On the Road Stories

Final thanks!

20/12/05

Before I close this semester, there are a couple of people I want to thank. Without them this semester wouldn’t have been the same.
Rob, Nina and Hiroko, it has been an honor to work with you all. I was lucky with such a good team. We all got along great and I learned a lot from you all. I hope to work again with you in the future.
But also the rest of the road staff, Bob, Anke, Melissa, Tom, Marco, Ana, Yoshimi, DeeAnn, Krista, Atsushi and Laurence a big thanks.

Modena/Roma

20/12/05

Monday 5/12. Travel day. We had a long stop in Lugano, just by the border between Switzerland and Italy. Lugano is the hometown of Eugenio, the EU tour manager. The staff was invited for a lunch at his house. All but 3 of us took the invitation and had a nice relaxing lunch at his house. We continued our trip and got in Modena a bit late. We had our arrival meeting. All the staff was together in the hotel for our last city. When all the students were picked up, we checked in and had dinner. Pizza of course.

Tuesday 6/12. Our internal day. We started with re-entry meetings in the morning and after lunch we had more meetings, presentations and project time. For dinner we went to another restaurant and yes, we had pizza again.

Wednesday 7/12. Celebration day, the last one! We started with a reception at the city hall with the mayor. After that we had a city tour through the city hall and the cathedral. After lunch we went to the facility and had set-up. We had 5 lights from the neighbors. While Rob was focusing them, 2 of them broke. They were very old and probably haven’t been used in many years, just like the facility itself. We had a short final rehearsal for the Italian MC’s and after that Pick-A-Part. We played the whole show and everybody could do whatever they wanted. That was a lot of fun. We had our last huddle, which was very emotional and than the last celebration. It was a good one. After the celebration we had strike and packed everything for shipping back to the USA. After the celebration, we as a staff had Happy Hour. Just being together in a bar and spending some time together.

Thursday 8/12. Free day. I slept in a bit, than went to the town. Walked around with Ana, Atsushi and Hiroko. Met a couple of people in town. In the afternoon I went back to the hotel to do some internet. At 19:00 Rob, Nina, Hiroko and I where meeting to have our final dinner together and wrap up our semester. It was a nice dinner. After dinner we were walking home. In the middle of the street was this photo kiosk. So, we all packed ourselves in there and took some pictures.

Friday 9/12. Travel day to Roma. Rob and I left directly from the hotel at 8:00 to drive to Milano to drop of the equipment for shipping. At around 11:00 we stopped for gas and unloaded some of the stuff to repack and add some extra small stuff in the cases. We got back in the car 11:45 and realized that the company closed between 12:00 and 14:00. Our navigation said that we would get there at 11:59. Oops! We hurried and made it in time. We had to wait about an hour for our turn to unload. After the drop we drove towards Roma. We stopped for lunch at McDonalds to have a break from all the pizza. I do have to say that in Italy the coffee is good everywhere, even in McDonalds. We drove about 7 hours and got at the convent, where we were all staying, at 20:30. We had dinner and after we wanted to go out, because it was Nina’s last night. She was going back earlier because her mom is getting 60. We couldn’t find anything open in the neighborhood, so we went back and hang out in a room for a bit.

Saturday 10/12. We were supposed to have different tours in the morning, but everything was cancelled. So we had a free day in Roma. I stayed in the hostel to work in the morning on the yearbook with Christie, Brandy and Rob. We got done around 14:00 and were all starving. So we went to the city, which took us a while, cause we got out of the bus too early and couldn’t find the metro. In Roma they have several stops with the same name. So convenient! Anyway, Rob got a snack and Brandy, Christie and I went for a lunch in a restaurant and had some pizza. After lunch I went to the internet cafe. When I was finished I went to the Hard Rock Café. Than I met up with Marco and we went together to Piazza de Popolo, where we were meeting the rest of the staff. We had our staff dinner. It was a nice restaurant, lot’s courses. Hiro came from Denver and all of us got a gift from UWP, a really nice bag.

Sunday 11/12. Our LAST day. We started with our last morning meeting, than a presentation from the alumni club, followed by an admissions presentation on what we can do when we get home. After lunch we had some free time. I finished some work and printing. At 19:00 we all met to walk to the restaurant for our final banquet. We had a nice dinner, Hiro and Bob handed out the certificates to all the students. Bob read a letter to everybody and we all sang some songs and cheers. Than we went all back to the convent. We started with showing some videos from the yearbook. Than we had open mic, where everybody could do something if the wanted, a song, poem, speaking etc. When that was finished everybody just hanged around. Some people went to bed. The most people where leaving on the group flight at 5:30 am. Around 4:45 am I went to bed for half an hour.

Monday 12/12. I got up to wave everybody goodbye at 5:15. Then I went back to bed and got up again for breakfast at 9:00. After that I just hang around, said goodbye to everybody who was leaving, packed, got a shower etc. At 12:00 we had to check out and around 13:00 we left to a hostel. When we finally got there, they had only 5 beds and we were with 8 people. So they gave us another address and we took the bus there, which took us about 40 minutes. That one was in the center, so that was nice. It was a strange hostel. It was a regular door, than when we got in they had 2 rooms, with 2 levels. We had 5 people sleeping upstairs and the others that had the morning flight slept downstairs. We went to the internet for a little bit and than I came back and took a nap. In the evening Leonardo called and Eli, Krista and I met up with him and he took us out to dinner to this Roman restaurant. Than he showed us some sights in Roma. That was very interesting, since he is an archeologist. He took us to a “keyhole”. This was a door with a peak hole, where you saw lot’s of green and at the end an arch, with inside the Basilica. He took us back home afterwards.

Tuesday 13/12. Regional learning, haha. Around 4:30 Miho, Natsuko and Shimpei hugged us goodbye on their way out. After that I slept in and around lunchtime, Rie form Japan and I went sightseeing. We started at the Colosseo, we walked around. What an impressive building. Than we had lunch on the way to the Vatican City. Chinese for a change. Than we went to Vatican City, where we climed the Dome of the Basilica. Absolutely gorgeous. Quite a walk, but worth it. At the top you can’t walk straight, cause the walls are leaning in as the outside of the Dome. We enjoyed the view. When we were ready to start descending, we met Noelle and her mom up there. We took some pics together and walked down together. Once we were down, Rie and I visited the tombs of all the pops, including the last one. Than we went to Barberini to get a cup of coffee and I went to the internet café to book my flight home. After I was done, we went back to the hostel. On the way I bought my bus ticket to the airport. We hanged out at the hostel for 15 minutes and than Krista, Rie, Celle and I met up with Noelle and her mom for a lovely dinner in a cute restaurant. Of course I had pizza for the last night in Italy. After a long dinner we went to the hostel to pick up Eli and we all went to the Fontana di Trevi.

Wednesday 14/12. Travel day! I got up around 8:00, got showered, breakfast, said goodbye and left the hostel. I took the bus to the airport. I just arrived in the Netherlands and I am in the bus to Amsterdam CS. This will take about 1,5 hour. Than I will take the metro till Amsterdam south where my mom will pick me up. This is where this semester end, including these stories. I hope you had fun reading about my semester, as much as I did writing and experiencing them.

Bern

05/12/05

Monday 28/11. When we woke up it had snowed. Everything was white. Because of this traffic was pretty bad. We left 1,5 hour to late because we waited for all the students. We drove directly to Bern and had our arrival meeting in a youth hostel. My roommates were Aya and Jessica. Our host mom came to pick us up, together with her daughter that lives in Bern. She didn’t know she could park there, so we had to take the public transportation. The station was on the top of the mountain. There was a little tram that went up the mountain, but our host mom said that it was only a little hill and that we would know the way for the next day. So… we walked up, with all our suitcases. The hill did not seem as little when you walk up with all your stuff. Once we were almost on the top, we also had lots of stairs to go up on. Not fun!

Tuesday 29/11. Internal day. We met at the hostel and our host mom showed the way. This time we did take the tram down. I worked the whole day on finishing some last stuff for the yearbook. Burning the master Audio CD.

Wednesday 30/11. In the morning we, the Yearbook folks were meeting Boris at the train station to hand in all the masters and artwork. After that we came to the facility. Everybody left for CI and I catched up on some other work that I haven’t had time for. During dinner Jessica and I came up with a fun plan. Dressing up in our swimwear and scarf and take pictures in the snow. And so we did. After dinner we went outside for a fun photo shoot.

Thursday 1/12. We met again at the hostel. I had some meetings, worked on some stuff. In the afternoon we drove to the school where we had our night activity. We had a meeting about what we were going to do after the program. After that we had a real Swiss Raclette evening. It was a nice dinner and time together. After the dinner we went out for a drink in Bern.

Friday 2/12. Our personal day. I slept in and went to Bern to meet up with my friend and alumni, Petra. We had lunch together, walked around town and had a small dinner before going home.

Saturday 3/12. Our celebration day. We had a nice facility. The same school as Thursday evening. In the morning we did set up, in the afternoon we had celebration prep with some rehearsal, event management assignment and some reflection activity. After dinner we had our celebration, than strike.

Sunday 4/12. Host family day. We slept in a bit and than took the car and drove through the mountains and around this big lake. It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was also very nice. We made a stop in Interlaken, where we had some hot chocolate in a restaurant on the 18th floor, having a beautiful view of the mountains. After we came home we had another kind of Raclette dinner. We all had our own little pans, where we had to prepare our food ourselves. Really nice. After dinner we had a big cake, because on Saturday it was Jessica’s birthday.

Erfurt

05/12/05

Monday 21/11. We left early towards Erfurt. On the way we stopped at a castle were we had a tour and some free time to walk around. We had a reception in Erfurt with some speakers, before meeting our host families.

