wrote down their stereotypes of each others countries. pretty interesting! and then the road staff did some team building stuff - like the human knot and such. and the speaker (and almuna) had just had a baby. like two weeks ago! WOW!! so i got to hold little baby joey (a girl) for a good little while and that made me so happy. soooo cute.
and then at the end of the day matt and i ran down to the basement and sang a little bit to close off the day. we're working on the song 'realize' by colbie caliate. or however you spell her name. i feel like i've already attempted this in a blog. hmmmm. anyways. i love it. and i love singing with matt. he's going to be my brodie this semester.
i take the bus home with three other student. milou from the netherlands, josh from the usa, and seung-boem from south korea. so we're waiting in line to load the bus and i came to realize tha seung-boem is HILARIOUS! holy crap this kid! hahaha nearly had me in tears! cause his english isn't too great yet, it's good but . . . you know . . . still a lot of confusing moments. so he had asked what i did today. so i said that the staff did some team building. and he says (in his cute little korean accent) 'oh like body building?!?!'. hahaaha. and then it just went uphill from there. but i can't even explain what happened. it was good though. and it ended with seung-boem teaching us how to say sweet potatoe in korean. WHAT?!?!?! hahaha i wish i remembered what it was! anyways i love this kid now. i'm going to look forward to this everyday.
and so now i'm at home. my host grandpa (matt's dad) and host grandma (cindy's mom - ps with her dog allie) are both visiting tonight so it's a little crazier then usual around here. exciting though.
okay. caught up. alright. until tomorrow. hopefully.
peace out!
so i only have two days to catch up on. wow. this is like a record.
yesterday was the first offical day for the students. like we met after the airport. and at opening session. but this was the first full up with people day. alright . . . bring it on!!
sweet. so. we had the first morning meeting (where we give any announcments, share if there's any guests, sick calls, or birthdays). we had two birthdays right off the bat - yay danielle and veronika!
wow. yesterday is already fuzzy. hahahaha the days are so full it's so hard to remember what happened. OH! so the road staff went over the rules in regards to host families. like cerfew and how to handle offers of alcohal and yada yada yada (when was the last time you heard someone say that?? yada? it's been years for me). oh and we did ice breakers. like fun games in the ballroom. like . . . ultimate being (make me teach that someday).
i missed lunch cause we had to practice for another little introducion to the show. but i eventually got to eat.
we performed the gypsy dance and the song 'shine the light' for the students. the dance is AWESOME! crazy fun. and the song is unreal. me and eric lentz (one of the producers of the up with people show, and the writer of the song) played guitars and then there was like 6 of us singing with me and jen on the solo's. pretty sweet.
and tuesday . . . . hmmmm. i actually lied when i said i was going to write monday and tuesday. cause now it's thursday. gross. so here's some of the highlights:
i don't remember tuesday. this is why i can't leave this too long. cause it all blends together. i'm trying to remember one thing. OH!!! modules. basically auditions. so the students have like 5 modules - dance, vocal, speaking, tech, and costumes. and i was in the vocal ones. taking notes. judging who might get a solo and such. that was pretty cool. and then went over into wednesday too.
the culture jam was on wednesday. basically all the students can showcase something from their country or culture. like we have a salsa, ethiopian, japanese, native american and thai dance. singing in all kinds of different languages. and all kinds of cool stuff. pretty sweet. except it meant a late night. like i didn't get home till 10. 7-10. gross. hahahaha but not really.
today we did a stereotype activity. people wrote down their stereotypes of each others countries. pretty interesting! and then the road staff did some team building stuff - like the human knot and such. and the speaker (and almuna) had just had a baby. like two weeks ago! WOW!! so i got to hold little baby joey (a girl) for a good little while and that made me so happy. soooo cute.
and then at the end of the day matt and i ran down to the basement and sang a little bit to close off the day. we're working on the song 'realize' by colbie caliate. or however you spell her name. i feel like i've already attempted this in a blog. hmmmm. anyways. i love it. and i love singing with matt. he's going to be my brodie this semester.
