US, Part 2.7: Sioux Falls, SD

When you come from the east coast, you don’t get the chance to appreciate wide-open expanses of land that seem to stretch out forever. I had no idea that there was this much un-fooled-around-with land out there, all tranquil and serene. To get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, from Aberdeen you have to pass through some pretty interesting cities. Riding along in the tour bus, I would see places like, “Arrowhead, Population 12.” and 30 minutes down the road you’d see another sign: “Custerville, Population 4.” Right afterwards you’d see two or three random houses, side by side. Then you’d come to the realization that in that split second you’d seen the entire town of Arrowhead or Custerville pass by the window, and that would make your head hurt a little, because you'd try to wrap your brain around questions like, “Where does the state get all that money to replace the sign every time someone either moves away from, or is born in Arrowhead, South Dakota?” and, “If you live in Custerville, and your house is on fire, how long does it take for the fire department to show up?” and even more perplexing: “If there are 4 residents in the town, and two of those residents are under the age of 18, and the other two residents are married, how do you choose a mayor?”

The day we reached Sioux Falls was one of the busiest travel days we had on the tour. After Marv and The Other Guy That Particular Week parked the buses, we all piled in to a gym connected to a church, and were instructed to sit in the middle of the floor. After we went through the week’s schedule and found out that we were sponsored by Burger King, they told us that this was the week of the Hometeam Olympics. Every cast is divided up into hometeams who get together periodically and do group activities or discuss things going on that week. So, we split up into hometeams and were informed of the events that we would be competing in: Musical Chairs, Tug of War, Pictionary, an alphabet game whose name escapes me, a statistical quiz about the numbers involved in the tour, and a special outdoor activity that would decide the ultimate winners. They passed us the quiz and told us to fill it out during the course of the game.

First up, it was Tug of War. The organizers of the hometeam olympics thought that just regular rope would withstand the force of teams with a combined total of 24 people pulling on it in opposite directions for a long period of time. Well, the rope stood up for the first round. The second round was off to a good start when all of a sudden we heard a big snap, and both of the teams went down with a thud. Little did we know afterwards that when Kirk hit the floor, he landed wrong and ended up breaking his finger. I think next time they had a better rope.

Then, it was Musical Chairs:





Let’s have a moment of silence for the three folding chairs that perished during the course of the game... It turns out that 107 people shouting at the same time can get pretty loud. I think they could hear us screaming all the way in Arrowhead.

After all of that, the third event was Pictionary, which was interesting, because instead of playing one word at a time, we played it like the end game of Win, Lose, or Draw, where you have a certain amount of time to draw ten words, and the team that ended up with the most words guessed moved on to the next round where the winner would be determined. Naturally, the team who was lucky enough to have Chihiro, the graphic designer from Japan, ended up winning. It was really interesting to see how much talent this cast had when it came to visual arts. And it was also interesting to see how some people just have absolutely no talent whatsoever. But we love them, anyway!

The next game we played was something I’d never seen before. I am not sure what they called the game, but the object was to be the first team to make formations of certain letters and numbers on the gym floor without talking. I’m not sure if I was an advantage or disadvantage to my team. Even though we were pretty darn quick, there always seemed to be a team that was slightly quicker than we were, and it always seemed to be the team closest to the head judge... Anyway, our team lost, and all we had to do was find out what the outdoor challenge would have in store for us.

Because I have only so much space, and this activity is really hard to explain, I’ll just post a video of what we had to do, and showcase the speed with which my hometeam won this particular activity.





After everything was tallied up, and scored, it was a hometeam that I wasn’t a part of that won. Oh well... the games were fun, and a wonderful change of pace from the normal day to day activities on the tour.

Then we were told to clean up and get into our number 2s for a press conference and host family pick up. Up with People has a special dress code that dictates what we wear. Number 5s are the crappiest clothes that we own that we usually wear when we’re out painting walls in exotic locations. As the numbers get smaller, our clothes get nicer. So, therefore, number 1s are our nicest clothes that we wear when we meet really important people like governors and mayors. Whenever we’d get off the bus, we’d have to be dressed in our number 2s so that we would look presentable to our host families and to any kind of media and paparazzi that happened to be there as we got off the bus. I remember one time Angela forgot to put her number 2 in her backpack for our trip to Albuquerque, and had to wait on the bus until the news crew had left, because she was in a number 3. I have no idea why I went on this little tangent. Apparently I have a lot to say about our dress code. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah... the press conference.

The press conference was a time for the cast to get oriented on what significance of the week was and what we were going to be doing, and to meet our host families. First, we found out that we had the potential of having the biggest US audience since Up with People was reformed, since our show facility had a capacity of 2,000 seats. So we needed to do as much as possible to get the word out there and raise money for our sponsors. Then a couple of people spoke about the history of Sioux Falls, including the mayor, and he told us that having so many young people from all around the world in Sioux Falls was a momentous occasion and he welcomed us all.

Then it was time to meet our host families. This city was unique in that instead of host codes, we had differently shaped keys that would only fit in our host families’ locks. This was good because we kind of got to meet everyone else’s host family before we met our own. My roommate that week, Colin Duckett from Texas, searched frantically for our host family, trying everybody’s lock. Finally, we saw a woman on the other side of the room that looked like her lock colors matched our key. Sure enough, it was a match. We were to be staying with the Roberts family, Judie, her husband, and their son and daughter, Sarah and Andrew. This was a unique family in that Sarah used a mobility scooter like mine, and so I had no problems getting around the house. What I particularly liked about this family is that every night after dinner we each would have an ice cream sundae with whatever topping we wanted on it. I would naturally drown mine in butterscotch and hot fudge to the point where that’s all you’d taste. Another cool thing about this family was that there was a old fashioned player piano in the basement that Mr. Roberts played for us. I had never before actually seen a player piano play all by itself. Colin and I spent at least 2 hours down in the basement listening to Mr. Roberts play. When you live an itinerant life, and you go from place to place, and live with a whole bunch of people from a varied array of lifestyles, you have no idea what is going to happen from one week to the next.

And that is no truer than when you are traveling in Up with People. If someone had asked me if I thought the cast would be performing during halftime at a high school football game in 15˚ weather, I would have responded by asking them if they were on psychotropic drugs. But I would have been wrong... So painfully, awkwardly, wrong. You see, it turns out that in order to promote the show that week, we were asked to perform a couple of songs for an O’Gorman High School football game. In sub-freezing temperatures. In our thin show costumes. And we had to act like we were enjoying ourselves, and not at all pre-hypothermic. I hope you know where I’m heading with this, because I could continue if you really want me to. I have never been that cold in all my life, and I’m from Maine. Luckily we were only doing three songs, so it took all of 15 minutes to perform. However, 15 minutes is a long time when the vitreous humor in your eyeballs is freezing solid. Did I mention it was cold? Anyway... all of the South Dakotans in the stands certainly understood our plight, and cheered us on, and waved signs at us. And it was kind of cool, because the scoreboard had a mini-Jumbotron (a Minitron?) on it, and I was told later that during a whole chorus of Up with People, I was on the Minitron, frozen eyeballs and all. It was probably my first and last time on anything with “tron” in its name... After all of that, my host family’s house had never looked better, or warmer.

