So yesterday we got up and again hoarded continental breakfast and went back to bed. When Becca and I got up again at about noon, we got showered and ready to go out with John and get lunch… but then… we found a marathon of Project Runway on Bravo. I had seen none of the episodes from this season yet, so I was particularly lucky to find the marathon in the first five minuets of episode one. Needless to say, lunch plans were canceled, and for the next five hours, John, Garrett, Becca and I watched the first five episodes of season 2. That meant, that by the time we eventually pried ourselves away from the TV, I had only one unseen episode left.
Sadly, our dinner plans weren’t flexible as to accomodate that last episode. Joan, who is a teacher for University of Florida’s dance program invited the whole company for dinner at her house. She ‘employed’ use of two of her friends who had huge SUVs to come and pick all of us up at our hotel and transport us across town to her house. Where she lived was gorgeous, and I can’t emphasize enough how much I adore the trees and foliage here in north-central Florida. The driver we got explained to my carload that the diversity is because this area is subtropical, so there is are many many more species which can survive here climate-wise, and they have evolved and diversified in order to coexist. Way to go, Floridian plant-life, you’re pretty.
Dinner was amazing. Unfortunately for me the main course was whole-BBQ’d fish, but I was more then satiated by pasta, rice, collard greens, carrots and potatoes, etc. I am getting more used to wine, and am actually really enjoying it… but it still makes me feel very dehydrated… so I don’t think I prefer it to other beverages just yet. Just incase you were all wondering. Right.
Dinner dropped off into conversations, which were followed by a random game of limbo and dancing in the living room. The kids from the dance department (well, some of them anyway,) were also at dinner, and it was nice to hang out with them again. After dinner, we again piled into the cars with our surrogate taxi-driver-friends, and headed home.
When we got back to our room… what was on TV? The exact episode of Project Runway that we had left off on: the only episode I needed to see in order to be all caught up for tomorrow’s episode. AWESOME. So, Becca and I watched that and some other mindless TV and eventually drifted off…
Today, Tuesday, we woke up hella early (obviously much earlier than our other days off in FL,) at 6:30am because both Becca and I had to shower and get ready to be down in the lobby by 8am. We were all invited to go take the university’s advanced ballet class at nine. I, for one, haven’t taken a ballet class since I graduated last May, so I jumped at the opportunity, even though it made for a much earlier morning than I would have liked. The class itself was really great, and I wasn’t as terrible as I was expecting, but I have indeed lost many a muscle that I used to have very well-equipped. It was funny to realize, that even though I have become about eight times stronger in this company than I used to be, I can still wear myself out in one 50-minuite barre in a good ballet class. Mostly: my hip flexors and my ass. Ouch. Tomorrow, it will hurt to walk.
Also: tomorrow, it will hurt to shampoo. Here is why: after ballet, five of us went next door to a studio where silks and trapezes were hung and a stage trick and combat teacher taught us how to work the silks. This, incase it needs to be explained, are just two longs strips of durable fabric that are attached together that the top and are hung from the truss of a stage. They go up about 30-50 feet depending on the stage, and as an acrobat on them, one would climb them to their top or midpoint and do tricks and swing, and just generally use them as a means of appearing awesome.
I learned a bunch of basics and then some pretty crazy trick stuff. I felt strangely at home 20 feet in the air with no net or ropes or anything, (thank you, hanging duet,) and felt like the principles and technique to doing silks came rather inherent in my body. Point being, I am totally going to take aerial classes back in LA and possible pursue silk work to beef up my resume and hopefully get me some killer jobs. Also, just to have it said, I think I am my most happy in motion in the air. Diavolo flys and swinging on the silk through space… I just freaking love that feeling. Note: this does not include falling.
After the silks class the five of us (Renee, Crystal, Garrett, Becca and I) walked back through the UF campus towards Chipotle for a well-deserved lunch. Along the way, we randomly (and I can’t stress just how truly random this felt to me,) stopped in a courtyard and played hackey-sack for about a half an hour. This was my first time ever playing hackey-sack, and I was embarrassingly unskilled at this particular game.
After Chipotle lunch, Becca, Garrett and I headed to the post office so I could mail out an ebay package and buy some 2-cent and 1-cent stamps to make my stamps current. I also learned that the cost for priority mail and delivery confirmation have gone up – that’s crap – from $3.85 to $4.05 and $0.45 to $0.50. Bastards. Then we got Ben and Jerry’s and everything seemed a little bit better.
Here comes my one exciting celebrity sighting for Florida: James Cromwell! He is an awesome old-man actor (LA confidential, etc, you would totally know him if you saw his face,) and he is also staying in our hotel because he is in the Scopes monkey trial play that is now playing at UF. So, when we walked into the hotel lobby he was there, and we rode up in the elevator with him. He was asking us about Diavolo, and finally at the end of the elevator ride, my cool facade popped, and I told him I thought he was great, giggled, and left, like a small little idiot. Oh well… he was awesome. Apparently Ed Asner is also in the play and is also staying in our hotel, but I haven’t seen him.
Cut to: Hotel rooms, after a nap.
Garrett walked me to Lake Alice, a wildlife sanctuary on UF’s campus that actually houses Alligators! I didn’t see any, but just seeing the signs to beware of them made my day. We got to the lake just in time to see the bats all swarm (SWARM!) out of their bat house at dusk. It was crazy, and I went a little bit weird from an unknown fear of swooping flying creatures en mass. Bats = not scary. Hundreds of swooping bats at dusk = terrifying.
From my close encounter with the bats, Garrett and I went back to the UF dance complex and met a number of other company members so we could see the concert showing the UF dance kids had invited us to attend. They had some really solid pieces, and we finally got to see them dance in their element. Some of them are really, amazing, beautiful movers. The whole process made me really nostalgic for college, and really sad that I won’t ever get to go back to LMU. Unlike a lot of college students, I totally comprehended the crazy extent of how great I had it while I was going to LMU, with the wonderful faculty and classes and resources… and I’m so glad I appreciated it while I was there… but it’s still hard to not get that anymore and miss it…
After the showing we walked to the #1 voted best burrito place as voted by students: Burrito Brothers, bought some burritos and walked back to our hotel, where we all settled into Garrett’s corner room to eat our food and watch the remainder of the beginning of American Idol… classic.
After burrito-idol time, about ten of us (three UF kids,) played Catchphrase for about three hours. What and amazingly fun, hyper, crazy game. Good times with just people. I need to buy it, and so should you, and you, and you. (But make sure you get version two: the electronic one.)
Now I am back in my own room, avoiding packing, because as per usual, my bag a-sploded in my room during our stay here. We have to be in the lobby by 10am in order to catch our bus and our plane to North Carolina in the morning…