8:45 EST

Dinner in Vegas seems like it was two days ago as I wake up on the hard basement floor of the Miami American Eagle terminal. We got on the shuttle at 8pm, Las Vegas time last night, fighting some serious winds as we loaded our baggage. My roommate Kate was literally pulled away from the hotel and the shuttle bus by these winds as the garbage can outside the hotel was demolished along side her. The van dropped us off at baggage check, where all of us managed to check two bags under the weight of 50 lbs each. It was an airport miracle. With two hours before boarding, we sat at a sports bar for a drink before getting ourselves together to board our 5-hour flight. On the plane I sat in the aisle seat of row 24 with my roommate in the window seat and no one in between. As lucky as we were to have this middle seat vacant, it did nothing for my need to snooze. The in-flight movie was ‘Up In the Air’, which I watched about a third of before attempting to sleep with no success. Shifting positions every 6 seconds, I slept for a total of about 5 minutes. A woman a few rows up from us apparently didn’t wake up when nudged by her husband, so there was a period of about 15 minutes where ‘anyone with medical training’ was asked to assist in trying to revive her. She did eventually wake up after causing the whole plane to flutter with curiosity. There was a substantial amount of turbulance throughout the flight, and as we made our decent, the pressure in my head increased to a pain I have never felt before. It felt like someone was trying to pull my temples further and further away from the brain. Popping my ears didn’t help much, and chewing gum was a struggle as we finally touched down. We landed in Miami at 6:10am Eastern Standard Time, and only as I stood to leave did my headache subside. Stumbling off the plane like zombies we made our way down to the basement of the airport to drop our luggage off at our next terminal.

American Eagle Airlines is made up of only the smallest planes left at the airport, and the announcements over the intercom boom in at an unhealthy volume with a very heavy Spanish accent. A few of us shuffled around the terminal in search of food more promising then a news stands, just to settle on the Starbucks that is located in front of our gate. A quarter of a cup of coffee and a croissant later, I stretched out on the floor of the airport for sleep attempt number two. This time I achieved some success with a snooze of around an hour and a half on rock solid airport ground, with a neck pillow as head support. Currently my fellow cast members are littering the floor of our terminal with their own bodies, aiming to also catch some rest before we start the workday.

After we arrive in the Bahamas, we will have to go through customs. Then in order to board the ship with our luggage (since the elevators are not running during dry dock), we will have to haul our baggage up 40 flights or so to get them to our rooms. From there we will start some costume fittings, and blocking for our shows.

So far, I feel like I stayed up all night at a bonfire or sleepover, and now I am ready to go back home and sleep in my bed. Lucky for me, instead of a bed calling to me, it’s 8 hours of rehearsal and drill training in the morning. All in a days work.