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!

US Part 2.1: Sahuarita/Tucson, AZ

Well, we made it through the Mexican leg of our journey, and it was time to start all over again in the United States, which, for me, was an adjustment. It was a weird adjustment. I went from constantly hearing Spanish being spoken around me, eating tortillas filled with whatever meat was for lunch, and taking cold showers to English, wheat bread, and warm showers. It was pretty sweet. It was also weird seeing speed limit signs in miles per hour again. Our destination was Sahuarita, Arizona, which is just about an hour outside of Tucson, which is where the original Up with People headquarters were before they moved to Denver, Colorado in 1993. This is a bit of random trivia that will become important later in the post.

Anyway, this city was extra special because I was hosted with my two best friends on the tour, Jochem, my roommate in Denver, and his now-girlfriend, Angela, and her parents Lucia and Lorenzo Montebello. It was really cool to see where one of our castmembers came from, and where she grew up. Almost immediately upon arrival, Lucia pulled out a whole bunch of Angela's school photos, and some of her artwork from school. It was really cool to see how Angela grew up, because we really don't get to see those kinds of things of our castmates while on tour. In Mexico, Angela had asked me what I had wanted when we got to our house, and of course, with me being me, I said, "macaroni and cheese." And so, when we got to the Montebello residence, Lucia's three-cheese macaroni and cheese was waiting for us on the stove. I could tell this was going to be a really, really, really good week.

During the day, we did some really cool Community Impact work for the city of Sahuarita. On the first day of CI, we went to a place called "Casa de Esperanza," where they have a multi-generational program for both pre-school aged children, and elderly people. It was really cool to see how these two worlds melded together. All of the pre-schoolers called the elderly people either, "Grandma," or, "Grandpa," and so all of the older folks that were there had nametags that said, "Grandma Barbara," or, "Grandpa Bert."

Our task for that particular day was to paint a water feature that the children used on their playground. First, we had to sand everything down so that the new coats of paint would adhere to the wood. This gave Sarah and Katrin of Germany the perfect opportunity to show us their power tool prowess. Not only that, but we all got safety glasses that made us all look really super cool.

After we all got done sanding everything, it was time for lunch, after which we all went into the pre-school part of the building and introduced ourselves to the kids. I loved the looks on all the kids faces when we said who we were in our native languages, and pointed to where we were from on the globe. Then we all sang Frère Jacques in each of our languages. Judging by how the kids just stared at us, I'm thinking that this visit will stick with them for a long time to come.

When we were all finished, the Casa de Esperanza pre-school water feature was once again a brilliant red, white, and yellow.

The morning of the water feature CI, one of our Edcation Coordinators, Aoife (pronounced: EE-fuh; I think Gaelic is much worse to try to read than English), had come up to me to say that they had mentioned me to one of the people who would be working with us the next day at Madera Canyon, one of our CI sites in the Arizona mountains. It just so happened that he's been working on getting that particular site more ADA compliant, and requested that I speak to him. Aoife said that it was totally my decision, and that I didn't have to go down there if I didn't want to. I didn't really have to think much about it. To get a chance to help other disabled people enjoy the beauty of the canyon, and to give my feedback from the point of view of a disabled person was a great honor.

When I got there, I met Phil English, an octogenarian volunteer for the "Friends of Madera Canyon," which is a group of volunteers that work closely with the Forest Service of Arizona in order to do the upkeep for Madera Canyon. While the other people were hefting big logs out from under a bridge, Phil was taking me on a tour of the Canyon and the surrounding area, telling me everything possible about its history, its wildlife, and its future. When he wasn't talking about the Canyon, he was telling stories about how he grew up across the street from Dick and Jerry Van Dyke, and told me that it was Dick that got him his first job on the radio. Being the pop culture freak that I am, it was really super cool to hear those stories. After I got a tour of the entire canyon, he showed me the trails that needed work. He pointed out where the trails were leading to, and then he told me how he planned on making everything accessible. He asked me what my opinion was, and I said that his ideas were really good ones. It was so great to see someone who was so devoted to one thing. This place is his world, and he obviously wants to share it with everybody.

Now back to the part of the post where I said that Tucson, Arizona, was the UwP headquarters for much of its history. Since we were near the old headquarters site, we got to meet with J. Blanton Belk, the founder of Up with People. This man has led the most incredible life of anybody that I have ever met. He was personal friends with the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Jesse Owens, two of the most influential African Americans in history. He has also had dinner with kings and queens, and after all of this, he still remains securely grounded, and extremely down to Earth. I had the fortune of eating dinner with him that day, before the show, and he talked about having dinner with Martin Luther King Jr. the night after he delivered the immortal "I Have a Dream" speech. He also talked about how the UwP song, "What Color is God's Skin" influenced that very speech. That will probably go down in history as one of my most interesting dinner conversations that I will ever get to experience.

Mr. Belk was not the only VIP that was going to see the show. The Caldwell Brothers and Herb Allen, the very people who wrote the Up with People song were going to see the show, and perform a couple of songs at the end of our show. Then there were all of the original creative team that made UwP what it was in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. But to top it all off, Pieter von Vallenhoven, the Dutch Queen's brother-in-law, was there watching the show. It was so cool to be around my Dutch friends as they met a member of their Royal Family. It turns out that not only is Professor von Vallenhoven a member of the Board of Directors for Up with People, but when one of the casts traveled to the Netherlands about 10 years ago, he hosted a couple of the students. After my dinner with Mr. Belk, Jochem came over to me and asked me if I wanted to meet the Prince. And the only conceivable answer to that question is, "Duh!" So, Jochem introduced me to him, and he asked me where I was from. I said, "Maine, in the United States," and the Prince nodded knowingly. Then he asked me if I was looking out for Jochem. I said that we were like brothers, and that we were looking out for each other, and that made him smile. We joked around for a little while, and then it was time to get ready for this VIP performance and try to put out of my mind everyone who would be seeing the show, which was hard to do.

The show was probably one of the most memorable shows to date. The tension was palpable. I always love it when we go into cities where there are large pockets of alumni, because the whole cast could go up there, sing every note of the show wrong, light the stage on fire, and we'd still get a thunderous standing ovation. Anyway, the show was one of the best shows we had ever put up, and we were rewarded by hearing the Caldwell Brothers and Herb Allen do their stuff on stage. Part of their stuff on stage included Mr. Allen masterfully playing the xylophone. I had never heard anything like it. But what was great to hear afterwards was that the original creative team loved the show so much that they said that they were no longer worried that UwP would make a strong comeback onto the world scene. Knowing that my cast, my family, was a part of that, makes me proud beyond words.