Our theme in Sioux Falls was poverty in the world. This one we really understood, because we had had a taste of extreme poverty in Cabo. To really drive the point home, we had a couple of things planned. The whole cast was split up into small groups, and had to do various activities. I was in a group of 6 people and we were told that we were a family in Africa and then we were given 5 or 6 cardboard boxes and told to build a structure under which all of us could sleep at night, and this is the finished product:





After that was all said and done, we went back into the gym where there was a makeshift museum set up along the walls where there were pictures of what extreme poverty looked like, one of the pictures showed an african boy that was so starved that his stomach was distended and you could see his ribs, and it was plainly obvious that he hadn’t had water in days, or even months. It really hit home to me that I could have just as easily been that African child, and really all it comes down to is where you are born and who you are born to. There were other pictures of people scraping by on $1 or less a day. Then I thought of some of the very generous people who donated money so that I could go on this trip, the people like you and me who can afford simple luxuries like clean drinking water, or decent-quality fresh food and the oven or stove or microwave to cook it in, or a flushing toilet, or a bed... And I think of all of the frivolous things that the people who have an overabundance of money spend their fortunes on. The $10,000 pieces of jewelry that walk out of my Cabo host brothers’ store, the yachts, the big flat-screen HD TVs, and I think of how much of a better life all of these people in the pictures could have if they could get some of this money.

After the museum, we sat down to dinner. As far as the tour went, this was a very out-of-the-ordinary dinner. Earlier in the day, the poverty committee tossed a bunch of coins in the air, for people to catch. There were people who caught a whole bunch of coins, there were people who caught a couple of coins, and there were people who didn’t catch any coins at all. The people who caught a whole bunch of the coins became the Upper Class; the ones who caught a couple of coins became the Middle Class, and the rest of us were under the poverty line.

Dinner that night had three things on the menu: for the Upper Class diners it was a full 4-course meal, complete with a salad course, a bread course, an entrée, and a desert course, with a selection of carbonated beverages. For the middle class it was rice, beans, and a jug of water. For the poor people it was half-cooked rice and a glass bottle of water, that turned out to be salt water. I was in the group of people living under the poverty line. Here’s the set up of the gym floor:



The middle class were on the far left, and had the circle of folding chairs and the plastic table. The poor people sat in the middle of everything, and only had cardboard; the upper class on the far right had two tables with tablecloths and centerpieces and all of that stuff. They also had a staff of people taking their orders and serving them food. On either side of the low class people, there were blue jump ropes that signified oceans, and whenever one of the poor people’s feet would accidentally touch the rope, a member of the upper class wait staff would curtly bark out, “You are disturbing or guests! Move your foot!” This happened so often that the wait staff decided to stand tables on their sides between them and the poor people so that the upper class wouldn’t be disturbed. That was fine with me, because it somewhat blocked the delicious smell of the food that I wouldn’t be eating that night.

A couple of moments later, I saw the very environment-savvy, non-wasteful Ellen Enebo slide the garbage can in full sight of the middle and lower classes, and very purposefully scrape all of the food that the upper class people didn’t end up eating into the trash. The worst was when the garlic bread all went in the garbage can. I think at that moment, my heart did a reverse Grinch and actually shrank two sizes. I looked down at my bowl of undercooked rice, and finished the last of it, trying to forget the gruesome image that I had just bore witness to. But, one very cool thing happened during the hunger banquet:





When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!

After the whole hunger banquet had ended we all sat down as a cast and processed the events of the day. What began as a discussion turned into an outpouring of emotion as people started sharing their personal stories of the poverty they had witnessed in their own countries. That is when some things started to click for me: I was so lucky that I was born where I was born and that I had two loving, fairly well-off families that could support me if I needed it. I am from one of the richest countries in the world, and would never face living in a cardboard box, and looking around the room I realized how fortunate the whole cast was to be able to have this experience of traveling the world and actually going out there to help the people that most desperately needed it.

When they announced at the end that our host families were given explicit instructions not to feed us that night, my stomach started doing flips, and my mouth got a little dry as it wasn’t going to be enjoying an ice cream sundae that night. But hey, despite the extremely loud protests from my digestive tract, for the first time I had a clear picture economically of where my place was in this world, and I knew that I’d have a good breakfast in the morning.

The show that week was amazing. We reached our goal of 2,000 people, and the gym that we performed in was packed! It’s so great to look out into the audience before the show and not see one empty chair, and know that they all came to see us entertain them. It’s also great to look out in the audience and see some of the friends you had made that week and get their reactions after the show, and know that you added a little something to their lives.

Sioux Falls was definitely one of the most memorable cities of the tour, and this was particularly poignant as it would be our last travel day completely within US borders, and soon we’d be in the tropics.

As Marv and The New Other Guy That Week pulled the buses out of the driveway, we all waved to our host families, and thought of what North Platte, Nebraska might bring us.

US, Part 2.6: Aberdeen, SD

After being in a big city like Cheyenne, Wyoming, it’s good to be in a place that has much more of a small-town feel to it. Our next stop, after Cheyenne, was Aberdeen, South Dakota, where we were welcomed because of the diversity of our group. It so happens that ever since Aberdeen has existed, there really has been no diversity to speak of. Recently, there has been talk of people from other places settling in Aberdeen. It seems as though the city has been resistant to other cultures and backgrounds, and so a Diversity Committee was formed to help the town make adjustments by learning about what other cultures have to offer through learning about the other cultures themselves.

Aberdeen, in fact, was so diversity-phobic that they had a really difficult time placing us into host families. Thank God for the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because if it weren’t for them, 14 of us wouldn’t have had a place to stay. At first when I saw that I’d be living with nuns, I was kind of weary about it, since a) when I think of nuns, I think of Catholic school nuns whose main idea of discipline is a ruler against the knuckles, and b) I disagree with a lot of what the Catholic church teaches. But, being an Uppie, I decided to keep an open mind about everything, and I am so glad that I did. The Sisters welcomed all of us with open arms, and were really interesting to talk to. One of the Sisters’ families was from Orr’s Island, Maine, and when she found out I was from Maine, she almost started crying. It so happens that her family had been there forever before they settled in South Dakota. All of the Sisters were really interested in Up with People, and what the mission of the organization was. But more than that, they really enjoyed getting to know us all and hearing about the different places we called home.

