Oh Amsterdam. What can I say? Amsterdam is absolutely beautiful, with its many canals and beautiful architecture. Four of us took an 11 hour overnight bus from London to Amsterdam Friday night (we took a ferry across the English Channel) and arrived way earlier than expected to the hotel. We napped for a bit before heading out into the freezing city. First we went to Leidseplein Square where there was a little ice rink set up next to a bunch of Christmasy vendors selling trinkets and food. We walked down the little streets and past the many shops and ended at Dam Square which is a bigger square, busy with people walking about.
While Amsterdam is beautiful, it also has a dodgy side- the Red Light District. We continued our walk and decided to check out what the Red Light District is all about. Well, its pretty straight-forward. The streets are lined with girls in their underwear behind glass doors beckoning customers. It actually made me really sad for them. What happened in their life that made them decide to be a prostitute? We got out of there and went to a cafe where we hung out for a while. I know you know what Amsterdam is famous for (other then the Red Light District) so I'm just gonna leave it at that- if you don't know what I'm talking about, then good, we'll leave that topic alone. After hanging out for a while, we got dinner and headed back to the hotel, where we went to sleep super early after our long trip and slept in late the next day. The sleep was much needed after all the busyness of London and other travels.
On Sunday, we went to the "I Amsterdam" sign and took some touristy pictures. Then we went to the Heineken Brewery and did the "Heineken Experience." It's basically a museum dedicated to Heineken, but they have some cool interactive stuff, like a green screen music video thing where you can pretend you are on a boat in one of the canals of Amsterdam and they record you singing along to the music (which I had emailed to me in case anyone wants to see me act a fool), and being taught how to properly drink a beer. You also get two beers at the end of the tour, which we enjoyed.
After that, we walked around and hung out in another cafe, got food, and headed back to the hotel to collect our things and go to the bus station for our lovely 11 hour ride back to London.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
A Very London Thanksgiving
I got off of work for Thursday and Friday, so my Thanksgiving started out right- no work! I sent out a Facebook message to organize the day at the beginning of the week. I told people where we were all eating and when, asking them if they wanted to join, and gave a list of what people were already bringing and ideas for what they could potentially bring. I made broccoli casserole, which turned out very well considering I had to use English ingredients, including something called salad cream instead of miracle whip. There were 10 of us total and everyone brought something different and delicious. Instead of turkey, we had chicken, but other than that we had all the traditional Thanksgiving foods.
This being our first Thanksgiving on our own, we didn't know how much to cook and ended up having lots of leftovers, which no one was sad about, and which I ate the next day for lunch and dinner. Since I was going away on Saturday for the weekend, I froze some of the broccoli casserole I made so that I would have some when I got back on Monday, very clever of me considering everything was gone when I came back- the only thing left was salad. It was a very successful day and I'm glad I got to skype the family and see them via the internet.
We were all thankful that even though we couldn't be home for Thanksgiving, at least we got to spend it the right way (despite most of them having to go to work that day) with a great group of friends.
This being our first Thanksgiving on our own, we didn't know how much to cook and ended up having lots of leftovers, which no one was sad about, and which I ate the next day for lunch and dinner. Since I was going away on Saturday for the weekend, I froze some of the broccoli casserole I made so that I would have some when I got back on Monday, very clever of me considering everything was gone when I came back- the only thing left was salad. It was a very successful day and I'm glad I got to skype the family and see them via the internet.
We were all thankful that even though we couldn't be home for Thanksgiving, at least we got to spend it the right way (despite most of them having to go to work that day) with a great group of friends.
Barcelona: Sietas, Paella, and the scarcity of Spanish
So after my exhausting week of assisting production, we went to Barcelona! I got home from seeing Harry Potter at around 2:15am, packed, sent an email to my boss (to request off for Thanksgiving and the day after of course, an important item on my list), and made sure I was ready to set off for Barcelona. I finished just before 3am, thinking I had time for at least 30 minutes of sleep, but I was wrong. Five minutes after I lay down in bed, the roomie's alarm went off. We needed to leave at 3:30am to catch a bus to the train station, where an express train would be taking us to the airport. We made it to the airport, had some very quick breakfast, then boarded our two hour flight to Barcelona. Once we got there, we checked into our hostel and set out for the day. A group of seven girls went, which made it really fun.
My friend Cat and I were excited to be able to speak some Spanish, even though Barcelona is in the Catalunya district of Spain where the primary language is Catalan, but even when we tried, people just spoke to us in English anyway. We walked down a street called Las Ramblas, which is full of street performers, artwork, and other random activities and found a nice little restaurant to eat lunch in. We got paella (a traditional Spanish rice dish) and sangria (I think you know what that is) and it was delicious! After lunch, we slowly made our way to La Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral that Antonio Gaudi first designed, has been under construction since they first started building it in 1882, and which is completely funded by donations.
We then took the underground train to Park Guell, which was also designed by Antonio Gaudi as a stylish park for aristocrats. The park is situated on top of a large hill and we got to see an amazing view of Barcelona. We walked around a bit and found the terrace, which also gave us a great view of the city from an even more beautiful white snake-like bench that runs along the terrace, decorated in colorful tiles. All of this happened in a blur for me, having been awake for about 38 hours, but was still a great experience.