Tuesday 22/11. In the morning we went to Buchenwald, a concentration camp. It was very interesting and cold. After lunch Rob and I continued to edit. During dinner the staff prepared the room for that night. We planned an appreciation night for the students. We decorated the whole room with lots of candles and hearts and we had some snacks. When the students came in we first sang a medley all together and after that we watched the movie Love Actually. What a great movie. It was a really nice evening together. My host family came to pick me up and we had dinner in the city.

Wednesday 23/11. Today I edited again.

Thursday 24/11. Guess what, more editing. In the afternoon I went to a school for an admissions presentation. After that I came back to edit more. I stayed till about 21:00 and than my host dad came to pick me up and we went out for dinner. (my host mom was gone for the day).

Friday 25/11. Celebration day. We started the day with set up. After lunch we had an open mic, where we could all perform or share something with the group. I danced the samba with Huning from China and I did fire spitting as well. Part of the reception was the presentations from the CI sites. Those took a long time and after that it was our turn. One of the CI sites provided us with lights. They didn’t know what we wanted, so just before house opened he went to get more stuff and up till we started we were setting up lights. After the show we found out that one of the projectors that was set up for admissions was stolen. That sucked! Than we went out for dinner again. I had a hard time to stay awake.

Saturday 26/11. Our personal day. In the morning I met up with Danni and Shimpei to record one of their songs. After that I joined the group for a tour through the catacombs. That was really interesting. Then I went to Rob and we both worked on some editing. I stayed till about 21:00 and than my host dad picked me up.

Sunday 27/11. Host family day. We went to the Christmas market, walked around Erfurt, saw the Cathedral and a Synagogue . We also climbed a tower and went to the medieval Christmas market, which was really cool.

Koln

28/11/05

Monday 14/11. Travel day. We stopped in Bonn. There we had a tour o former parliament building and I went on a tour through the Deutsche Welle. A media company that gives news over the radio, TV and internet in different languages. After the tours we continued to Koln. Our host codes where songs we had to sing. I was staying with a friend of me, Saida, so I didn’t sing. We had dinner with our neighbors who were hosting Christy from Mexico. Later that evening came another alumni, who I also knew. He also stayed at Saida’s house.

Tuesday 15/11. Today was our internal day. I had a Bob shadow day, Bob, our program manager gave us this opportunity to follow him around for a day and see what he does. In the morning we went all together on a city tour. After the tour we had a reception at the mayor. After that we went to visit Tiara, one of the students who felt of the stairs the evening before. After we came back from here we went to have lunch (it was already around 16:00) Then we went back for some announcements. It was very interesting the talks we had during the day.
I went home for dinner and afterwards we went to a brewery to meet up with the other LOC members and some staff.

Wednesday 16/11. Our personal day. I slept in a bit and went to the internet café for about an hour. Than I went back home, grabbed some lunch, worked a bit and watched a movie. When Saida came back from work we went to the city, to the brewery again, met up with some students and had dinner there. By coincidence I saw, DeeAnn (staff member) walking in with Annette, a girl I traveled with in 1998. We had a nice talk and catch up.

Thursday 17/11. CI day. I was supposed the have a department day today, but they needed people in CI, so we switched it to Friday. I went to a youth center. We did work together with people from the city and Ford. I helped with fixing the sidewalk in front of the building and cleaned up the leaves in front. Just before we started some people worked on the sewer. They disconnected the hoses right where we were working and lots of stuff came out. You can guess the smell wasn’t the nicest!! It was very nice though to talk with the people from Ford. Afterwards we had our last staff meeting of the semester.

Friday 18/11. Another CI day. Today we had our Creative Department day. We worked a little in the morning on some individual stuff and than took of. We went to Nina’s house. We had lunch there and talked. After that we went back to the facility. In the evening after dinner, Annet, Nelleke and Judith came from the Netherlands. Marco and Christy also came to our house and we went all out for some Salsa dancing. We also met Yoshimi on the way. We had fun.

Saturday 19/11. Celebration day. We were in a big sports hall. In the morning we set up. In the afternoon we had rehearsal. We split the group up in 3 groups and gave them all a theme and a song. They had to come up with something themselves. After an hour we came together and they showed what they had done. That was pretty cool. Amanda, a student from the first semester was there and helped us with the light. That was funny, because the first semester I provided the lights in Utrecht and she helped me then and even run the lights. After the Celebration I went out with Annet, Nelleke, Judith and many more.

Sunday 20/11. Today was our host family day. I slept in a little bit and than went to the Dom to meet some others. We went to Starbucks and hang out till it was time to bring the Dutch visitors to the train station. Then we climbed the Dom tower. When we came back I met shortly with Bob and met up again with the group in a café. There we stayed a short time. Then we went walking home. On the way we visited some ateliers, which were open to the public that day. That was very interesting. At home I worked a bit and went to the neighbors for dinner.

Antwerp

16/11/05

Monday 7/11. Time to travel to Belgium. We left early in the morning to make a big stop in Den Haag. I first visited the Tribunal for formal Yugoslavia. That was really interesting to understand more of that and what they exactly do. We also got to sit in during a process. After that we went to the Peace Palace (Vredespaleis). There we got a tour inside. Also very interesting. I don’t live that far, but those are things you never do yourself. Than we continued to Antwerp. We arrived at the city hall and had a reception with one of the officials. We also met our host families there. I was roommates with Kara from the USA.

Tuesday 8/11. In the morning I had a historical tour through Antwerp. For lunch we went to a school in the centre of Antwerp, with many (over 40) different nationalities. It was one of the most interesting experiences. So nice to see them all together and talk to them. They prepared our lunch and were so excited to meet us. In the afternoon we took the train to Brussels. We walked to the EU parliament and got an explanation about the parliament and we saw the meeting room. After that we went back to Antwerp.

Wednesday 9/11. Today Bob, Rob and I went to Brussels to check out the Up with People storage container. We got there early and had a coffee and Belgium Waffle before meeting Eugenio (the European tour manager). We went to the storage and looked inside. Lot’s of old CD’s, paperwork and photos. We also found 2 displays that were used in 2000. We replaced one of them for the one we had on the road with us. After we were done, we had lunch. After lunch we went to buy a new printer as both of ours broke. Than we drove back to Antwerp.

Thursday 10/11. Today I went on community service to an activity center for elderly or people in need. In the morning we gave country presentations and after lunch we had different Belgium games. We had a great time and it was lovely to talk to them. After the CI we came together for wrap up. Than Marco and I went to park the van close to the Sportpaleis, because we were all going to a concert, The Night Of The Proms. Very famous concerts. It was awesome. Some really good performers were there, like Safri Duo, Roger Daltrey the singer of the Who, Ace of Base, Donna Summer, etc. It was a great night.

Friday 11/11. Our celebration day. We had to lift all the stuff up the stairs. For lunch my host family came to make pancakes for everybody. Just before the show we had somebody visit from the copyrights in Belgium. That was weird, but it all worked out. We had the celebration and afterwards a reception downstairs. We took one of the speaker downstairs for that. Two alumni from my cast came to the celebration, Ria and Chrisje. After the reception it was time to strike and go home.

Saturday 12/11. Personal day. In the morning I slept in a little bit and worked on some stuff. After lunch we went to a huge mall. Spend there a couple of hours and than I took the bus to the Metropolis, a huge movie theatre. I saw the movie “Into the blue”. Then I went home.

Sunday 13/11. Host family day. I slept in again. Than worked again a little. After lunch we went with to walk in the forest and look around the harbor. We also went to this tiny village where about 50 people live, in the middle of the harbor. We also saw a church that was still left in the middle of all the industry. The village was gone for the industry, as many others. Than we went home again, had dinner and spend the last night there.

Utrecht

13/11/05

Monday 31/10. We were flying out of Japan in 2 groups. I was in the second one. Everything went really smooth. We had to transfer ones in Germany. When we arrived in Amsterdam, my parents and my sister were at the airport to welcome me. We all got out and went into the bus. The first night we were all staying in a youth hostel in Amsterdam. When we arrived we had a short meeting and most of us went to bed after that.

Tuesday 1/11. We had breakfast together in the hostel, followed by our morning meeting. Than we had some free time to just walk around. We all came back for lunch at the hostel and after that we had a tour boat on the canals. It was so nice to just hang around with each other and enjoy the scenery. After the tour it was time to load for Utrecht. I went with the vans and drove by my house to drop of my luggage and pick up my car. We got to the facility in time and had our arrival circle, a guest speaker and of course meeting our host families. After everybody was picked up, I drove home. I was hosting one of our students, but she stayed with her friend first for a night.

Wednesday 2/11. Our personal day. It was strange waking up in your own bed, recognizing everything around you. I stayed home, catched up on some mail and other things around the house. After dinner I picked up Eli, my host sister for the week.

Thursday 3/11. Our regional learning day. In the morning I joined the group to the Paardenkathedraal, the theater company that I worked for. After we came back, Rob and I went to pick up the light that we rented for the celebration. We loaded everything and than stayed there for lunch. After lunch we dropped of the lights at the Paardenkathedraal, where we could store everything till the next day. When we were empty again, we drove to the airport to pick up our own equipment that had arrived from Japan. I saw the airport from a completely different side. We fitted everything in and drove back to Utrecht. Rob dropped me of and I walked to the city hall, where we had a reception with the deputy mayor. After we all left, the staff had a quick welcome meeting from Eugenio. After that I went home. After dinner I took Eli to look at my dad playing soccer.

