Spring Tour Blog
Day 1: Tour Begins!
Hello everyone! Welcome to the 2nd annual Singing Lions Tour Blog! This is your webmaster Brian Poole bringing you the latest news on the "Ra Ra Tour Ah Ah" ...tour 2010. Each day, I, or someone else, will fill you in on all the happenings of the Singing Lions with in text and visual form. Exciting? You betcha!
What is "Rah Rah Tour Ah Ah" you may ask? Well listen to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and insert those lyrics, it will all become clear.
This year started out as always with everyone meeting at the Music Building to load up the bus. The bus this year is AMAZING! It's brand new and looks like a space ship inside. It's pretty sweet (I'll put pictures up later). Not only did we get this fantastic bus, but we got the best bus driver ever, Gottfried! He was our driver last year, and he's risking his sanity again to take us on tour! More shocking news: No one was overly late this year! Believe it. This was just the start of a very successful day.
Bus Buddy posters. For those who don't know what Bus Buddies I'll give a short explanation. During our tour each person is assigned someone secretly and throughout the tour they give their person little presents like food that they like or things to do on the bus. It's kind of like a Secret Santa for the whole length of tour. Everyone doesn't find out who their Bus Buddy is until the very end of tour where they get a final present. The bus buddy also has the job of creating a poster to designate where a person sits during tour. Each year, poster creativity seems to increase, and this year was no exception. There were 3-D posters, awesome collages and funny play-on-words. Needless to say, our bus looks fantastic!
This week seemed to have taken its toll on the majority of the group as evidence by the amount of sleeping that took place shortly after our departure. But once we arrived in Charlottesville, the energy picked right back up! We spent some free time wandering the Charlottesville Downtown mall, and some of us ended up taking a free trolly to the University of Virginia campus to have a look around. The campus was absolutely gorgeous. We walked outside for a while, but eventually ended up in the Rotundra, which was absolutely stunning. Some people then left to find the theatre department building while some of us spent time in the special collections museum. Time came for us all to get back to the bus so we could get over to our perfomance, and once again, everyone was on time.
Our first performance of this year's tour was at The Colonnades. We arrived there at around 5:30, which was good, because our performance space was pretty small, so we had plenty of time to adjust our performance. The show went really well, especially for how much sleep everyone had gotten the night before. The energy was up, and everyone seemed to love the performance. There was a really cute old couple who were Penn State graduates that live at The Colonaddes, and they really loved it, which made everything worth that much more. There was another older gentleman who sat in the front row that was really into the show. At the end of "Can't You Feel It?" he shouted "Oh, We can feel it!," and at the end of our Broadway medley when we sing "Light," he shouted (Southern Baptist Church style) "Let there be light!" It turned out that he is a retired minister and peforms with a local choir, so it was nice to see that he was enjoying it as much as he did.
This performance was also the debut of our new blue outfits! They look really good. Really good. I just wish I knew how to upload photos using this program so I could show you, but for now you will just have to trust me. Stay tuned to the blog, and hopefully I'll start getting photos uploaded shortly. We head to Loudon, TN tomorrow, and I can only imagine what the day has in store for us!
Day 2 – Tennessee!
Hey everyone, it’s Brian again. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think there’s going to be pictures on this blog. The program I use doesn’t allow it as far as I can figure out, but I’ll keep trying.
Day 2 started out with a 9:00 departure from Charlottesville, and again, we were all on time. I mean, it’s only day 2, but so far so good with people being on time. We had our first long bus ride of tour, 6 hours. We watched “Little Rascals” and “Zoolander” on the awesome TVs on the bus. Lot’s of napping happened at the beginning, but after our first rest stop, Tour Wars Day 2 began.
Which brings me to Tour wars, which I forgot to mention yesterday. I’m actually going to let Mark Dietzler explain what Tour Wars is. Hi Mom and Dad (and everyone else who’s following us)! This year we decided to spice up the tourin’ experience, especially our long hours on the bus, with TOUR WARS (inspired by THON’s Color Wars)! There are four teams in Tour Wars that compete on various challenges throughout tour: Chartreuse, Fandango, Cerulean, and Coqueilicot! Our challenges can range from naming US Presidents to a cheer competition (that’s all we’ve done so far). Right now Cerulean is in the lead with Coquelicot and Fandango tied for second and Chartreuse hasn’t showed up yet. Of course, we will keep you updated as the competition heats up! I’m gonna go raid Ryan McCrae’s grandparents’ kitchen now, back to you Brian!
