Famousness.

Thanks be to folk dance for upping my famousity in the last few days in these ways.

• Being the thumbnail for the article on this year's Christmas Around the World (which I saw two days ago and it was so awesome! Great job folk dancers!)
• Having that same picture be on the BYU homepage for at least two days. Too bad I wasn't smart enough to get a screen capture of it like I did last time. So...anybody happen to do that for some random reason? 

I'm that tiny thing in the upper-right hand corner.
And this year they chose a picture of me that's actually good instead of  a picture
that makes me look like a seven year old with a double chin...

UPDATE: Someone DID screencapture my glory on the BYU homepage because they are brilliant friends. Brilliant I tell you! Genius I say! I was even bigger this time.

• At some point last week on BYUtv, a documentary aired that has been in the making for a loooong time. The summer I went to Europe with folk dance (Hungary, Slovakia, Prague, Zagreb, Porec, Vienna, remember?) we had Steve Olpin from BYU come with us and film. Along with his lovely daughter Quinn who I adore. Anyway. He filmed our rehearsals for Europe, our tour in Europe, our auditions for the next year's team, our rehearsal for Christmas Around the World 2011 and the show of Christmas Around the World itself. So he filmed two different teams, both the only two years I was on the team so you know, awesome. He never interviewed me or showed me a whole lot, but you can definitely see me so BAM. More famous. I just wish he could have made something longer, we are jammed into a 30 minute episode with another awesome media arts project that also deserved more time than it got. But it's cool. Although MAN I would love to see some of the other footage he got that didn't make it in the final project. Folk Dance: Uncut. 

Folk dance part almost the last: PAC1

After an amaaaaazing SPAC tour and staying at home for one totally random summer, out came the PAC list.


Rewind to the middle of Winter semester of SPAC when we all had individual interviews with Delynne. She asked me when I was graduating. I said I could graduate in one year or I could drag it out to two years. She said, "Oh good, because even though Ed thinks he already knows who wants on PAC..." and then she didn't really say anything else specific. But she was clearly alluding to the fact that she wanted me to make PAC. This made me think, okay, I'll definitely make it eventually, but probably  not next year.

During tour, Edwin came a few times to judge er, watch us. In fact, Talmage Spackman and I had tour history the day he came and in our history we called him The Arbitrator. Fantastic. I remember he came and everyone was nervous out of their mind and I decided to pretend he didn't exist and just remember that really, I was here to perform for the kids. So that I did.

Now, I'm going to be honest, by the time SPAC tour had ended I had already planned PAC into my schedule. I somehow knew already (Holy Spirit anyone?) that I would make the team. But at the same time, when I saw that PAC list after getting a helpful text to check my email from Mike Romney (always got my back bud) I still couldn't believe it. I would check my email multiple times to make sure it still existed. It was a really bright spot in a really tough summer.

And then the emails started coming! I cherished every email I got from Ed about dances or rehearsals or anything. I'm pretty sure I probably had them all memorized. When he sent us a video of Lyndsey Wulfenstein (his teaching assistant for the first half of the year) teaching us Romanian, I worked on it in my house and then Christina Craven's kitchen when I had arrived in Provo for rehearsals.

The best was the randomness of having classical Indian rehearsals with a new choreographer Divya in South Jordan in her basement. And riding to them with Brittany Christensen. I felt so cool. And I'm pretty sure it's the only reason I ended up in Classical Indian. :)

I came to BYU two weeks early to start rehearsals for folk dance and to start working at the TMA office (yeah!) and stayed at the Craven's because I didn't have an apartment yet and they are lovely people. :)

That first day of rehearsal was ridiculous. For some reason I didn't have any of my folk dance shoes, just my SPAC sneakers which  were problems for two reasons. 1.They are too narrow for my wide feet and 2. I didn't have any socks. So I danced Hungarian all day with no socks in these beastly shoes. And un-coincidentally about four months later during Christmas break both of my big toenails came right off. Gross.

It was also hard because those who had been on the team had just gotten back from Nauvoo with the old team like, days ago. So they were having a hard time adjusting to a new team and missing their old friends, and all the newbies were crazy nervous. But we made it work!

A couple of days into rehearsal more newbies came, David Lewis and Tanner Pearson came off their mission right into dancing Hungarian. those. poor. things.