Friday 4/11. Our celebration day. Today we had a lot of guest speakers that meant that we didn’t had a real set-up time. Rob and I unloaded together with the staff the van. Than Bob and I went to pick up our rented lights, while Rob started to set up with some help. When Bob and I came back, we unloaded and started to set up everything. During the day we had several people helping us out for a while. We went for lunch with the crew in the city. After lunch we continued. We got everything done in time. When the audience started coming in I didn’t just see my parents and my sister, who I knew were coming, but a lot more family, relatives and friends. That was awesome. Just before we started the celebration, the door to the house lights had been locked. I asked the manager if he could open the door and he told me that normally they don’t touch the lights. As an exception he would turn a couple of lights off, but not everything because they had to work. I said that we need to turn the houselights of during the show and after a little discussion he finally agreed. I never told anybody, but in Utrecht I did many MC parts. So that was a nice surprise for everybody. After the show we had the reception and than it was time to strike. After the strike, Rob, Annet (alumni) and me went to have “dinner” before going home.

Saturday 5/11. Today we had community service. I met up with Rob and Bally and we went to bring back the rental lights and pick up our equipment in the facility. Than we went to the hotel and worked on some video stuff. When I went home I met up with my cousin.

Sunday 6/11. Our host family day. In the morning I went to my dad’s soccer, because Eli joined them. She went with my uncle to the soccer game in Utrecht. I went home and met with my friend Bob. My sister came over for dinner and it was a nice relaxing day.

Abiko, Chiba

30/10/05

First I wanted to tell something I forgot to write last week. On Friday we had a small earthquake. Lasted about a minute. Apparently it was quite a big one around it’s center. Nothing happened where we lived. My host family didn’t even pay attention. I guess they are used to it.

Monday 24/10. We (Guy and I) left early in the morning, because Guy had to be at work at 8:00. He took me with him to Bloomberg. As he started with a meeting, I waited for him and had some breakfast. They have a big section where you can get as much food as you want. After he was done, he showed me around. Than we went to Starbucks and he showed me their other building before bringing me to the station. Than I went to Akihabara. This area is where all the electronic stores are. I first worked on my country presentation in a coffeeshop. Than I went walking around and watching all the stores. Such a cool area. After lunch we met up again to take the train to Abiko, our next city. It was only about 25 minutes away. When we got there we had to walk to the facility for another 15 minutes. When the truck arrived we all had to weight our luggage. This to know how much weight we had before our flight. We are only allowed 20 kg (44 pound). Only a handful people had no overweight. 2 of us had as much as 16 kg overweight! Guess they need to lose a lot! After our arrival meeting we had another arrival ceremony.

Tuesday 25/10. Today we had intern time. Most of the day I worked on some editing. In the afternoon we had to move facilities and than we had Europe Prep. Laurence and I talked about practical tips.

Wednesday 26/10. Today we went to Tokyo. First we had a tour of the Parliament. After lunch we had 2 parliament members talk to us and had a Q&A (Question and Answer) session. Than we split up. Some of us went to NEC, a big electronic company and the others, including me, went to the Canadian embassy. We had a tour and after that a presentation about Canada. We also had a Q & A session. I thought it was very interesting.

Thursday 27/10. Today we had community impact. I worked once again on the final editing and burning it to a DVD. At night I watched the movie “The Last Samurai”.

Friday 28/10. Our celebration day. Very strange day. Also our last operation day in Japan. We had our morning meeting outside, because the facility was still closed. It was in a hall in a shopping mall. We parked on the side of the street and had to unload fast, because the truck had to be moved. We had one little elevator that could only fit 2 boxes at the time. The LOC also asked me if we had a cassette deck. Haha, very funny. For such a high tech country they still use so many cassette tapes! I found one in the facility, so I did had one for the day. Rob and I started with set up, while the students still had some presentations. After an hour we started with set up and were just finished before lunch. We had some time to quickly run the Dutch MC’s already. After lunch we had a really short rehearsal time. Starting with some announcements and appreciation, we had only like 20 minutes left. During our rehearsal some band came to set up on stage. Very weird. When we were finished we had 30 minutes before house opened. We had 2 different interactions. The first one started at 15:00 and had different performances. Nothing by us though. Hawaiian dance, Japanese Harp Koto performance and Kapore dancing. Their second tape I had to play twice. Guess which song… yep, Up with People. You guess right, the second time I had to play that I used my computer instead of the tape. Just a little difference in quality!! Than the LOC had a speech and we all got a drawing of ourselves. After that it was time for dinner. Nothing that I could eat. So, I went quickly to McDonald across the street. At 18:00 we had our huddle (time before our show to get ready). Until now, Nina was always the one who led those. Since she was on advance work in the Netherlands, Hiroko and I did it. It was fun and we got a lot of compliments. Than we had our second interaction. We had Japanese drums and Japanese Summer Festival Dancing. Yep, the music came on tapes again. After they where finished it was time for us. We had a good show. After we were finished we started to strike immediately. We had to double check everything again, because we are shipping everything to Europe on Saturday. This means that everything had to be according to the lists. We were done in time (even though we started later). We had our after huddle and went home.

Saturday 29/10. Personal day. Slept in, had lunch and went shopping in the 100 Yen ($1) shop. I also watched the first Harry Potter movie.

Sunday 30/10. Host Family day. We went to the Edo museum in Tokyo. The building is very special. It starts at the 4th floor. Lot’s of information about Japan’s history. After the museum we went to have a typical lunch from Tokyo. Than we went back home. Time for me to pack the last things and get ready for Europe. Tomorrow morning we will fly to the Netherlands.

Tama, Tokyo

24/10/05

Monday 17/10. Our travel day to Tama. It was a long drive of about 8 hours. We arrived in Tama and guess what? Another arrival ceremony. My host family had 3 children of 9, 7 and 2,5. We came home and all the children from the neighborhood came outside to meet me. Very nice. Then they all came in and played at our house. When my host dad came home, we had dinner.

Tuesday 18/10. Our internal day. We started with intern time. I did some editing and helped one of our interns with power point. In the afternoon we had a guest speaker. After the speaker I had my appraisal. This is an evaluation that all the staff have around the middle of the semester. I had it with my manager and the program manager. It was a nice conversation. After that I went home. When I came home my host mom was teaching an English class. (Somebody took me home). The kids were very excited to meet me and talk with me. They also stayed for dinner.

Wednesday 19/10. Community impact (CI) day. In the morning I went to an elementary school. We arrived at the gym and all the children were sitting in straight lines. We all introduced ourselves and we had some people speak to us and the children. We did a game with the children and after that all of us split in smaller groups and talked to the children. Than we all had lunch in the classrooms. No, a school meal is not very tasteful! After lunch we went back to our facility. We had wrap up and after that another guest speaker. Unfortunately I had to go. Rob, Shinichi (Japanese tour manager) and I went to check out the facility. When we came back we had a welcome party organized by the LOC. After the party my host fam. picked me up and we went home.

Thursday 20/10. Another CI day. We went to schools again. This time I went to a junior high school. We were in a small group of 3 and we had a translator. Unfortunately our translator spoke hardly any English. She happened to be from China and luckily on of the three of us was from China. Still it was hard. She didn’t really translate, but when we told here we were going to play a game. She would tell them what and how and make up her own rules. When we told her how it should be, she said, no that's to hard!! That’s not translating, but taking over! Anyway, we had lunch again in the classroom. Yep, another one of these delicious meals. After lunch we all went to the gym. We had another speech and we performed 2 songs. Well, that didn’t go as planned. The CD I prepared didn’t play on their system. So the first song we played on my computer, with a mic held by the speaker. For the second song they came out with a boombox and we held the mic in front of that. It was a lot louder, so that was good. The only problem was that every 15-30 seconds it paused for a second of 2-3. Anyway, after that we left and went back to the facility. I had a meeting with our department. After finishing we grabbed a quick dinner before our staff meeting about the corporate updates.

Friday 21/10. My personal day. I slept in a bit and went by train to Tokyo. Went to both the Hard Rock Café’s and walked around. When I came back I went to the 100 Yen ($1) shop. For dinner my host family had some friends coming over and their children. It was a nice night.

Saturday 22/10. Our celebration day. In the morning we set up everything and in the afternoon we had rehearsal. After that the alumni, that were performing as well also had rehearsal and I did the sound for them as well. I knew my cousin Guy and his wife Machiko were going to come, but as a surprise my uncle and aunt also came. The are here on holiday. It was the first time that Rob and I were the only ones at the tech table during the show. We only had one student helping us. She operated the lights from backstage. I also had to cue the whole show by myself in Japanese for the first time. All went well. As I said the alumni cast performed their part before our last song and than we all did the UWP song together. After strike I went home with my cousin Guy and Machiko. Where his children, Remy, Sophy and Vicky were.

Sunday 23/10. Day with the family! I slept in a bit and had breakfast. We had a little emergency as the hamster of Sophy died. After that we all got ready and Remy had to go swim and Machiko took Sophy to go practise in her dance and singing group. Guy, Vicky and I walked to the center of this part of the city Guy lives in. We had lunch in a sushi restaurant. After lunch we went to the center of Tokyo. First to the dance studio where Sophy was practicing. We arrived during the last minute. Than we all went walking a bit and too the train to another place where we met up with Remy and got a coffee in the best selling Starbucks of the world! After that we went to the Apple store and walked around a bit. Than we went back home. Around 19:00 we went out for dinner with the whole family and Harry and Betty (my uncle and aunt). We went to a Yakitori restaurant and it was really nice. After finishing with some ice cream we went home, buried the hamster and played some games.

Murou

17/10/05

Murou

Monday 10/10. Travel day to Murou. Because we didn’t had to go so far, we made a travel stop in Kyoto at a temple. Than we continued to Murou, which is a village with about 6.000 people. We had another arrival ceremony, with some speakers and Taiko Drums. After that we met our host families. I went home and we live on the mountain. We had dinner and afterwards I played monopoly with my host brother, Miko (15) and sister, Kako (12).

