Back in Business

So here I am in Tampa! When I arrived on Sunday, it was 81 and sunny, the sky was blue, and the water was perfectly clear. I felt like I was on vacation rather than getting ready to work for five weeks on a new show haha.

Rehearsals have been going well. We basically sit in a room and practice whatever music we have to practice. We only have about six or seven songs right now, and we're getting really good and those haha but there is a lot more to come. We work from 9:30 to 6 every day except Sunday, and then for the most part I've been relaxing in my room and getting groceries and whatnot to restock from the two weeks I was gone. I've also been able to cook more which has been great, since I have time to do so.

Last night we went down to Ybor City which is in the main part of Tampa. It's an awesome little downtown area that has lots of restaurants and clubs and seems like it will be a lot of fun to go to on our days off, and it's only 10 minutes away!

I realized the other day also that this will be the longest I've ever been at one job. Up until now the longest job I've ever had was my summer at Mac-Haydn which lasted four months. I guess I never really thought about a job being so long-term, but I guess I don't really think about this job that way since I know this isn't where I'm going to stay. I have a lot of other experiences to look forward to :)

Thanksgiving dinner! Yum!

Christmas tree at home :)

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

The Fairgrounds where we rehearse

By our room

I decorated my door for Christmas!

Turkey Lurkey Time

So it's official. The 140th edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey present: Barnum 200 is complete after 758 performances in 77 cities for over four million people. Of course I wasn't present for all of that but it's still a huge accomplishment none-the-less.

After the last show on Sunday and a few farewells and goodbyes, I waited at the nearby Culver's for Taylor to come and drive me and a few others to our hotel by the airport. It was kind of sketchy but it was cheap soooooo yeah haha. Today I flew from Detroit to D.C. to Syracuse and got in around 2:45pm so here I am! Two weeks to re-cooperate and get ready for a year out on the road. So much to do, so little time! I probably won't be updating this while I'm home, so I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'll write again when I make it to Tampa in two weeks! For now, enjoy some pictures from the last show :)

Some clowns with the strongman

Me with the serpentine sisters!

Much of the cast

Another angle

Next up: The 142nd edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey present: Dragons!

Be Italian

So besides the huge outlet mall we found the one other redeeming thing in Auburn Hills, and that is Palazzo di Bocce. It is an Italian restaurant that is also an indoor bocce court. Basically you get a table and an hour and a half and you can order and eat food and have drinks while you play as many rounds of bocce as you would like. It is oodles of fun. Check out the photos below:

Only six shows left...crazy! I'll be staying at a hotel near the airport on Sunday night and flying home Monday morning. At least it's looking like I'll get to see some more snow before I got to Tampa! Tomorrow I'm metting Uncle Anthony for breakfast so it will be nice to see him and catch up :)

P.S. I thought I'd share this version of the song rather than the movie because A) I didn't see it and B) I heard it was terrible.

Let It Snow!

So here I am, in Auburn Hills, using wifi at McDonalds, because THERE IS NOTHING AROUND THE ARENA WHATSOEVER. Up until this point all the arenas have at least been in the downtown area of the city. THis arena is in the suburbs, off of a major highway. The one perk is that there is a GIGANTIC shopping center two miles from where the train is parked. So most of my day on Tuesday was spent walking around the mall shopping and using wifi at Panera haha.

Wednesday I came in early to the arena to see what was around, which is when I discovered that nothing is around, so I had a lot of time to kill. Luckily there is a restaurant attached to the arena that is only open for lunch, so I was able to eat there. It was actually really good and not overpriced at all, which was surprising.

IT STARTED SNOWING ON MY WALK TO MCDONALDS! I was very excited to see snow, even it was only for like five minutes haha. I think I'm really going to miss it while I'm in Tampa for December. Part of what I love about the Christmas season is being able to wear sweaters and warm clothes and bundle up by a fire drinking hot chocolate. But I guess all new experiences are good, so we'll see how it goes.

I love this song :)

Moon River

So today we have our last two shows in Pittsburgh today. That officially makes 10 more performances left of Barnum 200! It's so weird to me that I've been on the road for about 3 months already, and soon I will never be playing this music again. I know most of the band is glad, having played it for about two years, but I really like the music, so I hope next year's music is just as good. Unfortunately I didn't get to explore as much in Pittsburgh as I believe it has to offer, so I guess I'll just have to come back sometime.

Friday I had a really lazy day and decided to stay in and do laundry. So in the meantime I decided to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's, which I had never seen before. I enjoyed it, though it wasn't what I was expecting at all. I thought it would be more of an old-school romance movie, but it's not. It's quirky and some parts are funny and some parts are weird, but I understand why it's a classic. And of course Audrey Hepburn in beautiful in it and the costumes are great. The way she talked reminded me very much of Barbra Streisand in What's Up Doc haha.