Ok. So, we arrived at the Yacht Club at Tellico Village around 4:30 and started setting up for the show. The weather and location were absolutely beautiful. We were right on the Tennessee River as the sun was setting: absolutely gorgeous. We had a wonderful dinner, and besides for a few sound issues before the show, the performance went really well. We had a great turnout, a few Penn State alums present, and everyone really seemed to enjoy the show. After the show we all left for our first homestays of tour. We all need to rest up, because tomorrow we leave for Atlanta, GA and an afternoon performance! Stay tuned for more updates!
p.s. I might not always have internet connection, so the blog might not go up every night, but I’m going to do the best I can.
Day 3 – Atlanta, GA
Greetings readers! This is Liz Hartigan blogging for you this evening coming from the beautiful Jameson home in Atlanta, Georgia! Special shout out to Mom & Dad back in freezing Upper Darby! And to all our loyal alumni anxious to receive picture messages and daily updates! Love you all so much!
The Singing Lions left this morning from Knoxville, Tennessee for about a three and a half hour trip to Atlanta. We all had fantastic homestays last night, and we’d like to thank each and every one of them for hosting us!
My fellow leones would be mad at me if I forgot to mention the ever so epic, Tour Wars on today’s blog entry! Today’s game was Sporcle-themed like our Presidents game from earlier this week, and we had to name as many Best Picture Winners as we could in five minutes. This certainly got our minds prepared for the Academy Awards tonight. Winning this game was Team Coquelicot, but the overall standings are still (in order from first to fourth) Cereleun, Coquelicot, Fandango, and then Chartreuse. Winning the race back to the bus at lunchtime, however, was Fandango.
Arriving in the Atlanta area around 11:30 AM / noonish, we decided to skip lunchtime and get some snack foods before our performance this afternoon. Some people picked up food from the popular choice, Sonic, and we then made our way to the Parc at Buckhead for our third performance of Tour 2010.
The Parc at Buckhead is a beautiful retirement community and facility where we walked in thinking we were in a hotel. We were treated to our own private suite as a changing room, and enjoyed taking lovely pictures on the balcony. Even though our audience was small, among them was a Penn State graduate (happy to introduce her alma mater) and others quite enthusiastic about our performance. They really enjoyed our Decades and Broadway medley!
After our show, the Singing Lions were granted with “free time” in Atlanta at Phipps Plaza, quite a large mall with a movie theatre in it. Some members used their time to shop, but the majority went to the movies seeing “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Shutter Island.” Forgetting what day of the week it was, we didn’t realize that the mall closes at 6PM on Sundays… oops! So, we found some other shops around to look around and made good use of our free time!
Once we all met back up at the bus, we then rode to the home of Steve’s Aunt & Uncle, the Jamesons! Even though we got a little lost on the way, Mrs. Jameson came to meet us and allowed us to follow her here. Thank god for the cul-de-sac at the end of their street for the sanity of our bus driver, Gottfried!
We finally arrived to the Jameson’s and everyone is currently sitting in the family room and kitchen attentively watching the Oscars! Some members even made predictions ahead of time (cough Ryan McRae and Jessie Leo cough) and we’re certainly enjoying critiquing all of the ugly and pretty dresses.
Anyway, I’m anxious to get back to watching as well. (The only movie nominated that I saw was “Up,” but that’s one of my favorites. So, GO UP!) We’ll wake up tomorrow (and you better believe I’ll be distributing vitamins to every member) ready to depart for the awaited state of the trip, Florida! Get ready, Tallahassee! The Singing Lions are coming!!
Day 4 - Tallahassee, FL
Hello everybody! This is guest blogger Jessie Leo updating y'all right now. This morning, after we begrudgingly left Stevie's aunt and uncle's beautiful house, we got on the bus and headed to Tallahassee, FL. The bus ride itself was quite the experience, the main reason being we had an epic "Dress Like Lady Gaga" competition as a part of our first annual Tour Wars event. The objective for each team was to choose one team member to dress up as the over-the-top superstar, using only clothing and various items found on the bus. Needless to say, it was hilarious. Team Fandango won! Before that though was a quick trivia game in which we had to list as many U.S. state capitols as possible. After hearing the results, it was clear that geography is not our strong suit. Overall Tour Wars standings are now: (from last place to first) Chartruese, Coquelicot, Fandango, and Cerulean.