Tuesday 11/10. In the morning we had our first meeting with our new interns. After lunch I worked on some editing. After dinner I went with my host mom, Yukimi and Miko to Shimpei and Laurence’s host family. There we had Japanese flower arrangement. We were with about 8 UWP crew members. It was very fun. We could arrange them ourselves, but when we were finished the teacher came and gave us some “advice”.

Wednesday 12/10. Our CI day. I stayed back to work on translating the script to Dutch and some other stuff. In the afternoon we set up our equipment. After dinner Yukimi and I went again to Shimpei and Laurence’s host family. We had a real formal tea ceremony. Many of us had kimono’s on and I got to wear a male kimono. We had to sit on our own feet. For a couple of minutes I am fine. But since we are not used to it, it got painful pretty fast. And realize that the ceremony took over an hour. We all had to prepare a teacup for someone else and give them the tea according to the ceremony and of course receive it as well according to procedures. It was very interesting. Afterwards we took many pictures.

Thursday13/10. Another community impact/regional learning day. I was not feeling very well and was getting a cold. I stayed back again in the morning to have a meeting. For lunch we joined the group again and took a little hike. I came back after lunch because I was not feeling well. My host family couldn’t pick me up, because the son was sick and they had to go to the doctor. So I went home with the host family of Celle from Brazil. Tici was also there, cause they had to prepare their country presentation. We had dinner and spend some time with them. I also watched Celle’s host sister look at some wedding kimono’s for her upcoming wedding.

Friday 14/10. Today was a day of hiking for many kilometers, but I decided to stay home to get better. I slept in and took it easy. After dinner we went shopping.

Saturday 15/10. Our celebration day. In the morning we had preparation time. We started with some mid-semester reflection and rehearsed a couple of songs afterwards. After lunch everybody went to the fall festival. Some of us, including me, stayed behind to finish some stuff for the afternoon. When the crew came back we had not that much time before the celebration. We had a short huddle (time before the celebration where we get together and get ready for the show with some notes, songs etc.) and opened the house. We started with some speakers, one of them being the mayor. Than we had a children’s choir. The sang for about an hour and after that it was our turn. We had a great one. The audience was very good and our energy was great. After it was over, everybody cleaned up their own chair and tables were set up and in no time we had a huge dinner set up. It was a great reception. We did our fashion show, Korean drums and the chicken dance. After that it was time to clean up and go home.

Sunday 16/10. Host family day. Slept in a little bit. Than went to the city of Nara, to the great Budda. The biggest Budda in Japan. We walked around there, seeing some other statues, temples and shrines. After driving back we had a party. I thought that was going to be at someone’s host family, but no! It was in some kind of community center. We had some performances (some by some of us) and after that dinner. After dinner we had some more performances and dancing. We ended with a lottery of numbers that were on our nametags. We all got to pick a present. Than all the UWP people had to come on stage and we could pick another present. My neighbor kid really liked me and stayed with me all the time. At the end of the night she was so sad that I was leaving. It was so cute and sad to see her cry. After the party I came home and spend some more time with my host family, before packing and going to bed. I also met

Osaka

10/10/05

Monday 3/10. Travel day to Osaka. We had a long drive ahead. We arrived and it the difference was huge. From little town Maruko to big city Osaka. We started as usual with an arrival circle (staff and advance team). After that we had the arrival meeting, followed by an arrival ceremony, where we all had to say our host codes so our families could recognize us. I was staying with Yoga from Indonesia with an alum, Scott. Scott couldn’t be there and we were picked up by another alum. We loaded our luggage in a small car and took the subway/metro. We arrived and it we met Scott’s roommate, Tony there who took us home. So we live with Scott, his girlfriend Yukiyo and Tony. Scott and Tony are both from Ottawa, Canada.

Tuesday 4/10. We had to take the subway ourselves today. A nice challenge if you know almost everything is in Japanese and not many people speak English. We found the meeting place. In the morning we had time with our interns to talk about their experience in the last weeks. This city is the last one for their internships. For lunch, I went with Rob to McDonald’s. The quality is better here than in the States (or even Europe). Everything is hot! After lunch we as a department had a meeting and after that we all worked on some stuff.

Wednesday 5/10. Our community impact day. There is a covered shopping street and next year there is an environmental festival. We were taking the empty flowerpots of the poles and putting some plants in before hanging them again. We all wrote messages and hang them in between. Scott joined us today and was our translator. There was a camera crew around and we were live on TV. After lunch we got flyers and some flower seeds and had to hand them out. 2 of the LOC members and Marina, Tici and me went to the station. Lot’s of people already there handing out all kinds of flyers, but we gave out a lot. We approached people and I guess the people here don’t move when they hand out flyers. It was lot’s of fun. After that we went back to the same facility we were in yesterday and had CI wrap up. This city we don’t have a celebration but only a Culture Exchange Party, which is a thank you to our host families. We had no time for rehearsal and did a short version of our celebration with some other stuff mixed in. Shimpei (sound intern) and I where doing the sound. I took some stuff out of the mixer to plug in my laptop. Before everybody came in we tested the sound and it worked fine. Before our performance we had a high school orchestra play. Wow, they were really good. During that performance somebody came up to us, saying that after our performance she wanted to play something on cassette for their performance. Well, that happened to be the cables I unplugged. So, just before we started I had to switch plugs, but it all worked. Until I had to turn on the tape!! No sound came out. We tried different players and finally I figured it out. Underneath the mixer was a sub mixer that combined all the 4 cassette players and send them as one channel to the main mixer. Normally you do that kind of stuff before you start. Anyway, except all the different groups that performed, I think Scott was the only host family there! When we got back we went out for dinner.

Thursday 6/10. Regional Learning day. We started with a tour of the Osaka Castle. It was beautiful from the outside, but the inside was just like a museum. Nothing special. The view from the top was really nice. After that we went to a hotel and had lunch there. After lunch the had a discussion panel with students, but I went with Rob and Nina to their hotel to work on some editing stuff. When we came back we had a staff meeting about intern picking. It took longer than we thought and after the meeting I went back home by myself. When I came home nobody was there. First Tony came home, but left again. Than Yukiyo came home. Yoga was with a group of students still in town. Yukiyo and I took the metro to the city and met up with Scott. We had subway for dinner (quality is also better than in the USA). Than we went to the Karaoke. We met up with Yoga, Chris, Peder, Danni, Miho, Christie, Laura and Irina. Had a couple of hours fun singing.

Friday 7/10. Personal day. I slept in and than went to Universal City Walk to the Hard Rock Café. Had to get my pin of course. (If you haven’t noticed yet, I collect those!) I came back home and worked on some stuff and did some editing. For dinner we had some typical Japanese dish, called Natto. This are Soy beans with some sauce (see the picture). It was absolutely disgusting. And that is described in a very nice way! After dinner Nina came to our house (she traveled with Scott) and went out to an Irish Bar. When we stepped in the bar it was like stepping out of Japan. So funny.

Saturday 8/10. Host family day. Again slept in a bit. Than went with Scott and Yukiyo to the city. We started in a bookstore and after that went to a huge electronics store. 8 floors and a basement full. Just saw the basement and the 1st floor. Reason to come back to Osaka, ha-ha! After that we met Nina and too pictures. (You know, these funny Japanese stickers). Than we had lunch at a sushi bar with conveyer belt. After lunch we went to a store UNIQLO, which sells really nice clothes for a good price. After that we went to the Ferris wheel. This is really funny, because it starts at the 7th floor and you really see the whole city when you are on top. Unfortunately it rained before, so the windows where wet and it was dark already. But still a nice view. Than we went home. I cleaned up my suitcase and repacked. It is like cleaning up your entire house/life.

Sunday 9/10. Today we joined in the parade. We met at 14:30 and walked towards the starting point. After waiting a bit, we started. We walked behind a carriage, which had 2 mascotte’s on top and an MC. It was about the environment. We had some people bike in front and we walked behind it with some flags and balloons. We walked for about 2 hours. After we finished we had dinner at the Hard Rock Café (another one than I went to on Friday) and after that we had a drink somewhere on a rooftop. It was a fun day!

Maruko

04/10/05

Monday 26/9. Travel day to Maruko. UWP has been there for many time and because of UWP they are sister city with Broomfield, Colorado. Maruko is the first official UWP town. It was a short travel day and we arrived pretty early. We started with a crew meeting. We had an arrival ceremony. We had some speakers like the mayor, somebody from the Local Organizing Committee and our program manager. After that all the students went on stage and one by one they had to say their host code to find the host family. All the staff was together in a special allocation. Cabins on the mountain. We had 4 cabins and I shared mine with Atsushi and Rob.

Tuesday 27/9. Our internal day. Since we had the theater for the whole week and not much time later, we used our intern time to set up. It was nice to be in a real theater. They had a huge screen, so we used theirs and we also used their speakers. That saved a lot of time setting up. After lunch we had a speaker about the education system. After that I went back to the theater to finish some stuff, fixed a road case, cleaned up a bit, etc. Bob and Anke found out that if we parked somewhere we could have wireless internet, so every night before we went to the cabins we stopped to do some “downloading”. At night we had a brainstorm session to help improve the program.

Wednesday 28/9. CI day. The students went on different CI projects. We had a Creative Production Department Day and stayed behind, meeting a bit and catching up with some work. I started to work on editing a DVD of our first Celebration. In the afternoon we had another speaker. This time a real UWP legend, Dr. Carolyn Lee. She was a teacher on the road back in the 70’s. She had talked to almost every cast and is an amazing speaker. After dinner we had a staff meeting, which was led by Dr. Carolyn Lee. Teaching us about giving and receiving feedback. Another interesting session.