I also took some time and decorated our train car for Thanksgiving! It was really hard to find any decorations, so I ended up taping a tablecloth to the wall, hanging tissue paper on the ceiling, and getting these two turkeys:

Last night I went with Ian, Mike, Emily, and her two friends to a place called the Church Brew Works. It's an old church that they converted into a restaurant/brewery haha. It's such a cool building and the inside still very much resembles a church, actually, still looks EXACTLY like a church. I got their pumpkin stout they brew and it was really good, and their food was really good too! I ordered risotto fritters, a spinach, feta, and gouda dip, and crocodile and cactus pierogies! They were really really good! Here are a couple pictures of the place:

Kind of hard to see, but it's basically a church

The alter area where the canisters are

The even still have the organ in there!

Time for me to go. Last two shows then it's off to Auburn Hills, our last show on this tour! I'm also doing the elephant walk tonight so that should be kind of fun :) But yeah, one more week then I'm back home for a little bit! Crazy how time flies...

That's All Folks!

So because I thought my Dad would appreciate these in particular I took a whole bunch of pictures at the Toonseum. Check them out!

Original desk at Walt Disney Studios!

I certainly did take a lot of pictures haha

It's a Bird, it's a Plane...

Ah Pittsburgh, land of the Steelers and bridges. SO many bridges. There are probably about 20 different ways you could get to any destination from any direction in the city. Pittsburgh is also home to the Andy Warhol Museum (the only museum dedicated to a sole artist), a Toonseum (only one of three in the country), and also has the biggest Macy's I've seen outside of NYC. Enough chit chat, let's get to some pictures:

The new arena!

The old arena: looks like a UFO

Bridges, so many bridges

More bridges

Where we ate Tuesday night, kind of a dive but really good fried oysters!

Occupy Pittsburgh!

The U.S. Steel building! Dad I thought you'd appreciate that haha

No idea what this is but it looks cool!

Just a church

Some really cool street artwork across the street from the Toonseum.

Thursday was our big museum day. Me, Andrew, Ian, and LaRena walked to the Toonseum, which is really just one room, but they happened to have a Looney Toon display this month. They have a bunch of the original sketches and even one of the original drawing desks from Disney Studios! I took a lot of pictures so I'll save those for a separate post.

Afterwards LaRena and I went to the Andy Warhol museum, where on the top floor they had a special exhibit of Alex Ross artwork. Who's Alex Ross? I didn't know either, but apparently he is one of the top comic book artists in the business, and he's done A LOT of artwork. The exhibit was gigantic, but also really interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures, but all his renderings were incredible. My favorite part of the exhibit was some of his drawings from when he was a kid. It's amazing the progress he made from age 10 to age 13. Also when he was a kid he drew what Charlie Brown would look like as various superheros haha.

The rest of the museum was really interesting too. It had a lot of the various types of art that Warhol pursued and it was very informative about his life, though really for me the Alex Ross exhibit overshadowed the rest of it. It got me thinking that something that can seem childish and silly to one person can actually be a work of art and a way of life for another. I never really thought that I would see comic book art in a museum, but it definitely deserve recognition as pieces of art.

Yesterday we had our end of the year party called The Barnies. The theme was an award show so everyone dressed up and there was a red carpet and awards and Taylor dressed up as Joan Rivers and interviewed people as they walked in. I helped set up the decorations since I was ready early. I had a lot of fun, I felt like I was on prom committee again, or helping set up a wedding. Actually I really enjoyed it a lot, maybe I should look into event planning...

The decorations looked great in the arena!

Screens to show awards and watch people as they entered

I finished watching season one of Modern Family and Will and Grace so I'm due for some new seasons of both shows haha. I love both shows so much, they are just so great. I also started watching Pan Am, and it's really good! Also, this tour ends in less than two weeks, I can't believe I've been out on the road for almost three months! Crazy how time flies...

What Would You Do?

So after Syracuse I drove to Rochester for the week, and I got to have a car there so that was sooooo nice. I also got to go down to Geneseo to visit too which was great. It was so nice seeing old friends and I got to catch up with Joan and Dr. Kurau. I'll be back in a couple of weeks for the MTC show so I'll get to see even more people then too :)

So I was able to do some shopping at Walmart since I had the car, and I also bought a bunch of decorations from the Dollar Store and decorated the train car! Check it out!

