MemoryDragon's Xanga

The Sprinkles of Awesomeness

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:33:34 GMT

    Dronten, the Netherlands. Home of a totally awesome host family, Up With People Land, and (of course) the Sprinkles of Awesomeness. Chocolate sprinkles, for those of you in the states, are eaten for breakfast on buttered bread. And lunch too, when we had it at the XL, our facility for most of the week. :XD Did I mention how much I love Dronten (and sprinkles?).

    I did have a totally wicked host family though. My room mate for the week was Elke, and we stayed with the Vermeulen family. My host dad, Roel, owned a really famous apple juice company in the Netherlands, so I got to drink some really good apple juice. XD My host mom, Vera, was also really nice and I got to hang out with my host sister, Carmen, a lot that week, since she and several other high school students joined us uppies for the week to learn about immigration policies. My little host brother, Olaf, was sweet too, even though we couldn’t really speak the same language. And to top it all off, they had sprinkles on the table every day at breakfast. Like I said, totally awesome host family, right? :XD

    Because the team picked an 80's theme that week, we all got “DJ” names. Gina named me Lady T (Lady Trekie). :sweat: It was fun though, since we had a 80's song of the day all that week and an 80's themed Halloween party. Oh, this was also my first week as the city runner, meaning that I run morning meetings and wrap up every day, carry around Laquesha (our info wall), and have everyone answer annoying questions every day. Some examples are: “What mythical beast/race would you be? (Dragon) Where can the meaning of life be found? (In a truck load of feathers falling on two monkeys) What is your favourite form of chocolate? (Milk) Do your best impression of a cartoon character. (In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!) If you could add a word to the dictionary, what would it be? (Fwa) Superman or Batman. (Batman, all the way) What was the name of your first crush? What could the initials GKW stand for? (God Knows What) Sing the first song that came into your head this morning...” And so forth. Yeah, people get annoyed with my questions. But they’re probably the most creative this cast has seen, lol.    They know they love them. They just don’t know it yet...

    We arrived in Dronten to hear the Major speak. But the bus was there so late that I don’t think many of us paid much attention, because we were all so tired. I tried though. :sweat: We met up with our host families. Obviously, mine was awesome. But we were both really tired, so after dinner we just turned in for bed.

    Breakfast the next morning is when I first learned the beauty of sprinkles. Though I hadn’t yet tested their full beauty, it was my first step into enlightenment. Chocolate for breakfast is really just a brilliant idea to begin with.

    We had three guests speakers that day, all from immigration. Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that we started our “role play” for that week of UWP Land! Fun times. We were all given passports along with our schedule for the week, telling us what we were. Some people were land owners, some people were workers, some people were citizens or migrant workers... We also had illegal immigrants and refugees, along with asylum seekers. They were all treated accordingly, with the citizens getting first place in line and so forth. I was a business owning citizen... But since they didn’t say what kind of business, I made my own. It started out as just being a bi-monthly journal about politics. But with the help of my employees, Lysan, Mallory, and my coffee getter/copy maker Nikki, it actually turned into a some what sleazy daily news letter that we printed out every day with all the happenings of UWP Land. I and my team were committed to exposing the truth of the corrupt border patrol. Not only did the Uppie Times cover head lines news, but we also reported on any news Major Ljuan passed, any marriages that took place (because we could get married in UWP Land, lol) and ran helped wanted/personal adds. And we got to pester everyone else for interviews. :XD

    Continuing on with the guest speakers, however, we learned some interesting view points of people from IOM, the Dutch Immigration policies, and the Anti Discrimination Office. They were all interesting to listen to, especially since most of us had to prepare our own policies on immigration later that week. After that, we had a Team work session led by Jeremiah, which was lots of fun, since we were all blind folded and had to make a perfect square. :sweat: We did though, so that was really cool.

    Wednesday we split into groups, going to the mosque or a refugee camp. I went to a Turkish mosque to learn about how immigration policies affected them. Afterwards, we returned for lunch at the XL (Yay for sprinkles!) and totally weirded our dutch high school students by putting together the peanut butter and sprinkles. :twisted: They thought we were strange, but they would see... We would convert them eventually... :twisted:

    After lunch, I missed the immigration policy making because I went out for promotion. T_T But it was fun, wandering around where our show would be and handing out flyers. Especially when I handed one to the lady at the chocolate shop when I bought some chocolate... :XD Once we returned, we had some Belgium prep on the Cosmo Golem and how big next week would be.

    We went home to have dinner and change into our spookiest outfits... Which for me ended up being a gypsy who told fortunes... (for girls, You’ll be eaten by a zombie or bitten by a vampire by the end of the night. For guys... “You will buy me a drink.” :XD ) for my host sister, her friend, and Sophie, it ended up being totally rad 80's costumes. It was a fun time, with Thriller dances and all sorts of random things/people. Lol... The drinks weren’t as good as the last party... That we had in Prenzlou that I seem to have completely forgotten about in that post. :oops: :sweat: Fun night that one. Good music and dancing. But back to the other party, lol. It was a good time all around. :XD

    Thursday we had to finish the immigration policies... but I was signed out to work on the religion workshop. :sweat: So Laurel and I worked on that while everyone else did their projects. It was fun though, trying to decide what we would say next week and what we should leave out, lol. During lunch we converted the unsuspecting high school students to our strange American ways of peanut butter with sprinkles. Now they love it. Maybe we crazy Americans aren’t so bad after all? :XD

    After lunch, we got to hear the immigration policies that everyone had been working on. I think a lot of them were really good, even though I didn’t get to work on any of them, lol. Then we had a news workshop with Jorn, Peppe, and Nikki about the Philippines and how we should all be more concerned with news. Then we continued with a Belgium culture presentations by our beloved Belgians in the cast. :XD

    Show day! Friday was an exciting and rather angsty day, all in one. I have to say, it was probably one of my best performances, considering how upset I was that day. Someone had gone through my things to get at my UWP Land passport, and that really upset me... especially since it was through my notebook with a lot of personal things in it. But, they apologized eventually, so it’s all good now. I was just really upset during the show... But despite that, I think it was a really good show. At least for me, it was one of my best performances. And I got to sing Hanamizuki again, which was cool. It was also our last dinner with the high schoolers. :( But it was fun, since we were still teasing them about the sprinkles and peanut butter. :XD

    Saturday was our regional learning day in Amsterdam! I got to go through the Anne Frank house, which was just amazing. I was sad that there was no real furniture or anything, but we got to see the type writer and the actual diary right up close... It was really amazing standing in front of the diary that was on display. After the tour through the house, I went out with Christine, Johan, and Louis Felipe to a nice little (real) coffee shop for a snack and hot chocolate. We had a fun time discussing random things (like Christine’s boyfriend and making her blush. :XD ) and talking about life in general. Then we walked through more of the city (which is actually a very beautiful city if you ignore the “coffee shops” and sex that’s everywhere... Christine was upset because she didn’t buy anything “dirty,” but hey... It’s not all that bad, lol.