Then as we went to our retreat at the end of the week (tubing down the Provo River which I ditched on for a close friend's party and a sleepover at our costumer's house) another random came. Tyler Walker! We now had an extra boy and for some reason this boy was custom asked by Ed to be on the team. He didn't even try out. It's cool. :) But really I'm glad Tyler was randomly on the team.

That first semester I got really close to all the other new girls, especially Liahona. For some reason Liahona and Jessica Philbrick (now getting closer to being Shepherd) always asked me what was going on, as if I knew more than them. Haha. But it brought us together. I also got fairly close to Emily Bills and McKenzie Keene because I was next to them in lineups a lot and they were really sweet in helping me with things I didn't know.

I especially ended up getting close to Liahona because we're very close the same person but she is scientific and Maori, and I'm liberal artsy and white. We were study buddies on the bus rides. AKA the only ones who successfully studied on mid-semester. She even finished a class while on summer tour! So we always sat next to each other on the bus.

We always made quite sure our bus partner was realllly there.

World of Dance was an awesome experience. We did a Hungarian Suite, a Romanian Suite, and a clogging number. The Hungarian Suite I did twice out of four times, switching in and out with McKenzie. I am super glad I was taken out of that dance. The only reason I made it through was because Shua (Josh Park, aka, the Honor Code Ninja - who, ps, my bff and I from freshman year wanted to be Honor Code ninjas so when I realized it was him and I knew him, I almost had a spasm) is the best partner ever and leads so well the girl doesn't even need to know the dance. Coolio. Romanian Suite was so fun, one of my favorite dances of the whole year. And clogging. Well. I was the last one on and the first one off. Awesome. I think I did 5 steps total.

And gotta add this gem from WOD that ended up on the BYU website.

This is some serious Vogueing. 

Then came Christmas Around the World. I remember the day I found out I got the little leaping solo in Israeli I was ecstatic and felt so super cool. And then that same day my ankle kind of twisted and I was sitting out for a second (my twisted ankles tend to heal in like..5 minutes). Edwin came up to me and said, are you going to be okay? Honestly he's not usually that concerned about injuries because people get injured all the time. But then he proceeded to tell me that he wanted to make sure I'd be fine because he and Lyndsey had just put together the CAW lineup and I was the only girl in all the dances, so I needed to be healthy. Well heavens to betsy. Technically I didn't feel like this was true because Emily DanceFish and Brittany Christensen/Carter were alternates in Romanian so technically they were cast in all the dances. Anyway. Not importante.

CAW was wonderful. Oh and horrible. Did I mention I had a terrible sickness the entire week? Like I went to the urgent care on campus, broke down in front of Delynney, and had her leave rehearsal for me to get me Gatorade and Immodium? Yeah. Not good. Somehow as soon as the run-through or rehearsal would start I was workable. But as soon as I got home every day, I couldn't leave the couch! I'd never had to rely on the Lord so heavily. And so it was a real growing experience for me - and got me to really begin to connect folk dance with spirituality in a way that became very important. Oh and PS, the moment the last show ended on Saturday night I was absolutely fine. Like I could eat nothing but plain rice and crackers all week and after the last show I ate Denny's at 11:00 at night like a champ. Ridiculous.

The next summer was RIDICULOUS. Because.

1. I was the TA for SPAC! A dream come true. I love teaching dance more than anything. And I even got the chance to choreograph a Slovakian dance with Mike Romney (never mind the fact that it was supposed to be Czech) and re-stage a Classical Indian dance. I came to adore everyone on that team. And I spent a lot of time with Emily DanceFish, David Lewis, and Mike Romney. Especially Mike, we were paired as teaching partners most of the time. But this duty meant that every Saturday not spent in PAC rehearsal or doing a PAC show, I was at SPAC rehearsal. I had one free Saturday. All semester. If I recall correctly it was beyond glorious.

This will always be my FAVORITE picture-memory of SPAC ever.

2. The copious amounts of PAC rehearsals and shows. Because our first show was the third weekend of the semester, we had only two weeks to learn all the new dances for our full show as well as having tech/dress rehearsals before we took it on the road. If you want to read about our first show (and you do, believe me) check it here. That semester we had four weekend shows, as well as a mid-semester for 10 days (which took up two weekends) and a sizable amount of shows during the week. In fact, we had so many performances that semester that we weren't even allowed to perform in Spring Festival of Nations. Haha. I came to despise rolling my dang costume box to and from campus.