After the show, and striking the set, it was time to go back to the Montebello's house to take it easy for a couple of days. It was so nice to be able to sleep for twelve hours. That's one of the things I've sorely missed while being on this tour. I think I may sleep the entire month of January away when I get back. My really cool week ended when Lucia, a Reiki Master, did a session on me. The session was quicker than expected because she said that when she did the scan, she found that my chakras were perfectly in line. "Not only are you well-adjusted, but you don't see yourself as a victim at all," she said. The only real Reiki thing she did was to wake up my root chakra, which was apparently really asleep. Right afterwards, I went to sleep, so that I could wake up really early in the morning and travel to Albuquerque, to do some more incredible things, and meet some more incredible people.

See you guys on da flip side, yo!

Mexico, Week 5: Hermosillo, Sonora

The last city on our Mexican tour started out with a boom. Literally. Actually, Hermosillo started out with a 12-hour bus ride that included four checkpoints where men with machine guns checked our buses for fruit and drugs. It wasn't a big deal for me, because I was allowed to stay on the bus, which lead to very interesting conversations:

Machine-Gun-Wielding Mexican Officer {all serious and menacing}: ¿De dónde es? [Translation: Where are you from?]

Me {trying to act calm}: Los Estados Unidos. [Translation: The United States.]

M-G-W MO {still serious and menacing}: ¿Cómo se llama? [Translation: What's your name?]
Me: Stewart. [Translation: Stewart.]
M-G-W MO {all smiles}: ¡O... como el ratón Stuart Little! [Translation: Oh... like the mouse, Stuart Little!]
Me {breathing a sigh of relief}: Exactamente. [Translation: Exactly.]

Never in a million years did I think that E.B. White would help me break the ice with a guy that could blow my head clean off my body just for having some mango in my backpack. Mexicans take their fruits and vegetables very seriously, it turns out.

Anyway, what made this city so special was that our arrival day, September 15, was Mexican Independence Day, which meant that the whole city of Hermosillo lined the streets and partied hard. It also meant that we had to make our way thorugh the dense crowd of partying Mexicans just to get to our headquarters. That was a bit challenging, but we eventually made it. After we took care of business, we had to walk to the Palacio in Hermosillo, where the Governor of the Mexican state of Sonora lives, and go to a reception there with a whole bunch of official-looking people who we had no idea who they were. After the reception, and shaking hands with the Governor and His Lovely Wife, we stood outside the Palacio, waiting for him to ring the bell, and shout things in Spanish (in an Eva-Perón-Don't-Cry-for-Me-Argentina-type style) after which the whole town cried, "¡Viva!" Then, when all the ringing, shouting, and "¡Viva!"-ing had taken place, the fireworks display began. This fireworks display put all of my previous fireworks experiences to shame: The whole thing lasted a solid 45 minutes, and the fireworks were right over our heads, and then the whole thing was punctuated by mass quantities of green, white, and red confetti shot out of confetti canons.

The whole thing went until 12:30, and by that time everybody in the cast was exhausted, and wanted to go home. But in order to do that, we had to meet our host families. This time around, our theme was Disney characters. And to make it more challenging, all of our host codes were in Spanish, which made it really hard for Seung Beom (my roommate) and me to find our host family. Our host code was Campanita, which I had no clue who that was. If I had known that 'campa' was the Spanish word for 'bell,' I probably would have figured it out, but alas, I was left clueless.

The first person I met was my host mom, who was holding a helium-filled Tinkerbell balloon. Meeting your host family on a travel day is the most interesting experiences you can have when you're on tour with Up with People. Imagine meeting someone for the first time knowing that you are going to live with them, and eat what they eat, and sleep in a bed that they have prepared for you. This is why I get nervous on Mondays. The unknown can be a little disconcerting sometimes. But once you meet with them, and you put your stuff in the trunk of their car and get to know them on the way home, a sense of ease washes over you, and you're just so excited about answering whatever question they might have. I also met Aarón, my host brother, and his fiancée, Joana (pronounced: yo-AH-nuh). As soon as I was in my Hermosillo home and it was so easy talking to them, I knew it would be hard saying, "See you later!" at the end of the week, which, by the way, is the second reason why Mondays are always the hardest days of the tour.

I don't have a lot of stuff to write about this city, because Tuesday was the day that Montezuma decided to get his revenge on me. I guess that's what happens when you don't drink water on the bus, and then you sweat profusely for 5 hours afterwards. So, I had to stay home and miss the last day that the cast hung out at the beach in San Carlos. I heard it was amazing. [Sigh] But my day off afforded me the pleasure of talking with my host family and realizing just how much my Spanish had improved over the past 5 weeks. I went from not being able to understand my La Paz Host Dad Hector to having a really good conversation with my Hermosillo host family about the Up with People program. All in Spanish. It helped that Aarón spoke really good English and could translate whatever I didn't understand.

I also loved my living situation in Hermosillo because it was the second time that I was hosted with Seung Beom from South Korea. But it was even cooler because he was my only roommate and therefore I could learn a whole lot more about Korea. For instance, I learned that when a child is born in Korea, they automatically are one year old. In Korea, they believe that any living being should have an age, and so it is impossible to be under a year old over there. Another weird thing about Korean age is that everybody automatically is a year older on January 1st. So, a Korean baby born on December 31 is automatically two, two days into its life. It's interesting because when anybody asks Seung Beom how old he is, he says that he's 23 in Korea, and 21 everywhere else.

Okay, I could talk about my living situation over there for days, but I'll move on. One of the things we did in Hermosillo was attend a conference about issues surround sex and drunk driving in Mexico. The whole day started when we got up on stage and started singing Viva la Gente, Then we saw a drama about different issues that the Mexican people have to face in regards to sex. It's pretty much like the United States. Then, we had a selection of Viva la Gente people come up and speak about what their attitudes are about sex in their country. The most interesting part about the discussion was when Cecile from Denmark said that there are no real taboos surrounding sex, and that everybody over there was really open about it, which is the reason why Denmark has one of the lowest rates of STD transmission in the world. Nobody is ashamed to talk about it, because it's no big deal over there, so people are therefore more aware and able to take care of themselves more. This caused a stir in the audience because it is really not like that in Mexico. Sex is still a really hard topic for a lot of people over there, and they have a lot of work to do in order for people to be more open about it.

Towards the end of the week, our host family invited us to a couple of family get-togethers which was really cool, because both Seung Beom and I got to meet the rest of our host family. They were the nicest people, and they treated Seung Beom and I just like we were a part of their family. We sang songs, and we talked to them about where we were from, and told them about our tour of Mexico and what we thought about different things.