Thursday 29/9. Another CI day and I stayed behind again working on different stuff. In the afternoon we had Dr. Carolyn Lee speaking to us again. After host pick up (when the host families come to pick us up) we had Fun and Games. This is for staff, once every region to spend sometime together outside of work. We first went to a restaurant. Korean BBQ. Really nice dinner. We celebrated the birthday’s of the staff who don’t have a b-day during this semester. After the dinner we went bowling. So much fun.

Friday 30/9. In the morning rehearsal, in the afternoon our personal day. We had a fun rehearsal and part of it was different workshops. We had 4 stations. Lights, sound, video and event management. All the students went to all the stations and the interns thought them about their area and what they have learned. For lunch we had a big surprise for the students. We went as waiters and served them lunch. We started with a slice of pizza, followed by a sandwich and as a dessert ice cream. After that we had the option to watch a movie on the big screen on stage. I could finish it, because I went to the spa. Very nice to see a typical Japanese spa and I also took a massage. We went out to have a Chinese dinner with Dr. Carolyn Lee, Tom, Melissa, Atsushi, Rob and Hiroko. After coming back to the cabin we (Hiroko and me) finished the movie. By the way, when Bob went to do some “downloading” the police approached him. The neighbors thought it was strange that there was a van and a truck everyday full of people with laptops! He got away fine though!

Saturday 1/10. Host family day, but since I didn’t had one, it was a free day. I slept in and was woken up because we had to move. Apparently they had rented out 2 of the cabins for the weekend. So we could either move to a Tatami room in the main building or move in with one of the other cabins. So I moved into a cabin and stayed in the room with Ana and Hiroko. After moving and doing some laundry we went to a shopping center. Spend some time there looking around and buying dinner. After we came home we watched a movie.

Sunday 2/10. Today we had the celebration as closure to an international fair. So, in the morning everybody was at different booths. I stayed in the theater and we had some individual rehearsals. We had a great celebration. Since we had such a big stage most of the staff joined in and in some part I joined as well. That was fun and very challenging to be on stage and mix some parts. After the celebration we had to strike and when we just finished that we had a host family reception where we did a small performance as well. After the reception we were all exhausted. It has been a good, but busy week. We came back to the cabins and watched another movie. I fall asleep during the movie and went to bed.

Toyota

26/09/05

Sunday 18/9. Had to get up early in the morning. Our host family drove us to the airport. I helped to arrange the UwP luggage, that we had to divide between the crew. Our first flight was from L.A. to San Francisco. It took a long time to check in and after that the lines for the security. Since our flight was soon, we could skip the line. We all got through except Bob. He was taken on the side and got some extra attention. I waited for him, while the rest made their way to the plane. He finally got through and when we walked towards the gate, they called our names saying that they were going to close the gate. So we ran and we made it. We sat down, closed the doors and we… didn’t leave! Some part was broken and had to be replaced before we took off. It was an unusual part and they didn’t had that in stock. So they had to call other airlines to see if somebody had the part. It was an electrical breaker for the plugs inside the cabin that are used for vacuuming the plane at night!!! Yes, the had to get that replaced and we left an hour late. Which meant that our connection in San Francisco would be very close. We arrived in San Francisco and about 20 minutes. We had to take a bus, but we all made it. We were on our way to Nagoya! It took us about 11 hours. And with a time difference of 16 hours! We had some nice movies and I slept about 2 hours I think. We arrived local time around 17:00. When they had their final talk on the plane before getting off, they also thanked UwP for flying with them. That was so nice. The Japan office was waiting for us there. Also we have a new crewmember. Irina from Russia. She couldn’t join us in the States, because of Visa problems, so we made an exception for her to join us later. We all got some money at the airport, because ATM’s where we can get money are not so common. Than we packed up our truck with all the luggage and got on the bus. A very nice bus. By the way, they drive here on the other side of the road. We drove to Toyota city and we meet in the Toyota stadium. We had our arrival meeting and than our host families came. My host mom and host brother came to pick me up. My host brother got the car and hit a pole when he took the curve to small. Oops! We went to a restaurant and had dinner. I was very tired. After dinner we went home and I went to bed almost immediately. I first went to the bathroom. Let me tell you, that is an experience. Everything goes automatically. You walk in, the seat goes up and the light goes on. Than there is a control panel on the side. Since they have Japanese signs on there, I just tried some buttons. One was to flush, another one to put the extra ring up. Than the other buttons are for the built in bidet.

Tuesday 20/9. Our internal day. The shower is interesting as well. You shower next to the bath, instead of inside. And also many controls and buttons here. Very high tech stuff. When we left, I walked towards the car and totally went to the wrong side of the car. We started the morning with a company update about UwP. Afterwards we had a meeting with the complete Creative Production Department (including interns) and got an update about the celebration for the first 3 cities. Than we took the tech interns and walked to Starbucks. There we had a check-in on how they are feeling. After lunch we had educational time and afterwards Community Impact (CI) preparation. I was picked up by my host mom and my host sister. After dinner I shared my pictures with them.

Wednesday 21/9. Our CI day. Our equipment has arrived. Great news. It came through customs in time. What a day. We started with a tea ceremonie. Now, I love green tea, but this ain’t the same! Imagine green tea without the water. So very thick and strong. With that came a sweet something with beans inside. But it was nice to have such a ceremonie. After that we went to the Mayor of Myoshi. Very interesting how that works. Very formal. We all got a beautiful present. A cup with canoeing people on it. After the Mayor we had lunch in a restaurant and we had chicken tempura, miso soup and rice. Love it! After lunch it was time for Cano polo! We went to the place where the championship was held in 2004 (the Dutch won that year). First we got some explanation and than we went into the water. We first got some time to practice and just try it. I lost balance a couple of time when I went to fast or tried reaching for the ball and that resulted in swimming. Great water though, so I didn’t mind. At the end we played a game. I flipped a couple of times and helped some other people in having the same experience (haha). Our team won and we all got a price. A nice bag. We also got a key chain and a pin. After we left we came back to the facility and had a CI wrap up and some free time before my host sister came to pick me up. We had dinner and I worked a little on the computer.

Thursday 22/9. Today we went to the World Expo. Since it was the last week of the expo, it was very crowded and many long lines to enter certain pavilions. I started in the pavilion of the Netherlands. That was pretty cool. After that I went to Scandinavia, where I met some of the crewmembers. I joined them for lunch in the Belgium pavilion. They had real Belgium fries. I had that for lunch. I can honestly say, they were the most disgusting Belgium fries I ever had! Better wait for Belgium! After lunch I took of again by myself. I went to the Russian pavilion and after that I decided to go to another part. As I walked along the walking path, I met Hiroko and Ana and we all went to see some pavilions. I left them again to go to the Canadian Pavilion. Our crew could enter through the VIP entrance in small groups at certain times. This saved a lot time, not standing in line. After the Canadian pavilion we all went to the Czech pavilion. That was at the south side and we were meeting at 16:00 at the North side (just a small group of staff who were doing wet up). We started walking at 15:50 in a fast paste and we got there 16:05. We took a train back to Toyota and had dinner in an Italian restaurant. Than we walked towards the celebration facility. We had to set up Thursday night because the next morning we would visit the Toyota factory. Set up went well and at 21:00 I went home. Than we had dinner again (I was still stuffed from the previous dinner).

Friday 23/9. We started our day with a visit to the Toyota factory. We walked through the assembly shop. A lot of work in this part is still done by people. Very interesting. They make 1800 cars a day! After the factory tour we went to the Toyota hall. Lot’s of cars are displayed there, as well as future cars, robots and some other stuff. They had a welcome sign for us and had a demo of the robot especially for us. We had some time to look around. They had a display of overseas project they support and they had a picture of UwP there. (Dr. Toyota is on the board of UwP). Than we had lunch and a Q&A (Question and Aswer) session with some very high positioned people. That was really interesting and the lunch very tasteful. After lunch we left to the celebration facility and had a guest speaker, Ms. Shirane. She is one of the founders of UwP and very influential in Japan. (She is a descendant from 2 of the 3 mayor families in Japan). Than we had rehearsal. All the MC’s in the show are in Japanese. My intern is Japanese, so he knows when the cues are for starting the music. I though he was ready for mixing the show at night and so he did. I helped him a few moments, but he did really well. After the show we had to strike immediately. The load in and out was via a starcase of about 2 floors. So that was a little less fun! After we were finished we had some people come over to our house and had some more food and nice conversations.

Saturday 24/9. Personal day. I started with a nice sleep in morning. After breakfast (lunch) I went to a small mall. I looked around a bit. On the top floor they had a kind of market. Very busy and they had stuff that I would never buy! Anyway, afterwards I went just outside of the mall where they had different stands. One of them was some kind of promotion for a resort. So, I tried it. You got a towel and stick your feet in hot water. Really nice and relaxing. After a while I went back home. Worked some on the computer for a bit and went for a walk with my host mom and dog. We were going to have dinner in a restaurant, together with Laurence his host family. It was a table with 2 grills inside and you had to grill everything yourself. That was really nice. I also tried something new. Chicken bone! Yes, you read it correctly, chicken bone… you know, the soft bone of a chicken. No, I wouldn’t recommend it. It was very strange and not very tasteful. After dinner we went to a Karaoke club. Now, don’t think of this as a bar with one karaoke machine. There were many private rooms, which you rented for some hours. My host mom and her friend song a couple of songs, but they let us sing the most. For three hours!!! No voice at the end of that! But we had fun. (Didn’t know karaoke could be so much fun).

Sunday 25/9, host family day. I slept in again, did some work on the computer and relaxed. Around 15:00 we went to Marco’s host family. There were more host families and our crewmembers. We had dinner and hang out together. Some of us performed for them, dancing and singing. We had a great time.