But Mid-semester was the bomb-diggity. Did I never blog about that? Blast it all. We went to California via Nevada. We almost died on the way in blizzards. Our driver was a champ. We had put chains on the bus multiple times and thankfully made it to our first show on time. Amazingly. Here are some picture memories of mid-semester because I'm maxing out my words (I should give myself a daily limit...)

Teaching precious Elementary girls (and a few boys) to dance after an awesome school show where we got to eat lunch with the kids afterward! Dream come true!

Performing at the Oakland Stake Center on temple grounds in front of maybe the most beautiful temple of all time.

The entire weekend spent in Paradise, CA where Alina and I's host family had extended family who hosted about a third of the guys on the team and we spent alllllll weekend with them. And then our host mom (Brynn) put Alina's hair on everyone in this awesome picture. And I can't even tell you how great this weekend was. 

As for the summer tour. Um, I'll simply remind you once more of Hungary, Slovakia, Prague, Zagreb, Porec, and Vienna.

Vi.en.na.

Here we are, the end of the road. The last stop on the trip I took months ago that it has taken me ages to blog about. Here is the TBE list for Vienna. 1. The view from our hotel. Wow. Welcome to Vienna man.

2. Finding this store on our first night of exploring and finding out that the translation basically means "Wolf pants". I just like the word pants okay?

3. Seeing Schonbrunn Palace and walking through their amazing gardens for FREE! Yesss.... But their gardens were so gorgeous I couldn't even take it. And huge! And with random statues and obelisks and the like in every which corner. I'm really glad Jay made me get my picture taken there.

4. The best picture of me all tour. Thanks Erin! This is in front of the Imperial Palace. No big.

5. A DRINKING FOUNTAIN. Anyone who has been to Europe knows this is a rarity. And we even saw two that day! Wow Vienna, you are 200% more hydrated than the rest of Europe as far as I can tell.

6. Seeing a statue of someone being flayed. Enough said. I have no idea why this is awesome to me. But...it is, I guess I'm morbid.

7. Roman ruins in the middle of the city 3 stories below the street. I saw this random thing in the middle of the street and I thought huh...what's that? I got there and looked down and BAM, Roman ruins were just chillin' there.

8. Magnum McFlurry. I ate at McDonald's twice that day. :)

9. Ending the day with a trip to see the world's oldest running ferris wheel. And a trip to the most large and random amusement park. This park was awesome, hilarious, random, and kind of creepy depending on which ride you were looking at. There was a Jack the Ripper ride, a Michael Jackson fun-house, some amazing looking rides, and some seriously creepy statues. Overall, it was one of the most awesome experiences ever.

10. Finding a stagecoach in the aforementioned amusement park. Earlier at Schonbrunn Palace, Marianne Ohran (one of the chaperones/tech people) had said stagecoach instead of carriage and felt silly. I said if I found one I would take a picture of it for her. And I did. And it was awesome.

11. Having dinner the night before our day in Vienna in our hotel. It was our last time together as a whole team because our travel plans home were not all the same. I really enjoyed my time with this particular team, I learned a lot from them and had some amazing/funny/spiritual experiences.

TBE in Porec

We're almost done people. For a week we stayed in Porec, Croatia, right on the Adriatic Sea. But really, you could see it from our hotel and we walked past it every day on our way to shows/animations.

1. 1 show a day (or none!). This was the most chill festival ever. We would have an "animation" in the morning, where we'd do a little show in a town square setting where we could like dance with the people who came kind of a thing and we'd just do like 2 numbers. And then we had 1 show at night. However, not everyone did the animations every day, everyone only did it three times out of 7 days. And there was one night when I wasn't in our night show at all because I wasn't in the dances they were doing! Yeehaw! And one day we had NOTHING, 0 shows, 0 animations, total day off. Best, festival, ever.

2. The buffet at the hotel. Um, it was amazing. A huge salad bar, amazing fries, ice cream, adorable desserts, and just all around amazing food. We ate at this place for all three meals people. Everyday. So good.

3. Water aerobics!

Here is a good portion of the team (and some of our chaperons) doing water aerobics on the last day we could. They had them everyday at 11 am. That day the aerobics were led by Ivana (who came to one of our shows, she is so great!) and her special guest Greg! Seriously, this was so fun, and quite a bonding activity. I think every single person on the team/chaperon did it at some point.

