Beach Party

From Cape Cod we drove to Newburyport, MA our next city.  As an education intern, Dristy and I got to organize and lead a staff roundtable for two hours, where the cast was able to break up into small groups and get to know our staff on a more personal level.  This activity was our first major project as education interns, and Dristy and I had a great time working together to organize the activity.

This week, I got to room with Dave, our cast manager/director and we stayed with Abby and Betty Allsopp.  Abby traveled in Up With People in 2008 with Dave, so it was great to get to live with an alumni and hear all about her travels and experiences.  It was also great because Abby knew what little time we had to spend in Newburyport and she wanted to make sure we got the most out of our experience there.

Tuesday I had the opportunity to work on the most impacting Community Impact day that I have had yet.  I worked at a small church that has a preschool program.  Our job was to build a playground in the backyard of the church for the children.  The special part about the project was that the pastor wanted us to design the playground our own way so the children would always remember that Up With People built the playground.  We worked with the kindest people at the church and they were right along side us as we constructed a place for the children to play.  The pastor wanted the playground to be made from natural materials, so we used stones, logs, dirt, sand, and twigs.  In the four and a half hours we had to work, we dug a hole and built a sandbox, constructed a teepee, built a mud pit surrounded by a fence made of logs, painted dressers to hold art supplies, laid logs in the ground for children to jump across, and put mulch down over the entire area.

This Community Impact will always be a special memory for me because of how passionate our group was at building a space for children to play and also because of how grateful the members of the church were when we completed the playground.  They could not stop thanking us for our help and one woman started crying because she was so appreciative, which made our group start crying.  It is for days like this that I am so grateful to be a part of Up With People where we can make a difference in people's lives.

This week we had two performances-one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.  We performed in a middle school theater that was not air conditioned.  I tend to sweat when I stand outside in the snow without shoes, so performing in this auditorium was certainly an experience.  At one point of the show, about five songs in, as I was singing my heart out and jamming on stage, I moved back and looked down at the floor to find a small puddle of my sweat on the stage.  When I got off stage, I realized that the top half of my shirt was soaking wet.  We were all miserable because it was so hot, but that did not stop us from giving it our all for both performances.  It also gave us a better understanding of how hot it might get for us in Taiwan, The Philippines, and Mexico. 

Friday we spent the entire day together as a cast and we had a culture fair.  Each country has been working on a presentation for culture fair for six weeks and as an education intern, it was my job to help organize this culture fair which was for the North and South American countries.  Kelli, one of our education coordinators, and I were in charge of welcoming the cast to culture fair.  We decided to welcome everyone and get people excited by doing a few cheers and lifts.  We came up with three cheers that related to culture fair and added a few interesting twists.  We also dressed up as cheerleaders with sweatbands, cutoff shirts, and spandex shorts.  Kelli and I had a blast putting our welcome together and it got the entire cast laughing.

I was amazed at the amount of work that groups put in for their presentations.  The people who were not presenting were split up into groups and we rotated around visiting different tables and listening to the countries present about their culture.  I was very impressed with how well the culture fair went and how much fun everyone had.  We have another culture fair in two weeks for the Europeans and Asians and I am very much looking forward to seeing what the next group will do.  

Because of the holiday weekend, and our incredibly busy upcoming week, we had two host family days.  On Saturday Abby took me, Dave, and Kelli to the beach and we spent the afternoon soaking up the sun and enjoying a beautifully warm day.  After an afternoon of relaxing at the beach, Abby took me and Dave to some of her favorite bars on Hampton beach.  We had a fun evening of exploring the different bars and sitting down to talk to each other.

Saturday evening Abby took us to her favorite Sunday night activity, which was a reggae dance club on the deck of a huge beach bar.  Abby, Dave, some of Abby's friends, and I danced for hours to the reggae music.  It was like I was living the life of someone you see on the travel channel dancing at a beach party.  Once the reggae beach party ended, Abby took us to another dance club where we continued to dance the night away.  