Los Angeles

20/09/05

Sunday 11/9. Travel day to Los Angeles. It was not that far, so we left a little later than usual. We arrived at the Universal Studios Citywalk. The place where we were going to be all week. We met in an old dinner theater, which has been out of use for about 2 years now. One of the Local Organizing Committee members is an alumni and works there. So amazing to be in the middle of all that. My host family could not make it to host pick-up, so we were picked up by an alumni and she would make us dinner and our host dad would pick us up at her house. She lived in Hollywood, about 1 block away from Hollywood boulevard, the street where all the stars are. Before dinner we walked around the boulevard and had dinner afterwards. Than our host dad came to pick us up. Guess where we live. Beverly Hills 90210. Our house was all the way on top of the mountain. We lived in a secured area and P. Diddy used to live across the street and J Lo got married in our neighborhood as well.

Monday 12/9. The morning started with project time, which we used to set up our stuff, because we didn’t had time later that week. In the afternoon we watched the movie Crash. Very good movie about racism and different cultures in L.A. or any big city. After the movie we had some more Japan prep in general and concerning our Celebration. After the prep the students arranged a surprise for the staff, called staff appreciation. We all got called on the stage one by one and somebody read a note to us about what they appreciate in us. Danni and Shimpei played a song that they wrote themselves. Very nice and touching. After that we had dinner and some more internal time.

Tuesday 13/9, community service day. Most of us went to work on a tall ship. We started with explanation about their Youth Program and that was very interested. Before lunch the first group started and after lunch the second, of which I was part of. We could clime up in the mast and our work was sanding and cleaning the ship, so it would be ready to be repainted. It was a nice day. Afterwards the Americans had a cultural presentation, which was also very interesting and fun.

Wednesday 14/9, our second community service day. We started in the foodbank. A small group of 8 (including me) prepared 1512 bags to be ready for the conveyer belt. After lunch we helped the rest, putting more stuff in each of those bags and cleaning all the empty boxes. Around 14:00 we left for a Drum Circle. This was led by an alumni. We all sat in a circle and got drums. Than we played just as we felt like and it sounded pretty amazing. After each session we discussed about what we did and how that relates to teamwork and leadership. It was a fun and relaxing afternoon.

Thursday 15/9 was our personal day. All the staff could get into Universal Studios for free and went through the backstage. That was great and I spend a whole day there. Wow, it is such a nice place. We did the studio tour. And all the rides. It wasn’t that busy and there were hardly any waiting lines. They had some new rides like Jurassic Park, The Mummy, Shrek 4D and Van Helsing. We also went to the show Waterworld, with lot’s of stunts and pyrotechnics. The park closed at 18:00. We hanged around at Citywalk for a bit and had dinner there.

Friday 16/9, day of the Celebration. We started the morning with Regional Learning. We had 2 entertainment panels and could ask them about L.A./Hollywood and the film and music business. Very interesting. We also got to see the police car of one of the panel members. After lunch we had North American wrap up. I created the slideshow for that. After the wrap up we had rehearsal. We learned a new Japanese song, which we will be adding. During the rehearsal all the staff got a company update from Hiro, who came over from Denver. The Celebration went really well. Afterwards we had to strike really fast, because Rob had to bring the equipment to the airport, so it could be shipped immediately to Japan. Hopefully we will get it in time.

Saturday 17/9, our Host Family Day. First we slept in a bit. Then we had a very nice big breakfast. After breakfast we went with the dogs to walk around a park. At the other side of the lake was a huge house, which was just built there 2 weeks before. It was a set for a movie. After the park we quickly stopped at the post office so I could send some stuff home. After that we went to Venice Beach. We walked around a bit and had lunch there. Than we went to the mall and after that we went to drive by some of the movie star houses. Than we came home for dinner. After dinner I started copying some of my host dad’s music and made him a CD. Than I packed and updated my website. I went to bed around 3:00 in the night and had 3 hours to sleep.

San Diego

14/09/05

Monday 5/9 Travel day to San Diego. We arriveday d in SD at a really n facility. The Veterans Museum. I was staying at a special allocation, with Melissa, Hiroko, Dee Ann and Krista (all staff). We were staying in an alumni’s friend house, while she was away. The alumni, Stacey was hosting as well.

Tuesday 6/9. I slept on an air mattress in the living room and woke up about every 2 hours that night on the floor, cause the mattress was leaking. Not so happy about that. Another thing was that the house was extremely dirty. We started the day with intern time. Bally and I worked in the truck, spray painting some of the boxes that hadn’t been marked yet. That took us till lunch. After lunch was an education meeting or as we call it Stonesoup. Last Friday the 3rd the new name of our celebration was officially announced. It is now called the “Up with People’s San Diego Celebration”. Of course in each city we change the city name. After the host pick up, I went home to get dinner and after dinner Stacey picked me up and I coulted use internet at her house. I did a little bit of internet, but spend some time talking to Bally, who was hosted there.

Wednesday 7/9, CI day. I the morning I went to Mama’s Kitchen. This is an organization that provides meals and groceries to people who are affected with aids or HIV. We started making food packages and making small bags of food out of big packages. After lunch we continued, but were done very quick. So we went to the beach to do an extra project and cleaned up a big part of the beach. After a little over an hour, we were picked up again and we went to a different part of the beach, where we had dinner and a bonfire. That was really nice.

Thursday 8/9. Regional Learning. We went to the Border Patrol for a tour. This is the border between Mexico and the USA and it is very well guarded. It was really interesting to hear it from their point of view and after a little talk they took us in 3 vans along the border, all the way to the sea. When we came back we had a guest speaker from the organization Survivors of Torture. And after that we had a very special guest talking to us. The founder of UwP, Blenton Belk. His speech was an inspiration for a lot of us and it was really nice to have him meet us.

Friday 9/9. Our Celebration Day. Even before morning meeting we cleaned up the stage. It was a mess onstage, full with props and nobody to clean that up. Immediately after morning meeting we started to set up. We had 2 alumni that provided us with lights, since the facility didn’t had any. In the afternoon we had a rehearsal, just focused on transitions. And it payed off. We had the best Celebration so far. The energy was amazing. The reception/fair afterwards was also very successful. Lot’s of people stayed and had a good time.

Saturday 10/9, our personal day. I went to the famous San Diego Zoo. I went there with Tom and Melissa, but I knew they wanted to spend some time alone. So we went to a show together and afterwards I called Stacey (the alumni) because I knew they were coming aswell. The just arrived and I met up with them. Stacey and her host “kids”, Bally (UK), Huning (China), Kara (USA) and Andrea (Puerto Rico). Around 14:30 we met some other students in the park, Shimpei (Japan), Tici (Brazil), Brandy (USA) and Rie (Japan). We went to get some lunch and after I joined the other group, because they were going to the Skyfari (cable cart) and I wanted to join them. We had to split up in the carts and I went with Tici. After joining them for a while I went back to the Stacey group and when they were going home around 17:30 I joined Tom and Melissa again. Are you confused now? Feel free to read that part again, I’ll wait for you! So when the park closed at 18:00 I was with Tom and Melissa. But I really wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café, so I took a bus there and met some cool people on the way. Than I took a taxi back to the Veterans Museum, where the van picked me up. Than we went to eat some ice cream, before coming home.

The hot week!

12/09/05

Phoenix.

Monday 29/8. Travel day from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Wow, Phoenix is hot!! About 40 – 45 degrees Celcius. My roommates where Reuben from Singapore, Brianne from the USA and Aya from Japan. We were picked up by our host mom Donna” and her neighbor Mary. They were going to host us together. 3 in Donna’s house and 1 in Mary’s. We got home and started with a tour. Donna has 2 houses attached and connected to each other. One mainly used for her office. At a certain point of the tour I thought we were back a the beginning, but we were all the way at the other end. Very funny.

Tuesday 30/8. Community Service day. We went with the whole group to a school for homeless children. We started with an explanation of the school and a speech of the mayor. After that we split up into different groups. The first group was split up and went with 3 people to the classrooms, doing different activities and telling them about their countries. The other group ( I was part of that one) set up a World Expo Fair outside, with different booths from continent. After lunch the students came in 3 groups, in total about 260 students. It was very successful. We taught them some dancing and told them about ourselves and our countries. After cleaning up the fair the students went to a next project and Rob and I went back to the house that we were using all week. (An empty house for all our meetings and workroom.) Around 17:30 we Rob and his roommates dropped me of at the Apple store in Scottsdale. My microphone was broken, so I wanted to have that fixed. My host mom picked me up from there and we went to have dinner together at a really nice Mexican restaurant. We sat outside, which would be to hot normally, but they had a system that sprayed water into the air. After dinner we went to pick up the students (they had dinner together). Than Donna took us to show the library (see the pics) and downtown Scottsdale. Which ended with an ice cream in this restaurant from the 50’s and it still had that same look. (Great ice cream too!!) When we got home, we got changed and sat in the hot tub (yes, we had a hot tub) for a while. Very relaxing before going to bed.

Wednesday 31/8. Internal day/community service day. We started in the morning with intern time. The set pieces that we worked on last week needed to be primed and glued. We made a start, but didn’t have enough time. So after lunch the students had community service and I continued. It was outside in the back of our truck. It was so hot outside. It was a tough job, but at the end of the day it was finished! After dinner I went to an alumni party for the staff. They had a big pool and we had so much fun in the pool.

Thursday 1/9. In the morning we had education time, or as we call it, stonesoup. I joined in and it was very interesting. After lunch the students went to another CI project. I stayed behind and Donna came to pick me up to bring me to some workshops that the Apple store gave. First one on iLife and a second workshop on Final Cut Express, which is the editing program we use. After that my host mom came to pick me up again and took me back. We had a guest speaker from the Seawater foundation. That was very interesting. After the speaker the host families came to pick up the students and the staff stayed behind for the staff meeting. Around 22:00 we were finished and one of the vans took me home.