4. Getting a tan.

5. Getting into the Adriatic Sea. I do not yet have a picture of this, I think Liahona took one. And I only went in once, and I didn't stay in it long...but it was good enough for me. :)

6. Our awesome day off and boat tour. We weren't planning on doing anything on our day off. The emcee Tim found that out and was not having any of that. He hooked us up with his friend who does boat tours and got us booked for a little tour around the Adriatic. We stopped at a couple of places, passed a nudist colony or two, and had some interesting lunch. One of the towns we stopped in was where Casanova was cast out to after being kicked out of Venice. As for the nudist colonies, thankfully they were far enough away to be not scarring. And lunch? Let's just say if you ordered fish, you sure got fish, all of the fish. And the waiters were SERIOUSLY confused when we gave them back their alcohol they had put on our tables.


Here's a picture I stole from someone taken on our boat tour. Really, everywhere looked like this, it was so beautiful it couldn't even be real life to me.

7. Hanging out with Justin to re-cement our Elkridge partnership. Justin and I were having some clogging partnership issues in which we couldn't hold on to each other for some reason. It all started when he let go too early in Prague for the men's and women's solos. So we decided to stick together during our first stop on the boat tour. We looked for antique books. We found some wooden cats. We went to the top of a really high tower in a church while admitting to each other how much we hate heights (but really, we could have died on those steps), and we almost didn't make it back to the boat but thankfully stumbled upon Michael Steele who laughed at us because we were sort of frantically running. In the wrong direction.

8. Having Jared telling me I was plenty pretty. :) Oh Jared, our banjo player is the bomb and one of my favorite people ever, and the people of Oklahoma will love that boy while he gets to serve them for two years.

9. Carrying Jared's banjo because I wanted to, and having everyone get mad at him for it. The night I wasn't in the show I didn't have anything to carry so I decided to carry Jared's banjo because he always complains about how heavy (fat) she is. However, when people saw me carrying it they assumed that Jared had made me carry it and got mad at him. It was entertaining.

9.5. Always wearing Jared's hat. Seriously, he put it on me like 50% of the time.


10 and 11 really don't need to be published on the internet.

12. Watching the awesome Chinese war epic movie and gaining a new love for eastern warfare. Really, all this time I thought war was stupid, now I realize, western war tactics are stupid.

13. Having no leaders with us for the last parade so we revolted and did songs other than Oh Susanna and Back up and Push! Some of these included Country Roads, ...yeah I can't remember anything else, but they were great! And fun! And everyone loved us and we weren't bored out of our minds.


13.5. Having the leaders show up at various points in the parade with drinks or ice cream right in front of us. Taunting us. It was mean. And funny.

14. Hit cookies after said parade. Those cookies are amazing.

15. Walking down old Roman streets and seeing beautiful old buildings.

No big deal. Just beyond gorgeous.

16. How picturesque everything was. Really, everything made a perfect picture. I kept feeling like I was dreaming.

17. Funny chips. Drew and Tim understand this, and they are the only people on that tour who have ever heard me giggle.

18. "I bet it's cooler outside!" Once upon a time, we had a show and our dressing room was in an abandoned store. It was crazy hot in there, this was clearly the case. But just in case our personal temperature gauges weren't working, Ed continually reminded us to change really quickly and go outside because it's much cooler outside. It became an inside joke between Katrina and I, we said it to each other quite a bit that night, and continued to do so when things got ridiculous throughout the tour.

PS, just for kicks, this was what our stage looked like for that show.


19. Watching a British inspirational movie about education. It was rare to find programming in English that wasn't just news, so this was exciting on a morning when I felt ill to be able to just chill in my room and watch this. Did I mention yet how this week was like a vacation? Seriously.

20. Being in paradise.


21. Eating kalimari, fish, and shark.

22. Finding out Tim (our emcee) seemed interested in the Gospel, especially our focus on families. Ed left him with a Proclamation to the Family.

23. When Tim (our emcee) told us we were the talk of the town. Everyone loved the BYU group! This was so flattering.

24. Going to this awesome mosaic church that has bits of it from really...really old times. 6th century BC? Maybe? I'm not big into history pre-Medieval ages so I don't know. BUT I went with Drew, which was great because we both took forever. However sadly those who joined us were probably bored out of our minds. But at least they could smile long enough for this picture. Thanks for putting up with us Justin, Jay, and Lia. :)

Zagreb

Our next stop was Zagreb, Croatia, which is the capital of Croatia! I thoroughly enjoyed this place, and here are some reasons why.

