Thursday, October 8, 2009

To and From Blanc-Sablon

Right in to it...

I know, I know it has been a while since you've heard a word from your favorite touring troupe but I can assure you Canada there are many good reasons for this.

The most significant being our lack of modern day communication tools, i.e. the interweb and mobile telephone service.

The last time we spoke our team was heading to Sept Iles to begin our journey along the Coast. Looking forward, one of the bright points of this part of the leg was the lack of set. By this I mean that because of transport issues we were physically unable to bring our set along on this leg of the tour. At the time, sitting in Baie Comeau, the idea of touring without set was as exciting as let's say...winning the 6/49...like twice.

Man were we wrong, "The Coast" as locals call it, had much more in store for us than what we could have ever expected.

Sept Iles at first glance came across as somewhat of a dreary town, but after our very first interaction with the kids, we fell for it.

Both the elementary and high school can boast amazing students. They were excited, engaged and offered outstanding feedback. We would like to thank the amazing Cassandra. Years ahead of her time she offered conversation that most 20 year-olds would find hard to carry.

Shortly after our shows in Sept Iles we were scheduled to fly out to Blanc-Sablon. Which didn't happen. Yet we were on route to the airport at 4:30am the next morning.

It was about 5 minutes until we landed our 12 seater plane onto the run-way at the Blanc-Sablon airport. Just by staring out at the landscape I couldn't help but think that I was on a different planet, or at least in a different country. For the next 18 hours, without exaggeration, we as a group posed the question "Where the heck are we?" a combined 4,243 times. In between every one of these questions we learned more and more about this town. How lovely the people are, their incredible tolerance to cold weather, and their take on the English language.

From Blanc-Sablon we traveled 25 minutes to St-Paul's River, where we had the most fantastic stay at George and Ina's Bed and Breakfast. There are no words that exist in the English language to properly express the kindness and hospitality that this couple shared with us. It was soooooo nice to see, smell, and feel a home cooked meal. I've never been so happy to see spaghetti in my life. Their stories and the genuine passion in telling them is something that will be etched in my memory forever. Thank You George and Ina!

Along this leg of the tour we hit more and more issues with flight delays and cancellations, something that apparently just comes with the territory. I overheard a man telling an airport employee that he had been trying to get from Blanc-Sablon to Chevrey for 3 days. It's about a 25 minute flight. But fog and rain are much too frequent on the Coast.

Unfortunately that's all the time I have for now, but more tales from the Coast soon enough.

And, rest assured the Diva is still high maintenance but funny, the Authority is still as powerful, the Mad Scientist is still as genius, and I'm just as umpf as the day we left.

tata for now.

Jimmy for The G-Team

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

So wonderful to read all about your adventures.
Please post some photos.

Thought you'd appreciate an update from the 'other' Geordie tour JUNGLE BOOK. Dean, Kirsten, Louis and I descended onto Edmonton on different days this past week. First impression it's very very cold.
Second thing one notices is there are large images of Oliver (Mowgli) all over Edmonton. Huge posters wherever you go in the downtown core.

The rest of the company arrives tomorrow. We plan to have Thanksgiving dinner all together at a local restaurant. Coincidentally, Tracy Power, she adapted JUNGLE BOOK for Geordie, is acting in a play at the Citadel so we plan to spend time with her too.

We've been made very welcome by the staff and crew at the Citadel and are looking forward to getting back into the theatre on Tuesday.

With the school tour going off to the Maritimes and Jungle book out west I think we got Canada covered.
Stay safe and send more updates more often.
ana

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