Friday 2/9. Today was our personal day and we had the opportunity to go to the Grand Canyon. It was about 4 hours to get there and again 4 hours back. We left early. We got to the gates of the Gran Canyon and stopped at the entrance. Than one of the rangers came in the bus and told us that she was an alumni and traveled in D85. We had about 3 hours at the Grand Canyon. I hanged out with our 3 Brazilian girls, Celle, Tici and Marina. Celle, Tici and I climbed a bit and stand on a rock very high up. Got some great pics of that.
Wow, what an amazing place. Looked so fake when we were there, almost like a backdrop in a theatre, but than you realized that it was so real. Before we got back on the bus, we saw the alumni driving her patrol car and she gave Chris (Netherlands) and me a lift to the store. After Donna picked us up, we went to a mall and hang out for a little while. Than we dropped of the girls and Donna, Reuben and I went downtown to the Hard Rock Café.

Saturday 3/9. The Celebration day. We were in a huge auditorium. We started in the morning with set up. After lunch we had our CEO (Chief Executive Officer) talk to us. After that we had a bit of rehearsal and than the Celebration. We had for the first time a big fair and that was really successful. We had one of the Colwell brothers in the audience. They wrote most of the UwP songs, so that was a big honor.

Sunday 4/9. Our host family day. After a little bit of sleeping in, Donna, Reuben and I went to the river to go tubing. This is sitting in a tube (inside tire of a truck wheel) and letting the current take you down the river. I bought a disposable water camera for that and as soon as those are developed, I will post some online. It took us about 2 hours to get to the point where we had to get out again. That was so nice. When we got out we did some volunteer work and cleaned up some of the trash there. Such a shame that it was so polluted at a nice place like that. When we came back we had guest coming over for game night. We had dinner all together and played some new games. It was a nice relaxing

New Mexico.

03/09/05

Albuquerque!
Monday 22/08, our first travel day! I was assigned to drive with Rob in the truck, or as we call him the Moose. It was a long drive and the bus isn’t driving as fast as we thought. Meaning we arrived 1,5 hour to late. On the way we had a stop and we saw horses going through the drive thru. That was something I had never seen. (see the picture). I stayed in the hotel this week and was roommate with Rob.

Tuesday 23/08. In the morning it was project time (time to be with our interns). Ah-Reum (Korea), Shimpei (Japan) and me worked on creating some set pieces. Got pretty far and we will finish it next city. In the afternoon we had CI prep (Community Involvement) and after that WSC prep were we talked about our first WSC. During lunch we had the video set up and watched the WSC. Last thing for the day was salsa lesson. We had a guest teacher come in and had fun learning some steps. Afterwards the managers had a meeting and the rest of the staff and 2 students went to have dinner together, as it was Marco’s (Mexico) birthday. After our real Mexican dinner we went with them to their special allocation. A big house just for themselves. When the managers where finished meeting we came back to the hotel.

Wednesday 24/08. Our CI day. I went to a home for youth that had been in trouble and didn’t had family to go to. So they would stay there, pay rent and got education on how to deal with real life. Like opening a bank account for example. We did hard labor there. Some of us were painting a room that had girls move in later that week and I was in a group who cleaned up outside. (see the before and after pictures) Afterwards we were pretty tired. We came back to the facility. We had CI wrap up and afterwards a crew meeting. Unfortunally we had to dismiss a student from the program. He broke several rules and had done some other things that couldn’t be tolerated. It was very hard for some of the crew members, who couldn’t understand how the decision could be made. Due to his privacy we can’t tell the students what he did, but he had gotten already several chances.
Afterwards Marco, Krista, Ana, Yoshimi, Tom, Melissa, Noel, Laurence and me went to a concert of Coldplay. They were playing in this awesome outside stage. We bought grass tickets, but just before the came on stage, we were approached and asked if we wanted to move to the seats. So we moved up and even got some better seats. It was a great concert.

Thursday 25/08 was our regional learning day. We went to Santa Fe. I started with a guest speaker about Indians. She was an alumni and an Indian. It was very interesting. They Native Americans of that area have a big influence of the Mexican/Spanish people. So much different than the ones I met in Canada. After lunch the Creative Production department (Rob, Nina, Hiroko and me) went to Rob’s old college and went into the costume shop, which is run by his old roommate. A really nice guy. We could use his machines and created some costume accessories for the WSC. Yes, I am an expert now. Afterwards we met up with Laurence and Yoshimi, who stayed behind in Santa Fe and we went to see an Opera. The Barber of Seville in a beautiful outside theater. The sunset there was gorgeous. We had standing room and it was pretty hot, so you can imagine how hard that was. Before the intermission it took 90 minutes. I was in the 2nd standing row, so it was hard to see the stage. After the intermission some people left and I could move one row up.

Friday 26/08. WSC day. We where in a theater that had already a set on stage. That was pretty challenging to fit there. We started with a crew meeting and afterwards we started setting up. Sound and video was on the balcony. This was also challenging, as it was hard to hear how the sound was downstairs. One of the staff members of our CI site came and he was very impressed. He signed up to be a future host family and was just so positive and impressed, which was nice to hear. After the strike we went to get a burger and after that back to the hotel. Where Nina, Rob and I had a beer before going to bed.

Saturday 27/08. After breakfast Rob, Anke, Dee Ann and I went for a swim and went into the spa. Later we went to Target and than Hiroko, Rob and I went to Santa Fe. Rob went to meet his friends. Hiroko and I walked around and looked at the native art in stores. We met up again with Rob and his friends and had a great dinner together at a restaurant called Cowgirls. That was very nice and very relaxing.

Sunday 28/08. In the morning I catched up doing some work. At 15:00 we had Fun and Games. This is organized once every region, to have the staff together without working. We started by playing volleyball in the pool. We improvised in making a net and had a great time. Afterwards we went to dinner in a Mexican restaurant. After the dinner we went to play minigolf. That was so much fun.

“Our first week on the Road”

28/08/05

This week is supposed to be the first one on the road. But since we stayed in Denver, it doesn't really feel like it yet.

Monday 15/8 was our Regional Learning day. We started with a tour of Celestial Seasoning, the tea factory. I have been there 7 years ago and it was nice to see that again. After the tour we went downtown Boulder and had lunch there. After the lunch we split up in different groups and had a scavenger hunt. We had a team of 6 and had about 18 questions to answer. The price was ice cream. We did some together and split up to get more answers. After the scavenger hunt we had a guest speaker about gangs.

Tuesday 16/8 we started the day with project time. The time to work with our interns. Rob took the editors and worked with them on the Mac’s. At the same time I explained about the video mixer and set everything up, video and sound. It was nice to get some practice before our first celebration. In the afternoon I worked on the country intro slideshow. A slideshow with all our country flags and pictures.

Wednesday 17/8 I had a project/ department day. This means that we won’t be in the normal activities and might not be in at all. This day we were around and were busy with the last preparations for the WSC. Rob and Nina went to pick up the truck and did some shopping. Hiroko and I worked on our staff in the work room. At night my host family took my roommate, 2 other staff members and me to another soccer game. This time we were sitting really close to the cheerleaders. Peder, my roommate even got them to pose for us. He asked one of the girls if she could pose. She replied: Me or the whole team. And Peder answered, no, just the girls. (there are guys as well to help with the stunts).

Thursday 18/8 Rob and I went to Home Depot to do some shopping. We are creating a little simple set. 2 Sets of legs made out of colorful drapes. We had to figure out a base that is easy to set up and can be transported in on of our road cases. It took us quite some time figuring out a system and calculating how much we need. We bought the stuff and had a quick stop at McDonalds, cause we needed to set up for rehearsal. We came back at 14:15 and started rehearsal at 14:30. A lot of stuff to go through. And still so much to polish before Saturday.

Friday 19/8, our personal day. I slept in and my host mom, and Peder went to Qdoba, a Mexican restaurant for lunch. After lunch I met up with Rob for a little cleaning of our road cases and sorting through them to see what we can leave here. After that my host mom came to pick me up and we went to shop for food for my BBQ on Sunday. In the evening we had a pizza party organized by one of the host families. Almost everybody was there.

Saturday 20/8. The first WSC day. We started the day in different groups. We worked with our interns and some other people on setting up the equipment, while others had vocal or movement workshops. After that we had a sound check and after lunch the rehearsal started. At 17:00 rehearsal was finished and the students went to dinner. Rob still needed to edit some footage and I stayed and worked on a powerpoint presentation. We missed dinner and at 18:00 everybody returned and got changed. At 18:30 it was time for The Huddle. It is a time for the presentation where we get ourselves pumped up and go over the last notes. (like greenroom in the old program) The house opened at 19:00, and the presentation started half an hour later. It went really well for the first time. Of course some minor mistakes where there on all sides, but the audience was happy and so where we. A great accomplishment for the short period we had. After the presentation we had a reception and at 21:30 we started to strike and pack up all our stuff. Some host families and their students went to get a drink and so did we. And at 12:00 they sang for my birthday and I even got some cake with ice cream. Great way to end the day.

Sunday 21/8, my birthday. After a little sleep in, I helped my host mom and dad to get ready for my b-day party. We had 3 buckets of drinks with ice that I prepared and I vacuumed the house. I invited mostly the staff, since I didn’t want to make it too big. I had a BBQ and it was very nice. Almost everybody came and it was a nice and relaxed afternoon. When everybody was gone it was time to pack and get ready for our first travel day.

Catching up!!!

15/08/05

Update 3.