1. The most delicious, warm hazelnut pastry was eaten here. And I found it at an awesome cheap bakery that was much loved in our time in Zagreb. It was so good I took a picture of it.


2. Our first (and only) air-conditioned hotel. I was even cold for a little bit!

3. Cheap food.

4. Kebabs. Mine actually wasn't even that amazing compared to the other kebabs people got. But it was still super good.

5. The Cathedral and seeing a depiction of Christ and God as separate and embodied individuals. Don't you love it when nuggets of truth show up places where they shouldn't technically be? Reminds me of the Sistine Chapel, oh Michelangelo, you sly dog.


6. The impromptu show in a town square with the missionaries. Upon arriving in Zagreb we learned our one show there had been cancelled. So instead we ended up getting a show arranged in a town square through religious laws so that the missionaries of the area could come and proselyte while we danced. It was amazing. Probably one of the best shows of the entire tour. We did the whole thing in one costume and we were originally going to do like 3 numbers, but ended up doing almost our whole show. It was a really cool opportunity.

Here we are doing Elkridge clog in character shoes and Appalachian dresses.


I include this picture solely for Josh's face, he's the one in red in the middle. This is the boys doing Texas Fandango. For about half the dance they just beat each other up.


Here are the dancing...things...that joined us in the show. Greg messed up in Appalachian Running Sets that day and blamed it on the dancing banana, you can't see it in this shot but there definitely was one.

One of the greatest parts about this show as that while it was being set up, our translator asked the Police Dept. (where he was setting this up) if they wanted help with their English, so they will now be getting English classes from the missionaries!

7. At that same show, between numbers I got to chat with the people watching. I met these siblings from Bosnia who loved to talk to me (they liked improving their English) and then getting to tell some senior humanitarian missionaries about them because Bosnia is in their area! I also told the siblings about English classes through the missionaries.

8. Finding things in the market for the first time that I actually loved and unashamedly buying them. Even though I'd liked things in Hungary, I mostly bought traditional things to remember being there. But in Zagreb I truly loved the things I bought them and didn't get them because they were traditional. I bought a small and a large tablecloth with a traditional heart print on it and a beautiful carving of Christ. I use the tablecloths as blankets. I also spent more than David Lewis, which was a feat because he was clearly the big spender of the trip.

9. Rooming with Emily Bills again. Love her.

10. Watching Man on Fire with Drew and Jay. It was nice to just stay in and watch a movie one of the nights we were there. I was sick of being a tourist.

11. Staying in and watching funny youtube videos with Liahona. My personal favorite was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Lx2ihpGbc She also showed me some great Friends clips.

12. Spending an afternoon at the park watching some of our team play soccer while eating a kebab. It was nice just to relax. And entertaining because the grass they were playing on was super slippery. In fact most surfaces in Croatia were slippery...

13. Eating a hot pepper just because Justin wanted me to. I have never taken a food dare in my life, but something about Justin made me want to do it. That's quite a talent...hope he doesn't take advantage of it. ;)

14. Speaking in the ward and knowing as soon as I entered the building who the talk was for and getting to meet her afterward. Giving a talk through an interpreter wasn't as difficult as I expected, and it was probably one of the most intense spiritual experiences of my life and I will never be grateful enough to Ed for giving me that chance.

Prague.

So it turns out Prague is not my fav place in the world. People may delight in it, but I am not people. It was kind of a let-down after the wonderful-ness of Budapest. But don't worry, good experiences were still had, and a TBE list was still made.

1. The guy from a recent Ensign article about the saints in Czech Republic was one of the translator/leaders. Here is a video of him from the Church website. https://lds.org/youth/video/the-first-step-english?lang=eng

2. People caring about me enough to notice that I was having a horrible night our first night while Jon was showing us through Prague. It really was a terrible night but some wonderful friends noticed and even though I didn't want them to talk to me at first, I was glad they made the effort, it really helped.

3. Czech goulash. SO good. And SO different from the Hungarian version.

4. The Charles Bridge. Easily my favorite thing there.

5. Seeing a real Gothic cathedral in front of my face for the first time ever. This almost rivals the Charles Bridge. It was breathtaking!