    Our host family day on Sunday was really cool too. We got to visit Maurodam, which is the whole Netherlands in miniture. It was really awesome seeing all the mini buildings that were all 20% of the actual size... some of which we had actually seen the day before! I know I took pictures of a church that was the same from Amsterdam...   Actually, I took like, 225 pictures that day before my camera died. I was a very sad panda when it did too, cause we went to a really pretty beach afterwards that would have been great for taking pictures.

    This was the day of sweets too. I had sprinkles for breakfast, chocolate cake for lunch, some french fries as a snack (my one non-sweet thing that day), then when we got back we all went to a pancake place with Chantal’s family. And pancakes over there are much different from pancakes in the US... They’re completely flat. And I had one with brown sugar that I smeared all over the top of... Then we got ice cream afterwards. :swear: It was fun though, cause we got to tease Carmen, my host sister, about her crush... :twisted:

    I was sad to leave on the travel day, but leave I did. I miss you guys in Dronten! Hopefully, Leuven won’t take me quite as long to type up... L8r.

Famous chocolate

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:12:00 GMT

Actually, I remember even less about Prenzlau... :sweat: oops. I do know that my host family was cool (I was hosted with Jules this time) and we went on a cycle trip through the city on our free day. It was also the first time I got to preform Hanamizuki in the show. :XD But other than that... Sorry. :sweat: I can’t remember if Cast Appreciation day was this week or the next, but that will go on the Cast blog anyway...

We did go to Berlin that week, which was really cool. I got to see the Berlin wall and the Holocaust memorial, along with lots of other sites. Especially the world famous chocolate factory that claims to have the finest quality chocolate in the world. Yeah, it was really cool, even if it did take me two hours to find. :sweat:

Other than that... I really can’t think of anything. :sweat: :sweat: l8r.

Memory’s back!

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:11:26 GMT

That’s right. Memory’s back and kicking with a new keyboard! It’s a little bulky to carry around, but at least I can type again. I’m sorry to say though, that it’s been an awfully long time since I could write... So Zell and Prenzlau may seem a little rushed. In fact, I don’t really remember much about Zell at the moment, so that might be very rushed.

We arrived in Zell, only to say good-bye to our wonderful yodelling bus driver (yes, he was a yodelling bus driver. It was awesome.). We weren’t too sad though, cause the major’s reception had pretzels and wine. We learned some really interesting things about the history of the city from the major and then went in search of our host families. The host family code was different types of food... That we had to find out by sticking our hand in a box! Yeah, it was weird. Especially since my code was dog food. Our host dad, Joseph, tricked us though, by have some dog jerky as a cane.

My roommate for that week was Christine (vocal). We had lots of fun trying to survive a tiring week together, lol. I don’t really remember much about the show or the CI’s, but I’ll talk about the education session and hike we had. :stare:

The education session for that week was a Hunger Banquet. We started with a trek up a hill (on foot. :stare: ) to the ruins of a castle (while it was raining off and on). There we learned a little bit about the history of the castle and what the different parts were for. After that, we all gathered in the court yard of the castle and had a session on hunger and poverty in the world (in the rain!). The ed team started off with a pop quiz and then spread a few 10 cent coins all around the ground. Then, several people were either blind folded or hand cuffed to simulate those with disabilities in the world (to which Jessica asked if she had to be blind folded too. Silly Jessica, trixs are for kids... ). That’s when the staff said “Go!” and we all had to get as many coins as we could. I managed to get two on my own, then offered one to Tiffanie. I ended up sharing the remaining coin with Saiyuri as payment to stand under her umbrella. :XD

Then, naturally, the staff said we could share the coins if we wanted to. Oops. I got another coin from Gigi and we all ended up with at least one coin. So then we were given a “personal history” from Ellen, telling us what class we ended up in and how our life was. I was a middle class woman from Tennessee who hadn’t finished high school. But she started turning her life around and is now able to support her family. Yay.

After a trek back down the hill (which we took an alternate route from the rest of the cast. Kristina and I decided to follow Matt’s “trail” that he found though the woods... We did get down a couple minutes before everyone else, so it was all good. ), we headed to a monastery to have a lecture given to us by one of the local monks. Then we were invited to “dinner” for the Hunger Banquet!

We were divided into three groups according to class. The upper class got to sit at a table with candles and all that jazz. We of the middle class got to sit in chairs while the lower class had to sit on the ground. Jared started his power point on poverty then, since that’s one of the things he’s really passionate about. I was actually really impressed with the amount of information he had researched about it. If you’re reading this Jared, you’re totally awesome (just to let you know). :XD About half way through the lecture, the high class was brought out their meal, cooked by the staff. :XD It was like, a full three course meal too, lol. The other classes didn’t get to eat until the lecture was over. Then the middle class only got rice and meat, while the lower class only had rice and salt water (and no eating utensils!). We were challenged not to eat anything else afterwards either, to be able to understand how people in poverty went to bed every night. It was a really great session, all together.

Next up, our hike through the Black Forest! Exciting though the Black Forest might be, hiking was not all that fun. A lot of it was up hill and Memory wasn’t the happiest panda around. It was some great scenery though and there was an accordion player at the top, so it wasn’t all that bad. Besides, we didn’t have to walk back down. Though, Christine and Leo decided to anyway, since neither of them had actually walked up. :stare: I did get to tease Christine an awful lot about that night however, so I mind all that much, lol. Leo was our CVC for Zell, btw. He’s a really nice guy too. :XD Actually, when we were without a host family for our host family day (our host dad had to go to his sister’s wedding and stay the night), he and Sophie came to pick us up and took us to a glass factory. We got to see Vanessa, Lysan, and their friends blow glass. :XD

Oh! We did get to tour a ceramics factory too, with the rest of the cast. That was totally wicked. Not only did we get to tour a famous coffee cup factory (and get pictures of Matt, Lesley, and Yuri painting their own coffee cups, lol... Matt’s had probably seen better days...), but at the end of the tour, the company gave everyone in the cast cups with their names on it! Yup, I’ve got a rooster cup with Amanda written on it. It was really cool, to see all the cups sitting there waiting for us.

Aside from visiting a glass factory on our free day, we also got some Malaysian food! The super nice family up stairs said they’d take care of us while our host family was gone, so we got even more of a cultural experience. Good food, that it was. :XD

And... I think that’s about all I have to say about Zell. Next up, Prenzlau!

In case you were wondering...

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:38:31 GMT

Why is Memory two cities behind? Because Ragnarok (her computer)'s keyboard is not working. T_T Hopefully Rafa will fix it soon...

The Magician

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:32:39 GMT

Hello all from the wonderful country of Switzerland. I have the most amazing view from my window... Even better than the one I had in Washington! (Which was still an amazing view, if my host family from there is reading this, but we’ve got a mountain and a lake here... Besides, it’s Switzerland, lol...) All I have to do is walk out the terrace for some break-taking views.

    We got there on the travel day, a little early. So Raphael took us on a short tour of the city of Luzern. It was really nice to see him and Benjamina again, after they’ve been gone so long. We walked down a couple of very pretty bridges and found a Starbucks. :sweat: Once we got back, we were surprised to find that my roommates (Samantha and Vanessa) and I actually had an American host family. We were hosted by David and Gretchen Cantor in a very nice little house right by the water. The host family codes were all different kinds of chocolate, making it even better.

