First Stop-Switzerland

Monday morning began in a mad scramble to pack for our trip to Europe.  After triple checking my suitcase, we all headed to our drop off facility for the day.  Our flight to Europe was scheduled for 9:45pm, so we spent the afternoon working on our cast movement and vocals for our European medleys in the show.  After lunch and our education workshop, the staff threw us a little celebratory party with balloons and dancing in honor of our final hours in the United States.  We then loaded the buses and headed to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport, we discovered that our flight was delayed by four hours and would now be departing at 1:45am.  Not surprisingly, the cast was very excited to have some free time to hang out and roam around the airport.  After restless hours of riding the train to other terminals, working out on the carpet in front of the gate, and practicing and teaching dances, it was finally time to board the plane and head to Switzerland!

With a quick layover in London, we arrived in Geneva and were greeted with Swiss longhorns echoing in the crisp Alpine air.  This week I was hosted with a family that owns a Bed and Breakfast and I was hosted with nine other cast mates.  After making our way to the Bed and Breakfast by public transportation we settled into our rooms.  The two staff staying with us stayed in a two-person room while all eight students shared a large dorm room.  We knew it was going to be an awesome week together in our first European city.

Although one day was not enough time to adjust to our new environment, we had a show the next day-Wednesday.  Furthermore, not only did we have one show, but we had another show the following night.  As challenging as it was to find our energy, we pulled through and performed two great shows for our first city in Europe.

This was my final week as an intern and it was my responsibility to step in as the dance captain.  I had the chance to make many of the decisions in the show relating to dance, give show notes and make corrections, and lead my final warm-ups for the cast.  For the last six weeks I have led my warm-ups using different musical themes.  For example I led a Disney-themed warm up in Orlando and an American theme in our last US city.  For my final warm-up I went all-out with an 80's theme.  I wore a sweatband, tube socks, and short shorts.  It was a great way to end my internship with a successful and smooth transition into our first European city.

Friday, I had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop on global leadership to university students.  I had such a wonderful time with the students because they were so engaged in conversation and so willing to learn from one another.  It is for this reason that working in classrooms is my favorite Community Impact that we do.

Saturday was a relaxing day that was spent with the second-semester students.  We do not often have time to come together as second-semester students and hang out.  Because this is our second semester, we are learning new things about ourselves and facing new and different challenges than we did during our first semester.  It is always nice to have the chance to come together and talk about how we are growing from the previous semester as well as how we are being challenged.

The eight students living in the Bed and Breakfast decided to go explore Old Town Geneva on our host family day on Sunday.  We spent the morning roaming the streets until we came upon a beautiful cathedral.  We found several different street musicians playing their instruments and we could not pass up the opportunity to dance in the street with them.  We came across a cozy cafe and decided to sit down and have some hot wine which tasted like candy.  I could have drank several cups had it not had alcohol in it.  We continued the day stopping in pastry shops until we came to a park with life-size chess boards, so we decided to stop and play for awhile.  We then continued on our way until we walked into a traveling amusement park in the middle of the city.  We could not pass up the opportunity so we walked through the rides and games while enjoying chocolate crepes.  It was a wonderful afternoon together full of laughter and in good company.

That evening we came home for our final dinner with our host family and had a feast called Raclette, which is a very traditional Swiss meal.  Raclette is a type of cheese that you melt using a hot plate and then you pour the melted cheese over steamed potatoes.  Because it is such a heavy meal with the cheese, it is important to drink some form of alcohol to help settle the food.  Since we lived on a vineyard, we enjoyed delicious sweet wine that came from our own backyard.

We had such an incredible week with Sylvie in her Bed and Breakfast and it was a unique opportunity to live with so many cast mates and we certainly made a lot of special memories together.

Hotlanta

Monday we drove from Statesboro into the big city of Atlanta.  This week was an exciting week because I had the opportunity to live with a cast mate that I traveled with last semester and also had five roommates that traveled last semester as well.  It was going to be an exciting week together.

Tuesday was spent preparing for the anti-bullying workshops for the following day.  Up with People has been working on a curriculum for the anti-bullying workshops since last semester.  The curriculum has been updated since the first time I facilitated the workshops in Hamilton, MA.  The feedback received after this semester will help determine the final curriculum for the UWP anti-bullying workshops.  Because we were piloting these workshops, it was important that we were prepared and organized.

After preparing for two weeks, it was finally our time to facilitate the anti-bullying workshops.  We worked at Sequoia Middle School, which had a very diverse student population.  Many of the students come from low-income families and do not often have a strong support system at home.  Most of the students and their families have lived much of their lives in other parts of the world before coming to Atlanta.  The students knew we would be coming because we had been working closely with an UWP alumna who is an English teacher at Sequoia Middle School.  She was so excited for UWP to be coming to work with her students and she had spent months helping her students raise money so 125 students could come see our show.  We were all very excited to get into the classrooms and meet the students.

