Saturday, July 27, 2013

Week #22 - San Luis Potosi, Mexico

I apologize that this was supposed to posted 2 months ago! But now I am catching up :) Enjoy :)


Well, well, well this week was full of lasts and lots of tears! Laughter was part of the week as well, it just usually turned to tears when we realized in just 7 days we could not laugh together anymore. But back to the start. We arrived in San Luis Potosi on Monday and had a very grand welcoming by the mayor of the city and we even got a bus tour around the gorgeous city and all its plazas.
My host family reminded me of families in Viroqua and they were very into organic food, all sorts of different types and agriculture. I had wonderful roommates for my last week with Cast A. One of the girls was one of my closest friends, Larissa and I was also with Sofia from Mexico and Charlie from Trinidad and Tobago! We had a very interesting week in regards to our host family, to say the least but we managed to have a ton of fun despite it all and make the best of things! We spent late night talking and just soaking up our last week together!
The week was full of fun things such as male appreciation (we surprised the boys with a casino lunch that included gambling and much more), our last cast meeting and last meeting with our home teams. I had my last classes with my study abroad classmates and professors and we got to make castles out of ice cream and eat it all up after our exams were over! The staff continued to share little moments each morning and bring back memories through little songs and many more fun activities! Each day was full of laughter interspersed with tears ;) Our last CI’s were great and I also did training for a PR intern that I may get to do next semester. So the week was wonderful and painfully short since we knew it was our last week together.
Each moment was soaked up by every little cell in our bodies and our last show was the best we have ever done. Our last green room had us in heaps of tears and not to mention our show. When we hit the last few songs of the show we all realized the reality of what was happening and as we sang for the last time on stage together, 100 people from 20 different cultures singing about spreading love and peace we broke down, but at the same time we performed the songs more passionately than ever before.
On our final day together things seemed so unreal. Everyone was in emotional survival mode and we all just wanted to pretend that it was not happening. Wanted to pretend that at the end of the day no one had to go home and the buses didn’t have to drive away, but instead we could all just stay together forever. After a nice lunch with the sponsor we all prepared for our final banquet. It was a beautiful night with wine and pictures and everyone looked so gorgeous in their classy outfits, songs, goodbye letters, dancing and much more. The night also seemed unreal and nothing hit us until they announced we had 30minutes to say goodbye. That is when everyone began to ball their eyes out and all of a sudden everyone was always hugging someone else sobbing and trying to stop their hearts from breaking into pieces. It may have been one of the worst feelings I have ever had in my stomach, heart and head all at the same time. Everyone shared their last hugs and told each other anything they needed to say because it was the last chance. Since I was staying in Mexico with a few others I had to wave the buses goodbye and I almost couldn’t handle it. My entire body was shaking and as Larissa and I held each other we both realized that it was so incredible that we were feeling that way. Because it meant the past 6 months had been worth while and had changed our lives and brought friends from all over the world into our friend group as well. We realized at that moment that we were the lucky ones. Up with People changed my life for the better and I could never be more grateful.

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