    It was nice to be able to eat my own portions for once. My stomach was still so full from Milano that I could barely eat any of the dinner in Luzern! But it was really good. :sweat:

    On Tuesday we had a really amazing experience! Thanks to an alumni connection, we got a free trip to and up Mt. Pilatus! Since I wrote the cast blog entry on that day, you can check the cast blog for most of it. There was one really funny thing that happened that I omitted though. When we were on the Toboggans, I was actually following the signs telling me when to break. So when Adam and Grant came up behind me, they were both yelling at me to go faster. :XP: Well, Karma then came around to bite Adam... When we were going up the hill again, carried by the track and a cord attached to our sled, Adam fell off. Not when we were sledding down, but when we were being carried back up. And then his sled fell off the cord, so he had to carry it all the way up the hill. It’s karma, I tell ya.   Karma.

    Our host family took us out to dinner at a really good vegetarian restaurant. I had some kind of potato that was really really good. And even more yummier was the Danmark Coupe desert that I had. It was basically just ice cream with hot fudge sauce, but it’s Swiss hot fudge sauce. And they gave it to me in a little container that I could pour on as much as I wanted to. Let’s just say Memory was in heaven.

    Wednesday we had a CI day, but I was signed out for admissions. I worked on the cast blog all day! I got those three new posts up and running for the blog (including my post for Mt. Pilatus) and then I finished up my own blog entry for Milano. I was pretty much working up till the last few minutes... Trying to find pictures and have them resized and all that jazz. Also, trying to find the posts for several of the previous cities in other people’s blogs was hard... Since half of our blogs are in a different language or they simply didn’t write enough on that city. :sweat: But I finally was able to pull what I needed out of Hanna’s and Matt’s blogs.

    For dinner our host family let us make Raclette, which is basically just cheese and potatos, but they’re really cool to make. And really good, lol. It’s a traditional Swiss dinner, so it’s all good.

    Thursday was another CI day, but I was signed out again. :( It’s okay though, cause I got to be in vocals! I haven’t been able to do them for a while now. But none of the seconds knew the part of the new song for the Netherlands (there were only two of us) and we couldn’t get the words right either. :sweat: So it was a really tough session... Especially since we worked pretty much all day. :sweat:

    We had a longer day on Thursday because we had the Expression Session! Yay! It was lots of fun, since most of us participated. I think the best acts were the interns imitating the staff, the guys singing Hana, and the staff making fun of us on a show day. :XD I also had a song... But since I was still kind of sick and the original song I had planned was really hard on my voice. So instead I sang two shorter songs accapella. I sang 1,000 Words from FF X-2 (crappy game in my opinion, but good music) and Home, Sweet Home from FF V. Yyyup. Both were Final Fantasy songs. And so was my original song for that matter... :sweat: I can’t help it if they just have good music. The most amusing thing was the titles we got from the mc’s... they were all circus things, lol. I was the magician, hence the title of this entry.

    The next day was show day! Yay! Yeah... :stare: Okay, it wasn’t that bad, lol. But it was a fairly normal show day by this point, so there’s not much to say about it. We did have an awesome audience though. They gave us a standing ovation for We’ll Be There. And it was so wicked to see all of them up and dancing with is for the Swiss song. :XD We also had like, a ton of alumni in the audience. So when we invited them to come up on stage, it was completely full! I think there had to be at least fifty alumni in the audience... We sold about 100 tickets to alumni and their families, so who knows, lol. There were just a lot of them. It was really great having them on stage with us too.

    Our host family day was really wicked, because we went up into the Alps. I’m not quite sure which mountain we were on (it was the one with the maple leaf and a heart in it, but I can’t remember the name), but it was an amazing view. You can actually look at all the pictures that I uploaded. :XD We didn’t actually make it up to the top, but we did have lunch/dinner at a very nice restaurant mid-way. We also met a very friendly cat (which you can also see in the pictures) and walked through a Christmas tree grave yard (very bouncy, walking on all the branches, lol). I think the rest of the day is much better described through the pictures though, so I’ll leave the rest of the mountain at that. We did watch a rugby match when we got back though, which was pretty amusing. :XD

    Saying good-bye to our host families is always sad, but once again we are on the road! Yay for our next stop in Germany!

Gelato Heaven

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:20:44 GMT

    So, I think I might just skip over the whole 64.3 hour travel day thing. Didn’t go any where in Seattle except the airport (A. Still sick. B. Not a lot of money.), or anywhere in London (no time), so there’s really not much to say other than I got sicker and we had to say good-bye to our American bus driver, Chris. T_T

    Of course, it did not help that we got to Cusano-Milanino, Italy (where we’d stay the night) at 12:00 am and had to stay in a gym without blankets, mattresses, or pillows. Needless to say, I was feeling much worse the next day. Since we were scheduled to have a scavenger hunt around Milano, I opted to sit out. Unfortunately, I had to sit out in Milano, because my host family was going to pick me up there, rather than Cusano-Milanino. So, I sat in the Plaza de Leonardo Da Vinci and read for two hours until guys started trying to pick me up. :stare: I had two guys come by (one who tried to offer me money for “five minutes”) and try to kiss me. After that, I ran till I ran into one of the groups (with Sam, Johan, Jeff, and Jared). I stayed with them for the rest of the hunt, even though I was coughing so much from moving around. :XP:

    My roommate this week was Carolin from Germany. I was really glad to have a roommate too... A lot of people didn’t have roommates, since Armando had to actually turn down host families, he had so many. Since I get lost easily and we were taking public transportation, I was really glad to have a roommate who is better at those kinds of things, lol. Besides which, Carolin is just a fun roommate to have.

    Before I start with the rest of the week, I think I should talk a little bit about Italians first. To start off, God created Italians for their Gelato. Seriously, they are like the holy children of ice cream. I spent all my euros on gelato this week. :sweat: But it was all good, since I got to try like, three flavours. My favourite by far is probably the worst one I could eat... It’s got nutella in it, which is absolutely horrible for you. But so good...

    Driving is scary in Milano... I think there are only two discernable rules to drive in Italy. 1) get there before the person in front of you. 2) honk if they won’t get out of your way. :sweat: I was actually really glad to only get in a car three times this week. My host dad drove us up this morning and we drove the wrong way down the street and cut so many people off... And he does it so calmly too. It’s insane.

    Italians will talk to you in Italian and expect you to know what they are saying, even after repeatedly telling them that you don’t speak Italian in as many languages as you can. I’m not sure why, but I’ve had many people talk to me and I’ve had no clue what they were saying. :sweat: It’s like... They expect you to magically learn it in five seconds, lol.

    The other thing that needs to be said is Italian food. You’re not supposed to leave anything on your plate in Italy, because that is considered rude. And Italians dinners are a total of five courses every night with huge servings. Yeah, that wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. I ended up having to turn down the last two courses of vegetables and salad because there was no way I could eat that much. They eat really late too, at like, 7 pm. Breakfast was also an adventure... They generally eat just a lot of bread and biscuits. But they have this small, pre-toasted bread biscuits that are really weird. I liked Matt’s rendition of one of Sayuri’s comments about it... “Italians are lazy. They buy pre-toasted bread.” He said it in an almost perfect Japanese accent too... It was so funny, lol.