i take the bus home with three other student. milou from the netherlands, josh from the usa, and seung-boem from south korea. so we're waiting in line to load the bus and i came to realize tha seung-boem is HILARIOUS! holy crap this kid! hahaha nearly had me in tears! cause his english isn't too great yet, it's good but . . . you know . . . still a lot of confusing moments. so he had asked what i did today. so i said that the staff did some team building. and he says (in his cute little korean accent) 'oh like body building?!?!'. hahaaha. and then it just went uphill from there. but i can't even explain what happened. it was good though. and it ended with seung-boem teaching us how to say sweet potatoe in korean. WHAT?!?!?! hahaha i wish i remembered what it was! anyways i love this kid now. i'm going to look forward to this everyday.
and so now i'm at home. my host grandpa (matt's dad) and host grandma (cindy's mom - ps with her dog allie) are both visiting tonight so it's a little crazier then usual around here. exciting though.
okay. caught up. alright. until tomorrow. hopefully.
peace out!
July 14, 2008
dress codes and a new cast.
so monday was my first offical day. pretty exciting. like we had to wear a number two.
hmmmm . . . that means nothing to a non-uppie. so here's the deal - we have a dress code number system. it is as follows:
number one - best thing you own. dress and heels or suit and tie. usually worn on days we're meeting REALLY important people. like presidents of countries.
number two - business. dress pants and top/dress/skirt/tie's are encouraged. absolutely no jeans and only closed toe shoes (with the exception of some nice sandals for girls)
number three - everyday. jeans and tee basically.
number four - work out/rehearsal clothes.
number five - anything that can get paint or dirt on it. and obtain h0les. worn on some community service sites (ie. habitat for humanity)
so yeah i made my way to downtown denver and headed to the Up with People office, met up with cody and katie outside, and stopped at the fifth floor. inside the conferance room was basically everyone who works for UwP. office staff, road staff, FM's (field managers - go to the cities ahead of the cast and set up facilities and host families and such), regional staff (like paul whittiker who sets up all the places we go in asia basically), and of course Tommy Spaulding. our ceo and president. so tommy got up and spoke to us for awhile and it was just incredible. like he rocks my socks off. i've never met anyone so completely passionate about what they do. and he told us that we were the best team that the new uwp (since 2006) has put together yet. wow. i almost cried a couple times. i'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to be doing this. holy moly.
and so we basically had meetings all day. financial stuff and where the company is heading (which is really exciting stuff - i'm so pumped to be a part of this awesome transition!)
and then at night we had an staff awards ceremony. i guess it used to be an annual thing . . . but it hasn't happened since '99. so it was really nice. had a nice dinner. applauded for people that really deserved the recognition that they got.
the rest of the week was fairly standard. we were at the sherman center - which is the building where i had my staging. it's like this 100 year old building that has like 6 floors and it's just crazy and is really cool. i love it.
basically the whole week i was back in the basement (remember with the band last summer?!?!) with michael bowerman (the music director), bill (cast vocals and as a side-note his son is in The Fray.), and dekker (works with soloist and is a fellow canadian). we talked about what to expect and what we're going to do as the music team. and then one day they sat me down and asically had a three hour advice for kady session. which was long but also really cool cause all three of them have done my job. and they're still working for up with people so they're pretty much pro. so i'm trying to learn as much from them as possible in the next four weeks.
and yeah that's about all i remember about last week. oh wait. up until friday.
cause friday the cast got in. YAY!!!! the PA team (performing arts - music, dance, and tech) had rehearsal and meetings all day but after our day was done i got to go to the airport for a bit and then back to the montebello center where everyone gathers. i met some awesome students, however i remember few names. it was awesome so see their reactions to the whole beginning though . . . made me remember my first day.
and so saturday was a host family day. i slept in a bit and then headed out to sienna's swim meet. and she's like pro. and she's like 11. i only stayed around for one events . . . but she won all five of the events she was in and set like two record times. rediculous. and so i walked home from that and it was nice . . like a 40min walk. but i wish i had of brought water. it can get so hot here. and since we're at a really high elevation it's really dry. i'm always thirsty.
sooooo . . . did some laundry. talked to home. took a nap. and then matt (host dad) and i headed out to boulder to meet up with some of his friends an we had a little picnic-ish thing outside. and then cindy (host mom) joined us. she ran a 50km run that day. and got 3rd. i'm telling you . . . this family is crazy!!!!