We also discussed the different things that had happened during the week in Hermosillo, like when Seung Beom wanted to say, "Buenas noches" to Joana, and it came out "Buenas nahcas" instead. Apparently in Spanish saying, "buenas nachas" to someone is the equivalent of saying "You're bootylicious" to them. I think we'll all be laughing about that in the years to come.

On travel day, we had to take our bus to the Mexican border, unlaod everything, walk across the American border and load onto American buses in Nogales, Arizona. It was really eay for the Americans, since all we had to do was get our bags x-rayed, and show the border guard our passports. It took the non-Americans much longer to cross, and some people's bags had to be searched. It was kind of a bittersweet moment of the tour because the Mexican portion of it was over, and it was back to normal as far as being in the US where everybody spoke English again. Looking back on everything, it's really hard to believe that I actually lived in Mexico for 5 weeks and became somewhat of an expert on the culture, attitudes and traditions of the Mexican people. I know that there are many of my host families that I want to see again, and will stay in contact with for the rest of my life.

So thank you, Mexico, for opening my eyes to so many things, and for the churros that I got to enjoy week after week.

Next stop: the good ol' U. S. and A!

Stay tuned!

Mexico, Week 4: Culiacán, Sinaloa

Our next stop in Mexico was Culiacán, which the cast was kind of nervous about going to because Culiacán had been in the Mexican news for quite awhile before we got there, due to drug-related violence. The story that we got from host families and from others was that during World War II Culiacán was vital in the manufacturing of drugs that went out to the troops over in Europe. But long after the war was over, the sale and manufacturing of drugs remained, and Culiacán, over time, has become a major midpoint between the drug cartels in South America, and the dealers in the United States. In recent months, there has been some deadly skirmishes between the drug people and the local law enforcement, resulting in the deaths of over 300 police officers.

So, needless to say, some of the people in the cast were worried about being in the city, but at the very beginning of the week, the staff assured us that they would never put us in harm's way. They likened Culiacán to any US city with violence, telling us that there are safe and not-so-safe places for us to go, and to always stick with the group or with our host families. That made all of us feel better, and honestly nothing happened to the cast while we were there, and Culiacán ended up being one of the nicest cities on the tour.

My host family in Culiacán was a really cool older couple named Manuel and Celia Franco Ramos, and my roommate was Gijs (pronounced: [clear your throat]-ice) from the Netherlands. This was a special week in regards to my host family because my host parents' daughter hosted Colin from Texas and Frederik from the Netherlands. I joked to Colin and Freddy that they had to call me Uncle Stew throughout the week. So, in essence I had two host families in one; it was sort of like a "buy one host family, get one free" sort of deal. Our second night in Culiacán, we had the best spread of food to date, and it was extra-special since that spread of food was mostly seafood, so I kind of felt like I was home. The best part of the meal was the pulpo, which is octopus with lemon juice. Once I got used to eating the suction cups on the tentacles, it was smooth sailing for me.

It was in Culiacán that I had my most favorite and interesting CI. We stopped at APAC, which is a day school for children and adults with Cerebral Palsy and various other disabilities. It was so interesting for me to see what was going on because it was so different from what happens in the United States. First off, there were people there from the ages of 5 months to 45 years old. Secondly, they were using therapies that I had never seen before, (they had a swing-like contraption that they strapped their clients to and swung for three minutes. There are circles of thought that says that motion helps people with CP with their development) and they were using therapies there that I thought hadn't been in use for decades, such as the electric shock therapies.

It was cool, because while my Cast B compatriots were busy pulling weeds and painting walls, I had the honor of observing the classroom with the really little kids and helping them with some of the therapies. I also made really good friends with the workers there, who, I could tell, thought of these children as their own. At the end of the day, it was the litte kids' turn on the swing, and the staff invited me to get on there, which I thought was really cool. So, for three minutes I was swinging, and who knows if it helped me, but it was an unforgettable experience nonetheless. Thanks to everyone at APAC-Culiacán!

We performed two shows in Culiacán, and it was kind of refreshing, because instead of being on an 8-foot-high removable stage, we performed on a basketball court that was the same level as the audience. This particular week we had two shows. On the first night, there wasn't a big crowd, but we gave it our best anyway. For me, it doesn't matter how many people are out there during a performance. They paid to see a show, and therefore we should be performing our hearts out, no matter what. The second night of the show, the audience was really cool, and had their cell phones out and waving for most of the performance.

Despite the reservations I orginally had about coming to Culiacán, I ended up having a really good time, and learning a whole lot.

Stay tuned to ¡Viva la s2e! for the conclusion of the Mexican tour.

Mexico Week 3: Tepic, Nayarit

After Los Cabos, the next destination was Tepic, which was the southernmost city on our tour. But in order to get there, we needed to board a ferry for a 6-hour ride across the Gulf of California to Mazatlán, and then it was an overnight bus ride to Tepic. This was one of the most memorable times on the tour because I got to see the sun set in the middle of the Gulf of California, and it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen next to Obama clinching the Democratic nomination.

In every city, we have what are called allocation meetings, where we get information on our host families, and a host code to be able to find them. This time around, we all had to dress up in silly costumes so that our host families would be able to recognise us. My roommate that week was Rafa from Brazil, and of course we both had to dress up as soccer players. After we got dressed, we took part in a fashion show which went down the center of the shopping mall. It was one of the most surreal things that I have experienced. The mall was packed full of excited people, and two people on stilts lead us down the hall to where the catwalk was. All along the way there were people with cameras taking pictures and waving excitedly at us. In Mexico, a couple of Viva la Gente songs have become a part of the culture, especially De Qué Color es la Piel de Dios, or What Color is God's Skin in English. It's a song that they teach to all the children over there, and so every time we sang it, the whole audience would join in. And wave their cell phones. It was pretty awesome.

And to talk about awesome, my host family was really cool. My host Mom in Tepic was Gloria, and it so happens that she requested to host me because she's a physical therapist, and she works with people with disabilities every day. My host Dad was Gonzalo who works for the government. He was like a giant kid: every time he would pick us up from our day, he always kidded around with us, and cracked jokes. It was really cool because when it came to Spanish, Rafa and I worked as a team. Everything he understood, I couldn't, and everything I understood, he couldn't, so we became each other's translators. My host brothers were really cool as well. The host brother that I met, Juan, is nineteen years old, and he's been all over the world conducting a youth orchestra in Guadalajara. His friends call him "Tucán," because he used to eat Fruit Loops every morning for breakfast. My other host brother, that I didn't get to meet, but I felt like I knew him, is Luis Ernesto Franco who is a model and has been in many television shows and movies in Mexico. I was told by my host mom that he's seeing the Mexican version of Jennifer Aniston, and it was so cool to talk with her about her sons because I could feel the pride that she had for them.

