The Last Farewell - UWP in the Philippines

I can honestly say that the last 4 weeks of my Up with People tour were some of the most impactful of my life. My cast flew from Brussels, Belgium to Manila, the capital city of the Philippines on November 12th. I had no idea what to expect considering my lack of information regarding the Philippines, and this my first time anywhere in Asia. A small bit of information regarding Manila…It’s one of the largest cities in the World with more than 12 million people. There are basically never ending metropolitan areas with around 8 different cities grouped together to create what Manila. Because of its massive area, our cast had to be spread out in completely different regions of the city, some almost 2 hours apart with traffic. This made it difficult to group together every day, so we were involved with special CI (Community Impact) projects that we would go directly to and from on most days. Some of these included; home building sites, spending time with children in the slums, and school groups. Most were centered on direct involvement with the poorest people in the area, working deep in the slums.

My project was with Habitat for Humanity. This was a Filipino branch of Habitat that was building a massive housing project in one large area of slums. I was with a team of 8 Up with People cast members. We were also along side a large group of Filipinos that had been working on the project for 1 year, with 1/3 being completed. By year 3, there are to be homes for an amazing 350 families. Each family is required to work a total of 700 hours to receive there home, so we had the pleasure of building side by side with the home partners.
It was difficult labor, but I was so honored to be apart of this life-changing project. Just over the wall from our compound were the homes these people had been living in all their lives. Literally plywood nailed together, some as high as 6 stories, dangling over the side of a river. The worst poverty I have ever seen…I can’t imagine it getting much worse. We built bricks from sand and cement, created long brick throwing lines, painted walls and metal roofing, mixed cement on the ground with only shovels, separated gravel, cut re-barb, basically anything you can think of. One moment that really sticks out in my mind is a brick throwing line that stretched probably 50 yards on the ground, up a horribly unstable ladder, across a balcony, and into one of the homes. I realized that of the 15 or so people in the line, there were 5 Americans, 1 Danish, 1 Ugandan, 4 Filipinos, 1 Swede, and 1 German…All working together to rebuild these people’s lives. I felt so taken back to be there in the Philippines doing this work.

The people were amazing! Every day we would walk a mile from the Train station to our Habitat site. Along the way were communities of slums, and people that were always so happy to see us. They always greeted us and walked along as our group came through every day. Most people yelled, “Hey Jo!” to me because I’m a white guy, and the kids playing basketball in the streets wanted me to stop and take a shot as I walked by. Honestly, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of extreme poverty and the joy that these Filipino people expressed. There had never been any connection between the two in my mind. One day, a home partner offered to take us behind the wall into the slums where he lived. We walked through a tunnel under all of the homes and saw first hand the living conditions they lived in. It was hard. I would hope pictures could give some explanation or feeling to it all, because I don’t know how they could ever give it justice.

My host family in the Philippines was great! I stayed with Jennie Shepherd from Arizona, and Josh Stevenson from Texas. We also had 4 other staff members that rotated staying in our house and the hotel. I’ll be honest, when I was first picked up by our host family and returned to the house…I was totally mixed up. I wasn’t sure who was my host mom, dad, sister, brother, friends of the family...there were so many people in the house. We really had 2 different host families. My host mom’s Ida and Grace were so much fun and really made our stay amazing. My host sister Kristal was always showing us around and showing us unbelievable hospitality. Many nights we would go out to local restaurants a sample the Filipino cuisine. That’s another story in itself. Every morning we woke to an amazing breakfast. Many times it was fish and rice, which is an interesting smell in the morning…Here are some other dishes that I had the pleasure to discover:

• Duck egg with cooked duck embryo inside – this thing was huge…first you crack the top and drink the juice inside, then break the egg and eat the yoke complete with an easily distinguishable duck embryo (If your lucky it has grown hair!).

• Chicken feet – fried and delicious, although not much meat…mostly bones and tendons.

• Chopped pigs face – skin, snout, lips…what else could you wants? Served on a hot place with raw egg cracked over top and cooked in.

• Pork cooked in it’s own blood

• Basically any inside part of a chicken, pig or cow…you name it, I ate it.

It was an interesting experience for myself, as well as most cast members, to stay in upper-class affluent families. The poverty in Manila is everywhere, not grouped into clusters like people might think. Our families had drivers, housekeepers, cooks, handymen, guards…people hired to do everything. We would spend the day in extreme poverty and come back to a life of complete service. It put things into a different perspective for everyone. I would walk outside my house every morning and right there on the street see families sleeping in boxes, naked children, old men and women begging for money…it was hard to understand.

The Philippines is a very westernized country. Most people speak perfect English. The history of western occupation can be seen everywhere, including their main source of transportation. We traveled around the city in “Jeepneys,” which are old Jeeps left behind by the US military. They are much longer than a normal Jeep and you just cram in and pay a small amount to travel a specific route. We also rode
in side cars. These were motorcycles and bikes with a metal cart attached to the side. As many as 4 people can ride on one and I can attest it got a bit crazy on many occasions as we flew through the streets.

