Bus bus bus

Wow, thank you everyone. I really didn't know I had more than four readers. So... Thanks. :)

Sorry for not updating. I've been in Vegas.

Actually thats not entirely true, as I was only there one night. But still, it was really cool.

So this past week, we made the trek all the way from south Dakota (we had been in Canada, again, just recently) down through Utah and into las Vegas last night. Seeing as there are only three of us in this tour who are underage, Anna, Alicia and I made our own adventures and walked up and down the Strip (Las Vegas Blvd) exploring. In fact, Vegas is a lot like Disneyworld. It's a lot of fake things, and gaudy and touristy things, but that's sort of okay because no one is expecting it to be anything else.

Now I'm traveling through the Mojave desert and it's really something. I took lots of pictures that I promise I'll put up later. I am really excited about San Diego for a whole week. Maybe i should celebrate by dying my hair a crazy color or stealing one of the orcas at sea world and freeing it into the ocean Free Willy-style. Or maybe I'll just have an In-N-Out burger.

The Secret Day Off

First off: I don't blog often because I am discouraged by it. I only ever get like two comments, which leads me to believe that the only people who read this blog are... my mother. And maybe Lauren or Joanna. So please. If you're out there, reading even a little, maybe you can leave a comment so I know that people actually exist who read this blog. Because a blogger with no readers has no purpose in blogging.

Anyway. Time for the post.

So, last week, we were still up in the northeast, and they gave us one long travel day into Boston, then a golden day in Boston, then a brief travel day into Schenectady.

Well, about four of us with loved ones (or Spiderman tickets) decided to blow off Boston and return to NYC for a glorious few hours.

I was finally going home for a little bit!!

First things first: I saw Qi Qi, my boyfriend's adorable little niece who had grown up a lot in just a few short months.

The next morning, I went to Pace very, very briefly to meet up with Wins so we could go eat delicious New York food. Pace was heavily snowed upon.


Then: Japanese food, of course. At my favorite place of all time, Udon West on Astor Place.

Our feast that afternoon, curry and rice
Hungry lovers
The feast is consumed.

Then, later, we went to Bryant Part (Winston's wonderful idea) for ice skating, to commemorate our one year anniversary that I would miss on Feb 19. Because, hey, what's more romantic in winter than ice skating? Not much.
On our way to Bryant Park

A friendly tourist couple watching the skaters took our picture

"HUG" hehehe

But this is probably my favorite picture of all...

Anyway, later that evening we met up with mah bestest friend Bird and Leslie (Picture will come later. For some reason my iPad found it too difficult to email it.)

After a [free] feast at the NYU cafeteria, thanks to Leslie's mad RA skills, Wins and I went on our date to Cafe LaLo on the upper west side, another of our favorite places.
They had a bunch of Christmas lights still up, which was lovely in the dark cold atmosphere outside.

Cake and cappuccinos are consumed.

Delicious day.

More on the second day later...

New app, and lots of snow

Hey all. We've been in and out of internet service over the past few weeks, going in and out of Canada... and a lot of what we've seen is just rural landscape, where wifi has yet to venture. So it's been tough to get around to blogging.





In other news, I got a new iPad app that lets me make little journal pages for every day, so I thought I'd share some of those from the past few weeks/days to make up for my lack of blogging.

The great and glorious iPad of glory (and stuff)

Sorry. I haven't updated in a long time because it was Christmas and I had to do lots of shows and also some Christmasy stuff.

And, for Christmas, I got an iPad.

It is awesome.

It is the love child of a kindle and an iphone, only a thousand times better.

The iPhone is super cool and cute and stuff, and is capable of many a task. Also, it is a phone. I mean, you can't really replace a phone.

And the kindle is (aside from being superior, in my opinion, to the other ereaders) a wonderful and glorious invention in itself, as I can carry hundreds of books in it that would otherwise fill my bookshelves and clutter my future apartment (which will still happen anyway)

No, the iPad is someting altogether different. Tablet technology is really amazing. I can do so many things on this awesome little machine.

I can blog. I can use the internet. I can write novels. I can play sweet ultra-graphics games. I can watch movies for hours. I can store my recipe books (and cook using them, and mark grocery lists, and find stores to get the ingredients.) I can keep a journal. I can read everything on my kindle. I can use Skype. I can text.

But most of all, I can make drawings. And now, this is all I do during intermission.

