Arrival in Wuhan!

We have arrived in our third city, Wuhan. I don't know much about this city, but we are going to be here for nearly 2 weeks, which makes me very happy. The longer stays are better, both for getting to know the city, and just for settling into the hotel room.

Our remaining days in Chongqing were quite busy, but a lot of fun. We had a press conference that involved the Happy Families competition -- kids and adults competed in art and music to perform for Maria and the von Trapp kids. We saw a twelve-year-old boy play the flute with his nose, and play a traditional Chinese string instrument while his mother did martial arts. There were two boys who made paintings of scenes from the Sound of Music and gave them to Christine. One was a painting of Maria (a la Julie Andrews) on the mountain in the opening scene, and the other was a very interesting abstract painting of music. There was a woman who won the "Best Mother" prize for all of Chongqing, who sewed little dolls for us, and will be carrying the Olympic torch when it comes through Chongqing. And there was a trio of little children who sang Lonely Goatherd in Chinese and danced! It was a lot of fun. They took many photos of us and with us. I am always surprised that people want photos of me -- me, specifically -- rather than just the little kids. They like my skin! They like the paleness of me. At last I am in a location where pale is good, where people don't ask me why I don't try to get a tan. Amazing!

We had some great shows in the new theatre in Chongqing, which I really liked. Western toilets are a blessing when they are being used in costume during a show. There were a few minor glitches, because we went into these shows with just one dress rehearsal with the local crew and dressers, rather than with several weeks of rehearsal as we had had in Chengdu. Nothing major happened, except last night, our last show, Michael (Captain von Trapp) called in sick, and his understudy went on. That was exciting! We had already planned an understudy rehearsal for the afternoon, so James, the understudy, was able to go over most of the scenes that day, which was nice for him. I would have been terrified to go on like that! But he did a great job, of course, and now that he's done it, I'm sure he feels much more secure about the possibility of having to go on again.

The understudy rehearsal was very funny. It was for the children, and the understudies for Maria, Captain, Max, and Elsa. I was at the rehearsal, but Jen, my understudy, rehearsed the whole time as Louisa, so I got to sit and watch and help when help was needed. By the end of rehearsal, the adults were getting very silly/punchy, and the Max understudy was doing two roles: Max, and the role he would be doing that evening, taking over James' track while James stepped in for the Captain. It became like Noises Off -- people opening random doors and poking their heads in, reciting random lines out of order. I was laughing my head off, and was sorry that the rest of the cast wasn't out front watching with the few of us who were there!

Even though I didn't rehearse, I got fed Pizza Hut between the rehearsal and the show that evening, so it was all worthwhile. (I actually don't like the Pizza Hut pizza here all that much, but my motto is: Free Food is Free Food, and Pizza is Pizza. It was tasty.)

After the show last night I went to bed late, got very little sleep, and got up extremely early this morning for a 7:30 a.m. checkout time to fly to Wuhan. Yippeeee! Things went very smoothly. We had all loaded at least one suitcase onto a luggage truck that would be (and is now) driving to Wuhan, rather than taking everything on the plane, so we packed specially to leave behind things we wouldn't need for a few days. I carefully brought VERY few clothes, since we have several days off before our first show here on Friday. Of course, I then found out that we have a press conference this afternoon! Whoops! But everyone is in the same boat, so we will all be a little more casual than usual today.

The luggage truck was a nice idea because we had much less to deal with on the flight, and we trust that the truck will arrive here in Wuhan, while planes often lose luggage (temporarily). The flight was an easy 1.5 hrs or less, much less than we expected, and then a bus brought us to the Holiday Inn. Jen and I were lucky to get a room that does not smell of cigarette smoke (and I smelled one that does, so it's a big deal!), and we are both now camped out on our beds writing blogs. Internet isn't free here, but also is not nearly as expensive as at the last hotel (1 day here costs as much as 1 hour in Chongqing), so we might buy it sometimes. Haven't decided yet.

Today is Tuesday, and we are free until Friday afternoon! What a nice week! I'm going to try to rest and get a lot of sleep.