Week #6 - Fort Myers, Florida

Life can be very exciting and this week was especially new and exciting for me and everyone else! It was our first week on the road! This brought about a whole new part of Up with People and tons of new emotions as well.

            We left Lakeland on Monday morning and I definitely balled my eyes out when I gave Maureen (Lakeland host mom) my last hug. But it was time to move on to the next adventure and the buses needed to be loaded. We arrived in Fort Myers just 3 hours later, escorted into the city by fireworks and policemen on motorcycles. The media as well as the Fort Myers mayor were waiting to greet us at the Alliance Center of the Arts. Needless to say, Fort Myers was excited for our arrival and time in their city.      

            Then it was time to meet our new host families! Veronika, my new roommate for the week (she is the Marketing Coordinator/ Staff member from Sweden) and I went out to look for them (our clue/host code was beans). Finally we found our new family for the week – Scott, his wife Illiana and their daughter Esperanza (or Hope). We stopped for dinner on the way home and quickly became acquainted. When we arrived at our house we found that we lived on a small little hobby farm. There were horses that we got to ride later in the week, which was quite fun. Veronika and I had a guesthouse to ourselves equipped with a bathroom, kitchen and everything we needed. It was very nice and we enjoyed having space to spread out at night after the long days and evenings with our host family. Veronika and I have gotten to know each other much better already and we had lots of late night talks in bed which I will miss when we leave tomorrow. On Valentine’s Day, our host dad Scott invited two guys over as a Valentine’s surprise. We had dinner with them and shared traveling stories. They had both just returned from their own travels, Joey from Africa and Alex from Guatemala. It was quite an enjoyable evening, or blind date, as I call it and we laughed for hours into the night. A very sweet gesture on our host dad’s part, he has good taste in men! On our host family day we ventured to Sanibel and Captiva Islands. It was very windy and  not such a perfect beach day but the water was still beautiful and the sun was out so we made the best of it. There were many wind surfers out taking advantage of the weather. I will need to put that on my bucket list now that I have seen how fun wind surfing looks. Throughout the week we also had wonderful talks over deliciously cooked meals and one night I even played guitar and my host mom Illiana sang “Blowin in the Wind” with me. She has a gorgeous voice. I forgot to mention she is Puerto Rican but lived in Wisconsin for a huge chunk of her life. “It’s a small world,” is my favorite saying and I tend to use it quite a bit.

            In UWP terms this was a wonderful week. It went by quite fast and the routine of each day was quite different than it was in staging. We only did things regarding the show on one day, which is weird to get used to, but very good in my opinion. We had CI’s (which stands for community impact AKA community service) on two of the days and we also had an internal day on Valentines Day. An internal day is where we get to do activities as a whole cast instead of being at CI’s in smaller groups. We shared a lot of love with each other and the vibes  were so wonderful the whole day! We worked on stuff for our culture fair and we learned the system of how we will present to schools as we travel etc. We also had a super fun thing called “staff round tables” which was a huge chunk of time where we went around to each staff member in little groups and asked anything we wanted. Simply, it is a way to get to know our staff on a more personal level. Of course we had a day where we set up the stage and rehearsed. Because we had a double show day on Sunday, we had to do things a little differently. On Saturday night we had the honor of being the premiere act/ float in the Edison Festival of Light parade. It is such a huge deal in this town that about a quarter of a million people watch it and some chain their chairs to fences as early as November every year to claim their spots. It was so much fun! I think I danced for a good 2 miles. Talk about a work out!! It was really good promotion for us as well. Our matinee show was sold out and the 6pm show was pretty close to a full house as well. Sunday was a very busy day with a rehearsal and 2 shows. It ended up being a 15 hour day with little to know relaxing time. I had a lot of fun but my voice and body are extremely tired and ready for sleep. I was so happy to have a bit of  a surprise, spontaneous visit from Kristina Gullion and her children who just happened to be coming to see grandpa in Fort Myers and were able to come see the UWP show as a bonus! It was wonderful to receive some love from Viroqua and have some familiar faces in the crowd! My host family, Kristina  and her family all really enjoyed the show.

 Today, Monday, we departed to Orlando. The week has gone so fast and I am sure I will get used to the routine  week by week, but holy cow is it different than staging. An awesome different, but still different enough that I need to adjust my mind to this routine and enjoy every minute of it because before I know it the semester will  be over and we will be in Mexico! Crazy sounding but oh so true.

Here’s to another day of safe travels to Orlando and to all the adventures that await in the cities to come! Adios for now folks!