That particular host family day was particularly memorable. The Sisters decided to give us a tour of the convent and show us the history of their order of nuns. One of the Sisters that gave us a ride to the facilities and made sure we were fed and warm was the Archivist for the Sisters of the Presentation. So, she gave us a tour of the mini museum that was enclosed within the convent. Then she showed us the convent itself. When you’re a member of a convent, especially the Sisters of the Presentation, you are very well taken care of, and when you get so that you aren’t able to take care of yourself, because of your age or whatever, there’s a staff of nurses there that make sure you get the care you need. It was great to see some of the older Sisters, and talk to them. One of them even let us in to their room and showed us around a little bit. I never dreamt in a million years that I’d ever have the opportunity to tour a convent.

After getting the tour, they showed us their chapel. It was one of the most beautiful chapels I’ve seen. Granted, I’ve only seen about 3 chapels in my life, but that’s beside the point. There were high ceilings, and really nice hardwood floors, and over in an alcove of the chapel was a bookcase of big red-leather-bound books that listed the information of all of the Sisters that had ever been in the Order, and it’s customary when a Sister dies to put their name in the book to memorialize them. What amazes me about these Sisters is that they sacrifice so much in order to serve God and help their communities out in whatever capacity.

In the evening, the Sisters gathered us all together, and we had a board game night! Finally, I got my board game night! The first game we played was a game called Apples to Apples, where you have 7 noun cards in your hand, (such as Cher, chicken pox, hot water heaters, strawberries, the Boston Tea Party, etc.) and each player takes their turn drawing an adjective card (e.g. icky, suspicious, rare, etc.) and the rest of the players have to put down one of their noun cards that they think best matches the adjective card. Then, the person who drew the adjective card chooses the winner, and then at the end of a pre-determined number of rounds, the person with the most points wins. During one of the rounds, the adjective was ‘boring,’ and one of the nouns that was put in was ‘church.’ And all of us Uppies looked at each other, like, “Woah! Somebody actually said ‘church!’” And ‘church’ ended up winning that round, and when one of the Sisters cried, “That was mine!!” we all started laughing so hard. At the other table, they were playing Dominos, and one of the Sisters playing that game was blind. After that game had finished, Cheryssa, from New Jersey, asked the Sister if she could read the braille note that Jess Rojas had written to her at the end of our Mexican tour. (Jess was the blind person who traveled with the previous two casts, and who was our ‘Special Guest Star’ for the Mexican tour, and Arizona.) It was really cool to see the sister translate what was in the note, because it was kind of surreal hearing Jess’ words coming out of a nun’s mouth. And it was also great to watch the interaction between Cheryssa and the Sister. I could tell it was a neat moment in Cheryssa’s experience, and it was for mine, too.

Aberdeen was packed with interesting stuff to write about. Now is the time that I shall talk to you about Up with People Land. The original purpose of Up with People Land was to be a simulation on immigration, since that was the theme of that particular week. On the way to the cabin, my friend Phil from Denver passed me a piece of paper and told me that they were going to do an immigration simulation, and I was to be an undercover member of the Border Patrol, and if anyone found out about this little twist, he’d have me drawn and quartered. Not really, but I saw you falling asleep and thought I’d spice up the blog a little bit.

Anyway, after I read through the paper, I knew this was going to be a very interesting education week, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Education Team passed out different immigration papers to people signifying different immigration statuses, from ‘Migrant Worker,’ all the way up to ‘Citizen.’ What made this game interesting was that if you were a citizen, you had first dibs at lunch, you got to sit wherever you wanted on the bus, and you had the power to make laws come before the people. If you were a migrant worker, you basically had no rights at all. At the beginning of the week, it was stated that only citizens could elect officials, and vote for laws. And that if you had a status below citizenship, you could “marry” a citizen in order to gain that status.

When the game was introduced to us, it was stated that in order to win the game, you had to have a job and a place to live. When I opened my “passport” up, I worked for the Border Patrol, and had a house with a room to rent. I had basically won the entire game without even doing anything. It just goes to show you how incredibly awesome I am. The duties of the Border Patrol was to make sure that the Citizens’ rights were being upheld, and to enforce laws. My job as an undercover Border Patrol officer was to make friends and get inside information so that I could report any wrongdoings to my colleagues, and have the wrong-doers arrested. So, this meant that I really had to trudge up all of my improv skills, and pretend like I was playing the game like the rest of them.

As soon as that game started, it was like the cast was transported to an episode of The Twilight Zone. After the game was introduced, it was a free-for-all for the immigrants to find a citizen to marry so that they could have rights. During the first five minutes of the game, Cathrine from Denmark asked if she could rent my room, and thirty seconds after that, Anika from Germany asked me to marry her. I really liked being super popular.

In order for Anika and I to be married, we had to schedule an appointment with one of the Justices of the Peace so that they could verify the veracity of our intent to marry. So, that night at the campfire, I saw the Right Honorable Russel Reitter, and asked him if he had time for me and my future Frau. He said that the first possible time the next day was at breakfast, right before morning meeting. And Anika and I both agreed. The next morning, Anika and I decided to have breakfast together to compare notes, like our favorite colors, how many brothers and sisters we had, etc., and waited for Judge Reitter to interview us. He came over and whisked Anika away, and in a few minutes came back to me:

Judge Reitter: Okay, sir, it’s your turn.
Me: Okay.
J.R.: Does Anika like to put bananas on her cereal?
Me: Yes.
J.R.: What is Anika’s favorite Star Wars character?
Me: Princess Leia?
J.R.: If a tree fell in the woods, and no one was around to hear it, what kind of car would Anika drive?
Me: A Volkswagen?
J.R.: Uhhh... Congratulations! You’ll make a fine couple!

Because I haven’t posted any video on here, I’ll post a video of my wedding to Anika. Enjoy!


Video courtesy of Katrin Skora

That was the nice and flowery side of Up with People Land. In and amongst all of the “weddings” that took place, there was some pretty hardcore politicking going on as well. There were arguments all over the place about the unfair treatment of non-citizens, especially since we as citizens got the good seats on the bus, and got first dibs on the food, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Then there was all the drama surrounding the election of the Mayor of Up with People Land. Before the election, there was a vote to let people other than citizens run for the highest office, and it passed. When Ryan Aguirre of Texas, (who was a migrant worker) ended up being elected, there was a huge uproar and rebellion that rose up in the group, led by Martin Brennan, our Cast Manager. This group mustered up quite a following, so therefore I thought it was my duty as an undercover member of the Border Patrol to protect the Mayor at all costs. So, I decided to join this little group, and find out as much information as I could and report it back to Ryan via facebook so that he could be one step ahead of the game at all times. Things just got so out of hand: people got assassinated, the Japanese were targeted and kept getting thrown in jail, and Mayor Aguirre ended up stepping down, and giving the position to Fenna from Germany, who ended up being Mayor for all of two hours.

