Birmingham, Alabama was a fun city with lots of southern character. Our hotel was located just a couple of miles away from the Five Points shopping and restaurant area which was easily accessible for us by the Dart, a local free trolley service. There was a stop outside our hotel where you could hop on the trolley and be downtown in just minutes. The ride was an interesting chance for us to mingle with the locals en route to our daily activities. One such activity was doing laundry and we got more than our fair share of surprised/ confused looks from the other riders when we boarded the Dart carrying giant, stuffed bags of dirty clothes. One of the challenges of being on the road for so many months at a time is periodically finding locations to do laundry at - and sometimes a vehicle like the Dart is the best way to get there - so we deal with the funny stares.

There was a coffee shop/cafe a few blocks from the hotel which was owned by an Irish man who had lived in Zimbabwe. Over the course of our stay several company members spent so much time in the shop talking to him that by the end of the week he decided to host a post-show party for us at the Safari Cup on the Saturday night. It was much more than any of us could have imagined with homemade stew, Guinness, live Irish music and some local Irish dancers to entertain us. Almost everyone in the company attended the soiree and it went on well into the night and included a step about with the local dancers and some Riverdance troupe members as well as ceili dancing. Our singers who were in attendance even graced us with a couple of songs to cap the evening off. It is widely agreed that this is one of the best nights we have had so far on tour and we are all very grateful for the hospitality we were shown in Birmingham.

From Alabama we traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Most people probably associate this small town with the song ‘Chattanooga, Choo, Choo’ although the entire time we were there we didn’t see any trains. What we did see, however, were the amazing Ruby Falls caverns and waterfall. This natural wonder was discovered in 1929 by Leo Lambert and named after his wife, Ruby. To see the falls you have to first trek 0.6 miles into the heart of Lookout Mountain, through narrow passageways which were blown out by dynamite to make the falls available for public viewing. The trip is completely worth it though, when the path opens up into a 145 foot high cave which is home to the awe inspiring waterfall. They have an amazing light show set up to show off the beauty of the falls as different colors are flashed on the water in sequence with music.