6. Hanging out with a different group of people the last night in Prague. It's really easy on tour to end up with the same people the whole time. There's nothing wrong with them, but in large doses people can get annoying. So my last night I was spontaneous and went out late at night in a city I didn't like with people I hadn't hung out with the whole time on tour so far. And it was amazing! One of my favorite adventures. And I got to see this sunset...

The first glimpse


Getting closer.

The whole view

7. Magnum bars after our show. That ice cream was needed in my life.

8. Seeing fireworks on the Moldau River after our show.

9. Discovering great friends in Whitney and Stephanie, the Daily Universe Reporters that got to tag along with us for a while.

10. The clogging workshop we got to do. We were supposed to be the "experienced ones" but...yeah I don't think I ever got that combination. And the pizza they fed us here was AMAZING! The Czech Republic had this really delicious super thin crust pizza, and this kind had the most amazing cheese.

11. A gorgeous thunderstorm.

12. Political discussions with J-red. My favorite banjo player. Who knew someone else felt the same way as I about the 17th Amendment?

13. Walking through the concentration camp with Justin in complete silence. We both just ended up walking together even though we started in different groups. It was a great experience. :)

14. Gelatto for the first time (hazelnut and chocolate) in the tiniest scoops I've ever seen.

TBE in Slovakia

We were in Slovakia but a short time. We only stopped for about an hour in order to get lunch. HOWEVER, we were there long enough for me to have a TBE list. Obviously.

1. Scotty and I realizing we were Slovakian partners (for our International Show during the year) IN Slovakia while taking a picture in front of McDonald's. PS this picture was totally candid, Liahona just has amazing skills.


2. The doodle of a girl on the bathroom doors. You know, to bypass confusion for non-Slovakian speakers. I appreciated it.


3. Eating salad/fresh vegetables. I love produce.

4. Eating a McChicken after hearing Lia talk about it for so long. Apparently this is a sandwich that used to be in American McDonald's but no longer is for whatever reason, and it is Liahona's favorite thing. So when we saw it in Europe she was quite excited. And it really was pretty good.

Europa Part A: Hungary

So I've decided the best way for me to sum up Europe would be in the TBE lists I made with my rockin' roommate Ashlee Carroll. TBE stands for "the best ever". It stems from an experience at Lagoon when Ashlee was getting freaked out by each roller coaster we went on, and every time I assured her by saying it would be the best ever. I accidentally repeated myself at least 5 times, and then it just stuck.

1.Hungarian State Folk Ensemble dress rehearsal
These are just, oh the best Hungarian folk dancers in the universe. Their director has choreographed for us before and we have collaborated with them on past trips so they invited us to the dress rehearsal of a show we couldn't attend and it was PHENOMENAL. I mostly sat there and thought, "Oh that's what Hungarian folk dance is supposed to look like". Now I have the bug.

2. Dancing with a beautiful Hungarian named Norbert.
At a Gala performance on Margaret Island at the end of the week we danced with a combination of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble and Duna Art Ensemble, both amazing groups. Norbert was my partner for the finale and he said very few words to me but when the rehearsal was being run in Hungarian he would keep his arm around me and lead to me where we needed to go. And at the final performance when we finished he said "Cusi, cusi! Thank you!" Cusi is short for the Hungarian word for thank you. I'm sure I spelled it terribly wrong but hey, I don't speak Hungarian.

3. Chick-flick moment - ice cream shoppe afternoon with the girls.
Once upon a time we were given 5 hours of free time and we were shopped/touristed out. While some people went to some random underground tunnels which they still insist were cool, me, Ashlee, Jessica, Emily Dance(Fish), Liahona, and Erin went to the most precious little confectionery shop. It was pink and the servers knew English and we talked about life and boys and mostly boys. And it was so good.

4. Making great friends with Anna from the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble.
Anna was in my group from the same Gala where I danced with Norbert. After the show I got to know her a lot better and she was AMAZED to hear that I had 8 brothers and sisters and refused to believe it for some time. She is from a "large family of 3 kids", so it kind of blew her mind. :)

5. Having Hungarian facebook friends.

6. The view from Fisherman's Bastion at sunset.

Thank you Hungarian missionaries for taking us here at sunset and when it was free. I owe you.