So... what did I learn from this whole Up with People Land thing? Well, I learned that the best job in the world is being an undercover cop, and that when marrying a foreigner, one of the most important conversations to have is about one’s favorite Star Wars characters.

Another really awesome thing that happened in Aberdeen was the annual UwP halloween party. This was a particularly interesting part of the week, since Halloween is typically an American holiday, so for many of my castmates, this was their very first time dressing up.

For a good part of the week, I racked my brain for a really good costume. One that was cheap, and that stood out from the rest. On our information board, there were various costume contests, from the most scary, to the most bizarre, to the most original. As I stared at the information board, which we called our “Wicky-Wicky-Wicky Wall,” wondering what I could be, it suddenly dawned on me: I could be the Wicky-Wicky-Wicky Wall itself! And that would make me a shoo-in for the Best Original Costume Contest. Amazingly, Ai, who was in charge of the WWWWall for that particular round, and Molly Robertson whose department handled the wall, let me take the whole thing with me and tape various pieces of paper from it all over myself and my scooter. I spent $0 on a totally original costume. I was so freakin’ psyched!

When I got to the party, I instantly saw that I had some stiff competition in my category. There was a huge green dinosaur rocking it out on the dance floor (Who turned out to be Brittany from Rhode Island.) Then I saw Nathalie, one of the Swedes, was dressed as a fork. She had a foil-covered box and tines spearing a cardboard sandwich cutout sticking out of her head. But I think that my favorite costume by far was Javi’s Mormon missionary costume. He had the whole thing figured out: the suit and tie, the Book of Mormon, and the bicycle helmet. The only thing he was missing was his name tag.

Another one of the contests was the group costume contest where a group of people dressed up in themed costumes. The 7 girls that lived with us in the convent were the Seven Deadly Sins, which was interesting, since we all were living with nuns. But they took it up with the Sisters, and they were okay with it. The road staff dressed up like dominoes, and throughout the night, they all get into a line and then toppled over onto each other. It was hugely creative, and showed that they could topple over as a team, which was an inspiration to us all. But the convent girls did us proud by taking the category.

After a few other categories went by, it was time for the Most Original Costume competition. I pretty much I had it in the bag, even over the dinosaur and Nathalie the Fork. The other competition I came up against was Elizabeth and Ben who were dressed up as Anthony our lighting guy’s lab assistants. The audience voted for the winner by cheering, and the people who got the loudest cheers won. When they went through everyone, I was in a tie with Ben and Elizabeth, so everybody voted again, and again it seemed like dead heat, and they ended up giving it to Ben and Elizabeth. I was so robbed! I was the freaking Information Wall! Anyway, I’m happy for them, and they were worthy opponents. My only consolation is that I totally won in an alternate universe.

Okay... enough about Halloween.

Usually we have Sundays totally off for host family day, but since the Aberdeen Diversity Committee invited us here to show the town different cultures, the cast put together a diversity fair with all sorts of booths. At one end of the fair we made a “metal detector” out of cardboard, and each visitor had to step through the “metal detector” to get a “passport” with pages that included questions on each of the booths. If you got a stamp on every page by answering the questions about the booth right, you won a prize. So it was a way to educate the residents on different cultures.

We had a booth on every different region of the world represented in the cast, as well as a face painting booth, and a greetings booth where people could learn various ways of saying “hello,” and “I love you.” As an amateur vexillologist, I naturally devised an, “Identify the World Flag” game for the face painting booth so that people could get a stamp in their “passport.” Mandy Shoaf from North Carolina came over and played my game: “Okay... there’s Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Japan, China backwards...” At those words, my face dropped, and I said, “No way!! I didn’t draw China backwards!” So, after I had confirmation from one of our Chinese castmates, I had to switch the Chinese flag... talk about an ego bruiser.

After all the faces were painted, and the passports were passed out, it was time to pack up and head off to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the penultimate city in our penultimate country of the tour.

US, Part 2.5.1: Mount Rushmore

When we left Cheyenne, we were in for one of the longest travel days on tour. When I found out that South Dakota was going to be one of the states on our tour, I instantly thought how awesome it would be to see Mount Rushmore, since it is probably the most easily recognizable American symbol, next to the Statue of Liberty, and I could not imagine that Up with People would pass up the opportunity to take us there. And I wasn't disappointed. Earlier in Cheyenne, it was announced that we would be going on the buses early in the morning and driving to see Mount Rushmore, and then spending the night at a camp in the middle of the Black Hills.

On the morning of departure, everybody on the bus that was not from this region of the United States was really excited about what they were going to be seeing, and speculating how big it was going to be. From the pictures, I thought that the monument itself could be huge, but after seeing the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, it became clear to me that photographs could be deceiving. So, I had no clue what to expect.

We were all on the bus, doing typical Up with People bus activities, (i.e. sleeping, listening to our iPods, giving our bus driver Marv a hard time by asking him if he knew where we were going, etc.) when all of a sudden I hear a big, "Oh, my god!!" coming from the back of the bus. I look out the window and see a bigger-than-life carving of George Washington's head, and I knew that we had arrived. Within minutes of that first sighting, Mount Rushmore was laid out before us, with all its splendor and majesty.

All of us raced off the bus to see how close we could get to the monument. But by the time I had gotten there, I found out that I was late for our cast picture, no doubt destined for Up with People brochures for years to come. After taking the picture, it was time to take a walking tour of the site, where we learned some fascinating stuff. We learned all about the Danish artist that had designed the sculptures, and we also learned how Mt. Rushmore got its name. We learned that throughout the construction of the monument that there were no work-related deaths, which is a rare thing when working on a project of that magnitude. The tour guide even showed us the staircase that Harney Keitell and Nicholas Cage fight over in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I've decided that I am going to get a bunch of friends over to watch movies that feature locations that I have been on my tour. That might be fun.

Once the last pictures were taken, and the last Mount Rushmore hoodie was sold, it was time for Cast B to pile onto the buses and head to our camping spot that would be the site of one of three host family-free overnights of the tour. I do have to say that just like the Mormon Temple, Mount Rushmore seemed a lot smaller than I imagined it to be. When I went to the Eiffel Tower years ago, it was actually larger than I thought it would be. That's why I think it's interesting that with our reputation for big things, all of the American monuments or historical sites we visited were smaller than I expected.