Our Cast on a few occasions would meet during the week for different regional learning activities. We saw museums, and also visited a community of families living in a site comparable to Habitat for Humanity. It was called GK, and basically this organization builds homes for the poor, while also creating a community with education for the kids, leaders holding different positions of responsibility, and jobs. We spent the afternoon playing with the kids and learning more about what the organization does. The kids ran up to us and grabbed our hands, holding on as tight as they could. They even performed some songs and dances for us which were the cutest things I've ever seen. See the video below:

Two children, a brother and a sister, lead me around the different homes. I just kept thinking that my family could be the ones living here. It wasn’t the decisions they made, but just what they were born into that brought about this lifestyle. As I had seen time and time again, they were so filled with joy and happy to spend time with us. Most the kids were in awe of Jules from Uganda. I don’t think they had seen another person before in their lives!

We performed two shows in the Philippines, which were the last of our tour. At the end of our final rehearsal, our cast joined in a circle and sang the UWP song “Well be There,” to one another. It’s about coming together to make a difference and that as a group, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish to help humanity.

We’ll be there; we’ll be singing one more song.
We’ll be there, even though the road is long.
We’ll be there, and the feelings growing stronger.
When tomorrow comes, together, we’ll be there.

I’m proud to say that my cast is made up of people who are equipped to make a difference in the world. I know that these will be the future leaders, and the people working to help others and change people’s lives. It was hard to end our amazing semester of performances. In the end, 25 performances in 7 countries.

The final 3 days of our tour were spent together as a cast in Bagyo, a city 6 hours north of Manila. We stayed at the Philippines Military Academy. It was great to wrap up our tour together while also spending time with cadets from the academy. We played soccer matches, ate in the mess hall together, and even raced through the military obstacle course. So much fun! We ended the tour with a beautiful final banquet and wrapped the semester up together before flying home to our different countries. Our stay in the Philippines was unforgettable. I saw things and learned things that will never leave me. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful and amazing people. I hope to return soon in the future.

Germany/Netherlands/Belgium...The triple threat

Alright...So I know I'm a complete jerk for waiting this long to update my blog, but these last weeks of my tour have been non-stop. Because I'm so far behind, and already in the Philippines, what I want to do is go through the last 3 weeks of my tour in Europe and highlight some of the most memorable moments. These places included Prenzlau, Germany; Dronten, Netherlands; and Leuven, Belgium:

Prenzlau, Germany is way northeast in what was considered the DDR during the times of the Berlin Wall and the complete separation of Germany. This was very apparent because this part of the country is completely unlike the south where I visited Zell the week before. I was roomed with Stefan from Germany, who I had already stayed with back in the states. I was glad to be with a native German speaker, and we stayed with a great family, Ines and Peter Rothmay-Vetter. They lived in a small village of only around 500 people that was 20 km outside Prenzlau. During the week, we heard from a panel of people on German/Polish immigration and relations...Prenzlau is just a few km from the Polish border. There is a situation not unlike that of the United States and Mexico, other then the fact that it’s an open border, between these two countries. Also included in the speakers was an asylum refuge from the country of Iran who is now living in Germany having escaped certain death in his country. We heard his amazing story of escaping Iran because of political disseverance, and he is actually still in hiding under the protection of the German government. The CI (Community Involvement) project I worked with during the week was related to our topic of German/Polish relations. I worked with 6 other cast members teaching a dance class to German and Polish dance students. We taught choreography from the show for two days and had the opportunity to perform with the students during a couple of moments in the show. One of the most exciting parts of our week was the day our cast spent in Berlin. Some of the most memorable sights included the Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, and Berlin Wall. It was amazing to spend time at these historical sights, and especially to experience the Berlin Wall, and the division of Germany. There are even some ruins of churches and buildings left behind from the bombings of WWII to commemorate that time in Germanys history. To go back to something I talked about that week with my host dad...we discussed his experience with the division of Germany and what it was like living in the DDR, the side of Germany where people really weren't allowed to leave. He expressed to us that contrary to what most people think, or what history books might tell, his life was better off during that time of separation. He owned an auto repair shop, and because the government controlled the businesses and competition, he was the auto repair specialist in his area. He said business was good, and because he knew the right people, it wasn’t difficult to get the everyday food and supplies that he and his family needed. After the Wall fell, competition started and he lost business and fell into a worse financial situation. When I asked him if
he would rather the Wall still be up, he said that because of the pain it brought for some, he was glad it is down, but for himself, times used to be easier. I found this conversation so interesting because it is something you would never expect to hear...especially learning history in the States. Our show on Saturday was special again because Stefan and I also sang the German song we had done the week before. There were also guest performances by a local rap group and a Polish dance team. On our free day, our host mom took us to the Baltic Sea and we toured some of the cities near where she grew up.