and then we sat outside and listen to a band . . . the cowboy junkies . . . who are apparently canadain. who knew?!?!
sunday i made it to church which was great. and i found out that it's close enough that i can totally walk or bike. alright! then sunday afternoon we had opening session. a little preview of the show for the students and their host families. our cast manager martin spoke to them and so did tommy spaulding. and we did a couple numbers. like the song 'room for everyone' and at the end of the song all the staff members come out . . . each carrying the flag of one of the countries represented within the cast. we've got 22 this semester.
and then we kept going with a couple more songs. i got to sing the solo for 'keep the beat' which i had never sang before. pretty exciting. and then afterwards we had a little social for all the students and their host families. but i was really hot (150+ people) and really loud (150+ uppie people).
so cody drove me home and i had a nice supper at home. and then we watched this REALLY weird movie called 'the seeker'. don't watch it. it was one of the weirdest movies i've ever seen. like afterwards i just had this really erie feeling stuck with me. eww.
and now i'm caught up and i'm going to write today seperately because it's a new week. alright.
brb.
gross. i should never say that ever.
hmmmm . . . that means nothing to a non-uppie. so here's the deal - we have a dress code number system. it is as follows:
number one - best thing you own. dress and heels or suit and tie. usually worn on days we're meeting REALLY important people. like presidents of countries.
number two - business. dress pants and top/dress/skirt/tie's are encouraged. absolutely no jeans and only closed toe shoes (with the exception of some nice sandals for girls)
number three - everyday. jeans and tee basically.
number four - work out/rehearsal clothes.
number five - anything that can get paint or dirt on it. and obtain h0les. worn on some community service sites (ie. habitat for humanity)
so yeah i made my way to downtown denver and headed to the Up with People office, met up with cody and katie outside, and stopped at the fifth floor. inside the conferance room was basically everyone who works for UwP. office staff, road staff, FM's (field managers - go to the cities ahead of the cast and set up facilities and host families and such), regional staff (like paul whittiker who sets up all the places we go in asia basically), and of course Tommy Spaulding. our ceo and president. so tommy got up and spoke to us for awhile and it was just incredible. like he rocks my socks off. i've never met anyone so completely passionate about what they do. and he told us that we were the best team that the new uwp (since 2006) has put together yet. wow. i almost cried a couple times. i'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to be doing this. holy moly.
and so we basically had meetings all day. financial stuff and where the company is heading (which is really exciting stuff - i'm so pumped to be a part of this awesome transition!)
and then at night we had an staff awards ceremony. i guess it used to be an annual thing . . . but it hasn't happened since '99. so it was really nice. had a nice dinner. applauded for people that really deserved the recognition that they got.
the rest of the week was fairly standard. we were at the sherman center - which is the building where i had my staging. it's like this 100 year old building that has like 6 floors and it's just crazy and is really cool. i love it.
basically the whole week i was back in the basement (remember with the band last summer?!?!) with michael bowerman (the music director), bill (cast vocals and as a side-note his son is in The Fray.), and dekker (works with soloist and is a fellow canadian). we talked about what to expect and what we're going to do as the music team. and then one day they sat me down and asically had a three hour advice for kady session. which was long but also really cool cause all three of them have done my job. and they're still working for up with people so they're pretty much pro. so i'm trying to learn as much from them as possible in the next four weeks.
and yeah that's about all i remember about last week. oh wait. up until friday.
cause friday the cast got in. YAY!!!! the PA team (performing arts - music, dance, and tech) had rehearsal and meetings all day but after our day was done i got to go to the airport for a bit and then back to the montebello center where everyone gathers. i met some awesome students, however i remember few names. it was awesome so see their reactions to the whole beginning though . . . made me remember my first day.
and so saturday was a host family day. i slept in a bit and then headed out to sienna's swim meet. and she's like pro. and she's like 11. i only stayed around for one events . . . but she won all five of the events she was in and set like two record times. rediculous. and so i walked home from that and it was nice . . like a 40min walk. but i wish i had of brought water. it can get so hot here. and since we're at a really high elevation it's really dry. i'm always thirsty.
sooooo . . . did some laundry. talked to home. took a nap. and then matt (host dad) and i headed out to boulder to meet up with some of his friends an we had a little picnic-ish thing outside. and then cindy (host mom) joined us. she ran a 50km run that day. and got 3rd. i'm telling you . . . this family is crazy!!!!
