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!