Anyway, after a bus ride of a couple hours, we finally arrived at our destination. Outlaw Ranch is a summer camp nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and I think it is pretty safe for me to say that this is the first time the staff of the camp had ever seen the likes of us. We are a rowdy bunch. After we all piled into the main lodge of the cabin, we did a little activity called "Thumper," which is a memory/concentration game. Everyone stands in a circle, and comes up with a funny noise with an accompanying gesture. The game is played by doing your gesture/noise combination, and then choosing the next person to go by doing their noise/gesture combo. That person has to do their combination, and then choose the next player and so on until someone makes a mistake. The last person standing, wins the game. It's a delightful game that could easily be played at your next cocktail party.

But... things could turn ugly if you are a member of Up with People's Cast B '08 and there is a Thumper tournament staged. Everyone was split up into their hometeams and a game of Thumper was played. All of the hometeam winners would then battle to see who would be the ultimate champion. It all started out innocently when we all were playing our respective hometeam match-ups, but once we got into the final round, things got extremely intense. People were chanting their representative's name: "VERONIKA! VERONIKA! VERONIKA!" It was an interesting sound that was produced when 107 people are chanting 7 different names all at once. As with all competitive events, the tournament was marred with teams accusing other teams of cheating, and then we'd inevitably have to go to the instant replay for an official ruling. When all was said and done, it was Molly Robertson, our logistics coordinator that took home the grand prize of... the satisfaction of winning the tournament. (Although, representing Hometeam 3, and all of the other hometeams whose representative didn't win, Molly is the person that actually introduced the game to the group, so I think all the rest of us were at an extreme, nay, unfair disadvantage.) Anyway... (Love ya, Molls)

After the craziness that was the Thumper tournament, and after supper, we had an introduction for what was going to happen for the week that we were going to be in Aberdeen. The theme for Aberdeen was immigration, so they introduced a week-long activity called Up with People Land, but that's something for the Aberdeen post, so I'll save it for then. Stay tuned for that! :) Hey, I've got to keep my readership hooked somehow...

After learning about UwP Land, we basically could do whatever we wanted for the rest of the night, which is certainly a rarity while traveling with Up with People. We could veg out in our cabins, we could go into the lodge and play Truth or Dare (from which I heard some very interesting stories that are not Blogger-appropriate,) or we could sit by the bonfire and roast marshmallows, eat S'mores, and talk about life, home, or the UwP Land game that we were all suddenly thrust into. I thought it would be really relaxing and mind-clearing to just sit by the fire and listen to the conversations around me. Then our music coordinator, the inimitable Kady Brown, brought out her guitar, and Ellen Enebo, our education coordinator, printed off some song lyrics, and we spent quite awhile contemplating the fire, and singing old Beatles and Joe Cocker tunes. It was quite lovely. Then after that kind of died down, another batch of people came in and started telling ghost stories. That was one of the best nights I probably spent during the whole tour.

The next morning, we all piled our stuff into the buses, and Marv and The Other Guy That Particular Week drove us due Northeast, toward Aberdeen, South Dakota, where the world of make-believe reigned supreme.

US, Part 2.5: Cheyenne, WY

After Salt Lake City, it was off to Cheyenne, WY, the land of Cowboys and rodeos. When driving through the Wyoming countryside, you instantly realize that there is a whole lot of countryside and not much else. Up until that point, I had never seen so much unspoiled land. For miles and miles, there is nothing but hills, hills, and more hills, and right in the middle of this expanse of nothingness lies Cheyenne, a veritable metropolitan oasis. Our first day we were there, we got a taste of the mighty Wyoming winds. Everyone was making a mad dash inside so that they wouldn't get blown over.

As soon as we entered, we found out that the theme for this week was going to be gender roles, and that for the education workshop, we had to dress as the opposite sex. Not only that, but our gender roles committee (which, incidentally, was composed of five women) gave each one of us an egg and told us that we had to take care of it the entire week. It was like being in Biology class all over again. I totally thought I outgrew that.

After we got the lowdown on the week, it was time to go home to our respective families. This week I was hosted with Laura Lynn from Nebraska, and Neele from Germany, and our host family only consisted of one member. Bob Farr is many things: an entrepreneur, a veterinarian, a collector, a father, a humanitarian, and a really, REALLY good cook. When we arrived, we saw this charming 100-year-old country house laid out before us. The house made such an impression on Neele that she declared it to be "her dream house," and proceeded to take thousands of pictures.

But one of the best things about being placed with Bob was that he is Cheyenne's unofficial Up with People historian. Every time a cast came through town, he would host somebody, and save every article and piece of memorabilia from every show ever performed in Cheyenne. It was great to see all of that history laid out before me, and thumb through some of the old cast photos of the people who had soldiered forth before us. Even though I love answering UwP-related questions, it was so nice to be able to talk to someone who had a really good knowledge base of the program, and its philosophy.

The Regional Learning section for this city centered around the rodeo culture that pervades the Southern and Midwestern United States. The whole cast packed in to the rodeo stadium of the Laramie County Community College and were instantly transported into a world of lassos, goat roping, and bucking broncos. First, we had an introduction and explanation of each of the events that are in the modern rodeo. Then it was our turn to try everything. The first station I went to was the steer roping. It was a good thing that they used plastic dummies, because I was horrible. Those people make it look so easy! I tried about 7 times, and then gave up. Cheryssa, on the other hand, got her technique down in two tries. Nobody would have even guessed that one of her natural talents included steer roping.

One of the other stations let us see what it was like to tie a goat. But with this station, they used a real live goat that the cast later named "Pedro." The basic technique of goat roping is to get up behind the goat, throw it to the ground, grab thee of the four legs, and tie them together. After the first demonstration of this, our goat-roping expert told us that this is in no way stressful or taxing to the goat. I looked around to the people in my group, and I think we all had the same thought at the same time: "I wonder if anyone asked Pedro his opinion." The expert told us that after he was done with us, he'd be off playing with his friends again, and eating his favorite diet of oats and grass. I wonder if there is any money in Goat Psychology... I bet I'd make a killing! By the end of all the demonstrations, Pedro looked physically exhausted and despondent, and I really felt bad for the poor guy...

After considering a PETA membership, it was off to talk to some of the cowboys that ride the bulls. One of the biggest things that I learned while talking to the cowboys was that when in the ring, the bull and the rider are a team. The bull earns points, and the rider earns points, and they combine those two scores to get the total score... I always thought that you were in direct competition with the bull. Further conversation with the cowboys revealed what a brutal sport bull riding is. One of the riders we talked to told us about getting knocked out in the ring and spending the rest of that day and the next day in a coma. They told us that it wasn't uncommon to lose a thumb if you don't hold on to the saddle properly. What was really great about this part of the day was that a lot of the cast got a chance to ride a mechanical bull. I was very impressed to see that most of my castmates had succeeded in staying on the "bull." After the whole session had turned into the cowpeople roping the members of Cast B, it was time to call it a day.

