5/24/13-5/25/13: El Paso, TX

Have you ever been to El Paso?  This makes my second trip here with shows - and its such a city of duality.  One one hand: The locals are extremely friendly (theatre locals and local locals), the food is amazing authentic Mexican cuisine (because its made by Mexicans who live in Mexico), there's a fun atmosphere of art and Latin culture all around and its fairly wallet friendly.  On the other had: Its basically Juarez, Mexico...which happens to be the drug and murder capital OF THE WORLD.  You get the same warnings from every company manager about staying in at night, not crossing the border, travel in groups, etc.

So a trip to El Paso is always exciting, fun and a little scary (because of the imminent danger...).  I'm happy to say that we all made it through our 2 day trip alive and kicking (and not by being sold in to a white sex slavery ring...).  The theatre we were at was beautiful - reminiscent of the theatre we played in San Antonio - complete with an outdoor Mexican village setting and an absolutely gorgeous star display on the ceiling of the theatre that made singing The Moon And Me more magical than ever.  There was an indie music festival going on a block away (Neon Desert) - which was pretty cool and added to the electric charge in the air of the town.  And the audiences were great (they loved all of our Spanish language jokes lol) - and incredibly friendly to meet with outside the stage door.  One man even proposed to his (now) fiancé after our performance - apparently they had met doing theatre and so it was the perfect setting to further their relationship.

This time around I actually got to walk around the city a bit - though not a whole lot as it was really hot out there and I was working my way through the tail end of a cold brought on by the mold in Omaha and needed to rest.  It was cool to walk through the shopping district areas and see all the local shops - it actually reminded me of being in certain parts of Queens (lol).  What struck me most about the shops were the way that they marketed their clothing. There was literally a stretch of 2 blocks with hundreds of mannequins all turned booty out to show 'how good your butt will look in these pants'.  Hilarious!  Of course I sampled the food in a couple places - fantastic, as I assumed they would be.

The only downer was that we found out that the weather seals on our tour bus luggage compartment weren't working and a great deal of our combined suitcases were waterlogged and full of wet and musty clothes.  A headache for sure - but between our company manager working out some stuff with the hotel we were at to let us use their industrial washer/driers and the efforts of Cat, our wardrobe head - we got it all squared away.  Now its just a race to re-seal the luggage bays before the next rains come - but I'm sure it will be fine now that the company knows that it is an issue.

Next we have 2 (technically - though one full day is all travel til 8pm) days off in Atlanta...to recharge a bit before moving on to Morganton, NC on Tuesday.  Back to Eastern Standard Time!  Happy Memorial Day!  TTYS from NC!