The CI that I helped out with was a college fair with numerous booths, and I spent 5 hours in the languages booth (naturally) writing people's names in Russian. It was really cool, because I sat next to my friend Yordi from Ethiopia, and she taught me some of the Amharic alphabet, which is really difficult to learn, but it was fun learning from her. After the college fair, it was time for the cast to pile in cars and trucks for our promotional parade. For about an hour and a half, we rolled through the streets of Tepic and sang Viva la Gente and Cielito Lindo at the top of our lungs from our cars.

Tepic was one of my favorite shows because instead of performing on a removable stage, we got to perform on a concrete stage that actually didn't move when everybody was dancing all at once. When you're performing on a removable stage, and 92 people are doing the same move at the same time, you kind of feel like you're surfing, so it was nice to be able to not feel like I was taking my life into my own hands during the show.

On host family day, they took Rafa and I to see the lagoon. It was like I was looking at a post card. The water was a combination of azure and turquoise, and I could harldy believe the beauty that was laid out before me. After seeing the bird's eye view of the lagoon, we ate at a resaurant that overlooked it. While we were there, Tucán noticed a girl that was one of Gloria's clients, and brought her over to the table. She was eight years old, and had CP, and had been mainstreamed since the beginning of school. It was great to see Gloria interacting with one of her clients, and I could see instantly that she was more than their physical therapist, she was like a second mother to them.

Mondays are the hardest part of the tour, because that is the day that we have to say goodbye to the family that treated us like one of their own for the past week. It was especially hard this week to say goodbye because I really connected to Gloria and Gonzalo. But I know that I'll see them again, and that we'll always keep in touch.

Mexico, Week 2: Los Cabos

This week has been such an incredible week. We did double duty in two cities: San José del Cabo, and Cabo San Lucas. Don't ask me what a Cabo is. I have no idea, but it must be something important, since it has two cities named for it.

My roommate this time around was Phil Woods, from Denver, Colorado, and we stayed with a really cool host family that exempliflied corazón to a T. I had two identical twin host brothers, Jorge, and José Luis, who married sisters, Rosita and Jasmine, and their mother and brother, Lolita and David live with them as well, so, needless to say, we had a full house. And it was sort of difficult, because only Jorge and José-Luis spoke any English. Every night Phil and I ate like Mexican Kings, and I swear that I ate a whole orchard of mangos by the time the week was over.

This is definitely one of the most interesting weeks on the tour, by far. On regional learning day, we went to the arroyo, which is a low area of land that floods really easily when it rains. It is also home to a lot of people who reside in little more than one-room plywood shacks. It almost took my breath away to see the conditions these people were living in. Right in Cabo San Lucas. Who knew that this kind of poverty existed in the same place that many Hollywood A-listers vacation? What I kept thinking in my mind was that my host brothers work in a jewelry store where it isn't uncommon for someone to walk in and just drop $10,000 on a single piece of jewelry and across town, here are people who have no choice but to scrape by on 20 pesos a day.

And then you see the children who live there, and upon seeing their smiles, you can't help but smile yourself. Seeing them running around, and joking and laughing with each other, you really get the sense that these kids don't seem to think about it all that much. A lot of people had mixed feelings about what we were doing. Some people thought it a little strange for us to be coming in to this area in air conditioned buses, and walking around with our high-tech cell phones, and taking pictures of everything, like these people were animals at the zoo. I saw it a little differently. I think it was a good thing that we went into the arroyo because a lot of people in our group, including myself, had never seen this kind of poverty in person. And as we spent more and more time there, and started interacting with the kids, all of a sudden, everyone's socio-economic backgrounds seemed to melt away. We were human beings connecting with other human beings on a real level, and it's something I'll always remember. It made me realize not only how lucky I am to have what I have, but how much more needs to be done so that no one has to live in that situation.

Because the cast was divided up into two cities, we had two shows. Our Friday show was in San José del Cabo, and our Saturday show was in Cabo San Lucas. Both shows were a big success. And it made for a really interesting week, because we had two really late nights in a row. The best part of the shows in Cabo San Lucas was when everybody took out their cell phones during "I Can Believe" and started waiving them around. The Mexican audiences have been so enthusiastic and wonderful. In San José, there was a large group of teenage girls that screamed every time Russ, Zach, or Gijs were on stage. I felt like the Beatles for a bit, there.

On our host family day, the twins took us to a waterfall, which I thought I could get down to since they said there were only stairs to go down there. They forgot to mention the sheer rock faces that were in between the car and the stairs. So, needless to say, we ended up going to a beach, which was so cool. I have never seen waves like that before in my life. I attempted to go swimming, but just ended up getting swept up into the ginormous waves, and watching my life flash before my eyes more than once, but it was really cool!

That was my week in Los Cabos! Stay tuned for week 3 from México!

Mexico, Week 1: La Paz

Here I am, in one of the most gorgeous places on the planet, La Paz, Baja California Sur, where the humidity is high, the food is so much better than American Mexican food places, and the people will always treat you like family.

Speaking of family, I am living with the Castros. Yet again, my host mom, María, is the best cook imaginable. If this trend continues, I am going to see if I could get all of my past host Moms together and start up a restaurant of world cuisine. My host Dad's name is Hector, and he is the general manager of a hotel in La Paz that his brother owns. And I have two host siblings, José Daniel (17), and Ilse (11). It's great because they fight like my sister and I used to fight. Except they do it in Spanish.

The Community Impact projects that we have been doing here have been just amazing. On Tuesday, my group went to a nursing home in La Paz to paint the walls, and give it a fresh new look for the people living here. The paint never arrived, so we just ended up doing upkeep things, like washing the windows, and sweeping. The best part of that day was interacting with the residents there. One lady I had a conversation with was named Consuelo, and she had only been there for a couple of months. She expressed how greatful she was that we came in to help them out, and then she gave me a big hug. It was so great to think I could touch her life in that small way. There was a lady there that loved to sing, and another one that loved to dance with everyone. It was awesome seeing her dance with Russ, our lead guitarist.

The other CI project I was involved with was working with an Oregon-based non-profit organization called Mobilize Mankind, which brings donated American wheelchairs and other equipment and gives them to disabled children in the Southern Baja California area. They also work with the school systems down here to try to mainstream as many kids with disabilities as possible, and to help integrate them into society.