What made this week special was that this was the week that my mother and sister came to visit me and hang out with me a little bit. I was really excited to introduce Mom and Kate to my friends in the cast. Here is the conversation that kept repeating itself:

Me: Hey, [insert Cast B friend's name here]! This is my mother and my sister.
Cast B friend: Oh... nice to meet you.
Me: No... my REAL mother, and my REAL sister...
Cast B friend: OOHHH!!! NICE TO MEET YOU!

It was extremely good to see my family during the course of the trip, and have them see the show that had really started looking like a professional show. But it was slightly weird for me with them meeting the friends that I considered family for the past 4.5 months. Two worlds and two chapters of my life were colliding. It's kind of like watching an episode of Frasier where a Cheers character guest stars. It's really fun and interesting, but it hurts the brain a little bit.

After the day, we went out to Red Lobster, because, believe it or not, there are no Red Lobster franchises within the state of Maine. Go figure. It was so cool catching up with the news back at home. It's amazing how much I hadn't thought about home and was so much out of the loop. I was on a personal odyssey, and meanwhile the lives of my family and friends were continuing without me there. That kind of put everything in perspective. I also enjoyed showing them how much I had changed in a very short period of time.

During host family day, I spent a lot of the day going back and forth from spending time with my host dad to spending time with my own family. The day started with a tour of my host dad's animal clinic. He showed us some hawks that he had rescued and explained a little bit about them. Then he took us on a tour of the whole clinic, the layout of which he designed himself to be as efficient as possible. He was so successful with his design in fact that his clinic was featured in a prominent magazine, and other clinics across the country patterned their layout after his. What really came out of the clinic tour was his love and respect for all animal kind, and how he has made it his life's work to protect them and make sure they're happy and healthy.

It so happens that Laura Lynn's parents were in town that week to visit her, so we all thought it would be wonderful if her family, my family and our host family all had dinner together. As always, the meal that Bob cooked would have gained five stars in any Zagat's guide. And it was so good to be sitting around the table and enjoying each other's company.

On the last night, Bob helped me upstairs to give me a tour of his massive collection of Hopalong Cassidy products... It turns out that it was Hopaling Cassidy that was the first public figure to make money off of putting his face on every kind of product imaginable. One of the most interesting pieces in Bob's collection was an actual Wheaties box with Hopalong's picture on it. "Hopalong was the first person to have his likeness on a Wheaties box," he told me as he passed it to me, "and this is the only box of its kind known to exist in the world." As soon as he told me that, I took a glance at it, and then quickly passed it back to him, not wanting anything to happen to it.

Then he passed me a coffee cup with a foil seal on it, and a dark substance inside. "In this cup," he said, "there is peanut butter from the 1950s." Hopalong Cassidy had his face on peanut butter in a coffee cup with the concept that when you finish the peanut butter inside the cup, you don't have to throw away the cup; you can reuse it. It turns out that Cassidy sold the rights to the peanut butter, which, upon changing hands, went from Hopalong Cassidy peanut butter to Jif, the brand that choosy mom's choose. After the tour of his house, and more information about Hopalong Cassidy than I had ever dreamed of learning, I started packing for the 12th time.

In the morning while having breakfast, Bob put on his copy of the first album Up with People ever produced. Hearing that music really made me realize how far this organization had gone. It started out with people going into high schools with nothing more than acoustic guitars, and exploded into a global phenomenon. And I was a part of its history. After piling all our stuff into the van, Neele and I went to the bus drop off place, said, "See you later," and, "Keep in touch," to Bob, and I hugged my mother and sister for one more time, and we rode off through endless hills on our way to South Dakota, for the next adventure to start.

US, Part 2.4: Salt Lake City, UT

Two things come to mind when I hear the words, "Salt Lake City:" The Winter Olympics, and, of course, the Mormon Church, and then I immediately go to a picture of Donny and Marie Osmond doing a duet of, "I'm a Little Bit Country..." But that's another post altogether. To tell you the truth, I didn't really know what to expect from Salt Lake. The only thing I knew was that we were going to get a huge education on the Mormon religion, which turned up in me both excitement and hesitation: I was excited because I was about to be immersed in a thing that was almost completely foreign to me, and I was hesitant because it was something I had a hard time relating to. I am not a religious person, and have very strong beliefs and opinions about organized religion, and so I knew this week was going to be pivotal in my Up with People journey.

Our Regional Learning day brought a tour of the Mormon Temple, the very one that they put on all of their information cards that make it look huge. I was shocked to see that the temple wasn't that large at all. Since we couldn't go inside the temple, we instead took a tour of the Visitors' Center and the Tabernacle. And the best thing about the tour was that it was given in everyone's native language. I have been hearing my native language for a good part of my life, so I decided to take the French tour instead.

We learned all about the dynamics of the church, for instance, where and when it was founded, and it's structure. It's interesting because it has a structure similar to Catholicism. There's a head guy, which they call, "the Prophet," similar to the Pope, and several Apostles, which I equated in my mind to the Cardinals. Then, we learned about the Temple itself. It took the early Mormons 40 years to construct it, and, like the city of Mecca to the Muslims, only Mormons can enter inside. It serves as a ceremonial place for events such as weddings, funerals, etc. After we got the low-down on the Temple, we went into the Tabernacle and got a presentation from a Sister about the acoustic qualities. First, she ripped a piece of paper, then she dropped some nails on the lectern. The sound was amazing. If we had to perform a show there, our sound guy, Nathan, would have been able to take a well-deserved vacation.

For our Community Impact project, we volunteered at the Utah Food Bank, which takes donations of food from all over Utah and distributes it to people in need, mostly homeless shelters. For the first part of the day, we had these huge boxes full of food that we had to empty and sort into 25 different food categories. But the fun part came in the afternoon where we were walked into a room with three huge crates full of apples, and we had to put 6 apples into bags, and then put ten of those bags into boxes.

I learned at the very beginning of the semester that us Uppies don't just do community service. We make a game out of it. At the beginning, people were casually putting apples in bags, and bags in boxes. But by the end we were split up into two groups, and we were racing to see which team could empty their crate first. Apples were flying left and right. The other non-Uppie volunteers watched in shock and awe the spectacle before them. When the guy from the food bank entered and said that our time was up, everybody in the room groaned, and the guy gave a look like he had never had volunteers groan when they had to stop working. I think the people at the Utah Food Bank are going to remember us for a long time to come.