I was so excited to spend the next week in the Netherlands because my host brother Johan, who stayed with my family for 4 weeks in Denver, was from there. I had heard so much about the country, as well as made so many jokes, that I was ready to experience it for myself. We stayed in a city called Dronten, which is on the northwest coast. Dronten was actually created around 40 years ago when the sea was pumped out of a particular area that created a new group of towns. There are dikes around this area to keep the water out, which actually makes Dronten 5 meters below sea level. We went to see these dikes, as well as the locks where water level changes so boats can enter and exit the sea. I stayed with Jeff from Taiwan and an amazing family, the Loopstra's. They had 3 sons, just the same ages as me and my brother...I fit in fast. The first things I noticed in the Netherlands is how flat it is and how many people are riding bikes. It's crazy!...you ride your bike everywhere! Every morning we would ride our bikes 20 minutes to the facility. Our house and the students being hosted in the one next door created a bike gang...south side. We beat up little kids, old people, ran anyone off the road who got in our way...not really, but we did ride together. It was a pretty funny sight to see with most of the cast arriving by bike and parking them in front of the building. We did a lot of internal time in Dronten, talking about immigration and racism among other things. Our group also visited two Muslim mosks in Dronten, one a Turkish. Let's clear up some stereotypes about Holland...#1
People in Holland wear wooden shoes...True! Our neighbor’s host dad wore wooden shoes on multiple occasions and I even tried a pair for a day. #2 There are windmills everywhere in Holland...True! Not the wooden ones like you would think, but there are large steel windmills all over the place to harvest wind power. My breakfast every morning was pretty amazing…bread with Nutella (chocolate spread) and Hagel Slag (breakfast sprinkles) on top...more like desert. I also fell in love with Vla, or Dutch Pudding. My host family gave me a carton for our travel day! We spent our regional learning day in Amsterdam. I went with a group who took a tour of the red light district. It was a shock to say the least. Our guide was an ex-prostitute who now works for a center that helps prostitutes with equal rights. It's just like you would imagine it...the women stand in small doorways and windows wearing underwear. People just walk by and if there interested then they let them in. It's totally legal and there are around 500 spaces in the red light district filled with women. Amsterdam is a beautiful city, but there are just some things including the legal prostitution and marijuana that kind of taint it for me. Our show was a great turn out and I sang a song completely in Dutch by a famous Artist from Holland named Marco Borsato. It was a really great night. Shout out to all the Dutch high school student who spent the week with us...it wouldn’t have been the same without you all! One of my host brothers worked at an indoor ski and snowboard spot in Dronten, so on Sunday we went and did some snowboarding below sea level. It was basically a rotating piece of wet carpet that mimicked a ski slope. Really fun!


The last week of our European tour was spent in the city of Leuven, Belgium. Leuven is a beutiful city and our cast was really excited because there was a lot planned and a very busy schedule of great events. Our project for the week was with two people, an artist who was building a massive "CosmoGolem" and Sister Jeanne Devos, a Nobel peace prize nominee. The "CosmoGolem" was a 5-meter high wooden sculpture that has been placed already around the world. It has a large hatch on the side and represents the safe keeper of children’s hopes and dreams who can come place them in the Golem. Sister Jeanne Devos was involved because she worked with children in India who are kept as household slaves per say, working at young ages in homes, sometimes physically and sexually abused. She saw the possibilities of this project and also helped us connect with a village in Chile where the Golem will be eventually sent. We helped to build the golem and also unveiled it on our "Day of Hope" in downtown Leuven. We performed a mini show and revealed the Golem, opening it up for the children to share their hopes and dreams with. Also within this project, my smaller group went to a children’s hospital to perform and spend time with very sick kids, most with cancer. At the end of our time, they gave us their box of wishes to place in the Golem because they were to sick to do it themselves. It was a tough day, but one that also shed a new light and showed us the strength of these young kids. I was hosted that week with Johan from Sweden. We stayed with Eric and Lieve Giskes. It was so much fun and Eric made sure that we had our opportunity to tastes the beer tour of Belgium...after all, they do have the best beer in the world. According to Eric, we had the #2 beer in all of Belgium, Westmalle Triple. Most of the best are still brewed by monks and they can only create a small amount each year. We also enjoyed famous Belgian fries (eaten with mayo), chocolate, and shrimp from the north sea. I will certainly be back to Belgium some time soon! Our show was on Thursday, and was to be the biggest of our cast’s tour. It was held in a sports arena and we had a little over 2200 people come. There was also a guest performance from the Belgium Idol runner-up Sandrine. She performed 2 songs after our intermission. We raised 20,000 Euros for a charity's...pretty unbelievable. We also visited the European Union headqurters and parliment in Brussels. We had a tour and got to see where the parliment sits. My mom was visiting a friend in the UK, and they came down to see the show. Afterwards on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I left the cast and my mom and I took a train to Paris. We stayed in a really great hotel and saw most of the famous sight on Saturday...the Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre, Notre Dame, and of course the Eiffel Tower. It was so much fun and we had a nice mother-son time in France. After saying goodbye, I joined the cast on Monday and we left the Brussels airport that evening for a new continent...ASIA!

My next blog will be coming soon because I have already spent almost 2 weeks in the Philippines...were staying in the capital of Manila...

Let me know what's going on and please leave some comments...

Finally in Germany!

