After meeting with the students, we had the afternoon to walk around the park and enjoy the day. It was so nice to have free time to spend with the cast. We rode several rides, but we loved walking through the international area and learning about the various cultures.
From Epcot, we headed to Vero Beach where we had our allocation meeting and met our host families. My roommate was a second semester student, Miguel from Mexico. He and I were roommates for 10 days in Taiwan, so I was very excited to get to spend the week being his roommate once again. Miguel and I stayed with Richard and Niki, who lived right on an inlet where dolphins and mantees play off their dock in the backyard.
Tuesday, I spent the entire day working on dances and helping teach dances to cast mates as the dance intern. It was a very exhausting day, but the group of eight of us who worked on dances had a blast together.
Wednesday was the first time I got to help promote the show by doing a radio interview as well as walking along the beach and talking with people and telling them about our show. After the radio interview, six of us headed to the beach to play a promotion game called "Trade Up." Each team started with a quarter and it was our job to try and trade the quarter up for as much as we could by talking to people and asking them to trade something of greater value with us. After talking with the people, we would then explain why we were playing the game and tell them about our upcoming shows. My team was not very successful at trading-we ended up with $2.00, but we talked with lots of people at the beach about our shows.
That evening we had our second culture fair. This time it was for the Europeans, Asians, and the Australian. I always enjoy getting to see what people like to share about their countries. I especially love hearing the passion that each person has for their country and culture.
On Thursday, I had the chance to work at the Dasie Hope Center, which is an after school program for children. There had been a group at the center for three days, reorganizing, decorating, and repainting the entire center. I was amazed at how much work had been done over the three days. We had the chance to talk with all of the staff at the center and I was blown away by the passion and dedication that the staff has to helping their children succeed. After only a day of painting and working with the staff, I grew very fond of the people at the center and it was hard to say goodbye. However, we found out that the entire center with their 70 students would all be attending our first show the following night. A donation was made to allow all of the students the opportunity to see us perform and hear our message.
Friday and Saturday were show days. We had great audiences and it was very special to have the Dasie Hope Center in the audience. They cheered loudly after each song and could not wait to talk to us all after the show.
On our host family day, Miguel and I slept in, which was so nice and then we had a relaxing morning just hanging out. That afternoon I had the opportunity to go see Les Miserables on stage. A friend, and UWP alumni who is a broadway actor, was cast in the production that happened to be showing while we were in Vero Beach. It was the first production of Les Miserables since the release of the movie. I have always wanted to see it, so I was incredibly excited for the opportunity. I was in awe the entire show because it was so phenomenal. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the show and it made me both laugh and cry.