This was one of my favorite weeks on the tour because the Education Department set up what they call, "Cast University," where various members of the cast sign up for an hour slot and teach a skill to some of their cast mates. People kept encouraging me to sign up to teach a French workshop, and since I am such a pansy in the face of peer pressure, I decided to do it. It was so good to get back into the mode of "French Teacher." And, I especially love teaching people some of the complicated mechanics of the language, which, in the case of French, is telling time and numbers. Normally, in any other language it would be extremely easy to teach those to things, but with my class, it took almost the whole time. I got a really good response from it, and am still answering the "How do you say ________ in French?" question, which is probably my favorite question of all.

One of the biggest highlights of the week was our show facility. It turns out that all of the auditorium scenes for High School Musical were shot in the auditorium of Murray High. Of course everything was lost on me because I haven't seen any of the HSM movies, so when everyone was reeling over the fact that we were performing on the same stage that Zac Efron performed on, I was like, "Hey, cool." My reaction will probably change once I see the first movie, though.

Show day was also awesome, because the staff gave us a break from rehearsal, since we had been working so hard on the show. They set up a whole "Cast B Lounge," where we had a bar that served virgin drinks, awesome massages by the One and Only Mitch McVicker, a table where they served baked goods, a human slot machine, and High School Musical playing on our screen. It's always a good day when our cast has a chance to hang out with each other. Normally, during Up with People, we only truly get to hang out with everyone during meals, so every time we get an opportunity like this, we make the absolute best out of it.

Salt Lake City was a really awesome city that I plan to visit again real soon.

US, Part 2.3: Colorado Springs, CO

In order to get to Colorado Springs from Albuquerque, you have to pass through Denver, and for the cast, it was like visiting home. As we were whizzing along the highway, I saw the Lightrail stations that I would take every morning to go to the Sherman Center. And then I started thinking about the very beginning of the tour, and how far the cast had come since the days of 12-hour rehearsals, and how people who hadn't danced a day in their lives were thrust into intricate dance lines, and people who had never been on stage before being petrified about the first show. Now, 11 weeks, and 13 shows later, all of those once-amateur dancers can do every single dance routine forwards and backwards, and every stage shy person doesn't bat an eye when performing in front of 2,000 people. That is what is incredible about the UwP program: it takes you to the limits, and changes you forever.

Even though our tour schedule says, "Colorado Springs," we spent most of the week on Fort Carson, which is an Army post within the limits of Colorado Springs. It was a little city inisde a big city. Because of the international nature of our program, all of our host families were in Colorado City, and Jochem and I were hosted again for the third time, which was cool because we were so comfortable with each other. As soon as we walked through the door, our host parents talked to us about Xoçai Chocolate, which is a special kind of Belgian Chocolate that a square of only has, according to my Host Dad, "more antioxidants than 12 pounds of tomatoes." And after 5 minutes of being there, Jochem and I knew more than we ever thought possible about the Xoçai business, antioxidants, and how the chocolate had changed not only their lives, but the lives of their friends. I loved this host family, because it was the first, and most definitely last, time I would hear phrases such as: "You have to eat your chocolate before you go to bed," or, "Have as much chocolate as you want." My host family rocked. Their names: Dan and Esther Sallee, he was a chiropracter with his own massage therapy school, and she was a cosmetologist/massage therapist. When Jochem and I were there, he was about to close his school and his chiropractics business, and she was not taking any more clients because they were going in to the chocolate business full-time. Needless to say, I loved everything about this host family, other than the fact that they were Republicans. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?

I digress. In this particular city our contribution to the community was our Stand for Peace Program where we go into the elementary schools in the area and teach the students about diversity and choices they make when they're faced with conflict. It's a really awesome program. Each classroom has 2 to 3 people from at least two different countries, and so they get so much culture on top of the things that we try to touch upon. It was great in this city because my partners in crime were Crystal from Wisconsin, and the Sioux Nation, and Veronika from Sweden. Veronika and Chrystal taught the kids all kinds of Sioux and Swedish games. What was different about this city was that most of the kids had at least one parent in either Iraq or Afghanistan. There were some points in the program where we ask if anyone has questions, and some of the younger kids raised their hands and instead of asking something, they would say, "My Mommy's in Iraq," or "My Daddy's in Afghanistan." It just put the whole war thing in perspective. Since this isn't a political blog I won't go into everything, but I just hope that all of the soldiers from Ft. Carson come home safely.

One of the highlights of the week was that we went bowling at the bowling alley on the post, and it was super fun. For the first string, I decided to let the other people in my group bowl for me, and they ended up bowling a 100, and winning the game for me. The second string, I decided to bowl for myself, and I bowled an 11. I never realized how hard the sport of bowling really is. In my mind, I'm an awesome bowler, but in practice, my aim is all off. I think that if I had gone to that lane where the gutters are blocked off with foam padding, I might have bowled a 300. I'm just saying.

I don't know if it's because a lot of our cast members equate guest speaker time with nap time, or if it because of another reason, but it so happens that we don't have a lot of guest speakers on tour. This week was an exeption, because we had an economist come and speak to us about the economic theory behind globalization, how it works, and what the future of it is. After his speech, he answered some questions on that topic, but most of the questions we had pertained to the US financial crisis. So, it was thanks to him that I understand how everything works, and why it'll still be years before a bank will ever approve me for a credit card. This speaker was special because he happened to be our Cast Manager's 90-year-old grandfather. It was great to see a man of his years with a mind that was still razor-sharp.

The show in this city was really special in that it was dedicated to not only all of the military families on the post, but also to all of the troops that are giving their lives overseas. I was a little nervous about doing my spoken word pieces, especially the seond one, because it actually mentions the war. But my worries were totally unfounded because after the show, Martin, our Cast Manager came up to me and said that I did such a god job that one of the Generals on post wants to use the second poem as part of his training. That felt really awesome when I heard that.

That's what happened in Colorado Springs... stay tuned for (drumroll...) Salt Lake City!

US Part 2.2: Albuquerque, NM

Before actually going there, whenever I heard Albuquerque mentioned, I always thought of it as the place where Bugs Bunny should have taken that left turn. Now, it is so much more than that. I met some wonderful people over there, did some incredible things, and gained yet another family. I also had to carry my trash around with me wherever I went for the entire week. But that's another story.

The host code theme for this week had to do with zoo animals since we were going to be performing at the Albuquerque Zoo. When I got my schedule, I got two surprises: a) that my roommate that week was going to be Abeba from Ethiopia, and 2) that I quickly had to find out what the heck a naked mole rat looked/sounded like, since that was the way Abeba and I were going to find our host family. I think I asked just about everyone in the cast that might have the slightest clue. Most of the cast just pointed and laughed at me, while the rest of them told me about Rufus, the naked mole rat character on some Nickolodeon cartoon that escapes me at the moment. With the vast amount of knowledge that Abeba and I had gathered about the naked mole rat, it was time to try to look for the owners of the house we'd be living in for the next week.

