Week #19 - Naucalpan, Mexico

         Where do I begin to explain this crazy week? To start off, it has felt like a very long week, considering not even a week ago we were just getting on a plane to fly over the big pond. We were saying good-bye to Europe (where we had been for 2 months) and hello to Mexico. Two pretty contrasting cultures if you ask me, both climate and intercultural wise. Over the course of one week we did school presentations, a culture fair, community impact, very intense internal workshops and 4 shows in 2 different facilities. No wonder we were exhausted everyday, not to mention the jet lag, extreme altitude change and difference in the way people eat and act.

            Another thing to note is that here in Mexico we are “Viva La Gente” and no longer “Up With People.” Essentially it is the same thing, but that is how they know us and we are known. Let me tell you that we are famous movie stars here! I have signed hundreds of autographs in just one week and taken a ton of pictures. You are literally mobbed! This experience has been  super fun and very odd at the same time.

             We had a very long travel day on Monday after our cast sleepover. The door to door transit  time totaled over  24 hours. From bus to plane to bus it was quite the day. We enjoyed ourselves of course but were also extremely exhausted. Our host families were super excited to host us. We had over 90 host families so most of us were hosted alone, myself included. My host family is very sweet and pretty wealthy. I had the whole upstairs to myself and it was really nice to have some time to myself especially in such a tiring week. We went to the gym and took some great exercise classes on two of the nights. We went out to dinner and ate lots of delicious Mexican food. On host family day I learned a whole lot of crazy history about the Aztecs, Mexico City and how it is sinking every year. Mexico City was beautiful and dirty of course, but that is Mexico for you. They are very sweet people and we had some fun times together.

            Our sponsor this week was Maddox Academy, which meant all week our facility was at a school full of children very eager to meet international performing students. On Tuesday we did classroom presentations and I realized how we really do make an impact on young teens because they look up to us. Wednesday I had study abroad and then we had a very intense workshop called “the Hunger Banquet” which showed us how the world is fed and we literally were fed like the different classes that exist in our world today. It was very eye opening and the entire cast was full of crazy emotions and opinions. Thursday we had a very long day full of rehearsal and putting the Mexican medley and music together. It was tiring but we had a lot of time to laugh and just enjoy ourselves. Friday we had a double show day and strike so that was also extremely draining. We had a whole lot of technical issues and we pushed through and still put on two great shows. The shows were mainly for the kids from the school and so holy heck there was a lot of girly screams that pierced the auditorium and a whole lot of pictures and autographs! Saturday was host family day and then I was on Super Crew (which means a small group of people set up the stage) so that was fun. After that a few of us went with our host sisters to a birthday party. Although we were sort of the same age of the people at the party we felt extremely out of place and much older. I guess we have just been pushed to grow rapidly in UWP and thus the maturity level is so very different. Then on our final day here in Mexico City we had another double show day at a whole different facility. You got to love UWP and all its craziness!

            We are now down to only 3 weeks left and you can tell everyone is slowly starting to realize it’s coming to an end so very soon and so the feelings are flying and more and more memories continue to be created in each special moment. Tomorrow we head to the mountains and on the way we get to stop at the sun and moon pyramid! It’s going to be gorgeous especially with the sunny Mexican weather! Zippity do da, zippity yay! My oh my  what a wonderful day. Plenty of sunshine heading my way... wonderful feeling, wonderful day!