It was a very successful day working with the students in the classrooms.  Each group facilitated 2-two hour workshops to the eighth graders in the school.  I was amazed at how engaged the students were and the level of respect that was shown to us as facilitators.  We were all pleased with the workshops and felt like we were able to give some good feedback to finalize the curriculum.  We were also really looking forward to having the students learn more about what we do at our show.

Thursday was a regional learning day where we had the chance to spend the morning at the State Capitol building.  We had the morning to explore the capitol and sit in on the meetings going on as well as read about the history of Georgia and the city of Atlanta.

After lunch we headed to Roswell, which is a suburb of Atlanta and the city in which we are performing.  We went to the Roswell City Hall and had a meet and greet with the mayor.  We got to give a little presentation about who we are as UWP and then the mayor got to ask us some questions about our experiences.

Friday and Saturday were our show days.  Saturday was a double show day.  We had great audiences that were really enthusiastic about our show.  Friday morning, the first round interns had to announce the new interns for the second round.  We decided to make the announcement Harry Potter themed, so we all dressed up as students from Hogwarts and ride in on boomsticks.  To announce the new interns we sat on a stool and had the sorting hat call out the new intern.

The Saturday matinee was the show where the Sequoia Middle School students came.  During our final song, Voices, I was standing in the front wearing an international costume.  Towards the end of the song, I noticed the students in the front holding up letters.  When I realized what the letters spelled, I began crying, along with several other cast members on stage.  They had spelled out "Thank You" for all of us to see.  Seeing the sign made me cry because I felt like I should have thanked the students for making my experience at their school so memorable, yet there they were thanking us for their experience.  That moment on stage and seeing those students will always be one of my most cherished memories from the semester.  It was a great way to end our final shows in the US.

Our host family took all of us to the world's largest aquarium and the Coke Museum on Sunday.  Aquariums are one of my favorite places to go, so I was thrilled to be going to the worlds largest.  I could barely contain my excitement from the minute we walked through the doors.  I could not believe the magnitude of this aquarium and all they had in it.  The first tank that blew me away was the massive tank of Beluga whales.  I could have stayed and watched them play for hours.  If I did not think that tank was big enough, we went next to the most majestic tank I had ever seen.  I felt like I was in the ocean as I stepped in front of the glass with three Whale-sharks and two Eagle Rays swimming passed me.  It was unbelievable watching these creatures swim around in the tank.  It made me feel as if I had entered their world rather than seeing them from behind glass.

After the aquarium, we headed across the street to the Coke Museum.  We watched movies and read all about the history of Coke and the secret recipe.  When we got to the end, we were able to try different Coke products from every continent around the world.  It was awesome to experience the taste of Coke from some of the remote parts of the world.

I had such a wonderful week with the Hamadi family during my time in Atlanta.  It was so great to spend the week with my former cast mate and my roommates from last semester.

The South

From Florida we headed to Georgia for our final two weeks in the United States.  After only seven quick hours, we were in Statesboro, GA.

I lived with the Lee family for the week and my roommate was Tonio, who is our Technical Manager.  After we met our family, we went out for a real southern meal-BBQ and sweet tea.  After one meal, I knew I would be loving the south.

We started off the week with a private show on Tuesday at Georgia Southern University for 800 students on campus.  It was a great show for the university students.  We had so many students interview and want more information about how they could become a part of UWP.

The following day, I helped teach some of the cast movement for our new European songs that will be added to our shows in Europe.  After lunch, we prepared for a culture fair with the students at Georgia Southern University.  I helped teach several world dance classes for the students.  We took them on a tour of the world through dance, where they learned African, Japanese, and Mexican dances.  It was really fun to see the students so interested in learning about our cultures and enjoying all of the activities.

I spent all of Thursday preparing for a workshop for the following week in Atlanta.  Up with People has been working on a curriculum for anti-bullying workshops to facilitate in classrooms around the country.  I had the opportunity to facilitate anti-bullying workshops last semester and from the feedback received last semester, a new curriculum was created to pilot this semester.  Fifteen students were chosen to train and pilot these workshops in a very diverse school in Atlanta.  The whole day was used for us to become familiar with the material in the workshop and to start planning how to facilitate the workshops.

Friday and Saturday were show days.  In addition to the two evening shows, we had a sound assembly on Friday afternoon for the Statesboro High School students.  It was fun to see the students get in to the music and dance along with us.

Sunday was host family day, which began by going to church.  From church we headed to Savannah, GA and had lunch at the Crab Shack along the river.  The Crab Shack played fun dance music, so each time we heard the music play, Tonio, the kids, and I would get up and dance around our table.  After lunch we walked along the river looking at all the shops.  We passed several candy stores and could not walk by without checking them out.  As we started walking along the river, we kept seeing other cast members and their host families who had the same idea.  We ended up in a little park with 15 of us and our host families laughing and enjoying the day.

Although it was a very busy week with many late nights, I had a great week with the Lee family.  We were always laughing at something and enjoying one another's company.  Their two children always wanted to play with us outside whether it was hide and seek, freeze tag, or have cartwheel races.  There was never a dull moment and I am very thankful I was a part of the Lee family for the week.