Our SYTYCD One Day Impulse Trip

Just for fun. Here what my day was like on Monday. If you don't read anything else, read about our crazy adventure to the airport from 6:45 pm on.

4:00 am Wake up

• 4:45 am My mom comes to get me.


• 4:55 am We leave for the airport.


• 6:20 am Our plane leaves for LA. My only luggage is folding chairs although I did put a change of clothes, a folding cooler and make-up in my mom’s bag. Ha! Have you ever seen someone travel on an airplane with folding chairs? No one sat in our row. I LOVE it when that happens.


• 7:20 am (PST) We arrive in LA.


• 8:00 am We get our rental car.


• 9:00 am We arrive at the Santa Monica Pier where we were hoping to eat breakfast. We couldn’t find anything open so we drove decided to drive down the Pacific Coast highway for a while until we found something else.


• 9:45 am We saw a whole bunch of surfers next to a breakfast place so we stopped. I love watching surfing but unfortunately we couldn’t see them from inside the restaurant. We did see a couple guys standing on surf boards with single paddles cruising along the edge of the ocean where the water was fairly smooth. Does anyone know what that’s about? I have never seen that before bit it did look fun.


• 11:00 am We decide to drive down Sunset Blvd on our way to Hollywood. We only drove on the Blvd for a while but it was beautiful.


• 11:30 am We stopped at Ralphs Grocery so we would have some water and food while waiting in line.


• 11:45 am We drove by the beginning of the line. Only one group of four was there so we were excited. They offered to hold our place in line so we left our chairs and cooler there.


• Noon We park a few blocks away and get in line. We were in line with really fun people. We totally enjoyed talking to them.


• 1:30ish My mom says we should be watching the cars go in and out to see who is in them. We saw Alex De Silva (the Salsa choreographer) leaving the lot. It's exciting when you are sitting in line for hours at a time.


• 2:00ish We saw Nigel drive into the lot in a gorgeous blue convertable.


• 3:00 pm We finally got to start going in. There are three types of tickets and although we were second in line our internet tickets put us at the bottom of the food chain. We were nervous watching so many people get in before us but it turned out just fine. The show producers separate the young teenagers from the um… well… older people. The young cute kids get to go in first. If you watch the show you’ll see it appears to be full of teenagers or college kids. We knew that would probably happen so we weren’t upset but others who didn’t know were pretty mad. Most everyone stands but we really wanted to sit so we asked if we could get a seat and we got one! They put us in some of the VERY best seats possible, but then after a few minutes they asked us to stand and move because the ticket holders showed up. By this time all the seats were full and we were so disappointed but the usher moved people around enough that we were able to still have a seat. Actually we had to move THREE times but the usher was nice (maybe because we were nice to him) and always found something for us and made someone else move so we could sit down. Normally I would feel really bad, but between my mom and me we paid $900 to get there so I didn’t feel too bad. Our permanent seats were on the very back row but we didn’t mind. It’s the equivalent of the 20th row or something like that. We could see everything GREAT! The lady that sat by us was a lot of fun. Everyone we met and talked to that day was so nice to us which made the trip even better.


• 4:30 pm The show started. At least I think this is when the show started. Wahoo! Lots of energy in that room. Because the show isn’t live there were plenty of start and stops. However, the dancers never got a second chance to do anything and the judges and host didn’t change much of what they said. The only exceptions were when the microphone didn’t pick up the hosts' voice very well and one time when Mia Michaels said “retarded”. Nigel told her that people would get offended with that word and I AGREE!!! I hate that word and it makes me upset when people use it loosely so thank you Nigel!


• 6:45 pm We knew the day before we came there was a good chance we wouldn’t make our flight home but around this time we started thinking we might. We thought about leaving early but wanted to see the last dances so we stayed thinking we would hurry as fast as we could later.


• 7:00 pm We decided we would not even try to make it to the airport because our chances were so slim.


• 7:10 pm We decided to try for the airport again. The last dance just ended but as we tried to get out they wouldn’t let us. We had to wait a couple more minutes.


• 7:15 pm After singing Happy Birthday to Nigel (which was fun) we were allowed to leave. We walked as fast as we could about 3 or 4 blocks to our car, up to the third level and clear across the parking garage. My mom drove and I quickly set up the GPS.


• 7:50 pm We got to the rental car place. We called early and they assured us that they would have a shuttle waiting for us to go to the airport but they didn’t and no one seemed to have any desire to help us leave quickly even though most weren’t doing anything.


• 8:05 pm We FINALLY leave the rental car place. We thought for sure we would miss our plane and we were bummed because now we didn’t have a car. The driver was sweet. She acted really worried for us and really wanted us to make our flight. That made us calm down and we realized it didn’t matter either way.


• 8:15 pm We got to the airport but our plane was supposed to leave in TWENTY minutes and we didn't even have our boarding passes. As we ran, I lost my shoe, it fell off and flew towards a door. Ha ha. I survived. We didn’t have our boarding passes but fortunately no one was in line and we quickly got them. We ran towards security and there was barely a line. Wahoo! We got through and ran towards our gate. I got out of security before my mom so I ran ahead and we both MADE IT!!!!!


• 8:20 pm We sat down in the nearly empty airplane on the very front row. I couldn’t believe the time when I saw it. We actually made it 15 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave! Unbelievable. My mom is a good luck charm for sure. 11:15 pm We arrived safe and sound in SLC. Tired but totally happy. Excited that we had such a fun adventure.

Highlights from the show:

• I loved seeing the studio. It is just as cool in real life.


• I loved feeling the music as the dancers danced.


• I loved all the lights. Oh how I wish they would have allowed cameras. I would LOVE to try taking pictures with all the cool lights in the studio. There was a photographer there with a lens about 2 feet long. How do you think I could be his assistant for the day?


• Kourtni was there (she was voted off last week). She was my favorite dancer in auditions but I do like the other dancers more now so I'm ok with her leaving. I never said anything to her even though she was sitting in my section but I hope a lot of others did. When the dancers saw her they seemed happy to see her.


• Many or all of the dancers seemed to really like each other even off camera. That's what I would expect but it was fun to see.


• My favorite dance was probably the last one with Joshua and Katee. They danced a Baliwood number. It was fun. I also really liked the Safari one with Courtney and Gev but the judges didn't. It will be interesting to watch it again and see if I just liked the choreography or if I really thought they did a good job. I can't remember. Tell me what you think about it when you see it.


• All the dancers were amazing in my opinion. The one thing you don't see on TV is that when they are doing some of their hardest tricks, a camera man will jump up on stage and get only a couple feet from them. Can you imagine doing your hardest trick and having to do it with a giant camera running into your space? The camera crew must practice with the dancers because it all worked out just fine, although I tensed up each time they ran on stage.


• I can't think of any dances I didn't like this week.


• The part where the judges critique the dancers feels much less real in person. I don't mean to say it's not real but it feels a lot different watching it live. In person it's clear everything is a job and everything is done for the purpose of making money. Watching it on TV - it's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all. The producers and TV crew really do an amazing job with what they do.


• When the judges look over at the choreographers they aren't really looking at them all the time. That's a bit staged because they can't always see them.

It was fun. If you read all or even a fraction of this post you are awesome. It was fun to write but I can't imagine it is a ton of fun to read. You most likely won't see us on TV tonight because we were in the back row but there is a tiny chance you'll see me towards the beginning when I had to sit in someone else's seat while they went to the bathroom. They wanted the seats to look packed.