After that, we made our way back to the hostel to siesta (that's the Spanish word, or excuse, for taking a nap, and a welcome activity for my sleep deprived self) before setting off for our dinner at 10pm. In Spain, they do everything super late so that they can take hours out of the day to nap-- dinner is between 9pm and 11pm and going out around 2am till around 7am. After dinner, we hung out for a bit and got ready to go out and had a lot of fun mixing with the locals, and some not-so-locals. For some reason, Lena and I keep meeting people from Istanbul, which comes in handy when you are planning a trip to Istanbul in the near future.
The next day, we got up and some of us checked out of the hostel (Lena, Kelly, and I were leaving that night, but the other four girls were staying until the next morning). Our first stop was the Christopher Columbus monument. Its a tall dark column with a statue of Columbus on it pointing to the Americas, and at the base is surrounded by a bunch of lion statues. We said our thank you's to the most famous discoverer of the Americas and continued on to the harbor. The harbor was full of boats (duh), mostly sail boats, and we walked along the water until we got to Barceloneta, and made our way to the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we sat on the boardwalk-type thing for a while just relaxing by the sand and sea. Kelly's friend, who is studying in Barcelona, met up with us to say hello before we headed to lunch where we got the most delicious falafel I have ever had. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Anyways, after lunch we went to the Picasso Museum, which is situated between some narrow and adorable typical continental European side streets. It was free that day (which is of course why we chose to visit the museum) so we waited in line for a bit before entering the museum. We took a look at his artwork starting at the beginning of his career, which was really interesting. His early paintings are actually realistic and very well done. I can appreciate his cubist paintings more now because I know he is actually talented at painting and drawing, instead of just famous for drawing silly shapes that are supposed to be human faces.
After we got down from the hill top, Kelly, Lena, and I headed to the airport. After 10 million struggles involving delayed flights and trains, we finally made it back to our dorm and got some sleep.
My friend Cat and I were excited to be able to speak some Spanish, even though Barcelona is in the Catalunya district of Spain where the primary language is Catalan, but even when we tried, people just spoke to us in English anyway. We walked down a street called Las Ramblas, which is full of street performers, artwork, and other random activities and found a nice little restaurant to eat lunch in. We got paella (a traditional Spanish rice dish) and sangria (I think you know what that is) and it was delicious! After lunch, we slowly made our way to La Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral that Antonio Gaudi first designed, has been under construction since they first started building it in 1882, and which is completely funded by donations.
We then took the underground train to Park Guell, which was also designed by Antonio Gaudi as a stylish park for aristocrats. The park is situated on top of a large hill and we got to see an amazing view of Barcelona. We walked around a bit and found the terrace, which also gave us a great view of the city from an even more beautiful white snake-like bench that runs along the terrace, decorated in colorful tiles. All of this happened in a blur for me, having been awake for about 38 hours, but was still a great experience.
After that, we made our way back to the hostel to siesta (that's the Spanish word, or excuse, for taking a nap, and a welcome activity for my sleep deprived self) before setting off for our dinner at 10pm. In Spain, they do everything super late so that they can take hours out of the day to nap-- dinner is between 9pm and 11pm and going out around 2am till around 7am. After dinner, we hung out for a bit and got ready to go out and had a lot of fun mixing with the locals, and some not-so-locals. For some reason, Lena and I keep meeting people from Istanbul, which comes in handy when you are planning a trip to Istanbul in the near future.
The next day, we got up and some of us checked out of the hostel (Lena, Kelly, and I were leaving that night, but the other four girls were staying until the next morning). Our first stop was the Christopher Columbus monument. Its a tall dark column with a statue of Columbus on it pointing to the Americas, and at the base is surrounded by a bunch of lion statues. We said our thank you's to the most famous discoverer of the Americas and continued on to the harbor. The harbor was full of boats (duh), mostly sail boats, and we walked along the water until we got to Barceloneta, and made our way to the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we sat on the boardwalk-type thing for a while just relaxing by the sand and sea. Kelly's friend, who is studying in Barcelona, met up with us to say hello before we headed to lunch where we got the most delicious falafel I have ever had. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Anyways, after lunch we went to the Picasso Museum, which is situated between some narrow and adorable typical continental European side streets. It was free that day (which is of course why we chose to visit the museum) so we waited in line for a bit before entering the museum. We took a look at his artwork starting at the beginning of his career, which was really interesting. His early paintings are actually realistic and very well done. I can appreciate his cubist paintings more now because I know he is actually talented at painting and drawing, instead of just famous for drawing silly shapes that are supposed to be human faces.
After the museum, we took the underground train again to Placa Espanya, which is a plaza situated at the edge of another park, Montjuic, (which we didn’t visit because it was dark out by then), and is a sort of gateway to the park and to the National Art Museum of Catalunya. The park also houses the Olympic stadium from when Barcelona hosted the Olympics. We rode the escalators to the top of the hill where the National Art Museum of Catalunya sits and saw our last view of the city. It was a great view, and this time we got to see the city from above at night.