It was so great to stay with Abby and Betty this week, as well as room with Dave.  A few years down the road, I would really like to be the cast manager so I greatly appreciated getting to see Dave's job from a different perspective.  One thing I truly admire about Abby is her genuine and caring nature that she has for others.  Wherever we went, Abby would see people she knew, but they were not always people her age.  Abby has friends her age all the way to her second cousin who is 86.  I have always loved meeting new people, but living with Abby this week really showed me how to look for the best in each person no matter their background or their age.  I was blessed this week to have such a wonderful host family that could inspire me to be a better person.  

Off to the Cape

Monday we took off in our two busses and headed out to Cape Cod.  Monday was a regional learning day where we spent the day as tourists getting to see the sights of the area.  Since Cape Cod is known for its beaches, our cast got to spend the entire day together on the beach.  Unfortunately, it was rather cloudy and cold, but that did not stop us from enjoying swimming, playing sand volleyball, walking along the beach, and sleeping.

For my week in Cape Cod, I was hosted by myself with Kevin and Susan Eldredge.  Kevin, Susan, and Bella, their dog, live in a beautiful town on the eastern tip of the Cape called Chatham.  Kevin owns a laundry company that has been in his family for many years and Susan has started her own business called Howl-a-day Inn, which is a doggy day care on the Cape.  They live in a beautiful apartment loft that is decorated with a variety of artwork from paintings to sculptures.  

Tuesday and Wednesday I had the opportunity to volunteer at the YMCA doing some landscaping and cleaning up the area.  I really enjoy our community impact days not only because we get to serve the community but we also get the chance to work with our cast mates and really get to know each other on a deeper level.  On Wednesday morning it was a fun surprise to find myself in the local paper, The Cape Cod Times, weeding at the YMCA.  

This week we had two shows in Cape Cod.  As I have explained, we are constantly changing soloists and dance lines so it is always exciting to not know what songs we will be performing until the night of the show.  Friday night we had an almost sold out theater and I performed one new dance.  Saturday I was asked to learn a new dance during rehearsal that I ended up performing in the show that night.

Sunday was one of the most relaxing days I have had for a long time.  Kevin and Susan took me out boating in the harbor.  We cruised through the harbor looking at all the boats on the water and homes along the shore.  I felt like I was in a movie as the cool ocean breeze and mist hit my face.  We dropped anchor in a small cove and enjoyed a nice lunch.  We then laid out in the boat and I fell asleep several times. It was such a relaxing day and I was so thankful I could spend the day with Kevin and Susan. On the way back they took me to see all the seals playing in the harbor.  I could not have asked for a better way to spend the day with my host family.

I am very blessed to have had the chance to meet Kevin and Susan.  They graciously welcomed me into their home and immediately treated me like I was their own son.  They even put the picture of me from the newspaper on the refrigerator door because they were so proud of me.  It is always hard to leave a family that you become so close with, but I know I will continue to keep in touch with Kevin and Susan.

Hitting the Road

Last Monday was our first travel day, which began at 4:15 in the morning.  It was difficult leaving Bruce and Linda after living with them for five weeks.  I grew in many ways during the first five weeks of staging and I am blessed that Bruce and Linda were a part of my experience.  Although it was hard to say goodbye to such a loving and supportive family, they are a very special part of my life and I know it will not be long before I see them again.

Our cast had three different flights out of Denver where our final destination was Boston, Massachusetts!  I was on the first flight that left at 8:00 am.  Our group of 19 had one flight from Denver to Atlanta and Atlanta to Boston.  We had a great time traveling together on our first travel day.  We had fun laughing with each other all the way to Boston.  

Once we all arrived in Boston in the early evening, we took a bus to our first city on the road-Lowell, Massachusetts.  We unloaded all our bags our at the host pick-up facility and waited to meet our new host families.  Since both my previous host sisters-Marloes and Linda left early to set up the cities in Massachusetts, I was very excited to have a roommate.  Luckily, my first roommate was Georgie, one of the most fun and energetic people I have had the privilege of meeting and he made my first host family experience on the road much more relaxing and comfortable.  

