My Journey With Up with People: Toluca, Mexico

What a FANTASTIC week! Oh my word. After we toured the pyramids, we piled back on the buses and headed back towards Toluca. I had a lovely bus date with our cast manager, Miss Leslie. We had some bus difficulties along the way, which involved the smell of burning rubber and a misaligned bus (maybe?), but we eventually made it. We had an allocation meeting and then had a big fiesta with all of the host families! There was more food than I knew what to do with, and it was fun to mingle and enjoy live mariachi music. We also did a bit of dancing! =)


The whole cast with the Mariachi band...kind of hard to see where the Mariachi players are in a whole group of Uppies!

Then we headed outside to meet our host families. My host code was Mimo (mime). My host mom and host sister were doing the cutest little miming routine...I LOVED it!

Me, Silvia, Jenny, and Eduardo. Rodrigo was at track practice.

My host family was so sweet this week. Silvia used to be a teacher, but loves to cook and now works for the family catering/party planning company that Eduardo helps manage. Eduardo is also a graphic designer. Rodrigo (18) and Jenny (15) were always so sweet and welcoming - we really did feel like sibilings!

Tuesday I worked in my host sister's high school facilitating classroom workshops. It was a good day, but really tiring! As a cast, we did a workshop called "Stages of Loss" where we started talking about the end of the semester and the various stages one can go through when dealing with a loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It was amazing to understand all the crazy emotions we are going through and will continue to go through as our semester comes to an end. At home that evening, we played the boardgame Sequence - it was really fun, but my body decided I was ready for bed just after 9pm! haha. UWP redefines your sleep schedule in a whole new way!

Wednesday was study abroad day. We got a lot of work done, enjoyed some sunshine, Skyped with our professors, and then got to see the Backing Track Show (BTS) that some of our castmates performed at the Elementary School we were hosted at. A BTS is essentially a mini show or a trailer (of sorts) for our actual show. It highlights some great numbers in our show and condenses our message into a 20-30 minute preview!

After the BTS, we gathered for a cast meeting. We started it like any other normal meeting of 120 people...with a MEGA Musical Chairs game, of course! It got pretty darn intense and super competitive. People were cheating like crazy and really going for it when the music stopped. Oh well, it made for a super entertaining afternoon!

Silvia, Jenny, and I tried going to a movie that night and failed every attempt we made! I hadn't eaten and was going to eat at the theater (families here in Mexico usually eat their big meal at 3pm, so I'm the only one who has to eat at night when I'm picked up), but nothing good was playing and/or the times of the shows didn't work out. We tried two theaters, and I STILL hadn't eaten! Finally, at 9:30pm we gave up on the movie idea and went to Applebee's so I could order my favorite salad to go home and enjoy. It didn't really make it home. Driving home at 10pm I scarfed it down in the backseat! lol

Thursday and Saturday were show days this week, but they were such epic/unique shows that I'll write a blog solely about our Toluca shows!

Friday was another Community Impact day that was a little difficult to wrap my head around. We were super confused the entire time we were at our location and had no idea what we were supposed to be doing. Still not really sure, but oh well. I hope we made SOME kind of impact on the people we interacted with! =P

Sunday brought a wonderful Host Family day! We ate a delicious breakfast of sweet tamales and other treats, and then we loaded up the car to go to Valle de Bravo for a day by the water! My host dad Eduardo took it upon himself to be my personal paparazzi for the day...hence so many pictures!