    Now, on to the week. We got home with our host family after the scavenger hunt. We went back by subway, with all our luggage. :sweat: Our host parents (Pinoccia, Carlo) don’t speak any English, so it was really interesting trying to come up with ways to actually communicate with them. I loved our host family though, since they were really cool. For dinner, we ate with their two daughters (both older than me) who speak a little bit of English, the oldest daughter’s (Anna) husband (Stefano) who speaks a little bit of English, and the younger daughter’s (Mary) boyfriend (Giuseppe) who speaks a lot of English because his mother is Welsh. It was a good time, even though we didn’t understand half the conversation. I also tried Sambuca for the first time (Yay for alcohol!) and a couple other drinks. I went to bed (in a real bed for the first time in a while) very, very stuffed.

    Thursday we had our CI day, which was lots of fun. We were playing with the kids in a local school in Cusano Milanino. They didn’t speak any English and we didn’t speak any Italian, so it was an interesting experience. Lots of fun though, since we had them doing several of our games (look up look down, ahle-ahle, and everything else we could think of) and generally worked around the language barrier. It was really great when the first group actually sang a song for us. :XD We also had them check our Italian for The Colour of God’s Skin and Up With People. After that, I took a nap outside while waiting for our next CI. Which was basically going over and playing with more kids, though there was some miscommunication on time. So we could only be there for like, fifteen minutes with the kids. :( We did do a little mini show without any music. Twas very sad, but at least they enjoyed it.

    Carolin, Jeremy and I went home after that, which took a while. Carolin and I had dinner with our host family (once again completely stuffed) and then went for a walk around town with my host brother-in-law and sisters. :XD It was fun, cause we got to see the theatre we would be preforming in and the silk worm that was all around town. They’ve got lots of statues of the silk worms, because Cernusco used to be big on producing silk.

    Friday was show day... Which I’m going to mostly skip over since it was very chaotic for most people. Everyone was snapping and more than a little annoyed with each other. I think the show helped smooth everything over, since it was a really good show. The audience was amazing, clapping along and singing all the words to The Colour of God’s Skin with Vanessa. It was a fun show in general.

    Afterwards, everyone had to leave really quickly to catch the subway. I stuck around though, cause it’s only a five minute walk to my house from the theatre. I actually interviewed Guido’s (a guy from Cast C) younger sister with Jorn. Can’t say much about the actual interview, but it was fun meeting his little sister. :XD

    Saturday I started with strike, since we were in Cernusco. It was good, since afterwards a bunch of us went out to get Gelatos. Then we headed out to Cusano-Milanino for what we thought would just be a longer BTS... Though it ended up being another full show (minus Ounce of Positive and Unspoken Words). We did some education work before we rehearsed, going back over the culture shock presentation from way back when and getting our letters back from the first day. :XD It was fun actually reading the letter, since back then I really didn’t know what kinds of things we would be doing on the road so they were very vague goals. Then we had to write another letter to ourselves that would be sent to us after the semester is over. I think I was a lot more specific this time (though I still used the same bad jokes, probably just to tie the two letters together), especially since now we know a lot more about what we’ve been in for, lol.

    But then we got to the show... We didn’t have time to rehearse (well, we managed a few songs, but still) so we just kind of went right into it... I think that was one of the worst shows I’ve ever sung. Not because the audience was bad... While they weren’t as good as the previous night, they were still a really good audience by a lot of the standards we’ve had. It was just a really crappy show for me. It seems like I did everything wrong in that show. :sweat: Actually, mic groups was having lots of issues that show, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. But it was the first time I was in the trio for One 2 One, which I was horrible at. If you remember my original issues with the normal part of that song, the same thing applies to the trio. I can do it as many times as it takes to practice, but once I get up there I can’t find the note to save my life. It took me forever to be able to find the regular note up there with that song. So there was no way I could find it with like, a evening’s warning worth of time knowing that I was going to be in the trio last night. :sweat: I got really nervous for it too. You put me on any other random part I’ve never done before (or learned) and I’ll get up there, no problem. Trio... Trio is completely different. Bleh. It was just bad. But the audience enjoyed it, so I suppose it was all well.

    The host family day was very enjoyable for me. I woke up kind of late, since we’d had such long days before. Our family was in church by the time I woke up, so I ate breakfast by myself. Carolin was still asleep when our family returned, so Mary, my host dad, and I took a walk around the park while we waited for lunch. I really wish I could have understood my host dad, since he knew so much about the area! Through Mary, I learned about the park and how it used to be a park for a psychiatric ward. It had been renovated recently as a normal park that was really wonderful to walk through. We saw several of the tombs that had been there that no one knew who was buried there, part of an old church, and we even got to visit the small church that my host mom and dad had been married in twenty-five years before!

    After that walk, we returned back for lunch. Carolin had finally woken up by that time, so we all had lunch together once Mary and Stefano arrived. Lunch has the same problem of dinner... There’s way too much food! I managed to eat most of it (along with desert, of course), so it was all good.

    We all headed to the Castello Sforzesco with very full bellies to see the museums. It was really cool walking through the Castle since they had so many different displays. They had displays of furniture, art, silverware, architecture, and even musical instruments! The musical instruments were really interesting since you could see the development of the piano and how they made violins. They also had a section for oriental instruments, which were cool to see. We had actually heard an Erhu player outside. So I could show my host family the instrument he was playing since we couldn’t get close enough to the actual player to see.

    The promise of Gelatos and dinner drove us to return home. Yay for Gelato! We walked around for a bit while eating them so it was a very fun time. Our last dinner with our host family was really, really good. But they tricked me. >.> Saying they were only having some fruits after the pasta so I ate more of the pasta... Then they brought out more vegetable courses for us to eat. :sweat:

    I was really sad to say good-bye to most of my host family that night and then the rest that morning. Armando translated our host dad’s final farewell for Carolin and I, saying how honoured they were to have us and that we were both testament to how well our parents raised us. It was also really hard to say good-bye to our CRC, Armando. But the next city in Switzerland was calling us... So off to Luzern we went! Yay for mountains!

(the place I had my first Gelato)

(me at the park)

Viva Las Vegas

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:10:48 GMT

    Las Vegas. An exciting city, no matter how you look at it. It’s not just a city for gambling, but for lavishness and entertainment. And it was a city that our cast could make a lasting impact for UWP in the course of one week. We worked with MGM employees, children with cancer, and were able to break fast with the local Afghani Muslims and learn so much from them... And I was sick for all of it. :XP:

    I had to stay home pretty much every day but the show day. It sucked. A lot. But I am really glad that the others in my cast got to enjoy the city.   Especially going to the mosque to break fast for Ramadan. That must have been such an amazing experience. T_T That was the one thing I really wanted to do. And probably could have done (maybe with a lot of coughing, but it could have worked.), had not the doctor prescribed me medicines that made me worse. >.< It wasn’t exactly an allergic reaction to the medicines, but pretty much every possible side effect they mentioned could happpen, did. I was throwing up any food I ate, extremely dizzy and very nauseous, on top of having a really bad cold/sore throat. :stare: So yeah... I missed a really cool city.