There was one girl with CP that I met with Asmartha, who, before getting in contact with Mobilizw Mankind, spent her whole life in bed. Her parents took her in to get a wheelchair, and her life changed dramatically. She started to go to school, and was eventually mainstreamed into normal Mexican school life. At the beginning, her mother went to school with her to help her with regular care things. But after awhile, Asmartha realized that she didn't need her mother's help. She tried many times to tell her mother, but her mother felt really strongly that she needed to stay by her side to help her out. So, Asmartha took matters into her own hands and asked the director of the school to help her draft a letter to her mother asking her to let her be on her own. The letter was signed by the Director, Asmartha herself, and eventually by her very reluctant mother. The school paid for another Personal Care Attendant for, her, and she's been attending a mother-free school ever since.

The most exciting night of the tour thus far was our performance last night at the Estadio in La Paz, where we had our largest turnout to date, ~1,500. Since we were outside, we had to perform on a stage that was about 5 feet high, and in order to accomodate me, they put the ramp to the equipment truck next to the stage, which was scary, because the ramp itself is on a 50˚ angle, and I get stuck at the top and the bottom, so people have to assist me onstage. So I am on mic groups the whole show, which is cool.

It's great to perform to a Mexican audience, because they know a lot of the songs that we perform, and most of them know the Viva la Gente theme song. And they especially went crazy during our Mexican medley, where we performad 7 Mexican pop songs. I greatly looknig forward to the next city when we perform a show on Friday in Cabo San Lucas, and a show on Saturday in San José del Cabo.

If I have internet access next week, I'll post again.

¡Hasta luego!

Pictures!!

I am in my first stop on tour, Summit County, Colorado, where we've already have met some cool people, and have done some cool things. I even got interviewed for a promotional documentary that some film students from North Carolina are putting together. Yesterday I spent 6 hours painting the high school cafeteria, during which I imagined myself on Trading Spaces, and wondering how they could finish a room in two days.

Anyway, I promised pictures in the last post, so here they are! Enjoy! This may be my last post for awhile, since we'll be in México for the next 5 weeks, and I may not have an internet connection during that time.

Here's is the link to my Facebook album so that you can have a look!

Facebook Album: It All Begins

¡Adios!

Changes, changes, changes!

A lot has hapened since I've written in this thing, but it's ten, and I should go to bed pretty soon, but here are the highlights of the past couple of weeks:

• We said, "goodbye" to the Sherman Center, and, "hello" to the Teikyo Loretto Heights Auditorium
• We learned a lot about the tour, such as where we'll be going, and who we're going to be working with. The venues for the Mexican portion of the show are going to be absolutely incredible. The smallest venue in which we'll be performing holds 7,000 people, and the biggest holds 20,000 people. We'll also be doing a lot of community service work including working on the streets to cover up graffiti alongside some of the graffiti artists themselves; we'll be working with children with cancer, and we'll also be working with Mexican people who have CP, which will be an awesome experience, and I'm glad the cast will learn more about it.
• Jochem and I had to switch our host families because of some unexpected events, and our new host family is awesome. We have an 88-year-old host grandpa, a really cool host dad, a Ugandan host mom, and two adorable host sisters, who are 4 and 6.
•  I am learning to function on minimal sleep, and am starting a coffee habit.

That's all! I'll post pictures on the next post, I promise! Wish me luck for the dress rehearsal on Saturday. 

Baseball, Burgers, and Big-Ass Raindrops

Today was a really good day, because I got to hang with some super cool people. At first, I thought that we'd spend the afternoon at Julie (our only Norwegian castmate)'s house, but those plans kind of fizzled, and I ended up going to Kirk's baseball game with Jochem. Kirk plays ball for the National Adult Baseball Association, and he pretty much plays every position for them. Today he was 1st baseman, and catcher.

It was really interesting because it was Jochem's first baseball game ever, and I had to explain the fundamentals to him. I didn't realize how much I understood about the game until I started explaining things to him. By the end of everything, I think he had a good grasp on things. I'm going to quiz him when we go to Coors Field on Monday to watch a pro game. It'll be good for Jochem to see both sides of the baseball spectrum.

The game was called off due to rain. During the 5th inning, it started dripping outside. In Colorado, it doesn't get dark and start to pour, it drips on you first. And I'm not talking about small little drips. These are huge-ass drops of water that hurt when they land on you! It was so hard for Jochem and I to have a conversation because we kept getting stung by the drops of water. Then, after 10 minutes of it dripping on us, it decided to downpour. Luckily Kirk left his car open, so we could take refuge.

Every day I'm here, I am so glad that I took the effort to apply to this program. Already I've made so many friends, and shared so many really cool moments with them. If I am this close to people on the second week of the tour, I can't imagine what it'll be like 6 months from now. Jochem and I have talked about everything and anything, and he's become a really good friend. He's been so helpful and he kept saying today that it's really cool to have a disabled roommate. That made me feel really good...

I have heard some really cool things from my castmates that they think it's one of the coolest things in the world that I applied to a program like this, and am actually touring. I honestly think that I didn't have a choice. So I can't walk too good. So I need crutches and a scooter in order to be mobile. So what? I still have a ton of things to share with everybody, and I can already feel that I am changing some people's ideas on disability, which totally rocks, and I think that is why I'm on the Earth.

Anyway, after the game we went to Red Robin, which was awesome. I can't really remember what I ordered, but it was very good. And every time I think of Red Robin, my mind of course goes to my friend Kurt who was in one of the national commercials. The one where they're in a burger museum, and the curator is all, "Nobody can touch the burgers," and my friend Kurt is all, "Screw that!" and he reaches for a burger and when he bites into it, it explodes and his face is covered in blue paint. Yeah... I went to school with that guy. We peeps.

Anywho... to wrap up, because I have another huge day tomorrow: I had another awesome day, and got closer to some really awesome people. Now I must go get my beauty rest so I can look all sexy and brooding for the cast photo.

Laterz!

Denver, Week 2

I am not going to write a blog like I did last week, because last week's blog took me four hours to write, and I just don't have that kind of energy right now, so I am just going to touch upon the highlights.

The staging process is still moving at light-speed pace. It's only the second week, and already we're going into blocking rehearsals, where we can learn where to enter and exit for each song, and where everybody is going to be. It was really interesting, because we have such a huge cast, (95 people) and a tiny space in which everyone needs to fit (about 20ft by 7ft). Needless to say that I ran over a lot of people's feet, and I had to be extra aware of what was going on, because I almost got elbowed in the face a couple of times. Who knew Up with People would turn into a contact sport? After the last couple of days of blocking, I was really happy they make the cast take out accident insurance! The show looks spectacular. It's got a couple of pretty new features that they're trying out for the first time since 1990-something, so that's über-exciting.