           

 Life can be very exciting and this week was especially new and exciting for me and everyone else! It was our first week on the road! This brought about a whole new part of Up with People and tons of new emotions as well.

            We left Lakeland on Monday morning and I definitely balled my eyes out when I gave Maureen (Lakeland host mom) my last hug. But it was time to move on to the next adventure and the buses needed to be loaded. We arrived in Fort Myers just 3 hours later, escorted into the city by fireworks and policemen on motorcycles. The media as well as the Fort Myers mayor were waiting to greet us at the Alliance Center of the Arts. Needless to say, Fort Myers was excited for our arrival and time in their city.      

            Then it was time to meet our new host families! Veronika, my new roommate for the week (she is the Marketing Coordinator/ Staff member from Sweden) and I went out to look for them (our clue/host code was beans). Finally we found our new family for the week – Scott, his wife Illiana and their daughter Esperanza (or Hope). We stopped for dinner on the way home and quickly became acquainted. When we arrived at our house we found that we lived on a small little hobby farm. There were horses that we got to ride later in the week, which was quite fun. Veronika and I had a guesthouse to ourselves equipped with a bathroom, kitchen and everything we needed. It was very nice and we enjoyed having space to spread out at night after the long days and evenings with our host family. Veronika and I have gotten to know each other much better already and we had lots of late night talks in bed which I will miss when we leave tomorrow. On Valentine’s Day, our host dad Scott invited two guys over as a Valentine’s surprise. We had dinner with them and shared traveling stories. They had both just returned from their own travels, Joey from Africa and Alex from Guatemala. It was quite an enjoyable evening, or blind date, as I call it and we laughed for hours into the night. A very sweet gesture on our host dad’s part, he has good taste in men! On our host family day we ventured to Sanibel and Captiva Islands. It was very windy and  not such a perfect beach day but the water was still beautiful and the sun was out so we made the best of it. There were many wind surfers out taking advantage of the weather. I will need to put that on my bucket list now that I have seen how fun wind surfing looks. Throughout the week we also had wonderful talks over deliciously cooked meals and one night I even played guitar and my host mom Illiana sang “Blowin in the Wind” with me. She has a gorgeous voice. I forgot to mention she is Puerto Rican but lived in Wisconsin for a huge chunk of her life. “It’s a small world,” is my favorite saying and I tend to use it quite a bit.

            In UWP terms this was a wonderful week. It went by quite fast and the routine of each day was quite different than it was in staging. We only did things regarding the show on one day, which is weird to get used to, but very good in my opinion. We had CI’s (which stands for community impact AKA community service) on two of the days and we also had an internal day on Valentines Day. An internal day is where we get to do activities as a whole cast instead of being at CI’s in smaller groups. We shared a lot of love with each other and the vibes  were so wonderful the whole day! We worked on stuff for our culture fair and we learned the system of how we will present to schools as we travel etc. We also had a super fun thing called “staff round tables” which was a huge chunk of time where we went around to each staff member in little groups and asked anything we wanted. Simply, it is a way to get to know our staff on a more personal level. Of course we had a day where we set up the stage and rehearsed. Because we had a double show day on Sunday, we had to do things a little differently. On Saturday night we had the honor of being the premiere act/ float in the Edison Festival of Light parade. It is such a huge deal in this town that about a quarter of a million people watch it and some chain their chairs to fences as early as November every year to claim their spots. It was so much fun! I think I danced for a good 2 miles. Talk about a work out!! It was really good promotion for us as well. Our matinee show was sold out and the 6pm show was pretty close to a full house as well. Sunday was a very busy day with a rehearsal and 2 shows. It ended up being a 15 hour day with little to know relaxing time. I had a lot of fun but my voice and body are extremely tired and ready for sleep. I was so happy to have a bit of  a surprise, spontaneous visit from Kristina Gullion and her children who just happened to be coming to see grandpa in Fort Myers and were able to come see the UWP show as a bonus! It was wonderful to receive some love from Viroqua and have some familiar faces in the crowd! My host family, Kristina  and her family all really enjoyed the show.

 Today, Monday, we departed to Orlando. The week has gone so fast and I am sure I will get used to the routine  week by week, but holy cow is it different than staging. An awesome different, but still different enough that I need to adjust my mind to this routine and enjoy every minute of it because before I know it the semester will  be over and we will be in Mexico! Crazy sounding but oh so true.

Here’s to another day of safe travels to Orlando and to all the adventures that await in the cities to come! Adios for now folks!