almost there

two more days off since the last post, and both of them were fairly uneventful... which was exactly what i needed. we sat by the pool, went to the beach, took naps, and went to see a movie. all activities that require no more effort than occasionally lifting a glass of wine to your mouth. i never thought sitting around doing nothing would feel like such a luxury...





cocoa beach is home to the world's biggest ron jon's surf shop, open 24 hours (in case of a 4am surfing emergency?) which we drove to at midnight because we were stir crazy and i needed a hat.



the situation with the office isn't the greatest... as a cast we're completely unimpressed that our project sheets and original drafts of our contracts blatantly omitted a few things, under the claim that they were 'last minute revisions'... the truth is they knew we wouldn't have agreed to come if those articles were in there, and now that we're here and have gone through rehearsals it's unlikely we'll leave. ugh. apparently we're the first cast that they've hired that aren't dumb as a bunch of monkeys, because we refused to sign them as they were and called a meeting with head office to revise them. as i understand it, this has never happened before, and they're curious as to why we feel that we would like to see things like, oh, i don't know, a copy of our health insurance policy. shocking. the good news is communication seems to have improved since the meeting, and i'm hoping that it will continue to once we've signed everything...

we only have three days left of rehearsals to go. this week, we have a preview show for the office and stakeholders in the company on wednesday night, followed by a party for us at peter's house (he owns the company. also, he's a hundred, i think). we have a day off on thursday to do laundry and pack, and we fly to london on friday morning. we just found out our first show opens on august 8th, two weeks sooner than we anticipated, so i suspect we'll also get called in to rehearse on our day off, which, although annoying, is still better than looking like a disastrous chaotic mess on opening night.



also, i found some lizards on my lunch break and made friends with them. florida isn't good for much, but it's good for lizards.

my next post will be from the ship... if you're interested in pictures of the vessel or my itinerary, you can find it at http://www.princess.com/ships/cp/index.html.

still having a great time, although i think we're all sharing a cold right now... =(

miss you all, and please let me know what's going on with you in the real world!

le update

we had our first day off recently, and it was karen's (one of the dancers) birthday. we all went to the beach (no pictures, my batteries died... it looked like a beach) and then out for dinner and drinks, and to the movies. it's remarkable how thrilling an average day can become when you're stuck in a windowless studio for ten hours a day.







last week we all went to the aerial gym to learn silks and lyra, and ended up having a great time... except that none of us could move our arms above our heads for three days after, our shoulders hurt so much. once we get on the ship we can train every day for half an hour or so, rather than exhausting ourselves for a full day and being useless the day after...








it's hard to believe i've been here for two weeks already... at times it feels like i only arrived a few days ago, and then there's moments where it seems like i've been here and known these people forever. we're making our own fun in cocoa and at the hotel, a.k.a. le chateau dixie (even though it is in the middle of nowhere), but i think we're all anticipating embarkation and starting to install the shows.

courtney (our director that we had last week) is on vacation, so we have someone new for our next two shows. jack is... hm, how to say this diplomatically... less than excellent at life. and dancing. and teaching. and being a nice person. if nothing else, it's bringing the cast closer together, because we have to lean on each other to stay sane and healthy...

speaking of sanity and health, the former is still surviving for me, but less so the latter...i sprained my ankle in rehearsal on tuesday. nothing too serious, and thankfully we have a vocal rehearsal day today and a day off on friday, so i have two days to rest. my partner paul is also injured with a dislocated shoulder, and most of us are resting from strains and pulls and cuts and bruises. thankfully we all are covered for physio, so i'm taking full advantage before we leave. plus, it's fun making the floridians confused when they can't comprehend how i don't have a zip code.




all in all, i'm still having a great time, despite some minor drama with my director and my injury. even though we're all stressed out, i laugh my ass off every day with these people and feel very lucky to have them all in my cast. we're still short one male dancer, so next update i'll let you know how he fits. hopefully he's a non-smoker like the rest of us (a wholly non-smoking cruise cast?! unbelievable!)

i'm here...

i don't have any signal in my apartment, but we do have wireless at the studio, and so far i've come in early every day to stretch, review my choreography from the day before, and check my e-mail/facebook you know you'd do it too). i'm hoping this blog will help to avoid me typing out the same e-mails to everyone, so when i'm on the ship and paying out my ass per minute for service, i can update everyone much more efficiently. i'm so smart sometimes. sometimes, i said....

i almost missed my flight. my carry-on luggage was fourteen pounds over the weight limit, and it took an hour and fifteen minutes to unpack and re-pack everything in the terminal. that combined with security and waiting for over an hour for customs meant i ran to the gate, and thankfully the fight was running late...

so...cocoa, florida is total garbage, but we're all making the best of it. the dixie motel (a.k.a. home) is situated, in all seriousness, between the water tower and the paint factory. so far walmart has been pretty cool...the good thing is that we're two minutes from the pier, and two minutes the other way to the village, and there's really nice cafe's and shops. the studio is only a five minute walk away, although we've been advised not to do the walk alone in the dark. i might not even do it alone during the day, although i hear that brevard county is where all the 'cops' shows are filmed, so who knows...

i'm really enjoying my cast. before i left, i was concerned that i would be the only one over 21, and that i would inevitably become the cast mom, or at the very least, slip subconsciously into RA mode. thankfully, most of the cast is my age, and i even have a few that are older than me. they're all very talented, no weak links form what i can see so far, and the choreographer and the director have already made it pretty obvious that they enjoy having us around... it's 'cause we're uber-fun in addition to being moderately intelligent at our jobs. go us.

my shows are hilarious. in 'cinematastic', we do a section which includes 'fame', 'maniac' and 'what a feeling' ...complete with blacklight-sensitive legwarmers. i run on the spot and swing my ponytail around. for real. in one of the shows all the girls do either silks or hoops, so we're leaving on wednesday to go to orlando for three days to go to circus school. sick.

essentially all i do is wake up, eat breakfast, pack lunch, go to rehearsal, come home, make dinner, practice, and go to sleep. eventually i'll do something interesting and i'll tell you all about it.

keep in touch, send me mail!

miss you all...