This last week we made our way to the fourth country of our tour…Germany! We stayed in a city called Zell am Harmersbach, which is located in the southern part of the country in the famous black forest. We arrived on Monday afternoon where I met my host parents, Hans and Hilda Gohring. My roommate for the week was Michael from Belgium…he wasn’t initially in our cast, but joined us in Europe as our truck driver and show technician. Really great guy!
About our host family: My host parents were absolutely amazing. We lived in a beautiful German house right on the edge of the forest. Every morning was fresh bread, eggs, and a ridiculous spread of bratwurst, sausage and black forest ham. It was amazing…finally a European family that did breakfast right. My host dad Hans used to own a Renault (French Auto) Shop in Zell and also raced on a Formula 3 circuit. He had 13 Renault cars, 4 of which were in racing shape. One afternoon he took me for a ride through some of the hills and mountains deep in the black forest. It was the most amazing ride of my life, but I was absolutely scared out of my mind. We were doing in excess of 140 km/h on some one-lane roads twisting through the mountains. Cars were moving in both directions and the only way to know was by slowing down at the sharp turns…lets just say my host dad didn’t know the meaning of slow down.

To Hans and Hilda:
Hallo zu Hans und zu Hilda. Einer was für großen Zeit ich das Bleiben in Ihrem Haus hatte. Ich bin zurück bald. Ich hoffe, daß Sie genießen, die Abbildungen auf meinem blog zu betrachten. Halten Sie, nach einem schwarzer Waldmädchen für mich heraus zu schauen. Hooeeyyy!

On Tuesday, we worked CI (Community Impact) in and around Zell. There were 4 different sites including 2 groups at secondary schools. My group went to “Haus Maria Frieden” a sort of hospice home for Cancer and AIDS patients in there last days of life. It sounds depressing, but the overall mood at the home was different from what you would expect. It’s a beautiful piece of property high in the hills of the black forest. There was space for 12 patients, each with there own room. A large staff also lives at the house to take care of the patients 24/7. The hospice is totally funded by donations from a number of sources. For most, the stay is shorter than a year, but for some of the AIDS patients who are more treatable, the stay will be longer. It’s really a place for the terminally ill wanting to spend there last days in this kind of environment. We interacted with the people and performed a small BTS (backing track show) out on the back patio of the house. There were around 10 of the patients along with some family and staff from the home. They were so happy for our performance and it was hard to not think that for some this could be one of their last experiences. I felt honored to be apart of it all.
Because of facility scheduling, our show day for the week was on Wednesday. We were in the Schwarzwaldhalle (Black forest hall) where a large stage and around 800 chairs were set up. The show was once again done completely in German with all of our MC’s. Myself, and a fellow German cast member Stefan, performed a popular German song by recording artist Xavier Naidoo. It’s called “Was wir aleine nicht schaffen” and was most notably performed at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I was quite nervous singing a German solo in front of that many German speakers…luckily everything went great and it was a powerful ending to our show. Shout out to my buddy Pierre for coming down from Stuttgart to see us perform in Zell!
Thursday was a regional learning day in Zell. We started in the morning by visiting the Kulturzentrum factory. It’s a very well know German ceramics factory that produces products sold worldwide. We had a private tour of the ceramics process from beginning to end. All of the products produced in the factory are hand painted, just as they were when the factory first opened. At the end of the tour, our entire cast was given handmade ceramic mugs with each of our names on the side. Hopefully it gets back home in one piece! We then departed for a famous castle ruin near Zell. A local professor and expert on this particular castle gave us a tour of the old ruin. My first German castle experience! We climbed to the top of the ruin almost 60 feet above the base and had an amazing view of the surrounding cities. It was built atop a hill to give the castle views of all the land under its control. We had a great time, but it was absolutely freezing and rain was falling that I couldn’t believe hadn’t turned to snow. That night we arrived at a monastery in Zell where our staff held a hunger dinner/banquet for our cast. I’ll do the best I can in explaining what this was…
Basically our group had an activity earlier that day where 100 coins were spread on the ground. We were told to grab as many as we could until all the coins were picked up. Then we had the opportunity to give away as little or as many coins as we would like. Then for the hunger banquet, we were split into 3 groups based on the number of coins we had. Around 15% of the group with the most coins sat at a table in the room, 40% were in chairs on the other side of the room, and the last 45% were in the middle of the room on the floor. These groups were a good representation of the upper, middle, and lower class/poor in the world. We had a presentation on hunger and poverty as we stayed in our groups. Then the group representing the upper class began to be served food by the staff. They had a 3-course meal with bottled water, soda, bread…anything they needed. Then the middle class group (my group) was allowed to get up and get their meal, which consisted of basic cooked pinto beans and rice. We also had water poured into a small glass and our meal was on a plate with a fork. Last, the lower class group was allowed rice out of a big pot, which they had to eat on a napkin with their hands. They were given a large pot of hot water to serve themselves with a ladle. The point of the activity was to obviously represent what really happens with hunger in the world. We heard stories from cast members who had really experienced these kinds of tough conditions in their lives. I wish I could explain the entire banquet better, but it would be tough to give it justice. I would say I was definitely affected by this activity.
On Friday we toured a museum in Zell that depicted the typical farm family from that area in history. We then when on a 8 km hike through the black forest which took around 2 hours. It was beautiful…the black forest is so thick and totally different from the mountains of Colorado. We ended the hike at a restaurant where we ate some great German food were entertained by an accordion player. That night, my host family took Michael and I to their local Football soccer) Club. They were celebrating Oktoberfest that night; so many people were dressed up in Lederhosen. My dreams were answered when I realized that you could actually get a 1-liter beer in Germany…not a myth. Lets just say it was the most stereotypical German night of my life…Beer, bratwurst, lederhosen, drinking songs, drinking contests…awesome!
So this blog is already way to long…I hope some people were able to make it to the end. Were heading north to Prenzlau Germany in what used to be the DDR when the Berlin wall was still up. TALK TO YOU ALL SOON!!