So Friday night Chantel and her mom came to the show, and afterwards Chantel and I got food at Dinosaur BBQ which was soooo good. Afterwards I still decided to go down to Geneseo that night, which I probably shouldn't have done since it was like midnight when I left, but I did anyways. Well I ended up not having a great time and decided that rather than stay there I would just drive back to the train. I get back around 3am and realize...I am locked out of my room. I have no idea where my key is. After calling Amelia and having her tell me it's not at her house, I deduce that I left it at the arena in my dressing room. I get to the arena and try to find a security guard to let me in, but they are all asleep. The guard at the animal compound can't even call them because no one is picking up. So I end up calling Chantel and got to her house around 4:30 and slept on her couch, so I could get up for a show at 11:30am the next morning. I was pretty proud of myself, I didn't freak out too much nor did I cry! Though I kind of wanted to, just out of frustration and exhaustion. So it was pretty much the worst night ever.

In comparison the rest of my weekend in Rochester was amazing haha. Went back to Geneseo Saturyda night with my sister haha and had a great time, after stopping by St. John Fisher where my brother was having his senior night football game. Sunday morning I got breakfast with my family and Megan, Jaime, and Jillian, and the three of them saw the 1pm show, and JAIME WON THE PAINTING! I didn't even fix it or anything! Of course Jaime would win it, and she gave it to Megan because Megan reeeeeally wanted to have an elephant painting, so I was really glad that that worked out haha. My family saw the show Sunday night, and even though it was a pretty low energy show, they still loved it. Although apparently I was an idiot and reserved them tickets for the 1pm show instead of the 5pm show, but it all worked out haha.

Yesterday for Halloween Tony had a party in his room, and it was a lot of fun! We all dressed up and people brought food and we ate and drank and danced and had a really good time. It's fun to have a party on a moving train haha. I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus which was awesome as well. We decided that they should make Hocus Pocus into a stage musical haha.

Well to wrap it up, now that I am FINALLY caught up, I can't believe that it is November and there are only two weeks left of this show. Time seems to have flown by, and it's been a huge crazy adventure so far, and I know it's going to get even bigger and crazier soon. But until then I have Pittsburgh then Auburn Hills, then I'm home for two weeks! Well this Starbucks is closing so I gotta go! Hopefully I'll be much more up-to-date on these posts haha.

P.S. I CANNOT WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!!!!!!

A Place Called Home

So last week I got to be home in Syracuse for a couple of days! I got to see old friends and carved pumpkins and ate good food, AND got to get all my stuff for my room! This includes my winter clothing, which is perfect timing because it was just starting to get really cold haha.

Ashes!

Megan's amazing handiwork carving Joe's pumpkin

All five pumpkins!

Herman on the front porch as usual

We also went to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in town and the food was sooo good:

It was a short trip home but I'll be home in two weeks anyways so I'll get to see everyone again soon :)

P.S. I am currently in a Starbucks, and this man just sat at a table about six feet from me and literally REEKS of body odor. I mean, I shouldn't be able to smell him at this distance, but I can. I may or may not be burying my nose in my empty coffee cup...ok I need to move tables.

I'm Going Back Home

So Bridgeport is one of the most ghetto cities I've been to. One example is that the Rite Aid in the city was going out of business...who would think that some place in Connecticut would be so sketchy. So to say the least I did not really venture to explore too much, especially being there isn't anything to explore. The one thing they do have worth exploring is the Barnum Museum, but unfortunately it was closed because it took tornado damage last year, and still isn't open...oh well.

The Barnum Museum

Inside the arena. Pretty small.

The outside of the arena.

On Friday Tone drove up from Long Island and saw the 7pm show. I had a great time with her and she stayed overnight with me on the train, which was a hoot. We ate at this place called Ralph 'n' Rich's, which all the locals raved about, but both Tone and I thought the food was mostly bland and definitely overpriced.

Saturday Tone came with me to the morning show before heading back to Long Island, and then my dad met me after the last show since my brother had a game in Springfield, MA earlier that day, which is pretty close to Bridgeport. My dad and I tried to go out to get something to eat around 10pm, and we had the HARDEST time trying to find a place that had their kitchen still open. We ended up finding some Caribbean night club that still served food, and while it was really good food, we were the ONLY white people in there haha. Whatever it's all good :p

Afterwards I stayed with my dad at the hotel in the city. The next day, I realized I didn't have my ID with me...I had left it in Tone's purse...sigh...I called Tone and I lamented how stupid I am and she mailed it home to me so I would get it in Syracuse when I went home. Thank god THAT worked out! Haha anyways to wrap this up I played the last two shows in Bridgeport and then my dad and I drove home to Syracuse! Home sweet home! More to come on that soon :)