and then we sat outside and listen to a band . . . the cowboy junkies . . . who are apparently canadain. who knew?!?!
sunday i made it to church which was great. and i found out that it's close enough that i can totally walk or bike. alright! then sunday afternoon we had opening session. a little preview of the show for the students and their host families. our cast manager martin spoke to them and so did tommy spaulding. and we did a couple numbers. like the song 'room for everyone' and at the end of the song all the staff members come out . . . each carrying the flag of one of the countries represented within the cast. we've got 22 this semester.
and then we kept going with a couple more songs. i got to sing the solo for 'keep the beat' which i had never sang before. pretty exciting. and then afterwards we had a little social for all the students and their host families. but i was really hot (150+ people) and really loud (150+ uppie people).
so cody drove me home and i had a nice supper at home. and then we watched this REALLY weird movie called 'the seeker'. don't watch it. it was one of the weirdest movies i've ever seen. like afterwards i just had this really erie feeling stuck with me. eww.
and now i'm caught up and i'm going to write today seperately because it's a new week. alright.
brb.
gross. i should never say that ever.
July 12, 2008
and so it begins
okay. catch up time. and i thought i was bad at this last year - now i'm even busier. agh. i'll do my best though.
so i left off at wednesday. i think. we did the showcase show, and then party at the erleys. good times (not in the maritimes though - cait i always want to say this now but i can't cause i'm not in the maritimes. sad day)
my host family went camping for the long weekend, so i celebrated independance day on my own. i did get to see some fireworks though . . . and let me tell you, they are hardcore here. lasted like three hours. whoa. i also drove to the flatirons mall to buy sneakers . . . and didn't crash and die on these crazy colorado highways. our highways back home are a joke. i was a little nervous here. but i made it there and back in one piece with no damage to the stonesmiths car so all it well.
saturday i headed out early in the morning cause we had our staff retreat!! yay!!! so i met matt and we drove into denver to meet up with everyone else and head up to the mountain town, Evergreen.
so i'm going to stop here for a sec and let you know who the staff is. cause i'm sure i'll be talking about them a lot. so here's a little mini bio on all of them:
martin - cast manager (traveled as CM for my cast)
scott - assistant cast manager (married to ellen)
ellen - education manager (married to scott)
aoife - education coordinator (traveled as staff with my cast, we call each other sister cause we were roommates three times last year)
mitch - education coordinator (also traveled as staff with my cast)
celiana - business manager and marketing coordinator (traveled as staff with my cast)
dave - admissions coordinator (traveled as student with me)
matt - business administrator (traveled with cast B last summer, so we were in denver at the same time last year) NEW STAFF!
molly - logistic coordinator (just got off the road with cast a) NEW STAFF!
nathan - technical manager and sound tech (from canada! yay! is new) NEW STAFF!
anthony - lights tech (just got off the road) NEW STAFF!
rafa - video tech (traveled with cast b last summer) NEW STAFF!
gabe - show manager (traveled as staff with cast b last year)
yui - dance captain (traveled with my cast)
me - music coordinator! NEW STAFF!
so as you can see there's an awesome mix of oldies and newbies. and so over the weekend we hung out and got to know each other and stuff. talked about our goals and what we want to been seen as as staff. we were sadly missing nathan and celi - both stuck in the respective countries or canada and venezuela. nathan got here last monday though and celi's getting here this week! yay!!!
we ate lots and talked even more. at one point matt and i sat down at the piano and started singing and playing around - singing realize by colbie calait (sp?!?!) and hallelujah by leanord cohen. good times (not in the maritimes though.) we bbqed over a fire and roasted marshmellows, played a crazy game (jesus gnomes against the flamingos) and then headed off to bed.
sunday morning we all woke up and made breakfast together. i was in charge of pancakes . . . and it was just like home! hahhaah making over 20 pancakes for a full house. it was just a lot of fun . . . some of us have known each other for a year or more . . . some for no more then a week . . . but we all seem to mesh really well and i know we've got a kick ass team going on here. yeah!
so then matt drove me home and i was super lazy and then the stonesmiths came home and i caught up with them and then off to bed again.
so there's the first week. i'm going to try and write this last week tonight but right now i promise sienna a games a cards so i'm going to peace out.