"Living the Dream" in Luzern...

Let me first start off by saying that in Up with People, if you happen to miss your departure time to your next city, or country for that matter, the bus WILL take off without you...after this last week, I speak from experience. On Monday morning, departing Milan, Italy, my roommate Sayuri and I went to the wrong departure location, missed the bus, and had to find our way by train to Switzerland. As horrible as that may sound, we enjoyed our train ride through Northern Italy into Switzerland...passing beautiful countryside such as Lake Como. We also passed through a great deal of tunnels entering the Swiss Alps, including one measuring 18 km…the longest in Europe. By the end of the day, we were together again with our cast in the city of Luzern, Switzerland.
Luzern is an amazing city surrounded by mountains and beside a large alpine lake. Our host family codes, upon arrival Monday afternoon, were different types of Swiss chocolate. This meant that all the host families had a certain Swiss chocolate with them and we had to match it with the chocolate written on our allocation sheet. I found my host dad Enzo with the pistachio chocolate I was searching for. He lived in a flat just a 10-minute walk from the main downtown in Luzern. To my luck, after having the ability to speak no English in Italy, Enzo could speak great English. His parents were originally from Italy, but he has lived in Switzerland his entire life. To go back to my missing the bus story, another problem was that I had put my bags on the UWP equipment truck before leaving and because of problems with border papers, it never made it to Switzerland until Thursday night…Tough to wear the clothes on your back for 4 straight days...Thanks to Enzo for the extra clothing.
On Tuesday we had a regional learning day. We loaded a boat from Luzern for a 2-hour ride to the base of Mt. Pilatus. It was a cold morning, but a beautiful ride with the fog coming off the lake and the green countryside all around the water. At Mt. Pilatus we loaded what I learned to be the steepest cog railway in the world. It reaches a slope of 49 degrees at one point. At the top of the mountain, we would have enjoyed an amazing view, but the fog was so thick that I didn’t give us much. There was a man playing an alpine horn, so I got to check that Swiss stereotype off my list. We rode down on the other side of the mountain inside a large gondola and stopped at another point to ride the alpine slide.
So…my next 2 days in Luzern may have been the best of the entire tour. I decided to sign up for a special CI (Community Impact) project with room for just 10 students. We were going up to a farm high in the Alps to work and stay the night for 2 days with a Swiss family. It was a 30-minute drive outside Luzern, and the only access to their home was by a 4-person gondola that seemed to climb a mile up the mountain. When we got to the top, we were told that our work site was another 40-minute hike, higher up onto the mountainside. It was cold and foggy, but the most beautiful hike I have ever made. You can see in the pictures the green mountainside, waterfalls, amazing vistas, and autumn leaves. I stopped nearly every step to try and take the whole experience in. The work, as expected, was difficult! Our job would be twofold…clear one of the large fields on the mountainside of all small pine trees, and dig a massive trench to lay a water pipe for the barn near where we were working. Those cutting trees had to be careful because of the steep slope in which they were working on. After sawing a tree, they would tumble down the side of the mountain…extremely exciting to watch. As for the ditch, it was the rockiest, muddiest, most ridiculous soil I have ever attempted to dig in. Our stats for the day: 4 broken pick axes, 2 broken shovels! The food we were served was amazing. My favorite was the “Alpine Macaroni” as it is translated. Massive amounts of Swiss cheese, potatoes, and onions cooked in. Most everything we ate was from the farm. Salad grown on the farm, homemade dressing, milk straight from the cow, fresh churned butter…it was heavenly. I even had the opportunity to milk my first cow. It was so hard! You need to grip the utter in the perfect way to get milk out. I sprayed all over myself! It’s really warm and kind of awkward! If you have good form and aim, it’s easy to squirt the people watching. The milk was separated from the cream, and then we literally just boiled it and drank it warm. Tastes nothing like the normal milk anyone is used to. I prefer mine with coco mix!
The family we were staying with had 2 children. The fathers name was Zep and only spoke Swiss-German. He was probably the most legitimate mountain man I have ever met. The farm has been in their family for four generations. They literally own an entire mountainside; I think it was about 40,000 acres. Everything they do at their farm is for them…nothing is sold. They are basically fully self-sustained. I was so tired after 2 days of work, but so completely satisfied by the entire experience.
Saturday was show day in Luzern. Earlier in the afternoon we had a German culture presentation by our German cast member to prepare us for the next 2 cities. The only difference in our show for the week was that the MC’s were done entirely in German, and we added a short Swiss song that everyone in the audience knew. We had a great time with a large crowd including over 80 Swiss UWP alumni in attendance. More amazing was to see Zep and his entire family at the show…it was so cool that they decided to come.
On Sunday, my host dad Enzo and I took a trip to Zurich. It’s one of the largest cities in Switzerland, and famous for being home to the bulk of the major Swiss banks. We first visited one of the famous chocolate shops and ate some of the best, and most expensive, chocolate I have ever had. We then went to Enzo’s favorite Bratwurst stand to eat and have a beer. They eat their Bratwurst by itself with a bread roll on the side…delicious. I also tried Maroni, which is a type of chestnut, cooked over coals. It’s a winter snack that warms up your entire body. That night we ate dinner at Enzo’s girlfriend Claudia’s house. We had a famous Swiss dish Raclette, which is melted cheese with potatoes. There is a hot tray in the middle of the table with slots to melt you cheese, and then you drizzle the cheese over potatoes. Enzo and Claudio also presented me with an awesome Swiss army knife before I left. The perfect gift from their country! Shout out to Enzo and Claudia!