    I did make it out to the show day at least. I probably shouldn’t have, but since Suzi was coming to see me perform, I kinda had to be there. :sweat: It wasn’t all that bad... I just didn’t sing very loud unless I was out in the audience or in Mic Groups. I would have been much better off, but I had been doing admissions work all morning and talking on the phone for 3-4 hours trying to convince people to come to the show and VIP tour. So I lost my voice again fairly early on in the day. :sweat: I actually couldn’t finish my stack of people to call, since by the end I was coughing way too much to even be able to talk.

    The show itself was interesting in it self. I couldn’t make it out for Power With and still have time to get a drink of water before I was needed on Mic groups for One 2 One. And once I got up there for One 2 One... I was the only second soprano for the regular part. I think what happened is during rehearsal Johanna had been put on twice... And once that was fixed, no one told Laurel that she was going to do the second soprano part instead of the first. :sweat: :sweat: :sweat: Not only that, but since the Trio was right next to me, Christine (from the trio) came over to my mic to make the formation neater. So I was singing the regular part-chorus, while she was singing something completely different (words, rhythm, melody, everything). She says I didn’t mess up, but I heard myself get off a note once or twice. I nearly started singing the Shoo-doos the first time around too. :sweat: I was able to hold my own against her in the end though... I just needed to get used to it, since we had never practiced mixing those parts before. With the other parts singing the same words, yes. But not two completely different things from each other. I’m just glad I managed to pull it off, lol.

    Saturday was a fun day at least. Suzi came to pick Ellen and I up at 11 in the morning or so to browse the strip. Ellen split off with us to go with Scott, while Suzi and I took pictures of us playing the slot machines. :XD We also got pina coladas. But you know the really strange thing... This was the first time I wasn’t carded. :o Not that I still don’t look too young to be drinking, but hey...

    After lunch we stopped by the M&M world. :XD I got some presents for my mum and myself. Suzi and I actually got matching charm bracelets. It was actually a really cool place to visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, since we realized we were running late to the show we had tickets for...

    Alright, so any guesses as to which show Suzi and I watched? It wasn’t Thunder Down Under (unfortunately. We must come back for that.), or the Blueman show. Or any of the other normal Vegas shows... Nope. We went to go see Ronn Lucas live. My mum got both of us tickets, right in the front row (I love you, Mama). It was so awesome. He’s aged really well too. :o Both of us loved the show (which I can’t recommend enough), because Ron Lucas was totally awesome. In fact, he even knew the Up With People song when I talked with him after the show. I got a picture of me with him and Scorch. I also bought a Scorch plushie and the dvd of the Disney special. Suzi did too, lol. Basically... Awesome show. Go see it. It rocks my socks off.

    After the show, we picked up Ellen to head back and pack. Then my host family and I (along with Suzi) all went to the Elephant Bar for dinner. It was a really good restaurant.   It was a nice way to spend our final evening together, since we got dropped off at 9 to ride the bus all night. :XP: Yeah, not so fun of a trip, but hey. I’m actually at a Pizza Hut right now, using their wifi.

    Well... Hopefully the next time you hear from me I’ll be in Milan, Italy! Sorry this post wasn’t all that exciting, but I was sick half the time... :sweat: Anyway, l8r!

Little Grave Stones

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:48:53 GMT

    Our week in Portland was lots of fun. I was rooming with Yuri and Jared (and supposed to have Patrick too, but he ditched us to go stay with his cousin. :XP: ) in Brush Prairie, Washington. Yes, we were preforming in Oregon and I stayed in Washington. Yeah, doesn’t make much sense. Especially since we had to drive about two hours to get there each morning. :stare: But our host family was really nice. :XD We stayed with Eric and Hika Grey and their two children Kyler and Madison. Kyler is in love with cars and Madison loves horses, so needless to say we saw a lot of them. :sweat: They were cute though.

    Our first night there, we had a block party with all the other uppies in the area. I think we had Amiee, Gina, Louise, Jenny, Clara, Mallory and the three of us. If I’m missing anyone, then I’m sorry... It was funny though, since Jared was the only guy there. :XD

    The three of us ended up sleeping in the living room. :XD It’s too bad Jared was there. Yuri and I could have had a sleepover party, lol. It was fun though, especially since we had to start planning Yuri-oba-san’s *cough* I mean, onee-san’s birthday party. :XD She turned 29 on Wednesday. Which is why Jared and I kept teasing her by calling her oba-san (grandmother) and not onee-san (sister).

    Monday we had our environmental workshop. Turns out that we were going to have to carry around our trash for the next four days. Just to show us how much trash we make on a daily basis. After that, we learned the Encore part of the show for Europe (because Americans are silly and don’t like encores) and went out for promotions. We were split into home teams and walked around Pioneer Square and downtown Portland. I had a huge headache that day, so I really couldn’t enjoy it all that much. :( We didn’t get back till late that night, so we missed the kids. Of course, the reason we didn’t get back till late was because Gina scared us all silly by falling right into the controls at the front of the bus when Chris had to make a sudden stop. She went to the hospital in an ambulance. She was fine after a while, but it was still a really scary thing... She stayed home the next day to rest a little.

    Tuesday I had my first sign out for admissions. We went around to two high schools, giving presentations in certain classes. I think the best time though was the last two classes we went to. They were the same teacher, but he was a totally awesome Social Studies teacher. He made it a contest between his two classes, as to which class could create a better atmosphere for the guest speakers (which he generally has a lot of. We had the honour of being the first guest speakers for the semester). The second class had been the reigning champions and he passed around a picture of them all wearing crowns to the first class. I was hoping the underdog (first class) would get it. And they did. Both classes participated very well, but the first class started snapping along when the teacher asked us to sing one of our songs. So at the end of the day when we were given the choice, we all voted in perfect unison that it was the first class who got the gold. :XD I wish I had him as a teacher, lol.

    We got back and had a guest speaker come and talk to us. Jenn Burleton from TransActive Education and Advocacy was an alumni of UWP, so she came and talked to us about Trans-gendered youths and what she does to help them. It was a really interesting talk, and it was especially nice of her to give me some extra resources on the topic in history.

    We got back that evening and Mallory and Clara came over to make cookies for Yuri’s birthday. :XD It was a great time. I couldn’t finish making the cookies though, cause I was too tired.

    Wednesday was not only Yuri’s b-day, but Hector’s too! We brought in some cookies for them and someone got them an ice cream cake. :XD After that we went off to our respective CI’s. I did Stand for Peace, with Lucas and Jared. It went fairly well and we all had a good time.