Once we arrived at our destination, things were considerably less crazy. We set up for our show, and headed out for some food! After finding some local grub, we got it to-go and ate it in a pretty little park by a lake. It was so lovely, and we actually felt the heat of the sun for the first time! Aside from eating, we skipped stones, climbed trees, and of course, took a whole bunch of photos in this serene spot we had found.
Following the impromptu picnic was our show at Heritage Oaks! It was really fun, and the audience seemed to absolutely love it, especially the one woman who actually danced along to "The Charleston" with us from her seat!
After the show, we broke into two groups: the over 21 crowd and the under-agers. The first group stayed in a hotel, while the latter group, of which I am a part, headed to Faith D's house, a Singing Lions alumni from 1994-1998! We are currently having such a blast at her house! She showed us old photos of past tours and shared with us tons of amazing stories from the Singing Lions' past. It really feels like we're a part of a Penn State legacy, and I for one know that I would love to host future Singing Lions at my home sometime down the road!
That's all for now folks - we'll check in again tomorrow! Goodnight!
Day 5-6 : Orlando
Greetings from Florida! This is Nicole reporting from the beautiful Orlando! We arrived at the lovely Continental Plaza hotel yesterday afternoon, a setting quite familiar to the older liones, as we stayed here two years ago. It was difficult to hold back our excitement when we stepped off of the bus and realized the temperature difference. After settling in our hotel rooms and getting ready for the busy night ahead, we started our journey to Universal’s City Walk. On our way we passed the Universal sign that we took pictures with two tours ago, as well as the palm branches that Chuckie was so fond off during one our walks home. As one of the people who experienced City Walk both times, it was amazing to be able to share it with new people, but I think that all of us spent a little time thinking about those who weren’t with us this time around. We all really miss you guys!
After getting attacked by parrots outside of Margaritaville, the whole group headed over to Latin Quarter, a classy Spanish-style restaurant with live music and plantains on the menu- what more could a singing lion ask for? After dinner we strolled around City Walk, which has not changed much since the last time that we visited, with the exception of the Hogwarts castle peeking up over the trees of Islands of Adventure.
The festivities continued at the hotel where we had some serious group bonding time- as if we needed any more of that, haha! For the most part, everyone was in bed by about midnight, and dreaming magical Disney dreams of the fun that would ensue the next day.
Now I have been experiencing the craziness that goes along with Singing Lions events for four years now, and if I do say so myself, today will go down in the history books- or at least the scrapbook. Today was truly epic. Gottfried got us to the Magic Kingdom around 9 AM so that we could maximize our Disney World time. A few of the group members were lucky enough to get park hopper passes, but most of us spent the whole day at Magic Kingdom.
Of course most of our time was spent riding the classic rides; favorites included Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Peter Pan, and It’s a Small World. We found at least four or five Penn Staters throughout the park and of course we were as obnoxious as ever screaming the “we are” chant back and forth.
The boys who went to other parks (Drew, Matt, Stevie, Torchia, Tim, and Ryan), actually have a really great story that I can try to share a little bit of. Ryan and Stevie participated in the American Idol show at Hollywood studios and both made it to the finals at the end of the day! AND STEVIE CAME IN SECOND PLACE! If I remember correctly they sang ‘Walkin in Memphis’ and ‘Signed Sealed Delivered’, but you’ll have to ask them for more details.
Perhaps the best part of the day, and one of the highlights of my Signing Lions career happened with the rest of the group towards the end of the day at the Magic Kingdom. Most of the group traveled to Toontown to try to get some pictures with Disney characters- our tour wars event for the day. Have we talked about tour wars in this blog? Anyway, in a nutshell, everyone in Disney caught word that we were a singing group from Penn State and asked us to sing for Mickey and Minnie! Mickey even conducted the Alma Mater! Then we made our way to the Disney princesses where we had a private visit with Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, and we had a Disney sing-along session! They loved us! Then we were escorted to a different room with Tinkerbelle and her sassy friends. They insisted that we sing a different song for each of them. We even busted out ‘Can’t You Feel It’ -complete with choreography. After an extensive photo-shoot, we sang for the Disney workers one last time and received compliments from ordinary park guests as we left the building! Everyone in Disney was lovin the Singing Lions.