Swiss Tips:
1. Don’t try to make small purchases with your debit or credit card…I tried to purchase stamps and postcards with mine and both my host dad as well as the person behind the counter literally laughed at me.
2. Don’t visit Switzerland unless your planning on gaining some weight…the Swiss food is great and you are likely to eat a pound of chocolate.
3. Beware of stinky Swiss cheese. Almost every cheese is amazing, but there are exceptions…be careful!
4. Spongebob Squarepants is way funnier to watch in German!

Off the Zell am Harmersbach, Germany…If you made it through this blog, Congrats! Hope to hear from everyone…make a comment or send an email.

If your interested in some more pictures from Switzerland...visit http://flagler.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019182&l=95a7e&id=29800101

Cast B in Europe - Milano, Italiano!!!

Ciao! I apologize for how late this update is, but I have quickly realized that the Internet is not as accessible some places in Europe as it is in the States. That being said, for those of you who don’t already know, my Up With People tour has left the US and I spent the last week in the North of Italy. Here is our travel summary from Las Vegas, Nevada to Milan, Italy:

• 28 hour bus ride (including stops) from Las Vegas to Seattle, WA
• 12 hour wait for our flight, spent by the cast in the airport…although I was picked up by my brother Chris and spent the day with him. Shout out to you brother!• 10 hour flight direct to London
• 5 hour layover in the airport
• 3 hour flight to Milan, Italy
• 1 hour bus ride to our cast drop-off

All together, our total travel time was clocked at 61 hours. We spent the night in a gym because we had arrived so late. By the time we were up and going, it was Wednesday morning…remember, we left Vegas Saturday at midnight. No bed for 4 nights! But enough whining about our travels…we were in Italy!
On Wednesday, we went to downtown Milan and did some sightseeing and a scavenger hunt. We had to take pictures of our home team doing different things around the city. Downtown Milan is so beautiful with amazing old architecture. We visited one of the most famous churches in Italy. I met my host family on Wednesday night. My roommate was Sayuri from Japan, and we stayed with an amazing Italian family. Our host Mom and her husband lived in one part of the house with their 3 young children and in another part of the house lived her brother and his wife whom had 2 young children. They didn’t speak any English except for Mateo who spoke just a bit. It was a tough task to try and communicate even the simplest topics. I remember one night spending 15 minutes trying figure out when were leaving the house in the morning. That being said, I felt that we were able to bond with one another on a different level than other host families whom I could have a normal conversation with.
We ate the best Italian food you could ever experience. Here is what my lunch consisted of on Sunday; hand made pasta with fresh tomato sauce, octopus, salad, homemade bread, fresh caught tuna cooked over coals, tiramisu, and cake with fruit…of course lots of vino (wine), and bubbly water. It took 3 hours to eat lunch, and I was so tired afterwards that I feel asleep until it was time for dinner! That’s my idea of a good day!

