Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Day 23 - July 27th


















Day 22 - July 26th - By Phil

OK, early morning for a lot of us who went out the night before.  Had 9 am festival proba and blocking followed up by 2 hr rest period for lunch and a nap for myself.  From 2:30 to 5:30 we had a run through of the show.  Each group ran their piece in turn.  We literally sat for that whole time and did nothing while we waited for our time.  Some of us took another nap on the bleachers.  The practice run went pretty well with 7 pairs.  From about 5:30-6:30 we had free time, ate our bagged dinners, and waited some more.  The show started sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 and again we waited around for our turn to go.  It was very nice getting to watch all the other groups perform and several were extremely good and professional acts.  Our piece felt pretty good.  They never seem to be perfect but only very minor issues.  The biggest draw back was only dancing seven pairs due to injuries and the sort time period allowed us. Meaning we had to cut the first two portions of our Jazz suite and of course those were the portions that everyone knew and could dance and where we could show 10 pairs.  Ah well.  The whole festival was televised.  I think that only leaves me with 11 minutes of fame remaining. We've got one more big day tomorrow and then we're done.  I for one am already looking forward to returning home and getting back into my happy routine.  Polish food and particularly the soups are very good but I really miss hot sauce.  Pani Iwona was nice enough to pick up some "Hot Chili Sauce," and give it to me and it's turned out to be as tangy as Hunt's manwich sauce, kind like a slightly spicy catchup.  Air conditioning is going to feel AWESOME!  












Day 21 - July 25th




Day 20 - July 24th - By Alex S

For the first time during this tour, the group united on a single issue: we were all too tired to get up in time for church. Until today we had very little free time, so no one wanted to get up, change into costume, and go to mass for over an hour, and we all slept in. Sadly, Brennan left us today before we went to our concert just before our departure. However, we were all fairly on time to the bus which took us to a lake surrounded by green fields and trees where we ate lunch, got eaten by mosquitos, and goofed around before getting back onto the bus. We then went to a small town for some sight-seeing, we just walked around looking at castles, souvenir booths, and a cathedral. About five minutes before we were supposed to head back to the bus, it started pouring rain so we all huddled together in the cathedral and waited for water to stop falling from the sky. We walked back to the busses past a bunch of flooded areas and left for our concert back at the lake. The changing tents that we had were cold and the ground was sandy and wet, so we all changed on the bus, which was really difficult because we had very little space. The performances went fairly well, we all had fun, and the wearer held up, until about ten minutes after our last dance (which was half way through the performance) when the rain started coming down in sheets. So there we were, huddling inside, eating what food we could buy and waiting for the rain to stop, and suddenly we find out that the rest of the concert has been cancelled due to some injury. Soon afterwards, the secondary stage lights up and a Polish band called 'Rycząnce 20' which translates to 'Roaring 20s', the band was pretty decent, but some groups didn't get to dance, so there were many unhappy people at that concert as well as the next day. Eventually we just got dinner, got eaten by mosquitoes at dinner, and came to the dorm rooms. So all in all, we had fun and enjoyed the sightseeing and dancing but our spirits were a bit dampened by the random weather. 














 


Day 19 - July 23rd