    After the SfP, we headed over to Monica’s House to help out with the organization over there. It’s a house for people who have been domestically abused and need a place to stay. We helped the other crew that was already there file papers into packets and clean out and organize a supplies closet. I liked working there, especially since you could really feel the difference you were making for the people who worked there. When the house manager came up on stage to talk on Saturday, she was nearly crying up there because of how much we helped out with. I’m really glad that I was a part of that effort. I just wish I could have done more... But since they didn’t tell us we’d be working there afterwards, I didn’t have anything but my nice number 2 (dress clothes) so I couldn’t paint or anything like that. :(

    We got back to the central meeting place, the Peace Church, we did more environmental workshops on how we could make a difference in global warming. We returned home to cupcakes and cookies for Yuri! Yay for chocolate! We talked to our host parents about Mt. St. Helens. They both lived in the area when it happened and Hika told us about how she played in the ashes and that kind of thing. We also got to see pictures from a camping trip they took up there just a little while ago. Unfortunately, we were all fairly exhausted... But at least I finally convinced my bus mates to watch Goonies. :XD Well, more like I forced it on them since I was the only person at the front of the bus and it was Talk Like a Pirate Day (they wouldn’t let me watch PotC... :XP: ). And some of them actually enjoyed it too, lol.

    Thursday we did more Stand for Peace, this time with fourth and fifth graders... They were probably the loudest class I’ve ever done. But on a positive note, they were also one of the most awesome audiences we’ve ever had at a BTS. It was interesting to say the least. But fun, lol.

    Once we got back from that, we had a very exciting culture presentation from Japan! It was so much fun watching Yuri make it all week, so I was really excited to see it. It was a really great presentation too, especially since they had a trivia contest at the end. And my home team won it! Yay! We got prizes. :XD We all got a little candy from Japan, a dictionary of Sushi and a lucky coin. It was a good time, lol. One representative from each team (which happened to be me) got to wear a demon mask that Yuri made. :XD

    We got back home for another rather quiet night. We were all fairly tired so while we did try to watch Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Arc, I turned it off about half way through because everyone else had fallen asleep.

    Friday was a really great time, since we went up to Mt. St. Helens! Though, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t actually go up to the mountain itself, it was really amazing to see how much destruction was still there, even after twenty years. We did get to walk around and see a couple of the rivers and trees there. The tree stumps looked a lot like little graves from the distance. Hopefully the pictures came out... :sweat:

    We got back from the volcano to do set up! I was actually signed out for admissions, so we started setting up the beehive for the show day. We did get back fairly late, unfortunately, so we basically all crashed once we got home. Jared didn’t get back till late, though, since he stayed behind to finish setting up the set.

    Show day was very tiring... Two shows in one day gets to you after a while, lol. But it was fun. I was a little disappointed, since we didn’t even have a beehive after the first show (no one applied) and we only had one person after the second show. But I suppose I have plenty of time to look forward to being a busy bee. I did miss super strike though. Super strike, for those who haven’t heard the challenge yet, was a challenge sent by the other cast. They want to see who can take down the American set fastest. Since the time we actually made is top secret, I’m just going to say that we’re really gonna give them a run for their money this time. :twisted:

    Sunday we actually got to sleep in, cause we didn’t need to be there till 1:30 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had a really, really bad sore throat, so it woke me up early. :XP: We did have fun spending the last bit of time with our host family though. We all went out to a restaurant called Sweet Tomatos, which is basically a buffet like Golden Corral. But unfortunately, we had to start our long trek through the night, so we said good-bye to our host family and hopped on the bus... Only to have it break down soon afterwards. We waited for like, two hours outside of a gas station while it was repaired. It was fun though, since we played all sorts of games. Then we had the bus break down again, but this time it was only like 45 minutes wait. Then I tried to sleep through the night... It didn’t work too well though, since my cough was getting worse and my throat really hurt. I finally picked up some extra strength sudofed at one of the gas stations. It made me drowsy the second time at least. But now we’re hopefully going to go meet our new Las Vegas host families! l8r.

    Update: I’m staying with my first alumni host family! They’re a really great couple, expecting a baby in 4 weeks. Hopefully, I’ll get better soon so I can actually talk to them more. :XP:

C is for Cookie

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 02:44:45 GMT

    Yay for finally meeting my host dad! Lol... He drove us to the bus that morning, so I actually got to see him once before we left. :sweat:

    But leave we did. I was kinda sad to leave, cause I wanted to check out Eureka a little more. It seems like a really nice little town. But Coos Bay was calling... It wasn’t too long of a drive up there. We stopped by a lovely little rocky beach on the way up there instead of the dunes (we couldn’t make it for some odd reason). I explored the coves and then started walking down one side of the beach. Most everyone else took the bus to a small town near by for shopping, but I wanted to stay on the beach. Sure, it was cold, but it was a really pretty beach. Besides, if I can stay there in a bloody skirt with no shoes, they can tolerate it in their normal clothes. :XP:

    It was lots of fun, even though I was alone out there. I just went along the beach singing to the ocean. :XD Eventually I made my way back and had a nice little chat with Gabe, since he also stayed behind. We talked about a few things... Mainly how everyone could leave behind this beautiful scenery just to go shopping, lol.

    We finally got to Coos Bay and saw the beautiful view. It was the intern city, so it was fun because of that. :XD Yay interns! It was also their last week as interns, so it was kind of sad. But we’ve got new interns now! More on that later...

    I ended up rooming with Tiffanie and Marita. We stayed with Pat, an older woman who lives alone in a absolutely lovely little house. Well, not quite alone, since she has three dogs and a couple cats, lol. There were lots of flowers all around the house and fruit trees. :XD Pat also made us cookies, so she’s gotta be one of my favourite host moms so far. lol... Really doesn’t take too much to please me.

    We all stayed up really late that night. Tiffanie, Marita and I were acting like thirteen year olds on a sleep over, lol. We stayed up talking about Sesame Street in German and other kid shows. :XD

    Friday was a sort of CI/regional learning day. We went to one of the beaches there to clean it up and learn about the animals there. It was actually really cool, since I went up to ask Stephanie, the ranger about the rocks on the beach (Sand stone) when a California sea lion came within five feet of us. It swam all the way nearly up to the beach, then decided to turn around and go back out. And neither of us had a camera that worked. :sweat: It was really cool though. And we did get to pick up the beach while we were learning, so everyone got something out of it.

    After CI, we had lunch at a Outdoors-In pizza place. I had never had pizza and french fries before... lol. It was a fun time, since they had the Disney Hercules playing on the TV. I sat with Tiffanie and Jessica, talking about various things. We think that the cast needs to have two days were half of us are blind folded for one day and then the next day the rest of us are. Just to see a little bit of what Jessica goes through.

    After lunch, I was signed out for cast movement. It actually really didn’t help me that much, since we didn’t go over Stomp... And that’s the main song I really need to go other. We did go over Oye el Boom, which could always use some touch ups. After we had pretty much finished up on that, I walked in to the vocals sign out room to help with the One 2 One 2nd sopranos.

    We spent the evening having pizza (again. But this time it was better pizza, lol) with my host mom and her friends. Then we went to the beach and watched the sunset. We were trying to get out to the light house, but we ended up taking too long on the beach, lol. It was lots of fun though, since we took lots of pictures. Then we went out to DQ for some ice cream. I got an extreme chocolate one. :XD I have to say, I’m still a sucker for the oreo blizzards, but that one was pretty good.

