"This is my kind of town"

Chicago is... Well, it's where I am right now. Before I get to that however, I must finish telling you about Chocolate City. The reason Burlington is called the Chocolate City is because of the Nestle factory which resides there. What they DON'T tell you is that the air smells like chocolate... not just chocolate, but it smells like brownies are baking ALL the time. It's intoxicating.

My family in Burlington was just incredible. They were all amazing cooks making everything from homemade bread (wheat as well as the most delicious focaccia I've ever eaten) to chicken piccata to pancakes. Needless to say, we ate very well. On Sunday, our host family day, we had brunch with a neighboring family which was also hosting three students. Our host family made Thai noodle salad, chicken satay, and chocolate covered strawberries. So good!

Our beneficiary in Burlington was an organization called Love, Inc. which has a lot of different services offered under its umbrella. There is a food pantry and a thrift store, but the organization also offers services to those in the community who would benefit from them. I worked in the food pantry helping people find what they needed and occasionally restocking shelves. It was fun because the biggest part of my job was just greeting people and talking to them a bit. The only downfall was that I was losing my voice.

On show day, I woke up without a voice (for the second day in a row) and figured it would be back around noon. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to have a vocal workshop at 9:30. Let's just say it wasn't my best singing. I made it through the day and when it came time for the show I was fairly confident I could keep my voice together, as long as I didn't take too deep a breath and force myself into a coughing fit. It all worked out, though. As is wont to happen, I got more compliments on that performance than any previous show - from the staff and cast as well. My host grandma, the one who had heard my lack of voice that morning, was astounded. She must have brought it up 4 or 5 times over the next day that she was amazed that I could sing at all, and then that I could sing well.

After the show, different people are assigned to different tasks to make sure all the interviews get covered and the stage gets taken down. That particular night I didn't have a specific assignment, so I was in the TBD group. After walking around for a while we decided that yoga and stretching was the best use of our time. I stretched for quite a while and then noticed people were starting to give each other massages. I'm not sure how I managed this but one of my castmates offered to give me a massage, and man did I get spoiled. Most people got 15 minute or so massages before the other person gave up. My fellow castmate, however, gave me an incredibly delightful hour long massage. Needless to say, I had no trouble sleeping that night.

On Saturday night my host family took us to Milwaukee to see the 5 Browns, a family of 5 siblings (ages 22-29) who are all piano virtuosos. The concert was great and though they played mostly classical, they threw in a few Gershwin pieces, which are my favorites. It was so interesting to watch them perform, because I've never seen more than 2 people playing piano at the same time. Having 5 people all performing together was almost hypnotic. They all had a similar technique, and when they played they would sway along with their motions on the piano as if they were in a trance. They each did solos, duets, and trios as well, but they are one of the first acts to ever have 5 pianos being played at once.

As if that wasn't great enough, Sunday was amazing as well. It started off with the aforementioned brunch. What I didn't mention, however, was that the neighboring family was Filipino, so in addition to the food brought by us we had delicious Filipino food. During our week in Burlington, my host family discovered my love of improv. So what was their suggestion for our host day activity? Going to Second City (an improv and sketch theatre in Chicago). We drove the hour and a half to Chicago for the show, then stopped for some Mediterranean food before heading back for the night. Seriously, I could not have had a more amazing family. They treated me like one of their own, and they treat their own very well.

Now on to Chicago! Though I did get a "sneak-preview" of Chicago the night before I came here for real, Monday was our first day in Chicago. I'm now staying with an Up With People alumnus (Cast of '83), her husband, and their daughter. This is my first alum host and it's really refreshing to have someone to talk to who really knows what it's like. She understands that the unspoken rule is that we are tired all the time. She knows how much we appreciate the extra half hour of sleep we get because she is willing to drive us to our morning meeting rather than taking public transportation. She also has some hilarious stories about her enthusiastic encounters with other UWP alums.

Yesterday, we were in a number of Chicago high schools working with students on projects focusing on diversity. We'll be doing the same thing tomorrow. Today, however, there were a number of different projects people worked on. Twenty of us were given a special opportunity in that we got to take a tour of NBC Studios and watch the taping of a live show. It was cool to see the studios, even though the show was not anything special. It's called "In the Loop with iVillage" and apparently it's NBC's only syndicated talk show produced in Chicago. I had no idea.

My roommate this week is Astrid from Mexico. She's the most graceful dancer and is just a joy to watch perform. Ella esta ayudando con mi espanol, porque necesito mejorar antes de Mexico.
That's the news for now. All is well.
~Molly