i met a seven-legged tarantula named Rosie

on arrival to Lake Havisu City, our bus drove over the original London Bridge. this bridge was brought over from London piece by piece and was rebuilt in the Havisu channel back in the 1970's. pretty interesting tourist site, but once you cross it, that's really it. it's worth the bragging rights, i guess.

my new host-family is amazing. once again. allow me to introduce the Bertrand family. there is Curt, Joslin, and their two (extremely) shy daughters, Summer and Starlie. in addition to the 4 person family are

my roomies: Kyle (South Dakota), Ronja (Germany) and Yui (Japan - show manager). Kyle and I are sharing a room at the end of the house and the Ronja and Yui are next door in the girls' playroom.

what's unique about this family is that they are used to hosting people from all over the world - BUT not from UWP. we are the first UWP students they have hosted. the Bertrands host people from the internet site, couchsurfing.com. this is a pretty interesting site because it connects travelers from around the world with home/apartment owners willing to host them. say, if i wanted to travel to san francisco, CA, i could contact people in that city and request to stay at their home for a designated period of time. there is a map in my room that has a little tag over the home town of each visitor they have hosted, most of which are from other countries!

furthermore, the Bertrands operate what many would consider a zoo, but i prefer, Creature Sanctuary. they have your standard house pets ranging from a cat, to a rabbit, to fish and turtrles. but they also love insects. there is a seven-legged tarantula named Rosie (which i held), two black widow spiders, and a newly added collection of mexican jumping beans. they are REAL! laugh you may, but this is legit! as i write this entry, there are 30 plus little brown bean-shaped pods hopping-, rolling-, skipping-, rocking-, sitting-and-waiting-to-move-, jumping- around in multiple clear petri dish containers. the sound is so weird: the noise reminds me of random bouts of hail landing on a metal roof. i can't even describe it. it is so strange. if you could see my face right now, you might understand.

henyways - the first night we arrived, we had a great dinner and went to the local store. and then my jaw dropped. we walked out of the store and saw a beautiful arizonan sunset. one that i hadn't seen since i moved from arizona. gorgeous. Curt drove us to the lake for a better view. even more jaw-dropping. and with all my luck i happened not to have my camera. great. well the next night, i managed to convince Curt to take me back to the same location to get some shots. here's what came out...

B-E-A-utiful!

Well the rest of the week was a blur. I certainly wont forget my birthday however. on the 27^th, our cast hosted a culture fair. this is essentially a massive presentation (displaying country-specific props or pictures) of all the countries in our cast to others that attended – which was about 400 elementary school kids. Come 4 oclock, the lake havisu rec center gym exploded with tiny people running and screaming around. don’t you remember those fun days when it was ok to scream at the top of your lungs and not get in trouble? now I understand why adults hate it…

In addition to the culture aspect of the culture fair, was the festival part. On the other side of the gym, we set up numerous interactive games and activities. Matt Erley, Mike Wooster, and Breton Shepherd and I erected a massive cardboard fort (named the Legacy fort for obvious reasons). There was also an inflatable obstacle course, face painting, bracelet and coloring stations, and my all-time favorite: balloon art!

i am a balloon artist. kinda. I make masterpieces of balloons. my portfolio includes swords, giraffes, dogs, and a funny-looking hat. very extensive and difficult to imitate, huh? Well, it turned out to be a huge success. There were so many kids in line, I had to recruit 3 more people plus 2 balloon blower-uppers. The kids loved it! The scene was similar to that of the one in Wedding Crashers. One cute little girl requested a designer hat. what the heck is a designer balloon hat look like anyways…?

Beyond the epic cardboard fort and being with amazing people for my bday, I celebrated with my host family and their neighbors (who had 2 other castmates.) we enjoyed good old hamburgers and hotdogs and took a dip in the pool. But to top it off, I was able to cheers to my bday at the Martini Bay (a place where the staff was staying ironically). About 10 people met up there and we enjoyed some drinks and non-UWP dancing.

We had our show two nights in a row – which went well, I guess. i say 'i guess' because the two night shows are somehow much different than one night shows. for some people, they do really well the first night, and not the second. and vice versa. i happen to enjoy the one night only shows. it forces you to give it your all. but the one great thing about the two shows is you dont have to setup and strike between the two nights!

not much later, we packed up and headed to the Phoenix airport.