The closer we get to the show, the more I am impatient to actually get on the road to start doing Community Impact things, and Regional Learning excursions, and etc. Today we had our first day without any rehearsal stuff, where we toured the Colorado capital building, and then set out on a factfinding scavenger hunt. The Colroado capitol is pretty nice. It seemed like it was smaller than the Maine capitol, but maybe they're about the same size... who knows. The capitol was built in 1908, and so it's around 100 years old, and everything is pretty much original. What's been the most interesting for me is the Colorado history, because it begins after everyone settled the East, and it's kind of strange, because the word 'pilgrim' never came up in the tour narration...

After that, we just walked all around Denver trying to gather some facts, like who Denver is named after (J.W. Denver) and how many blocks the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall covers (16)... It was extra cool, because our team had three Coloradians on it, so we definitely had the advantage. It was so cool to walk around with everybody, because I got included in some of the the crazy pictures, and got to know a couple of the staff better. Ellen, one of the Education Coordinators on the road, sang me a song designed to help people remember the order of the presidents. I deifinitely want to learn it before the end of the tour, not only because it's a great thing to pull out at a party, or a bar, but it also speaks to my inner nerd, which is always good.

The highlight of the the day was definitely going into Jamba Juice for the very first time. For those of you in the east who are unfamiliar of the Jamba Juice franchise, think Starbucks, but with smoothies instead of coffee. It was really good. I, being as anti-fruit as I am, decided on the "Peanut Butter Moo'd" with an energy boost. The boosts are little vitamin shots that they add to the drink to give you a certain thing, like energy. I was expecting a huge jump in my energy, but it never came. Oh, well...

I think that is all I am going to write right now... I am beyond tired, and I have a flight of stairs to descend before sleeping the day away. At least I hope I sleep the day away. Last "weekend," I only slept until 9:30... very disappointing. This weekend is actually a weekend, and not a day off, because there's a wedding taking place on Saturday at the complex where we rehearse. This will probably be the only true weekend we get on the tour, so I am going to savor it as much as I can.

I'll end this post with an itinerary change. Our city in Arizona will either be Sahurita or Green Valley, and it looks like we're spending two weeks in South Dakota, going to Aberdeen before heading off to Sioux Falls. I'll change the schedule on the side when I'm not so lazy.

Later!

Subwayaholics Anonymous

Amongst the members of Up with People's Cast B 2008, we have an addict. His name is Jochem Gunster, from the Netherlands.

Last week, my host mother Agnes and I thought it would be quite harmless to take young Jochem into one of Denver's many conveniently located Subway sandwich shops. Little did we know that we'd eventually awaken a monster inside of him. Ever since that fateful Sunday, Subway has taken over poor Jochem's mind: it's the first thing we talk about in the morning; it's the first thing we talk about after getting out of staging, and it's the last thing we talk about before we go to bed at night.

Yesterday, a light went out in Jochem's eyes when Jessica Trabert, the Field Manager for the Denver part of the tour, suggested a quicker route for us to take when we get home. When we got outside, he expressed his concern about not being able to enjoy the "explosion of flavor" that can only be supplied by the Subway veggie sandwich. The moment when Jochem's once-tense body relaxed when he saw that Subway sign on 16th Street, I understood the gravity of the situation.

So, to the members of Cast B, I implore you to do whatever you can to support our fellow castmate. He's too young to have this kind of addiction take over his life, and he'll need the encouragement of all of us to kick this lower-calorie, lower-fat, better-alternative-to-fast-food habit that has dominated his existence.

And to Jochem, I'll be there whenever you need me to be. You say the word "Big Mac,' and we'll be in the car faster than you can say "morbid obesity." I'm here for you, buddy. We're all here for you.

Denver, Week 1

First off, let me tell you that this week doesn't seem like a week, it seems more like a month. I hear that this is what is called 'Up with People time,' where 1 week = 1 month, apparently. So, in theory that means that I'll be half-way done with my thirties when all is said and done, and will have paid off my loan. A man can only hope. By the way, this is a very long post, so you may want to read it in instalments.

Day 1
My first travel day went pretty much without a hitch. I made my flight in Boston in plenty of time, and made my connection in JFK with literally 3 minutes to spare. But it was all well and good, and I actually managed to take a nap on the plane on the way out to Denver. When I arrived at the airport, which is one of the most beautiful airports I've been in, (which isn't really saying something, by the way) I grabbed my bags, and started my wait for the official start of the semester. The Up with People greeters should have been there at around 11:30, but they ended up getting there around 12:30.

While I was waiting, this rather tall rocker/surfer dude came up to me, and introduced himeself. It turns out that this surfer dude was Russ Reiter, from "Baltimore," Maryland. we asked each other the customary UwP first questions, such as, "What got you interested in the program," "Are you excited?", and "Would you like fries with that?", etc. The next person I met was fellow New Englander, Brittany Rousseau from Rhode Island who was really cool. As she was waiting for the greeters to show up, she noticed a person that possible could be part of our group, and it turns out that he was Arnab Dewan from Bangladesh. By the time noon rolled around, we didn't see any greeters, so we took it upon ourselves to make our own "Up with People" sign.

At 12:30, I was so excited to see Dave Penny, who I met in Bangor when his cast was there in December. I felt that it was at that point when my Up with People experience began. We all piled into a tour bus and made our way to the Montbello Recreation Center where all of the UwP office staff was there to greet us. The first table we went to was the name tag table. My experience may have begun when I saw Dave, but I was on official "Uppie" when I put on my nametag. It was so cool to finally meet so many of the people in person that I talked to on the phone. When I saw my admissions counselor, Jen Moody, we gave each other a huge hug.

Right next to her was Jeff Ziegler, who also in the cast that came to Bangor. He told me that I was the first student to arrive in Denver, and that when 10:05 came around he yelled, "Hey, Stewart's here!" which made everyone look at the door for me. You should hear him tell the story. He's a better raconteur than I am.

For the rest of the day, we sat around in the rec center, played games and got to know each other. About 20 of us gathered around the pool table and played a really cool game of Jenga. We went around the twenty or so people 3 times before everything toppled over, so towards the end it was really cool, and by I was person number, like, 15, so by the time things got to me, the game was almost impossible. Towards the end of the night, I played Bullshit with three Ethiopian girls, two Japanese girls, a girl from Thailand, and several Americans. It was interesting to explain the game, because there were a couple of people from our group that didn't really peak English all that well. But as the game progressed, things got smoother. I learned that in Japanese playing cards, they have an 11. Pretty interesting stuff, right there.