<3
so i left off at wednesday. i think. we did the showcase show, and then party at the erleys. good times (not in the maritimes though - cait i always want to say this now but i can't cause i'm not in the maritimes. sad day)
my host family went camping for the long weekend, so i celebrated independance day on my own. i did get to see some fireworks though . . . and let me tell you, they are hardcore here. lasted like three hours. whoa. i also drove to the flatirons mall to buy sneakers . . . and didn't crash and die on these crazy colorado highways. our highways back home are a joke. i was a little nervous here. but i made it there and back in one piece with no damage to the stonesmiths car so all it well.
saturday i headed out early in the morning cause we had our staff retreat!! yay!!! so i met matt and we drove into denver to meet up with everyone else and head up to the mountain town, Evergreen.
so i'm going to stop here for a sec and let you know who the staff is. cause i'm sure i'll be talking about them a lot. so here's a little mini bio on all of them:
martin - cast manager (traveled as CM for my cast)
scott - assistant cast manager (married to ellen)
ellen - education manager (married to scott)
aoife - education coordinator (traveled as staff with my cast, we call each other sister cause we were roommates three times last year)
mitch - education coordinator (also traveled as staff with my cast)
celiana - business manager and marketing coordinator (traveled as staff with my cast)
dave - admissions coordinator (traveled as student with me)
matt - business administrator (traveled with cast B last summer, so we were in denver at the same time last year) NEW STAFF!
molly - logistic coordinator (just got off the road with cast a) NEW STAFF!
nathan - technical manager and sound tech (from canada! yay! is new) NEW STAFF!
anthony - lights tech (just got off the road) NEW STAFF!
rafa - video tech (traveled with cast b last summer) NEW STAFF!
gabe - show manager (traveled as staff with cast b last year)
yui - dance captain (traveled with my cast)
me - music coordinator! NEW STAFF!
so as you can see there's an awesome mix of oldies and newbies. and so over the weekend we hung out and got to know each other and stuff. talked about our goals and what we want to been seen as as staff. we were sadly missing nathan and celi - both stuck in the respective countries or canada and venezuela. nathan got here last monday though and celi's getting here this week! yay!!!
we ate lots and talked even more. at one point matt and i sat down at the piano and started singing and playing around - singing realize by colbie calait (sp?!?!) and hallelujah by leanord cohen. good times (not in the maritimes though.) we bbqed over a fire and roasted marshmellows, played a crazy game (jesus gnomes against the flamingos) and then headed off to bed.
sunday morning we all woke up and made breakfast together. i was in charge of pancakes . . . and it was just like home! hahhaah making over 20 pancakes for a full house. it was just a lot of fun . . . some of us have known each other for a year or more . . . some for no more then a week . . . but we all seem to mesh really well and i know we've got a kick ass team going on here. yeah!
so then matt drove me home and i was super lazy and then the stonesmiths came home and i caught up with them and then off to bed again.
so there's the first week. i'm going to try and write this last week tonight but right now i promise sienna a games a cards so i'm going to peace out.
<3
July 2, 2008
she's BACKKKKKK!
well i made it.
it took a little longer then expected but here i am. writing in this at 7am cause i woke up at 5.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. gross.
anyways . . . as many of you know i flew out on monday. from moncton and then i had a connecting flight in toronto. and for any of you who've ever travelled to the states . . . you know that you have to go through customs. i had 45mins to catch my connecting flight, and so i had lots of time. so i picked up my guitar and luggage and waited in line.
so i got up and talked to the customs lady. and everything is fine until she asks how long i'm going to be in the states. so i tell her that i'm here for seven weeks, and then gone to mexico and then back for another eight or something. and so she asks me why. and so i tell her that i'm travelling with this non-profit called up with people. and then she asks what i'll be doing . . . and so i gave her my title. and THEN she asked if i was getting paid.
so i didn't want to lie. cause i mean - what if they caught me in a lie. what then? so i explained that i'm an independant contractor and that i'm working for the company - so i will be getting paid in the states . . . but i'm not working in the states. cause i'll be other places too.
so she's all confused by this and sends me to this american 'room'. i explain again and go sit down. ugh.