Thursday was our CI day in Italy. Our cast worked in some elementary age schools and a school for the mentally disabled. I went with our admissions team to do promotions at the main University campus in Milan. It was a daunting task to talk with students about our program and the show. I learned a few phrases to explain UWP, but if they started asking questions I had no idea what to say…quite an adventure. Our show day came earlier than usual in the week, being on Friday. I rode the train, then subway, and finally walked to find the show site in a nearby city. We had to ask for directions about 8 times, but I was with Lesley and Clara who both speak Spanish, so they were able to communicate in some broken Italian. Our show on Friday night started at 9:00, which I guess in Italian means start showing up around 9:15. We had a sold out crowd with some people even standing against the walls. Our cast performed 3 songs in Italian and I even delivered my MC in Italian…although I forgot my lines and had to pull a note card out of my jacket. Someone later told me after the show that it was all right I spoke poor Italian because, “bad Italian sounds sexy.” Good thing! The Italian audience was great and chanted for our first Encore, which we had been preparing for in Europe.
Saturday was an internal education day with also a culture presentation on Switzerland. We had letters returned to us that we wrote 3 months ago in Denver staging. They were “letters to ourselves” talking about where we hoped we would be at this point in the tour. It was a great moment of reflection for our cast. That evening was going to be a free BTS (backing track show) for people in the small town we were staying…although we had such a huge response for the show that we decided to do another full performance. It was an exhausting day, but I’m glad we had the opportunity to give back to the community with this full performance. The highlight for me was singing, “What Color is God’s Skin” in Italian with the entire audience singing along. It was a really cool moment.

European Comments:
1. So seriously, Italian Gelato is just as good as it’s hyped up to be. I’m pretty sure I could eat that stuff every day of the week.
2. Beware of European breakfast. People told me it was pretty scarce…but seriously? I had these little mini toast things that were the size of small cracker each morning…tough situation for an avid breakfast eater like myself. What I would do for an Ego waffle right now!
3. One Italian espresso = the strength of 3 Starbucks espresso’s! Size can be deceiving…
4. Europeans try to play tricks on foreigners by hiding every toilet flush button in a different place. I’ve seen them on the toilet, on the floor, on the wall, hanging from the ceiling, some I just stopped searching for after a while…beware, and be smart!

That’s all for now…On to Switzerland we go!

Beautiful Portland and Viva Las Vegas!

The last 2 weeks of our tour have completely flown by! Because I have a full 3 days of travel in front of me, on our way to Italy, I've decided to sum the last couple weeks into one post. We were in Portland for a full 6 days. During our stay, we were involved with a variety of CI (Community Impact) projects. The first was called "project homeless connect". It was held at the Portland convention center, and was basically a one-stop shop for any help and services that low income/homeless individuals and families might need. There were medical services, job and housing services, free haircuts, food, counseling, bike repair...and much, much more! Our cast volunteered in many different areas of the convention center with whatever needed to be done. It's always hard for me to see the young kids and families who are struggling or even living on the streets. I feel like it's expected to see some of the "typical" looking homeless men, but for a large part it was people who looked just like you and me. Another CI we were involved with took place at a home for women who have experienced assault. It was a kind of hideaway where the women could stay by themselves, or sometimes with their children. Our group did mostly painting and outside yard work. I attempted to read the book, "where the wild things roam" in Spanish to a little boy who's mother was from Mexico. I had Clara from Mexico with me to clear up any words that I couldn’t pronounce. Our host family in Portland lived in the older revitalized district of the city, which had great restaurants, and shops. I was hosted with Lucas from Belgium, Megan from Minnesota, Maria from Sweden, and my good friend Cassidy Shelsta from Broomfield. Probably one of the most interesting parts of the week was the ongoing education workshop. We were talking about the Environment, and our effects on it. We began by watching the movie, "An inconvenient truth." It was a movie that I probably would have never watched had it not been for this workshop. For those of you not familiar with the movie, it's narrated by Al Gore, and outlines the major environmental issues impacting our world. I feel like it had a major impact on me. Whether you believe in the so titled "global warming" happening to our earth, the facts of negative environmental changes in the world are clear. The major part of this workshop was when it was announced that we would be given a trash bag for the next 4 days that we had to carry with us and keep any trash that we produced. With the exception of bathroom trash, anything down to the apple core that we would normally toss out had to go in the bag. I wasn’t exactly happy when I heard about this, but by the end of the week it was extremely impactful to realize the amount of trash that one person can produce. More so than ever, I just tried to keep my trash to a minimum. Wherever we went I tried to stay away from paper plates, cups, rappers...whatever I could avoid putting in my trash bag. My mom and brother came down from Seattle for our show's on Saturday. We had a double show day in Portland, which is always exhausting, but non-the-less a great time.Unfortunately there was no free day in Portland, because on Sunday we had to leave for what turned out to be our 24 hour bus ride to Las Vegas. We broke down twice which added 4 or 5 extra hours to our travels. I guess it was bound to happen! Our stay in Vegas was filled with many "stand for peace" projects in the local elementary and middle schools. We did 2 full days in the school complete with a BTS (Backing track show) in the afternoon. One of the shows had 1400 middle school students with a ridiculous amount of energy! It was a great ending to our United States tour. We spent some time during our stay in Vegas wrapping up our tour, talking about where we have come from, and looking on to the second half of our travels. It was nice to look back on all of the amazing experiences that we have already shared together...and we still haven't left the US. One of our speakers during the week was Mr. Rappaport, the President and COO of the Luxor hotel and casino...(the pyramid with the light coming out the top). He gave a great speech about leadership and his experiences working in the industry. Maybe one of the most influential experiences thus far on our tour happened in Las Vegas. We had the great opportunity to join the largest Muslim Mosk in Vegas during their breaking of fast for the holiday of Ramadan. We arrived and had an hour Q and A with the president of the Mosk. We talked about the ideas behind Muslim faith amongst other things. We then split into separate groups based on gender, with the men going to the front of the sanctuary and the women in the back. There was a man singing the words of the Koran and the people in the mosk prayed by standing and then going to their knees. Myself and some others in the cast joined the men in the front and prayed. It was an incredible experience. We then stayed in our separate gender groups and broke fast by having an Afghanistan prepared meal. It was a massive spread of amazing foods. We spent the rest of the evening mingling with the men and women. I'm sure this is the beginning of an important and timely relationship between Up with People and the Muslim faith.
Our show was on Friday night at an outdoor amphitheater that seated 2500. We filled it about half way and had a great show. My dad was in town doing some business and meeting with prospective sponsors,
so both my parents got to see the show as well. Another fun part of the week was my first gambling experiences and coming away from Vegas up $120 at the casinos. I guess I better not think it's always going to turn out that way. We left Las Vegas Saturday night at midnight and traveled 30 hours bus ride (including stops) to Seattle, WA. I'm finishing this Blog as I sit in the airport waiting to board my plane to London where we will have a layover and eventually make it to Milan, Italy on Tuesday night. I can't tell you how excited I am to be heading to Europe for the next 6 weeks and then off to Asia. I hope you have enjoyed reading and I'll be hoping to write something each week in Europe. So for now...Arrivederci!