It wasn't too hard to figure out that the people standing around in bathrobes (and were thus "naked") were our host family. This week we had Miryam Miller, a medical student at the University of Arizona, her son Benjamin (8), daughter Maysie (6), stepdaughter Corinne, 18, and an orange cat, named appropriately enough, Orange Cat, which they didn't bring in to the Events Center. Usually I'm not hosted in houses with pets, but I think they made an exception this time because the cat had some thyroid problems, and therefore didn't shed a lot, so I wasn't allergic to him. I knew I was going to love this family when our first meal consisted of lasaagna. The stimulating conversation was definitely a plus, but if you ever want me to be a friend for life, cook me a pan of lasagna. It'll work every time.

I love it when there are kids under 15 in my host family. It adds something really cool to the whole dynamic. For instance, thanks to Benjamin, I learned all about the Eyelash Viper. Yes, they do actually exist, and they are Benjamin's favorite animal. I personally think 'Eyelash Viper' should have been our host code. They really impressed me when they were telling me about a movie they saw where one of the jokes had David Bowie as the punchline. I asked them if they knew who David Bowie was, and right away Maysie mentioned that he was the Goblin King in the Labyrinth. Now that is good parenting. Bravo, Miryam!

Now let's get back to the whole carrying-my-trash-around-with-me story. The theme of that particular week was the environment, and to illustrate how much waste each person of the cast generates, they had us carry our trash with us (minus our bathroom trash, of course.) This made the week really hard for me. At the beginning of it all, I made myself eat everything tat was on my plate, but then as my stomach started rebelling against me, I develloped the "find whoever is hungry, and give them the rest of the food" technique, which ended up working really well. It was a strategy that worked really well for the rest of the cast as well. At the end it was really interesting to see how much trash the cast generated. Unfortunately we couldn't get into a lot of detail because we had run out of time, ut we generated a lot of recyclables, which was awesome.

Regional Learning for Albuquerque was amazing. We drove to the Acoma Reservation, where the Acoma tribe lives. After a tour of the lovely Reservation Gift Shop, we all boarded a bus and went up on the mesa where the Acoma tribe has called home for millennia, give or take a couple hundred years. The English name of our tour guide was Gary, and he was such a dynamic speaker. What struck me was the culture that I experienced while on the mesa. I was definitely no longer in the United States. The Acoma tribe have their own culture, customs, values, ceremonies, and cuisine. When Gary took us to the cemetery, he told us that there were four layers of people burried, dating back to approximately the 1300s, with the latest addition to the cemetery being a couple of weeks prior to our visit. After going thrugh the cemetery, we toured the church which combined Catholicism with the tradional religion of the Acoma. It was actually one of the oldest chuches in the Southwestern United States. He gave us a tour of the whole reservations, and along the tour, there were various merchant booths set up where the natives sold their pottery. Many people in the cast stopped and bought some of it as souvenirs. I was afriad that if I had bought any, it would definitely break in my suitcase, so I decided against it. But I did sample some of their baked goods, and they were wonderful. I had one of their cookies, which is a cross between a dinner rool and a cake. It was deifintely different, but it was delicious.

One of the high points on the tour was being able to do a recording of Shine the Light for the cast. An alumnus who traveled in the '70s had seen a video of him performing a song for the cast, and it made him nostaglic, and he thought it would be awesome to give Cast B the gift of nostalgia as well. He was so passionate about this project that he started tearing up when he was explaining everything to us. His recording studio was state-of-the-art, and there was a whole slew of professional artists that had been there before us, such as Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey, and Outkast. We did tree takes of the song three, and then he had us record the names of us and those of all of our castmembers, which was our way of personalizing the recording.

For the entire week, we were dreading our show day because we knew that when we got done with our show, we'd only have a couple of hours to sleep, because we were volunteering at a 'trash fiesta,' which took place in a landfill, and was designed to make Albuquerquians more aware of the stuff they were throwing away. Everybody on the cast that I talked to really didn't think it was worth it to wake up at 3 in the morning to go tell people about the wonders of waste reduction. And we all thought it was a bizarre time to be having something like this, which was open to the entire city of Albuquerque. The morning of show day it was revealed to us that the trash fiesta didn't really exist. We were all going to help out with the annual Balloon Fiesta! The Balloon Fiesta is an event where balloonists from all over the world come and do various things, such as a balloon glow, where throughout the evening the fully inflated balloons turn on their gas and the whole balloon lights up. But the event the cast helped out with was the Mass Descent, where 200+ balloons all take to the skies together. There were some of us that helped crew the balloons (which includes inflating the balloons and getting them ready to fly; some of the people who helped crew the balloons actually got to go up with the pilots.) and there were some of us that helped the Make A Wish Foundation's New Mexico chapter seel Balloon Fiesta calendars and programs. I did the latter. It was great helping out an organization that did so much for children with terminal diseases, and it also allowed us ample time to scope out all of the food vendors in the area.

For the actual show day, we performed at the Albuquerque Zoo, where some pretty big acts have played. My host mom said that she had seen the Indigo Girls play there a couple of years ago. The facility definitely had it's pros and it cons. It ws such a nice area to preform because it was outside, but we the stage had a roof, and it was actually in the shape of a hippo's mouth, which ws hella cool. Not only that, but if any one of us had fallen off the stage, we would have fallen into a duck pond that was filled with hundreds of different varieties of water fowl, and a pair of swans. Unfortunately, the stage wasn't really designed for shows with 100 performers, and it was hard for me to get around backstage, with everybody all back there at the same time. But everyone went crazy at the show, and really got into it. My host family liked it, and it even inspired my host sister, Corinne, to apply.

Travel day was probably one of the lowest days of the tour. One of our castmembers' fathers had passed away from a heart attack the night before, and she had to fly back home for a couple of weeks. It was ironic, because hte host family that I was staying with had lost the father from a heart attack in April, and so my Host Mom became a single parent. So, my host mother went over to my castmate and talked with her for a little while, which I thought it was awesome. It was really sobering to realize that our lives do go on back at home, and that things you never thought could happen can take place. We all hugged her and told her that we would support her no matter what. That is what is so great about the Up with People program: when you are finished, you end up with a global family. She originally thought that she'd meet up with the cast in the Philippines, but we found out this week that she'll be coming back to the cast on Tuesday in Sioux Falls!

Next stop: Colorado Springs, CO!