so i kinda just hang out. this woman with two little boys sat down next to me. they were from arizona. and then there was this black woman and her little son, who she told us was thirteen months, and he was SOOOO CUTE! he was dressed in a little black puma track suit with black and white puma shoes and his hair was all in cornrows and just too cute. and you could tell he was just learning to walk really well so he was just running around everywhere. and man he was cute.
so i'm sitting there waiting. kinda starting to freak out a bit - and this air canada lady comes in and asks if anyone in on the flight to denver. so i say that i am. she comes over, takes my name, and then rips the tags off my luggage and guitar and tells me that i've missed my flight. AGHHHHHHHHHH. but then she said to just go see her when i was done and she'd book me a new one.
so i finally got permission to come into the states. and i guess i'm lucky i did at all cause the guy who's supposed to be our sound tech guy (from ontario) got sent back home. and if they've flagged him in the system then he won't be able to get here ever. agh!! this could be a huge problem.
so since i missed my connecting flight i got to hang out at the airport for like five hours. ewwwww. and it was a little boring. ahhh well.
i finally got to denver. and libby came and got me. YAY!
so we went to the Up with People warehouse - where the special events cast was practicing for our show on wednesday. and i got to be reunited with so many people that i know and love - and got to meet a lot of people that i've come to love in the short span of a week!
the show itself was nuts. just a 40min preview show - but it was SOOOOOO hot in the warehouse. like thailand hot. like i know it's hot when i'm sweating my face off and all i'm doing is standing and singing. poor dancers. but it went really well, we got really good responces from our special guests. hopefully they'll hire us!!! :D
oh and so i'm staying with the stonesmiths again - same host family as last year. and i loves them. i love that i'm back here with them cause i'm already comfortable with them and it's just awesome.
and there's so much more to write but i feel bad that i don't have anything at all up yet so i'll just put this on and hopefully it'll satisfy you for the time being. maybe tuesday night i'll do the last couple days. man there is just so much going on. i'm SOOOOOOOO excited. wow.
first offical day tomorrow. meetings all day. 8-9ish. wearing my number two.
alright.
love from denver!
it took a little longer then expected but here i am. writing in this at 7am cause i woke up at 5.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. gross.
anyways . . . as many of you know i flew out on monday. from moncton and then i had a connecting flight in toronto. and for any of you who've ever travelled to the states . . . you know that you have to go through customs. i had 45mins to catch my connecting flight, and so i had lots of time. so i picked up my guitar and luggage and waited in line.
so i got up and talked to the customs lady. and everything is fine until she asks how long i'm going to be in the states. so i tell her that i'm here for seven weeks, and then gone to mexico and then back for another eight or something. and so she asks me why. and so i tell her that i'm travelling with this non-profit called up with people. and then she asks what i'll be doing . . . and so i gave her my title. and THEN she asked if i was getting paid.
so i didn't want to lie. cause i mean - what if they caught me in a lie. what then? so i explained that i'm an independant contractor and that i'm working for the company - so i will be getting paid in the states . . . but i'm not working in the states. cause i'll be other places too.
so she's all confused by this and sends me to this american 'room'. i explain again and go sit down. ugh.
so i kinda just hang out. this woman with two little boys sat down next to me. they were from arizona. and then there was this black woman and her little son, who she told us was thirteen months, and he was SOOOO CUTE! he was dressed in a little black puma track suit with black and white puma shoes and his hair was all in cornrows and just too cute. and you could tell he was just learning to walk really well so he was just running around everywhere. and man he was cute.
so i'm sitting there waiting. kinda starting to freak out a bit - and this air canada lady comes in and asks if anyone in on the flight to denver. so i say that i am. she comes over, takes my name, and then rips the tags off my luggage and guitar and tells me that i've missed my flight. AGHHHHHHHHHH. but then she said to just go see her when i was done and she'd book me a new one.
so i finally got permission to come into the states. and i guess i'm lucky i did at all cause the guy who's supposed to be our sound tech guy (from ontario) got sent back home. and if they've flagged him in the system then he won't be able to get here ever. agh!! this could be a huge problem.
so since i missed my connecting flight i got to hang out at the airport for like five hours. ewwwww. and it was a little boring. ahhh well.