West Coast Memories...

This last week has gone by so fast, but what another amazing stay. We had a split week, with the first stop in Eureka, California. Eureka is located in the very northern part of California on the coast. We arrived on Monday after a trip through Redwood National Park. The bus stopped at a ranger station and gave us 3 hours to explore, so Rasmus from Denmark and I decided to find a trail and go for a hike. We ended up making our way about 4 miles through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. If you've never seen this part of the country, just picture 200+ foot tall trees with a width of up to 60 feet around at the trunk! These trees were absolutely massive...the trail went over, under, and even through some of them. We obviously took advantage of our surroundings and tried to take the most ridiculous pictures we could.
For our stay in Eureka, I was hosted with Maria from Sweden, Benjamine from Belgium, and Gabe from Tucson. We stayed with the Fraga Family, who had 3 teenage kids living at home. On Tuesday, we had Community Impact in Eureka. Our cast was involved with many projects, including; working with rehabilitation patients, helping out around an elderly home, city beautification, and a redwood park cleanup. I was apart of a group that did admissions work as well as a BTS (Backing Track Show) at Eureka High School. That afternoon, we did an education workshop on the topic of "values." We broke up into our home team groups (small groups) of around 8 people and had a "values auction." Each person had a sheet of paper with different options on it, such as...1. Having a loving spouse 2. Being physically attractive 3. Being famous 4. Having total financial security 5. Peace in your Country...etc. We had a $1000 budget for the activity, and had to allocate all the money into the 15 or so options on the sheet. We then had an auction in our group where the highest bidder would win the option. Some items went for the full budget of $1000, while others went for under $50. It made us think about our own personal values and which are really important to us.
Because of our short stay, Wednesday was our show day in Eureka. We performed at a beautiful venue that was an old restored theater with around 800 seats. I think it may have been our strongest show to date. The audience wasn't huge, but the energy was so high and our music and dancing felt really strong.
On Thursday we traveled to Coos Bay, Oregon, with a long stop at the beautiful Oregon coast in Bandon. Northern California and Oregon have some absolutely incredible coastlines with endless cliffs, caves, and massive rocks coming up out of the water. In Bandon, we found some sea caves that we explored, and some of the guys battled one another with massive seaweed tentacles that looked like whips. Upon arrival in Coos Bay, I was excited to see that my host family allocation was smaller than normal for our short stay...I figured it would be more relaxing. Our host parents were Cheryl and Eric, who had 2 kids...Abby in 5th grade, and Scott in 3rd. They were such a fun family with a great house in the forest above downtown Coos Bay. Stephan from Germany and I were staying together in what we like to refer to as , "The Bachelor Pad." It was a very small, but quaint, trailer that was located outside our host family’s garage. On Friday, part of the cast went and did a beach cleanup/regional learning activity on the coast. I unfortunately had to be apart of the setup crew at the theater. Our venue in Coos Bay was the famous Egyptian theater built in the early 1900's. It was a tough venue because of stage size and awkwardness. In the old days, stages used to be sloped from back to front...well this stage was so old that it has started to slope the opposite direction. Not easy to dance on! That night after setup, Stephan and I went with our host family to Sunset Bay where we sat up on the cliffside and watched hundreds of seals that gather each year on the ocean cliff sides. On Saturday we did 2 BTS's at a local festival going on in downtown Coos Bay to promote for our show. We than had a 2:00pm show followed by a 7:00pm show...our first double show day! It was a crazy long day, but what a fun experience. On Sunday, we departed for Portland, OR. It was a whirlwind week moving from place to place. It's tough to do these short 3 day trips because it doesn’t feel like we have enough time to experience the city. I'm exhausted, but it was an unforgettable week!