No way, time is going so fast, it has been 2,5 weeks since my last update. So prepare yourself for a long one. (maybe a good idea to get a bathroom stop and a drink before you continue)

So to continue where I left of. Monday 25/7 was another day in the office, we had the European tour overview. Tuesday 26/7 was a different day. Rob, Nina, Hiroko and I went to Leader’s Challenge. They had a closing ceremony of their opening weekend and Rob and I provided them with our sound and video equipment. Nina and Hiroko directed the speakers, singers and flag ceremony. Everything went well and it was nice to finally see all the equipment we have.

Wednesday 28/7 was an early morning. All the staff, Road and office were meeting in Denver at the Leader’s Challenge office. Hiro, our Chief Operation Officer introduced us to our new CEO (Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Spaulding. An alumni and former staff member of UwP. He founded Leader’s Challenge and he is also their CEO. He presented the future plans and what we need to accomplish. For now both organizations will be on their own, but with a special department called Shared Resources. This means we will share certain resources, like people with knowledge (lot of alumni are working in Leader’s Challenge who can help UwP as well), and office space. New people will be coming on board and the Board of Directors has been renewed. This is a big step and we are all very excited.

The rest of the week was all preparing for the students arrival. Some of the staff went to the reunion from Thursday till Sunday. Friday night we decorated the vans for the arrival day.

Saturday 30/7, student arrival day. Time for the staff assistants to get out the hotel and move to a host family. We started the day with going to a pancake restaurant for breakfast with all the staff. Afterwards we split up. Some went to the airport and others to the facility. Unfortunately they thought we were getting there at 14:00 instead of 12:00. So we waited outside and when somebody opened the door, we started setting up the different registration tables. I went to the airport to film and also filmed at the facility. Since my roommate came in late, I stayed the last and we were taken to our host family. I have stayed with them before, so I felt right at home.

Sunday 31/7 was a day to relax a bit and get some work done. We also went to a Super Walmart. I have seen some big stores before, but this beats all. Unbelievable, huge!!!

Monday 1/8 I was picked up at 6:15. Day of opening session and sooo much to do. My manager, Rob had to get his tonsils out that morning. So with Nina and Hiroko, we prepared everything and it went pretty well. Monday was a day of getting to know each other.

Tuesday 2/8 we had some meetings and we gave them an introduction to our WorldSmart Celebration (WSC). In the afternoon we presented all the internships.
Wednesday 3/8 the students went to the University of Colorado. Nina, Hiroko and I worked in the hotel and went to Denver in the afternoon for the Colorado State Capitol tour.

Thursday 4/8 we had some meetings in the morning and another WSC Preparation in the afternoon. Starting to teach them some dances and songs. At night we had a staff meeting, where we had some training about admissions.

Friday 5/8 we had some more WSC prep and in the afternoon we had modules. It was the first day Rob came back and led one of the modules. We split everybody up in 4 groups. Vocals, speaking, movement and photography. That way we could see what level they were at. I also went to the WSC facility to see if that would work for us. At night we celebrated Nina’s b-day. We went to laser tag and carting. Afterwards we went to Hooters for the chicken wings.

Saturday 6/8 I had a meeting about interns. Rob had been bleeding that night and went back into surgery. As it turned out, we had no interns applying for the technical area. This was very difficult, because Rob and I can’t do that by ourselves. We decided that I was going to approach some people on Monday and meet again about interns in the afternoon. After the meeting we went to Hiro’s (our COO) house and had a BBQ and a nice relaxing afternoon. At night I went to a soccer game with my host family and roommate. Everybody knows I don't like soccer, but actually it was nice. The reason was not the soccer though! In the US the have cheerleaders, haha. (check out the pics!)

Sunday 7/8 we took my host families camper out to be stored. Was a nice ride in a pick-up from 1976. On the way back we stopped at a Walmart and did some shopping. They didn’t have what I wanted, so after dinner, Tina (my hostmom) and I went to the super Walmart.

Monday 8/8 again meetings and WSC prep. We had a vocal teacher coming in to teach some songs. No success in asking for interns. We had a meeting again at the end of the day and I came up with an idea. I was going to make an announcement for volunteers and just be honest. Everybody agreed. This meant that if they’re were going to be volunteers, that we would need to relook the whole intern positions.

Tuesday 9/8 started with that announcement. We made a funny sketch. We (Rob, Hiroko and I) started with dancing to some music. Than the music stopped and the lights went off. I tried speaking in the mic, but no sound. Than I told that without technics, there is no performance. It helped! I had 3 students coming up to me, making our team 5 people. That would work.
In the evening we went to Red Rocks, an outside amphitheater in the mountains. We came when they were striking the band and say the movie, the Goonies. It was great. Such a beautiful location.

Wednesday 10/8 we had our first community service day. We had to take a bus for 2 hours. I sat next to Miho from Japan. Had a nice conversation. We were making a horse trail. Big logs at the side and fill it up with stones, heavy ones! Afterwards they were going to put some nice cover over it. We were all exhausted and slept on the way back.

Thursday 11/8 we had WSC prep in the morning. After the lunch the students had a tour overview and I worked on my own stuff. In the afternoon we had, as we call it Check In time, where we sit in random groups and talk about how they are doing.

Friday 12/8 we had WSC workshops. I joined in a workshop to learn the sign language for one of the songs. Pretty cool. During lunch 2 students organized an open mic session. Lot’s of talent in the group and it was really nice. In the afternoon we had our first intern time. Talked about their goals and showed some of our technical equipment. After dinner I went with my host parents to a play of my host brother from 7 years ago. That was nice.

Saturday 13/8. Today we went rafting. It was a long drive, about 3 hours. Luckily the host dad that gave us a lift drove a bit quicker and we got their in 2 hours and 15 minutes. We were the first ones and had our lunch. Rafting was awesome. I shared a boat with Miho from Japan, Christie from Mexico and their host family and host sister and Laurence from Ireland. Out raft guide was Mother. It took about 2,5 hours. Unfortunately the weather was not so great and with the water and the wind it was cold at times. After the rafting we had some Mexican dinner before driving back.

Sunday 14/8 (today) was a relaxing day. Had the grandchildren over, which was nice and tiring. I did some laundry and even worked on my host dad Robbie’s Pick up. Finished connecting the radio, which he started and putting in a brake controller for the trailer. Lot’s of wires and soldering. Fun stuff. Now it is 23:35 and time to go to bed. Wanted to get this update up and I will try to update at least ones a week. It was hard to remember what I did 3 weeks ago!

Don’t forget to look at the new pics!
Ciao for now,
Gaby.

Second update

23/07/05

Wow, more than a week to catch up. So we had a great time at the retreat. Beautiful place in the mountains. We had a nice mix of meetings and free time. On Friday we came back.

Saturday and Sunday we had our free days. Did laundry on Saturday and just relaxed a bit. In the afternoon some of us played soccer and our operations manager Anke broke het ankle in 4 places. In the evening we had a BBQ at a student from last semester. Was great fun.

On Sunday Anke needed to get surgery and got 11 screws in her ankle. I met up with Nelleke and Annet (2 Dutch friends) who are in Denver. At night a group of the staff went to the movie “The Fantastic 4”.

Monday we had meetings again and in one of them we had our American tour presented to us. We are going to have some really nice activities.

Tuesday we had CPR and First Aid all day. Afterwards we had Happy Hour
with all the Road and Office staff.

Wednesday meetings again and calling some students to prepare them and
calling to finding host families.

Thursday we had our Japan tour overview, some more meetings and tech
training, where we went over the computers, projectors and other smal electronics. Afterwards we returned to the hotel to discover that the power was out. Apparently it went out at around 8:30 pm. So we decided to go out for dinner with the van, since everything in the neighborhood was also out of power. We also took a trip to the storage, which was fun to see all the old stuff. Power went back on by 1:30 am.

Friday we started with some meetings in the morning. After the meetings
we went with the Creative Production Department to do some shopping and have some lunch before going to the office. Rob and I loaded our sound system into the van and dropped it of at the Leaders Challenge. This organization is founded by an alumni and next Tuesday Rob and I will be helping them technically with their closing session with our equipment. After coming back we had a good meeting about our opening session. Looking good. At night we went out in Denver downtown with a large group of the staff and we met up there with Nelleke and Annet.

Saturday (today) we started with another power out. Apparently it has been
so hot and people using their air conditioner that the transformer broke. We do have power now, but the expect it will go out again tomorrow and they are having a mobile unit up and running by tomorrow afternoon. I did some laundry today and tonight I had dinner with my host family from 7 years ago.

Well, that’s it for now. Please check out all new pictures.

The journey begins...

13/07/05

This morning I got up at home and left the house at 6 a.m., 4 flights en 20 hours later I am finally in Denver. Picked up by Rob, the Event Technology Manager (I am his assistant). Met the other WorldSmart Celebration staff and drove to the hotel. It is a little over 20:00 and I am getting to bed soon. Tomorrow at 9:15 I will start my first day. Of course I will keep you all posted.

Today is Wednesday and the first 3 days are over. Work has started and I really like it. The whole staff is restructured. I am part of the Creative Production Department and my new title is Creative Production Assistant – Technology.

At the hotel we are staying at, we have a little kitchen where we can make our meals. Yesterday I had dinner with 3 other staff members in one of our rooms. It was really nice to just have dinner in a relaxed way together.

I updated the photo’s as well.

Tomorrow we are leaving for a staff retreat, where we will be in the mountains and have some time to get to know each other.

Gaby.

First story

01/06/05

The first story will be published here after I arrive in Denver around the 2nd week of July.

After every update I will send out a mail, that the website is updated. To be on my mailinglist, please e-mail me.

MacGaby.nl

There are no strangers, only friends we haven't met!