i finally got to denver. and libby came and got me. YAY!
so we went to the Up with People warehouse - where the special events cast was practicing for our show on wednesday. and i got to be reunited with so many people that i know and love - and got to meet a lot of people that i've come to love in the short span of a week!
the show itself was nuts. just a 40min preview show - but it was SOOOOOO hot in the warehouse. like thailand hot. like i know it's hot when i'm sweating my face off and all i'm doing is standing and singing. poor dancers. but it went really well, we got really good responces from our special guests. hopefully they'll hire us!!! :D
oh and so i'm staying with the stonesmiths again - same host family as last year. and i loves them. i love that i'm back here with them cause i'm already comfortable with them and it's just awesome.
and there's so much more to write but i feel bad that i don't have anything at all up yet so i'll just put this on and hopefully it'll satisfy you for the time being. maybe tuesday night i'll do the last couple days. man there is just so much going on. i'm SOOOOOOOO excited. wow.
first offical day tomorrow. meetings all day. 8-9ish. wearing my number two.
alright.
love from denver!
June 11, 2008
May 22, 2008
so excited i might just blow up
okay. so i just got some incredible news.
guess who's going to be the music coordinator for Up with People's Cast B 2008?!?!?
ME!
so i got my dream job. getting paid to teach music around the world. wow. wowowowowowowowowowowowowow. i am SOOOO EXCITED.
so excited that i renamed my blog and i'm writing in it already. hahaha and i don't leave for a month!
so here's where i'm going . . . in case your interested!
Cast B 2008
Orientation: Denver, CO: June 29 -August 11
Colorado: August 11-14
New Mexico: August 14-18
Arizona: August 20-25
Mexico: August 25-September 21
Arizona: September 21-19
New Mexico/Colorado: September 29 - October 6
Utah/Wyoming: October 7-20
South Dakota/Minnesota/Wisconsin: October 20 - November 9
Illinois: November 9-16
Philippines: November 16-end of tour
except i think its changing in that we're going to mexico right after staging. at least that's what tim lane said. and he's the vice president so i assume he knows what he's talking about.
YAY!!! I <3 UWP!
guess who's going to be the music coordinator for Up with People's Cast B 2008?!?!?
ME!
so i got my dream job. getting paid to teach music around the world. wow. wowowowowowowowowowowowowow. i am SOOOO EXCITED.
so excited that i renamed my blog and i'm writing in it already. hahaha and i don't leave for a month!
so here's where i'm going . . . in case your interested!
Cast B 2008
Orientation: Denver, CO: June 29 -August 11
Colorado: August 11-14
New Mexico: August 14-18
Arizona: August 20-25
Mexico: August 25-September 21
Arizona: September 21-19
New Mexico/Colorado: September 29 - October 6
Utah/Wyoming: October 7-20
South Dakota/Minnesota/Wisconsin: October 20 - November 9
Illinois: November 9-16
Philippines: November 16-end of tour
except i think its changing in that we're going to mexico right after staging. at least that's what tim lane said. and he's the vice president so i assume he knows what he's talking about.
YAY!!! I <3 UWP!
November 20, 2007
okay in for another short one. but i really need to catch up. although i should be writing my paper for the UN on global peace that's due tomorrow. but i am not. maybe tomorrow night.
north carolina. winston-salem to be exact. i lived on my own this week. with a lady by the name of lavonda boston. what a name. i did CI at the ronald macdonald house. which was really awesome cause i stayed there for a couple days when i was little - so it was really cool to kinda give back to them. i organized their food cabinet. it took like 3 hours. soooo much food. we did a bts (backing track show) at a kids hospital, and we met this little boy jonathan who was just incredible. the band did admissions presentations at the high school and it was my first time doing that! yay! except we missed the first macy's parade rehersal, and i was a little upset about that. okay and i went out to eat at a japanese grill, where the chef cooked everything in front of us on a grill thing. and he set things on fire and it was just fun. and then there was the cat that was always in the church that we were in the whole week. like it was just walking around in the church. creepy . . . .
hmmm okay. oh on saturday night after the show netta came to live with me cause her host family went away for the night. and then in the morning we got up and then picked up brodie cause my host mom belonged to a Unity church, and so does brodie, so all four of us went to that service. and then went out to eat at a 50s diner. and it was fun. and we listened to sexyback on the way to church. in my 60 something year old host moms car. and it was her cd. HAHAHAHHA lovely!