    We actually went to bed fairly early the next day, since the show day was Saturday. We did two shows that day. :stare: Actually, it probably would have been really fun, except I was really dizzy for most of the day. I was fine before I got on the truck for green room. Then there was no air flow, it was rocking back and forth when people were jumping, and everyone was screaming in my ear. Needless to say I got really dizzy. So I had to sit out most of the first show after I got off the mic groups I was needed on.

    After that, I didn’t walk around the fun fest since I was still dizzy. I took a nap on the couch upstairs. Which would normally be the end of it, right? It’s generally something I can sleep off. But no. I ended up still being really light headed, sleeping through dinner. I managed to make it through the mic groups in the second show, but couldn’t do any cast movement. And I finally figured out why too. The floor of the stage and most of the theatre was uneven. So while I was fine through dress rehearsal, after I got dizzy that floor kept me dizzy and disoriented. Talk about annoying. :stare: I ended up not doing strike but trying to find some place else that I could be useful. But they didn’t need me in interviews or anything else... so I basically just hung around the merchandise table and chatted with the merch assistants and alumni who came around.

    Lesley introduced me to a girl who she said was exactly like a younger version of me. Which was kinda scary, but she seems like a nice kid. Hopefully she’ll be able to travel once she’s old enough. :XD   I wish her the best of luck with that.

    We got back home fairly late and Marita went to bed really soon after. I took a shower before I was going to bed, then stayed up even later talking with Tiffanie and my host mom. :sweat: Yeah... Supposedly we can sleep next year, is what they keep saying, lol. We did have fun talking though, so it was all good.

    But now we’re on the road again and nearly to Portland. Hopefully, I’ll be able to update this once I get to my new host family.

    Oh, speaking of internships, I didn’t get one. But I did make the A-team. :XD I’m a admissions assistant now. So, expect some exciting new things coming soon and I'm in charge of the cast blog now! l8r.

Update: My new host family is awesome. We've got a whole block of uppies and they've got wireless! Yay!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my.

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:54:36 GMT

    Okay, we get to Winston and we’re all expected to go home nice and happy, with our brand new host family, right? Well, our host family called in earlier that day to cancel. :XP: The CVCs had to rush and find us a new host family who wouldn’t be back until about 8:00 pm. So, we had to wait around for two hours till we could go. :stare: It was okay though, since they fed us.

    Instead of our host family coming and picking us up, we had the party van. :XD Christine from the staff was rooming with me, so she could drive one of the vans. Laurel, Caroline, and Hannah were also rooming there too. :XD I love having those large groups. They’re always lots of fun. Besides, it’s the party van, lol.

    Our new host family was Donna and Dick. Laurel and I got to share the water bed, which was really cool. Donna and Dick are a really nice older couple who have had all of their kids grown up and left the house. So they were left with a huge house and no one but them selves in it. They’ve hosted before, so it was great staying with them. The only problem was a lack of internet. :cry:

    Christine drove us all week, which was kinda cool. Wednesday, we started out at the Food Pantry, handing out food and school supplies to people who need it. I ended up taking over the School supply table, which was interesting. One woman came in with six children that she needed supplies for. @_@ I felt bad too, cause Hannah put me there specifically so that I wouldn’t have really bad allergies. But instead, I was majorly allergic to something in that building. Ah, well. At least she tried. It’s the thought that counts, lol.

    We had lunch there and then I went out with the promotion team to hang up posters and pass out flyers. I had a soda bottle explode right next to me at one of the supermarkets we stopped at, which wasn’t fun at all. But at least after we finished with that we got a free tour of the Winston Wild Animal Park! The Wildlife Safari was a total bast to go through. The lions were sitting in the sun just off the road, so we got some amazing pictures. It’s too bad none of the other animals wanted to get as close. I did get a decent picture of a Cheetah, at least. I also fell in love with an arctic fox plushie in the gift shop... So I don’t have room in my suit case for it. I bought it anyway and carried it on the bus with me when it was time to leave Winston. :XP: I grew attached, what can I say?

    We did actually leave a couple people behind up there. Lucky for them, there was a ranger kind enough to drive them back down. It wasn’t all that far either. But after the safari, we had a barbeque with the host families. Ours couldn’t make it out though, which was kind of sad. We did get back and spent the evening with them however.

    Thursday I was signed out for vocals. We learned the first of our Italian songs, which none of us really care for. But we’re going to sing it any way, lol. We were split up from the altos and we worked with Maria to re-learn some of our old songs too. :sweat: There’s still so much work we have to do...

    After that, we had lunch back at the same church we had the food pantry at and drove out to the Roseburg Forest Products Company. We got a tour of the lumber mill there and saw the process the trees went through to become boards. It was an interesting tour, though I was kinda sad that we couldn’t hear anything very well. We had to have hard hats and ear plugs going through the factory, so it was very hard to hear the tour guide we had. But it was still fun to go through, even though I was a little sad to see all those trees getting cut down.

    We actually got home relatively early that night and were able to have dinner with our host family. After dinner, we put in the movie Armageddon. :XD Cause they wouldn’t let me watch Die Hard, I kinda insisted on another Bruce Willis film. Besides, it’s a good movie, lol. It was fun watching it again, this time with new friends. :XD

    Friday we did two Stand for Peace projects, which we are finally getting the hang of. The only problem was that Lesley was feeling sick and took home half of the puzzle our group needed. :sweat: I felt bad, since we had to give the teacher an only partially complete puzzle. Stefan and I made due with what we had though. The BTS we did there wasn’t the best we’ve ever done either, but I think we were all fairly spacey by that time.

    The afternoon we spent at the Mellon Festival! I was signed up to stay at the UWP booth. There were only a couple of us there, but we had fun. Especially when John, the guy who made kettle corn, was giving out free kettle corn to everyone. It was really good, cause it had just been made.

    Once we got back home, we were greeted by two of my host family’s grand children. :XD They were cute kids, one was three and the other was eight. We did a couple songs from our show for them, including One 2 One and Hanamizuki. They spent the night over there with us, but we didn’t see them in the morning cause we had to wake up super early. :stare:

    Saturday was an eighteen hour day for us. We started with rehearsal at 6:30 am (bleh) and stayed till 12 at night. It was a fun day at least, after rehearsal that is. :XP: We got to be in the 39th Mellon Festival parade and walked behind the float. Half of us were carrying flags from all the different countries and the rest of us were just dancing behind the float. Then we preformed Keep the Beat for the judges of the contest. Actually, Maria and I (in coordinated outfits. We both wore long skirts and a black top, lol.) got to hand out the awards for the parade contest. It was fun being Vanna White, lol. Handing out trophies and smiling with that stupid grin... At least it was short, lol. It wasn’t all that bad though. The funny thing is that UWP won the judges choice award (one of the three big statues. The other two were the grand marshal’s choice and the mayor’s choice) but no one would come up and accept the award from us. :sweat:

    The rest of the day I spent wandering around the festival, eating and finding cool stuff (but not buying. Sigh.). The show that night had a really good turn out, considering there were no seats and everyone had to sit out in the grass. There were like, 1,200 people there. :o It’s really too bad that I was completely spacey from lack of sleep. :sweat: I wanted to do really well for those people, but I was totally zoned out. :cry: Our host family couldn’t even make it out to the show, which made us very sad. But it was a really good show, regardless. I even had my very first strike afterwards... Somehow, I’m not any better at taking stuff down than I am putting it up. :sweat: I felt so useless, cause even the easy stuff I was messing up. Finally they had me folding flags, since I really couldn’t mess that up. :sweat: It did annoy me that the two other people I was folding flags with didn’t care that much if the flags touched the ground. :stare: You’re not supposed to let any flag touch the ground, not just the US one.   But they couldn’t seem to get that, sigh.