Namaste.
-Kate

Edmonton is cool

So late Tuesday night, after the show, we drove from Red Deer to Edmonton, Alberta. And let me just say that Edmonton is way cool (literally and figuratively)

Wednesday I awoke early for a bus call taking us to the mall. We had a golden day, which means no show and no traveling! I walked around the mall with Ana and Stacey for six hours and never ran out of things to do.






The West Edmonton mall is INSANE. It has over 800 stores, an indoor water park, an ice rink, a sea lion habitat and show, a full-scale replica of the Santa Maria ship, a Chinese supermarket, bungee jumping, and a theme park with two full-size roller coasters. Yes, roller coasters.
It was crazy.

Happy cast members after the insanely awesome roller coaster ride.

(Thanks to McKayla Marso for the photos. I totally stole them from your facebook.)

At any rate, now I am chilling in my hotel, having much-needed rest and personal time before our show tonight. I downloaded the 2nd book in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, which so far is incredible.

On The Road-- Foodwise

Cooking. I never appreciated it until I didn't have it anymore. (Yes, this is related to touring)

I've never really done enough cooking. In high school I was always too busy. When I came back from college the first summer, I tried cooking a few things, like vegetarian gyoza for my family and baked cinnamon apple crisp at Christmas-- but I've never really gotten to bake, or cook--or, for that matter, sautee, grill, fry, whisk, what have you-- as much as I'd really like to.

In fact, when I suggested to my boyfriend that I was interested in cooking more when I had an actual kitchen, he laughed and said "You? You could live off pop-tarts and easy mac. That's like, all you eat."

Well, this was partially true. But not any more!

Something inside of me has snapped, and I know what brought it on.

On tour, you never really get the opportunity to make food for yourself, unless, like my roommate, you buy an electric skillet and get as many vegetables as you can whenever there is a grocery store near the hotel. Our meals are essentially planned for us: on long driving days, we rush off the bus for a quick lunch break, which usually means the nearest fast food option available. Around showtime, a group of us will sometimes go to a restaurant (if we have time) and try for something dirt cheap (acting ain't easy) and hopefully alcohol. (Not me though. Except in Canada. Woot!) The only time I've ever ordered room service was yesterday and today, when I had a bowl of vegetable soup brought up because I am sick and the nearest food alternative is a mile away in freezing rain.

Thus, touring has increased my appetite for: cooking.

It started with the food blogs.

Oh, the glorious, glorious food blogs. Pages of brilliant photography, laid out with instructions, peppered with witty stories about their creation and preparation... I love, love, love food blogs.

I tend to do this to myself. When there is no viable option for a good meal-- such as when I am unable to eat solid food after wisdom teeth, or if, like now, I'm stuck in a hotel room with nothing but cheap complimentary tea bags and a half empty packet of ramen-- I will go on the internet and TORTURE myself with images of beautifully prepared and seemingly delicious food stuffs.

So that's a hard thing about tour. It's hard to eat right. Luckily, I seem to have taken the route of avoiding fast food (except Taco Bell. I friggin' love Taco Bell.) and overall eating much less than I usually do in New York. Which is good, 'cause, along with the hardcore dancing in that blasted jitterbug number, I feel I may have actually lost a couple of pounds... but I digress.


My roommate is marrying her British boyfriend this spring once tour concludes. And the biggest difference between the English and the American is, she says, the English don't care about food, and find it incredibly humorous how dramatic Americans are about food; they think the world "delicious" is absurd. But we are dramatic about it-- We're passionate about the Food Network, we obsess over food for big events-- and the British don't care as long as there's booze somewhere.

But food is important. And awesome. I digress yet again.

So, when I get back, I'm gonna COOK.

I think I'll start with vodka cream pasta and garlic hasselback potatoes and maybe spiced poached cinnamon pears wrapped in pastry.

Domestic? A little. But I don't have to be feminist when I just want to make something delicious.


**This post may or may not have been influenced by the fact that it is 11 pm, I am starving, and I've just streamed Julie & Julia on megavideo. And my god, does that stuff look good. Mom, can I have a cookbook for Christmas? =)

Bozeman, Montana

"DON'T BACKTALK THE SPARKLY FAIRY"

"AAAAAHHHH YES MA'AM *sob* PLEASE DON'T HIT ME ANYMORE"