okay i really need sleep. hopefully i'll do another one tomorrow.
north carolina. winston-salem to be exact. i lived on my own this week. with a lady by the name of lavonda boston. what a name. i did CI at the ronald macdonald house. which was really awesome cause i stayed there for a couple days when i was little - so it was really cool to kinda give back to them. i organized their food cabinet. it took like 3 hours. soooo much food. we did a bts (backing track show) at a kids hospital, and we met this little boy jonathan who was just incredible. the band did admissions presentations at the high school and it was my first time doing that! yay! except we missed the first macy's parade rehersal, and i was a little upset about that. okay and i went out to eat at a japanese grill, where the chef cooked everything in front of us on a grill thing. and he set things on fire and it was just fun. and then there was the cat that was always in the church that we were in the whole week. like it was just walking around in the church. creepy . . . .
hmmm okay. oh on saturday night after the show netta came to live with me cause her host family went away for the night. and then in the morning we got up and then picked up brodie cause my host mom belonged to a Unity church, and so does brodie, so all four of us went to that service. and then went out to eat at a 50s diner. and it was fun. and we listened to sexyback on the way to church. in my 60 something year old host moms car. and it was her cd. HAHAHAHHA lovely!
okay i really need sleep. hopefully i'll do another one tomorrow.
November 16, 2007
okay. wow. this is the most behind i've been i think. and my only excuse is that we're back in the states. and it's just nothing really foreign or anything. but i guess i'll give you all a little taste of what is was like to be back in the states.
weird. it had been a couple months since i could read all the sings along the road. or hear english conversations occuring all around me. i think i had more culture shock re-entering our western society then i did in thailand or europe or any of the other places i've ever been. weird.
so our first stop was gwinette county - just outside of atlanta, georgia. i lived with vania from
bulgaria this week, and we stayed with an alumni couple, renee and tim, and their 8 and 7 year old sons, will and alex. wow that was a really messed up sentence with all the commas and such. my bad. anyways. they had a MASSIVE house. wow. so beautiful. and they were just awesome. it was really cool cause they just kind of understood what it's like in up with people. umm this week is a little hazy cause i took so long to write about it. my bad. again. okay but what really stuck out is . . . . martin luther king jr center, boys and girls club, hanging out with the kids there, the middle school that had 876 sixth graders. holy crap!!! our really awesome show facility, with the giant robot outside, eating outside, being slack and hanging out with dave after the show, mitch dancing in the lobby all mitchishly. babysitting my host brothers on saturday night - it was like being home!!!! so weird how it all just came back so naturally. and then on sunday we went to the World of Coke musuem. which was really cool.
yay and that's atlanta. well gwinette county. same dif though. okay hopefully i'll get around to north carolina soonish.
weird. it had been a couple months since i could read all the sings along the road. or hear english conversations occuring all around me. i think i had more culture shock re-entering our western society then i did in thailand or europe or any of the other places i've ever been. weird.
so our first stop was gwinette county - just outside of atlanta, georgia. i lived with vania from
bulgaria this week, and we stayed with an alumni couple, renee and tim, and their 8 and 7 year old sons, will and alex. wow that was a really messed up sentence with all the commas and such. my bad. anyways. they had a MASSIVE house. wow. so beautiful. and they were just awesome. it was really cool cause they just kind of understood what it's like in up with people. umm this week is a little hazy cause i took so long to write about it. my bad. again. okay but what really stuck out is . . . . martin luther king jr center, boys and girls club, hanging out with the kids there, the middle school that had 876 sixth graders. holy crap!!! our really awesome show facility, with the giant robot outside, eating outside, being slack and hanging out with dave after the show, mitch dancing in the lobby all mitchishly. babysitting my host brothers on saturday night - it was like being home!!!! so weird how it all just came back so naturally. and then on sunday we went to the World of Coke musuem. which was really cool.
yay and that's atlanta. well gwinette county. same dif though. okay hopefully i'll get around to north carolina soonish.
October 22, 2007
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!
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!
October 16, 2007
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!!!
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!!!
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.
October 1, 2007
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 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.
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.
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