    Sunday was a host family day! Yay! (Or as Armando would say, Jay!) Actually, we only really spent the morning and evening with our host family, since they didn’t want to go with us. :cry: But we did have lots of fun. :XD We started out the morning with them, having breakfast with their daughter and son-in-law. We went out to Misty’s house and her husband (who used to own a restaurant) made us breakfast. :o That was some good stuff, let me tell ya, lol. We also got to visit with the grand kids again, which was fun. Misty’s got a really nice place going for her there. They got the land at just the right time where it was really cheap, so they’ve got five acres and a natural water hole/swimming pool in the back yard. We didn’t get to go swimming though, partially since it was kinda cold and partially because we still had a long day in front of us.

    After breakfast, we split from the group to go up to Crater Lake! Mon Dieu... That place is absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, there are no words to even describe how pretty that place was. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the US (made by the collapse of the volcano it sits on) and one of the clearest, since it doesn’t get any water from streams or rivers. All the water comes from either rain fall or snow melting. Basically, lots and lots of an amazing blue colour. The sky was also insanely clear. It was a great day to be out there, since there weren’t any clouds. It was slightly chilly and windy up there, but I generally like that kind of weather, lol.

    We saw a couple uppies along the way. Elka we saw at Watson Waterfalls (which we stopped to hike before we went up to Crater Lake. We also went to Diamond Lake and were attacked by gnats after lounging on the docks for a little. :XP: ). Jessica, Ellen, Gina, Jules and a couple others were already at the gift shop of Crater Lake when I got there. I didn’t buy anything except post cards... Though I really wanted to get a couple of other things. T_T In short, if you’re ever looking for some amazing scenery for a chilly sort of vacation spot, go to Crater Lake. It’s totally awesome that you just have to see to believe. Besides, there’s lots of cool lava rocks there. :XD

    Monday was a really wicked travel day. Normally travel days really aren’t all that exciting, but this time we stopped at the Red Wood Forest for a couple of hours to walk around and take pictures. I probably don’t have to say this, since it’s kinda stating the obvious, but dude... Those trees are frickin’ huge. I’ve got a couple of pictures of me sitting on the trees and in front of a fallen one that show just how tiny I am in comparison, lol. Another gorgeous place, btw. We walked around one of the trails for about forty-five minutes and I wandered off on my own for a bit to just take everything in. After the forest, we hopped back on the bus to find a secluded northern coast beach to walk around for about thirty minutes. I’d have more pictures of that, but the batteries on my camera died rather suddenly and unexpectedly. So I had no batteries to replace them with. T_T Still a really cool place though. Literally cold. Very rocky too. I actually got to stand on a fallen tree limb that was high on the rocks over looking the water, which was really cool. Mama would have probably hated it, lol. Very, very pretty place.

    We got to Eureka finally and stayed right by the bay. I wish I could have taken pictures. :cry: I actually got switched from my original host family with Caroline to take Lynn’s place with Jessica, Ellen, and Yuri. That was because Lynn is allergic to cats and dogs, and while I am too, I can generally get around it. As long as they don’t have insanely long fur and shed everywhere, lol. My new host family is really cool... Even though the first night we only had the kids there. :sweat: My host parents were out in San Francisco for a doctor’s appointment and didn’t get back until late the next day. They have a huge house that is so spacious... It’s only one floor but it’s really spread out. Actually, my host dad (whom I still haven’t met yet) is the one who renovated the theatre we preformed in! More on the theatre later though. But best of all... They have wireless internet! I just have no time to use it! T_T

    We spent the first night talking with the kids and babysitter (one of my host sisters is a junior in high school, but the other is still in middle school). It was a nice dinner. Every else had lasagna with meatballs, while I had some good old Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. :XD We went to bed fairly early, with me staying up just a little later to check some things online. Two new chapters of Tsubasa and one new chapter of xxxHolic. The really sad thing was that Inverloch, one of my favourite web comics, ended while I had no internet connection. It’s like, I missed the ending of a comic I’ve been reading consistently for a year or two now! It made me sad... But it was a good ending. I think the last update needed an extra page on the last update, but other than that I was really happy with the ending. It nearly made me cry to read the last page. Fortunately, Sarah (the author) has already said she’s got another comic in the works, so it won’t be the last we hear from her.

    Tuesday was CI day, and I worked on painting the dug outs and bathrooms of a near by baseball park. It was a good time. We were painting it a kind of ugly yellow colour, but it was the best colour to paint over graffiti. :sweat: There was also a beautiful Burmese cat at the field who followed me out from behind the gate. Alex and I played with her for a little, since by that time only people with ladders and extensions could paint... And there where only four of those all together. :sweat: It was fun though.

    After we got back from the CI, we had a really interesting Education workshop. We had 1000 dollars to spend on values at an “auction.” Basically, we had to pick and choose what mattered most to us and then bid on those values, hoping we would get them. I got having friends that love and admire me (which I had to go all the way up to 600 against Josh to get) and then having a positive outlook on life for another 230, lol. The rest of the items I started everything with 70 dollars. :sweat: I never did use it all... It was a fun workshop though, since we actually had to think about what mattered to us the most then work around to see what else we could get.

    Instead of going home like we originally thought, we ended up going to a random volley ball game with some of the other host families. Our team lost, unfortunately. But it was all good, since uppies make a good audience, lol. After the game, we all went to a pizza place for dinner. It was really good pizza...

    We finally got home to meet our host mom! We only got to talk to her for a little while though, since it was like, 10 pm and we were all exhausted. :sweat:

    Today was the show day! Jay! We were in a newly renovated theatre that dates all the way back to the 1920's. It used to be a silent movie theatre, then they added sound... And some how eventually became department store. Now it’s become a regular theatre for us to preform on! My host dad (whom I still haven’t met) was the one in charge of the renovations... And the place looks lovely. Not as good as the Bass Hall, but still really pretty. Especially with the several chandeliers in the house. :XD:

    And guess what! Nothing bad happened to my physically today! YAY!!! I finally got my good show day. Yes, there were a couple times I messed up, but I didn’t have a sore throat, a busted lip, the need to be hospitalized, and etc... So I’m a happy panda at the moment. Actually, it was a really good show. We had one woman come up before the show and donated twenty books to us. They were the memoirs of her late husband who loved UWP and he mentions us in the book. It was really kind of touching because she was talking about how much her husband would have loved to be here for the performance and he’d be there with her in spirit...

    Unfortunately, however, I am half asleep at the moment. Hopefully, I’ll have internet and time to get on the internet in Coos Bay tomorrow. So until the next time, see you guys on the flip side. :XD