Georgie and I got to meet our host family at 8:00 pm on Monday night.  We stayed with the Hollinger family-Cheryl and Mark and their three children Mary-15, Graham-12, and Thomas-9.  The Hollinger's live in Littleton, a small city outside of Lowell.  As we pulled up in the driveway, it was as if we were driving back in time 100 years ago.  Cheryl and Mary explained that their Victorian home was built in 1906 and at one point, before a fire in the 50's, it had a ballroom on the third floor.  There is no single front door to the house.  However, there are two double-wide glass doors that were used when the women came to the house for a ball in their large-hooped dresses.  The first thing Georgie and I wanted to do when we saw the house was to play hide and seek.  

Tuesday was our first of three Community Impact days in Lowell.  This week, we had many different Community Impact sites from which to choose.  I spent the day working for the National Park Service cleaning up a little park area in the center of the town.  We swept up leaves and dirt and scraped off old rust on an iron fence so we could repaint it the following day.  I was amazed at how appreciative the community was with our helping to clean up such a small area of the park.  We had several people stop as we were working to tell us how nice our area looked and it was nice to know that our service was noticed.  

Wednesday I was signed out for the day to work with the education team and training for my internship.  My goal as an education intern is to teach the cast about dialogue.  I spent my senior year researching and studying dialogue, which is a form of communication that focuses on the reasoning behind people’s viewpoints and teaches how to appreciate and respect those differing viewpoints.  For the next five weeks I will be planning how I will teach the cast the fundamentals of dialogue through theory and practice. 

Thursday I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club of Lowell.  The kids were working on a talent show so I had the chance to watch them perform and help them prepare for their show.  The children loved to dance, so I taught them part of one of our dances from the show.  The kids had fun learning the dance and then they decided to have a dance off, so we got in a circle and showed off all of our best dance moves. 

Thomas celebrated his 10th birthday on Thursday night, so Cheryl made the most delicious home-made fried chicken, pea soup, corn, pasta with pesto, and to top it off, home-made blueberry and strawberry-rhubarb pie.  It was really special to get to be a part of Thomas birthday celebration.  

Friday was our first show day on the road!  I spent the morning learning some new dance techniques with some of the dancers in the show to help take our dancing to a more technical level.  Unfortunately, I did not do some of them correctly and I irritated my knee.  So after dancing on my knee all afternoon, I was in pain after the show.  Luckily, a little icy-hot, ibuprofen, ice, and several days of rest helped solve the knee pains.      

Mark’s hobby is flying his father’s plane and teaching Mary how to fly, so on our host family day, Mark and Mary took us flying in their four-person plane.  We drove about 20 minutes to their hangar and we took off from a small airport.  Within five minutes of taking off, Mark let Georgie fly the plane.  The first thing Georgie did was push the controls downward and we took a fun little dive.  Georgie had fun experimenting with the controls and it certainly made for an exciting plane ride.  We landed about 20 minutes later at another small airport so Georgie and I could switch seats.  After Mark took off, he gave me control of the plane, and, just like Georgie, I experimented with the controls-it felt like we were on an awesome and intense roller coaster ride.  Mark then took control of the plane again and showed us what happens when the plane stalls.  A plane stalls when it is no longer moving fast enough to gain lift, so the plane "stalls" in the air and begins to drop.  Mark slowed down the plane and it eventually shook and began to drop.  He then quickly used the throttle to gain speed and we were back soaring through the sky.  I had a huge smile on my face the entire time that we were with the plane.  Flying a plane has always been on my bucket list and I am so grateful that the Hollinger's were kind enough to take us flying. 

After flying the plane, Georgie and I went with Mary to explore Boston.  She took us all over the city from the waterfront to Harvard Square.  It was raining sporadically throughout the day, but we still had fun walking around the city.  

Sunday was Mark and Cheryl's wedding anniversary, so Georgie, Mary and I decided to bake a cake to celebrate.  It ended up taking several hours to bake the cake because we kept taking breaks to dance around in the kitchen to the music on the radio as well as having powdered sugar fights.  All in all, the cake was delicious and we had a wonderful time celebrating their anniversary.

I had an incredible week living with the Hollinger Family.  Everyday was filled with laughter and joy in their house and they were so kind to us.  It is amazing how close you can become with a family in such a short time.  They welcomed us in and made us feel like member of their family.  The one thing I will always remember about the Hollinger's is the love and respect they have for one another.  I am so thankful that I had the privilege of living with such an amazing family.