After a full night of sleep, my alarm woke me up to start getting ready at 7:30am, I got ready in 10 min. then waited another 40 for Mia to get ready so we could go to breakfast, again at EuroPan. Then we all waited in the lobby ’till ’round 9:30am for the bus. And off we were to a country club to swim for the afternoon.
On the way there, we went through a tunnel, and I tried to hold my breath ’til we got out. I didn’t last. When we got out of the tunnel I found out the tunnel went all the way under the Hudson River.
We got to the pool around 10am and right away I jumped in the pool, I was the first one in. I swam for about 2 hours in the deep end, which was 8 to 10 feet deep, with two diving boards.
It was super sunny so when we were called in for lunch I grabbed some food and stayed in the shade talking to some new friends for about an hour.
Then I was back in the pool ’til we had to go, around 3ish in the afternoon.
Back at the hotel we had free time. I went up to the suite and tried to Skype home, but it didn’t work on my computer. I tried to get it to work but it still was wonky when we had to leave for dinner at Carmine’s, an Italian restaurant.
(The bathrooms at Carmine’s had mouthwash in soap dispensers and those little ketchup holder container things that you find in McDonald’s and Wendy’s to put the mouthwash in.)
Then we went to go see the Lion King, which happened to be right across the street.
We walked into the theater, and it was HUGE!! We went to find our seats, which, ’cause of who we were, the Sunshine Kids, we got good seats, we weren’t right up close like some of us kids would have liked, but we were close enough that we could still see the actor’s expressions.
The play was A·MA·ZING(said slowly and emphatically)!!!!!!!! The stage moved up and down and tilted and turned and the costumes were SO cool, and it was just like the animated version, just with people. My favorite of the main characters was Rafiki (though in the animated version it was a guy, and in the Musical that I went to it was a girl), and out of all the other animals were the cheetah, and the giraffes. I liked the giraffes because they stood on stilts and leaned on stilts, so they actually were tall, and I liked the cheetah because it had the best costume, the actor wore a head thingy that moved the cheetah head, and her legs were the cheetah’s back legs, and she stood so that it actually looked like how a cheetah stood and the actress held poles that moved the front legs of the cheetah and if she leaned back the cheetah would, like, stand on her hind legs (I don’t know how else to say that last one.).
After the play was over, we stayed in our chairs until everyone else was gone, then went up to the front and got a meet and greet with the cast. They said to ask them anything, so one of the kids from our Vancouver group asked, “What was the weirdest question you’ve ever gotten asked?” And the actress that played the cheetah answered that she once got asked what her favorite type of pasta was.
Then we got a tour of backstage, and the changing rooms, and we got to see where they kept all the costumes when they weren’t using them (most of them were kept up above everything, and out of the way).
And then we all got together and got group photos of us Sunshine Kids and the actors that were still there.
After everything was finished we headed back to the hotel and were told to go straight to our rooms and that we should get ready to go to sleep. I was so tired that I basically put on my pjs, brushed my teeth and got in bed and I don’t even remember laying down before I fell asleep.
And I still had water in my ear.
