Since my last post, I made it home from Illinois, went to NYC for a few days, relaxed at home, and joined the circus! I am now working as the keyboard one player for the Barnum and Bailey circus and couldn't be more excited. So my goal for this next year with the blog is to really keep everyone (and myself) up-to-date on my circus adventures, and I'm thinking there is going to be a lot to write about!
I found out I got the job on Monday, and flew out of Syracuse Tuesday afternoon to Detroit, to transfer to Moline, Illinois. Yes, I'm back in Illinois haha. The flights were fine, and then I took a taxi to a TGI Fridays by the iWireless Arena where we will be performing. After a while my boss Wages and his wife Kelli met me there, and we got dinner. We had to stay there a long time because the train still wasn't "spotted", meaning that it wasn't completely set and people are not allowed on or off the train. So we sat at Fridays for a long time, and made friends with the waitress, who we got discounted tickets for her and her son, Seamus. We decide to leave Fridays and head back for the train, even though we can't get on yet. Really close to the arena we see the train stopped, so we decide to hop on and then we wait in the dining car, or the "pie car" until the train is spotted and we can get the key to my room. About, oh maybe 3 hours later, the train is spotted and I am able to get my key and get into my room (later we learned that there was such a delay because someone fell off the train! Oops...).
Sooooo my room...the room I am currently in is temporary, until the current keyboard one player leaves in a week and half. People have described the train as living on a city (after all it is a mile long), but I've heard the ringmaster describes it as a city and a suburb. Well, I am currently in the city, the "ghetto", to be precise, as was labeled by another train member. The car I will be moving to has 8 rooms to it, my current car is the same length, but has 14 rooms, so the whole room is about the size as a full-size bed. What's nice is that there is suprisingly a lot of storage, and the bed converts into a table and two seats! What's tricky right now is that I don't want to unpack since I'm moving in a week and a half, AND I have a keyboard in here with me, that I was given to practice on. Here are some pictures:
Soooo yeah it's pretty tight, but it's not that bad. Once we move the keyboard out later today, it will be much better.
To continue, I woke up yesterday and waited most of the day for Wages to get a rental car so we could go to Target and get food and stuff for my room. I decided to explore and go on a walk, and I came across the Quad City Botanical Gardens! It was very nice and there was a lot of cool plants to see. I also grabbed lunch at a small little mexican place and looked through the show music. We finally got a car, got sushi for dinner, and then went to Target, where I was able to get mobile hotspot for my phone so I could use the internet.
So today Wages and I are moving the keyboard to the arena at noon, we have sound check at 2:30, rehearsal at 3:30, and then my first show at 7! I will just be observing so I can learn how to use the keyboards and learn what all the markings in the music mean haha.
I'm thinking of buying a camera so I can take more pictures easily and be able to upload lots of images to this blog. Also, since there is no kitchen area really, and all I have in a fridge and a microwave, I'm going to try to experiment with cooking with limited means, and maybe post some recipes on here. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share! One thing I know I can make in the microwave is chocolate cake in a coffee mug, which I did in Sullivan. I stumbled upon the recipe here: http://hungrybloggers.com/news/2009/03/29/microwave-coffee-mug-chocolate-cake
Well that's all for now, I'm definitely going to try and keep this updated as much as possible. We're in Moline, Illnois this weekend, and then moving on to Kansas City, Missouri next weekend. This is the rest of the tour schedule (I'm the blue dots):
P.S. Every time I say Moline I keep thinking of the Dolly Parton song "Jolene", I wonder if anyone has ever done a spoof on that...
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