We watched the ‘Wishes’ fireworks show and did some shopping, and now we’re back at the hotel. Everyone is actually swimming while I write this so I think I’m gonna go join them. In conclusion, The Liones did Disney and were loved by Fairies and Princesses…so it was typical day. It’s been a pleasure filling you in! I love you Mommy and Daddy! Miss you, Monkey!
Day 7 – Cocoa Beach
Hello everyone, Brian here again. Day 7 started with a lazy bus load-in at 9 am with gray skies overhead. We left Orlando for Cocoa Beach and experienced rain the entire way. Not really what we wanted on our beach day, but we made the best of it.
Despite all the rain, the Moses house was still beautiful. The houseboat was still floating in the backyard, and the pool was about 85 degrees, so we had planned to swim, but then lightening started happening, so we stayed inside and watched a movie and played some games to pass the time.
Some people were determined to make it to the beach to at least look at it, so a couple time throughout the day, small groups would leave and make the trek, but every time, they would get stuck in a torrential downpour on their way there or on the way back.
The party began later in the evening when the homestays started coming over to the Moses house for dinner. There was lots of talking, lots of laughing, then lots of singing. Jessie’s cousin, Alex Moses, performed a few songs off of his new (and first) CD, “Sunrise Sessions,” (available online). That’s my plug for him. He’s really talented, and the CD only costs $10, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone! After Al performed a few songs for us, it was our turn. The girls performed “Shine like the Sun” first accapella, then the boys did “On my Way,” but we needed a piano, because there was no way we could have done it otherwise. Then the group performed “Distance You Have Come” and “End of the Road” to finish it off. They were all a bit rusty sounding, but the neighborhood enjoyed it anyway.
After our performance, people started bringing their dogs over, which is always a good time. We decided to go swimming around 10pm since the rain slowed down considerably at the time. Apparently a couple of the dogs were jealous and decided to come swim with us, which was awesome. Eventually, people started filtering out, but then the dolphins came in! Well, kind of. There were dolphins in the canal behind the house and into the lake/river/whatever runs next to their neighborhood, and we were able to see fins every once and a while. A perfect ending to the day if I do say so myself. Stay tuned for our adventure in Savannah, GA!
Day 8 – Savannah, GA
Hello once again! Brian here bringing you the latest from the Singing Lions tour. Sorry that there haven’t been many pictures uploaded. It’s very time consuming and I usually get caught up in hanging out with everyone and run out of time to upload pictures. So what I’m going to upload pictures when I can, so keep checking back.
We woke up this morning to a still very rainy Cocoa Beach. We loaded up the bus around 9am and made our way towards Savannah, GA. Sleepy Sleepy Liones slept for the majority of the way, but after our lunch break, we had another Tour Wars event, coloring. Team Fandango won of course (my team) thanks to me!
We arrived in Savannah with about 6 hours of free time, so we all decided to explore the town. We walked as a group down on River Walk and went into some shops and just relaxed for a while. Then we all split up, and since I’m blogging, you get to hear what I did, exciting right?
Since the bench scene of Forrest Gump was filmed in Savannah, a few others and me decided to go find where it was filmed. Using my handy dandy iPhone, we found the square where it was and spent a good while figuring out which side of the square the bench was. You would think they’d put a plaque or something where they filmed it, but that would have made everything to easy.
After that was all said and done, we explored the streets some more until we decided to go on a trolley ghost tour, where we met up with some other Liones. This turned out to be a little better information-wise than the ghost tour we took 2 years ago. Though there was no Tomo-chi-chi or bad juju on this tour, we heard a lot more ghost stories and had a tour guide that actually knew what he was talking about, so it was well worth it.
It seems like everyone else had a successful evening, I just don’t know what they did. We all made it back to the bus and headed to our hotel in Hardeeville, SC. And that’s where we’re relaxing for the evening and then it’s off to Richmond, VA in the morning. I think there will be a guest blogger tomorrow, so check back!
