That's me finally back home and back to reality.

 

WOWWW! What an experience that was!

 

We arrived in Delhi late Tuesday night and my first impression was wow, the heat!! After travelling an hour or so to our hotel, 'The Claridges' - which was absolutely stunning (I felt like royalty!), we settled in our rooms to got a good rest for the busy day ahead.

 

On Wednesday, we waited for the rest of the cast to arrive and then visited the JLN Stadium, which was where we would be performing the following day!

 

It was a long journey to the stadium and was a real eye-opener to the way of life over there. It was clear to see that they took great pride in their mosques and markets.

 

The stadium was enormous and, looking around, never did I ever think that all 60,000 seats would be filled! Everyone was buzzing after getting a tour and I was majorly excited to perform!

 

Thursday - this was the day we had all been waiting for. What an unforgettable day it was!

 

We arrived early around 9am to participate in Delhi's rehearsal and stayed in the stadium all day until our performance. Standing on the Field of Play waiting to perform was a mixture of emotions. Nerves were kicking in but adrenaline was kicking in big time too! And WOW was it worth every minute of the sweat, heat and tears!

 

I cannot begin to explain what it feels like to perform in front of the world, literally, it was just surreal! The atmosphere was breathtaking and the crowd roared when we created the Scotland flag with fabric on the Field of Play.

 

Flashing lights and cameras everywhere, thousands of faces in the stands, cheers of pride and encouragement, surround sound music booming from all around, it was amazing but nothing could beat the feeling of pride we had when we knew we put on a good show. I still can't believe it was all real!

 

Throughout our stay, we made so many new friends, took so many pictures to capture all the memories and put on an incredible performance, showcasing Glasgow to the world.

 

Everyone was so welcoming and polite. I truly recommend anyone to get involved in the Games in Glasgow 2014 because after that incredible experience I wanna do it every day! Truly, I had the time of my life and I'm soo grateful for having had this amazing opportunity.

First day of Bootcamp was a long but fantastic one. It was a lot of fun and has been since, really enjoyable as everything is new and exciting.  We got to meet all of the cast members who have come from all over Scotland and we worked on a whole variety of teamwork tasks that are basically training us to follow instruction and work in synchronicity with each other. It is actually amazing to experience.

 

We also got introduced to all of the team, the choreographers who are very cool and the stage management team, who are super organised!  Fortunately, we got a brief sneaky peak of the actual performance of what we will be putting together over the next few weeks but a lot of details are still to be revealed.  I think this was really cool as it has kept me intrigued to what surprises that the performance still has in store for us all! I really enjoyed it what we saw and I am ecstatic about being part of this.

 

Over the last two weeks we've been doing a lot of teamwork so we can adapt to working with a mass cast ie. Teamwork tasks and even a dance off! Death by drill! It was absolutely hilarious. All of the cast members got so into it and the girl who won, based on taking instruction from Steve, the head choreographer, and doing everything perfectly, got lifted up and carried up by all the cast

We have also been taking quite a bit of time to work with our props especially, as all of it is new to everyone. However, everyone has been working really hard and it’s all coming together.

Today was our first run of the show so far (about halfway) which went surprisingly well!

 

I've gained a lot from this experience so far, not only new skills and techniques, but especially new friends, particularly my "cluster" group B2 who have been having an absolute ball since day 1.

Its going to be an amazing feeling performing in Delhi, I'm already feeling the energy and we're only through the first part of bootcamp.
It truly is something else when you have over 346 people marching in sync, it’s just such an awesome feeling! Everyone has been learning everything really quickly, so the way I see it, the only way is up! 

I'm just really excited to go to Delhi now and to put on an amazing show, showcasing Scotland and undoubtedly having the most amazing eight minutes of my entire life.

 

I can’t tell you how proud I am to be a part of this.

I have just recently graduated from Anniesland College as a professional Dance Artist this year and I am extremely fortunate enough to be taking part in the Delhi Handover in October this year.

I first heard about the Handover through my senior lecturer at college. She was contacted by Culture and Sport Glasgow about the opportunity.

At first there was only one allocated place and so one of my other colleagues from college was fortunately offered the spot as a cast member.

A few colleagues and I also applied through our lecturer but it wasn't guaranteed that we would be going to India and for the time being we were possible reserves.

Nevertheless, I was still beaming with excitement and feeling extremely lucky just to have gotten this far.

Orientation was nothing like I expected. To be honest, I wasn't too sure what to expect but it definitely opened my eyes to the enormous scale of the project. From that moment on, I was sooo excited for those going, especially my classmate, and I wished deep inside that I would perhaps get to go, but never in a million years did I think that it would actually happen!

When I received my email of confirmation, that I would be going to India as a cast member, I was ecstatic! Orientation was a fun 2 days which definitely brought the situation to life and made the experience so much more realistic!

It turned out to be a great team bonding experience, meeting lots of new people from lots of different backgrounds.

It included different workshops such as a taster into the dance performance with Nathan and his team, a costume fitting and demonstrations of what we will be wearing, as well as presentations from the 2014 team leaders and project managers that are making this opportunity happen.

I feel so privileged to be given this amazing opportunity and to be part of a project this huge is such an awesome experience for me.

Being a dancer, this opportunity is one in a million but to be representing Scotland in India, as well as doing something that I have a great passion for, is just so overwhelming.

I really couldn't have wished for anything better than this amazing opportunity.

I am majorly excited and cannot wait until Bootcamp now, although I reckon it will be tough and probably the hardest I've ever had to work in my life! But nevertheless it is going to be worth every second of the blood, sweat and tears.