Atlanta, GA

We are wrapping up our US leg of the tour! What a week to end it too! We were actually in Roswell, GA, a suburb right outside of Atlanta, but we just said Atlanta.  We took a short drive over from Statesboro and had quite a few hours of free time, so we explored the little downtown, but got sent inside because it started pouring rain! We hung out some more at the facility until it was time for host pick up! I was hosted with Tori from Los Angeles, CA and we lived with a woman Dennise who traveled in '97 and her husband Shane and their three kids, Grace(7), Max(5) and Henry(19mo).  Tori and I knew from the start we were going to have a fun week with the kids!

Our host code was Botanical Gardens

Tori(CA)

The week felt like it flew by! It didn't help that I was feeling sick for most of the week.  But I got to do my first gardening of the semester at Chattahoochee Nature Center on Tuesday.  It was freezing cold outside, but we still turned the beds, harvested some scallions and lettuce.  It was a great learning experience, and it was in a mountain-type area, so it felt much more familiar than palm trees and beaches.

Wednesday was an AWESOME class day! We were at the local YMCA in their "teen room" so it was a huge gym with funky chairs.  Our professors were in town too! Pete and Theresa really make the class amazing and we feel so connected to them.  Once we were back with the whole cast, Pete and Theresa led a group discussion about being a "bad apple" or a negative person in a group.  To demonstrate, they split up the cast into small groups with one Study Abroad student (SA) in each one.  We had a question that Earth was inducted into the league of planets and we had to choose 2 occupations (Doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.) to send to be on a council.  The secret of the activity was that the rest of the cast didn't know that the SA students were acting either as a jerk, a slacker, or a depressant.  Once we got back into a large group, Pete began to explain what was going on, and the whole group was so surprised because many of them noticed a change in behavior, but didn't think much of it. the whole point of the exercise was to explain how one negative "bad apple" can really change the dynamic of the whole group and how aware we need to be of it.

One of Pete's crazy exercises 

Our awesome classroom!

On Thursday I was sick, but it was still a really interesting Regional learning day for the cast, so here's a bit from Amy Polete's blog about the day:  we had a regional learning day at the state capitol and Roswell City Hall. We had a sponsored lunch at the Shriners’ temple that afternoon. I had no idea who or what Shriners were before our lunch, and their fez hats kind of weirded me out, but they really do have a great mission and have helped millions worldwide with their hospitals. After that, we headed back to Roswell and had a meet and greet with the Mayor and some council members from Roswell. Mom joined us for that and we had a good afternoon. We had also had some internal time where Nirite, Sarah, and Leslie presented a “Health on the Road” workshop. We learned tips and tricks to staying healthy while maintaining our crazy UWP lifestyle! I find it funny that now our whole cast sings (to the tune of Row Your Boat), “Wash, wash, wash your hands, make them nice and clean! Scrub the bottoms and the tops and fingers in between” two times through as we wash our hands! Have to love good hygiene!
That evening was one of the only evenings in the week that Tori and I were actually home early enough to hang out with the kids before bed, so we all played the video game Just Dance, and Tori and I even stayed up after the kids went to bed to play! I really wish we would have had more time that week to spend with the kids, but we had some fun nights of staying up and talking to Dennise as well.  

The cast at City Hall

We had 3 shows in Roswell, and they all went great! On Saturday before the shows we had a potluck that was put on by our host families and we also got to eat with them too! I got to know some other families and it was great to meet even more people from the city. For our matinee show we had 112 students from a local middle school come because one of the teachers is an UWP alumnus.  She raised all of the money for the buses and tickets to bring the kids there, and all of them had to write an essay explaining why they should get to go to the show, so they all wanted to be there as well.  During the last song of the show, they held up signs saying "THANK YOU" and we all felt the little pricks in the back of our eyes.  After we had some great cake that they brought as well!

Sunday we just hung out at home and our family is really into St Patrick's day, so they had a party with some other families from the neighborhood.  It was full of giggles and green.