7. The missionaries and Timi and all of the members we met.
But really, Budapest was just about everyone on the team's favorite and I feel like it was definitely because of the friendships we created with the members. Timi was our interpreter for the ward/informal tour guide/groupie. :)

8. Our groupies (Attila, Nikki, Aggie, Timi, other members)
We had so many people following us and coming to multiple shows. It was very flattering.

9. Andrea and Andi our tour guides.
They were the bomb and funny and knowledgeable and great. And I love them.

10. Parliament.

11. Going inside of St. Matthias Church.
Beside the fact that this was my first European cathedral was the fact that the day before had been our first tour Sunday. It had been fairly horrible for me, mostly owing to the fact that I hadn't realized what it would be like so I didn't get to worship as I would have liked to. So I made up for it this day by taking some time, sitting by myself, and just having some personal worship time in this beautiful cathedral. So clearly it has a special place in my heart.

12. Firesides.
They were just amazing. Fun, spirit-filled, perfect.

13. Water conservative toilets and stalls that actually cover you.
Europeans really know how to do bathrooms man. The stalls are a real honest-to-goodness door. And their toilets are just so water-conscious. Delightful.

14. Cobblestone streets.

15. Singing to the hosts and Aundrea/Janos' speeches.
On our last night we took some time to sing God Be With You 'Till We Meet Again to Aundrea/Andi/Janos/Attila/Nikki and the Spirit was incredibly strong. We gave them presents, they gave us presents, then Aundrea gave a memorable speech about how great we are. But she realized in the middle of the speech that she wasn't talking about us as dancers, but us as individuals.

16. Andi's singing.
Sometimes (twice to be exact) Andi would sing to us on the bus. Once for a birthday, she sang a Hungarian birthday song. The last night she sang us a traditional song after we had sung for her (see 15). She was just so sweet.

17. Learning Hungarian dancing from Miklos.
Did I mention we learned Hungarian dancing in a studio right on the Danube? Yeah.

18. Paprika crackers and Bueno bars and Milka chocolate.
Paprika flavored things are the bomb. And everyone knows European chocolate rocks.

19. Cheap souvenirs.

20. Jared coming into the girl's dressing room!
We lured our pre-missionary banjo player into the girls dressing room before the performance started with cheese rolls. There is photographic evidence on facebook.

21. The schoolroom moment at our last show.
In waiting for our last show our dressing room was this quaint schoolroom. Since we were dressed in Appalachian and Emily Dance(Fish) was in pioneer she naturally pretended to be the teacher. Then Tesha taught us to ask for ice cream in Hungarian while we chanted it at the top of our lungs. There was dancing in the aisles, and wailing, and then Jon walked in (our tour manager who is the one that buys us ice cream)and it was a perfect moment that can never be beat.

22. Terror House.

This was the house of both the Hungarian Nazis and the Soviets and is now a museum to the terror that both regimes inflicted. It was amazing. And if I spoke Hungarian, it would have been even better.

23. My dating talk with the boys at Trofea Grill.
It was great. But don't ask my any details, because I'm pinky-sworn to secrecy.

24. Rita telling us about politics and the Church.
Let's just say amazing things are happening in Hungary with the church.

25. Fat arms.
This is a humorous story in which basically Liahona said I had fat arms. She was talking about the arms on my watch, but momentarily I was incredibly offended.

26. Being called "dahling" by a Hungarian woman whose English sounded British.
Often the older people who knew English knew it because of Great Britain. Therefore, British accents.

27. Doing Running Sets with Nikki and hiding her from Ed.
We have this friend Nikki from the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. She wanted to dance with us, so we taught her our easiest dance and she did it with us in the Gala performance. The trick was hiding her from Ed before the show when he insisted on standing with us and talking to us the entire time before the show.
Ed is the man with grey hair on the left, and Nikki is the furthest girl on the right. That's how close they were! But we kept our secret. Until...we got on stage.

28. Ed delightedly playing the bones
This is the reason we thought he might not notice Nikki, he really gets into playing the bones with the band. It's quite adorable actually.

29. My first Magnum bar.
Double caramel. So. Good.

30. Paprika and Paprikash chicken (and tons of potatoes)
Meat and potatoes for every meal after starting with a delicious soup. The food in Hungary made me absolutely delighted.

31. Getting to know Jay Tibbits our percussionist for the tour.
One day we sat next to each other on the bus all day and generally chilled out a lot. It was great.

Estoy in Europa

I shall update soon with epic adventures. Until then, prepare yourselves for the tales of Europa.