Then, Martin Brennan spoke to the cast. It was really cool to look around and see everybody that I'll be traveling with for the next 22 weeks. Cast B was finally all together, ready to start our crazy semester.

It was time to meet my very first host family, the people whose home I'll be calling home for the next month. My roommate, a then-18-year-old vegetarian from the Netherlands, Jochem Gunster, and I had to find the people with the spyglass. In Up with People, they give out different codes so that the students can find their host families well. The theme this time around for the codes was pirating, and Jochem and I had to find the spyglass. We looked around, and finally spotted a man with a rolled up piece of paper, looking through it like a telescope. His name is Charlie Fountain, and his wife is Agnes.

When we got home, I was welcomed into a really nice, 3-level home, and found out that I would be sleeping in their basement, which you could hardly call a basement. It's more like a fully-furnished apartment. I even have my own bathroom, shower, and double bed. It's pretty sweet... That night, I went to bed and did my first video diary that I will post once I get uploading pictures to my camera figured out...

Day 2
Day 2 was spent getting a tour of the mountains, and walking around Downtown Boulder. It was really strange looking out the the left side of the car and seeing nothing but flatness, and looking to the right side of the window and seeing the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. We drove into the canyons, and it was really cool to look into the windshield and see nothing but a wall of pine trees ahead of me. "These are nothing like the mountains in Maine," I thought to myself, "these are real mountains." The mountains that I'm used to in Maine are more like really large hills.

After the Purple Mountain's Majesty Tour, we went walking along the pedestrian mall in Boulder. There we saw a whole cornucopia of street performers. We saw a man who could play the drums, the steel drums, and the didgeridoo at the same time. It was insane... then we saw a guy named Dereck Dereck that was a pretty cool juggler/stand-up comedian. After that, we decided to call it a day, and go back home for dinner.

Dinner that night consisted of one of my favorite foods on the Planet Earth: baked beans. If you know me really well, you can note the sarcasm in that sentence. But before I came here, I told myself that I would try everything, and broaden my culinary horizons, after all, these were homemade baked beans, and not ones from a can. These baked beans were actually palateable. The main ingredient was barbecue sauce, and so it was something I could actually enjoy. We had a great time at dinner getting to know each other. It turns out that Agnes is a pharmacist at the local hospital, and Charlie is a mechanical engineer. We also found out that Jochem and I were #59 and #60 of the Fountain Host Kids. In fact, it was the Fountains that hosted Bob Sloat, the husband of Anke, who was the woman who conducted my telephone interview. It's crazy how things like that work out. There has been talk of inviting Anke and her husband over for dinner one night. I hope that happens.

Day 3
This was the day of the opening session of the semester. We started out in the auditorium of the Sherman Street Center, and it was really cool to see some of the songs that we'll all be sick of come December. I hope I'm joking, but from the sound of things, I'm not. After that, we had a little reception downstairs in the cafeteria. The European students that arrived late were there, so I met most of the German friends I had talked to on Facebook, which was pretty cool. I talked to a woman who works in the office that had read my article in the Citizen, and complemented me on my hard work with raising the money to get here, which was really cool to hear.

At the end of the day, I couldn't wait to get the show on the road.

Day 4
This was the day where everything started to happen. During our first morning meeting, we met all of the office staff, and all of the staff that will be on the road with us. I can't wait to get on the road and actually work with them and learn from them.

The first order of business for the day was to act all silly to break the ice with everybody, and we ended up playing a couple of cool games. There was a really cool version of Paper, Rock, Scissors where everyone started out as an egg, walking around the auditorium acting like an egg, and then they would search out other eggs to do get into a head-to-head Rock, Paper, Scissors game, the winner of which would become a chicken, where you'd walk around, clucking like a chicken and would search out other chickens, and the loser would stay an egg. In the game between two chickens, the winner would become a dinosaur, and the loser would go back to an egg. After winning the dinosaur round we'd move on to the Ultimate Being round, and after that, you'd win the game and watch everybody else act like total idiots. I was so good at playing the game that I never lost once, and the whole thing took me 5 minutes to complete. If any future students are out there: Play rock every time, your opponent will most likely play scissors.

The rest of the day went really well, and it was a great introduction to the Up with People program.

Day 5
This was the day where we had modules, or 'Mods' for short. This is where all of the performing arts staff could take a look at us individually and see where our strengths are. The first day I had vocals, tech, and speaking. I totally rocked the vocals and the speaking. The tech mod was basically where they told us, "Don't be a dumbass and pay attention to where you're walking so you don't block the screen, and you don't end up impaling yourself." It was also a time to hear interesting stories about people blocking the screen during the performance and impaling themselves. Good times were had by all.

I also got my show costume all straightened around. When I showed the costume designer my blue button-down shirt, her response was an: "I don't love it." So, she pulled a really super cool green button-down, with a brown shirt with a green psychedelic print on it. It's slammin'.


Day 6
Day 6 was more of the same. In the morning, I had my dance module, and I decided to go in there with my crutches so that they could see me off of my scooter. I think that was a wise decision because then they could see what kind of movements my legs were capapble of. Yui, our dance captain on the road said she was wondering if I'd come in on my crutches or if I'd ride in on my scooter, and she said that she was really happy to see me come in on my crutches., and that made me feel really good.

Let me take the time in this monstrous post to thank all of the Dance Team for their support. They are trying their best to try to incorporate me into the choreography in the show, and I think they're really excited to have me because I present a unique challenge to them.

That day, our cast movement was three hours long. And we spent the whole time learning the 'Keep the Beat' dance. It was a little frustrating for me, because I'm not used to learning choreography, but by the time everything was over with, I had the hand movements down, which is the important thing for me. I talked to Kayliegh, one of the dance instructors, and she said that they are working hard to get me incorporated into the show. She suggested that I decorate my scooter basket for the show, and I told her that I thought it would be neat to put a 's2e cam' on there and record a performer's eye view of the show. Actually, I can't take any credit for that. Fenna from Germany had that idea, and I thought it was a great one. I'm going to talk to the tech people to see how I can make that happen. Thank you, Fenna!

We also had our first day of vocals, and let me just say that I love our vocal instructor, Bill. He is really cool, and he's been with UwP for years, and is son just happens to be the lead guitarist for the Fray. Pretty cool, if you ask me. We all know which water bottle is Bill's because he has a Fray sticker on it. All of the tenor parts are in actuality alto parts, so I am working in my upper register for a lot of the songs. But if I can improve my range by a half an octave or so, that would be super cool. At least I'm not a soprano. They're singing mostly in the alto range. Gotta love contemporary music.

