one third of Australian tour is finished

I am sitting outside my hotel room now by the pool in Milura and we have now finished the first third of the tour. We still have 7 weeks of touring Australia before we move on to New Zealand for 3 weeks. The distances between cities in Australia are vast and life seems to be a long series of bus rides here. There is some beautiful country and the mostly sold out audiences have been loud and enthusiastic. I am enjoying it but it is hard. Giovanni sprained his ankle and has been out for a week but should be dancing in the next few days and Momchil left to go work with Suzanne after working with us for about a month. George just went home for 9 days to be with his daughter for her birthday and to be the best man at a wedding. Roberto arrived safely from Biarritz where he was dancing in a peformance at a festival. Baris is set to come join us for about a month to take the place of Momchil. He should be arriving in about 2 weeks from now. Peter Brandenhoff has been my roomate on tour and he and I danced Swan Lake for the first time two days ago. He is an excellent partner. I have also tried to give other people opportunities. Emanuel has danced Dying Swan and Marlon has danced one of the lead girls in Go For Barocco. We have several new dancers who are adjusting and doing very well. It has been a very nice atmosphere dispite the difficulties. We will probably end up doing somewhere between 80 and 90 shows before the tour is over and that is ALOT!