Day 7 & 8
Days 7 and 8 brought more of the same thing, except on Day 7, Eric Lentz, who is one of the producers of the show pulled me ot of movement to give me a couple of spoken word pieces to memorize. He said that he passed them out to three or four people, and the most prepared person will end up performing them for the dress rehearsal and for the US and Philippines shows. I've gotten the first one down, and hopefully by the end of this week I'll have the second one down so that I can knock Eric's socks off. I'm really using everything I learned in Oral Interpretation so that I'll have everyone in the aisles bawling like a schoolgirl by the time I am done. That would be sweet.

Today
Today, the whole family piled into the Saab and went to Mt. Evans, which is the highest peak accessible by car. It was really interesting, because Charlie's Saab is equipped with an external thermometer, and it was really cool to see the temperature go from 100° to 50°. But before all of that excitement happened, we went out to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, where tons of really cool acts get to play. This week John Mellencamp is playing, and the handicapped seating is in the front, and by "front," I mean "the first row." So, needless to say, I'm super stoked about that. Maybe I'll end up getting a picture with Johnny himself, but I'm not holding my breath.

Mt. Evans was so cool. The road we went on was the highest auto route in the United States, and it was crazy because we rose 14,000 ft. in elevation in only 14 miles. It was nuts, because the road had niether a shoulder nor a guardrail, and so if you had the misfortune of going off the road, you would pretty much be done for, since the 14,000-ft. drop is almost certainly unsurvivable. That trip took most of the day, and we ended up getting back to Littleton at around 8:30, but it was well worth it.

Well, that's my week in a nutshell. A very large nutshell. I hope you got through it all. I'll be better at keeping up with things now that I have my laptop all set up. The only thing I have to do with it is figure out how to upload pictures and videos. Once I do that, I'll post all of my pics for you guys.

Until next time!

Highlights of the first week...

Right now, I'm barely coherent, so I'll fill you in later when my brain doesn't hurt so much.

Highlights of the first week include:

• getting to know 130 people from 25 different countries
• learning 11 songs in 2 days
• living with the kick-assiest host family on the planet
• stretching my brain to its limit

I'll fill you in later when I have more time, and can spell again.

"See You Later"'s are Always Hard...

Well, this is the very last post that I will write from my computer in Belfast. The next time you hear from me I'll have so much to update you guys on, you'll have to use both your coffee breaks to read everything.

In this post, I would like to thank all of you who have supported me from the beginning: Cathy and Brian Horne, Jeannie Buzzell, the Hamlins, Chrystal Thorne, Emily Caswell, Mary McCormick, my mother, sister, father, family, friends... As I'm thinking of all the wonderful people that have given me advice, pointers, financial assistance, etc., I realize that I am one of the luckiest people I know, and it is you guys who have believed in me right from the start that will give me the strength and the motivation when the time comes in the tour where the newness has worn off, and I realize that we have four months on the road left. All of you mean the world to me, and I can't wait to introduce The New Me to all of you when I get back.

Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of this page to subscribe to the e-mail service I added to this blog so that you will be the first to know what is happening with me.

¡Hasta luego!
s2e

There's a New Itinerary!

If any of you wrote down the original itinerary that I posted on this site or e-mailed to you, you can just throw it away, because Up with People just posted the more official tour schedule today, and by the looks of things they haven't secured a city for a couple weeks of the tour.

Here is the new schedule, hot off the UwP presses:

United States: July 11 - August 17
Orientation: Denver, CO - July 11 - August 11
Breckenridge, CO - August 11 - August 17

Mexico: August 18 - September 21
La Paz - August 18 - August 25
Cabo - August 25 - September 1
Tepic - September 1 - September 8
Culiacan - September 8 - September 15
Hermosillo - September 15 - September 21

United States: September 22 - November 16
Arizona: September 22 - September 29
Albuquerque, NM - September 29 - October 6
Colorado Springs, CO - October 6 - October 13
Salt Lake City, UT - October 13 - October 20
Wyoming - October 20 - October 27
Wyoming/South Dakota - October 27 - November 3
Sioux Falls, SD - November 3 - November 10
North Platte, NE - November 10 - November 16

The Philippines: November 17 - December 16
Manila - November 17 - December 4
Cebu/Subic - December 5 - December 16 (End of Tour)

Probably when we get closer to October, the Wyoming and South Dakota cities will make themselves known. I'll let you know when that happens!

Up with People: the Kevin Bacon of Non-Profit Organizations

Slowly, but surely, everything major that I've had to deal with for my "trip of a lifetime" has been coming along quite nicely. Yesterday, I went to the Alliance of Maine Credit Union, (which so happens to be one of the best in the state), to sign the loan papers, and ended up talking to the loan officer for about an hour. It turns out that the UwP theme song doesn't lie when it says "you meet 'em wherever you go," because every single loan officer I talked to there is friends with an Uppie. We may just be the Kevin Bacon of the Non-Profit Organizations. I wonder who I should talk to to get that slogan changed. "Bringing the World Together" just isn't doing it for me anymore...

In other news, Mark, the wheelchair guy, met up with me today and dropped off a snazzy wheelchair for me to try out. The first run went okay. I am a lot better going backwards and downhill, but the other two directions will come eventually. The armrests kind of got in the way, so once we figure out how to take those off, and we figure out how to have me not leaning back as much, hopefully it will be smooth sailing from there. If not, there's always the scooter option. "Hakuna matata," is what I always say.

Ummm... so, yeah. I guess that's it. Not a very exciting post, but I promise you that they will get better once I'm out there doing stuff.

Until next time!

Welcome to ¡Viva la s2e! !

First of all, welcome to ¡Viva la s2e!, your front seat to my experiences as I travel all over the place with Up with People. Have a look around, settle in, and enjoy! To the right, you'll see a selection of my fellow castmembers' blogs, sorted by when they were last updated, for your convenience. Below that, you'll find the tour itinerary, so you'll know where I am at any given time!

I have just come to the realization that our tour isn't starting July 11; it has already begun! For the past couple of days, I have been getting to know all sorts of awesome people who have a lot of the same interests as me, and believe it or not the same sense of humor as me as well!! I didn't think it was possible either. Already as people mill around the Facebook group and each other's profiles, I can already see the the different dynamics of the group forming. Either that, or I'm comatose from being at the computer for too long. It could be both...

In other news, I just got approved for a loan that will pay off the rest of my program fee and help me finance a wheelchair/scooter for the trip, and I couldn't be happier... Now if the wheelchair guy would get back in touch with me on things, that would be nice! Baby steps, I guess!

Well, that's it for now... I need to take a walk so I can get the feeling in my legs back!

¡Hasta luego!