After we got down from the hill top, Kelly, Lena, and I headed to the airport. After 10 million struggles involving delayed flights and trains, we finally made it back to our dorm and got some sleep.
The Glamorous Life of a Production Intern
I need to start this post with an unrelated topic. The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 premiere. I went to the red carpet after work to check it all out, and it was packed! they had the premiere in a little square at the Odeon theater in Leicester Square. The actual red carpet was more like a circle and was enclosed, but they had a big screen up that followed people arriving and shots of the red carpet. They also showed the interviews of all the stars, the producer, the director, and J.K. Rowling as they made their way into the theater. It was a cool experience, and hopefully one day I'll have my own premieres to attend on the red carpet!
The next week, I went to a musical in the West End called "Blood Brothers." It was very well done and the actors' performances were amazing, but the story and the script were odd. The premise of the play is a poor woman having twins and giving one of them to a rich woman she worked for, while keeping the other. The rich woman then says: "if twins are separated and then meet and discover they are twins, then they will die." Yeah, so from the start the believableness factor was lacking. It centered around many British superstitions and had a message saying that the class system is horrible, which probably contributed to the fact that I didn't appreciate the play as much, me not being British.
That week, the office where I intern was preparing for a commercial they were producing. I spent the week helping out with putting everything together. I wrote the call sheet for the shoot, which I enjoyed, and I even got to be on the call sheet listed as a runner. On Thursday (the day before the shoot) my duties as a runner started. I spend from 11am to 6:30pm running around London picking up things the art director needed for the shoot. I was not a pleasant experience. I didn't even have time to eat lunch, so I ate my PB&J sandwich while sitting on one of the many trains I took that day. I was exhausted when I finally got back to my dorm, and passed out only to wake up at 5:30am the next morning for the shoot.
Friday's shoot was a great experience overall, despite the annoyingness and exhaustiveness of the process. The first location was in a park by a little lake. We carried everything we needed up the hill and set everything up and finally started shooting. Once shooting began, I was in charge of holding a light reflector to make sure it didn't fall. I didn't mind because it meant that I got to be close to the scene as they were shooting and the other runner was guarding the cars down the hill. We switched places after a while and I was in charge of guarding the cars. I mean, really? Guarding the cars to make sure nothing is taken. Isn't that what a lock is for? I'm just saying...
So it was freezing and there were no bathrooms, so when the art director said she needed one of the runners to go with her and help set up the second location, both of us wanted to go. We flipped a coin and, thank god, I won. We got to the second location, which was a loft in an old warehouse-type building, and started taking everything we needed upstairs. There was a lot of stuff to carry upstairs and the loft was up four flights of stairs (of course there was no elevator). I got a lot of exercise that day, lifting and doing stairs for hours on end. Finally the rest of the crew got to the second location and the real set-up began. Everything took forever and had to be set up and re-set up and shooting didn't start for hours after it was supposed to start. Somehow I ended up being in charge of the money for the day and I went to the convenience store next door about 30 times that day for snacks, supplies, and change for the parking meters, which I also filled a couple times. I was even asked to move someone's car. Are they serious? I am clearly American, and therefore do not drive on the left side of the road. That would have been a disaster. I didn't do it, but had to go with the person who did move the cars so she wouldn't be alone and so I could feed the meters.
Near the end of the shoot, we finally got to eat some real food, which I had been denied all day, running on snacks and candy, and we ordered pizza. This was around 8:30pm. Finally, my boss told me and the other runner to call cabs for the actors and for ourselves and that once we had some things cleaned up, we could go. I had tickets to go see Harry Potter at 10:30pm, which is of course very important, and so the cab took me straight to the theatre and I got there just in time. That was the longest and busiest day of my life. I worked from 7:15am to almost 10pm. It wasn't that bad, and was a cool experience, but it left me exhausted. Since I want to be a producer, I know I have many more shoots like this to look forward to, which is exciting and dreadful all at once.
The next week, I went to a musical in the West End called "Blood Brothers." It was very well done and the actors' performances were amazing, but the story and the script were odd. The premise of the play is a poor woman having twins and giving one of them to a rich woman she worked for, while keeping the other. The rich woman then says: "if twins are separated and then meet and discover they are twins, then they will die." Yeah, so from the start the believableness factor was lacking. It centered around many British superstitions and had a message saying that the class system is horrible, which probably contributed to the fact that I didn't appreciate the play as much, me not being British.
That week, the office where I intern was preparing for a commercial they were producing. I spent the week helping out with putting everything together. I wrote the call sheet for the shoot, which I enjoyed, and I even got to be on the call sheet listed as a runner. On Thursday (the day before the shoot) my duties as a runner started. I spend from 11am to 6:30pm running around London picking up things the art director needed for the shoot. I was not a pleasant experience. I didn't even have time to eat lunch, so I ate my PB&J sandwich while sitting on one of the many trains I took that day. I was exhausted when I finally got back to my dorm, and passed out only to wake up at 5:30am the next morning for the shoot.
Friday's shoot was a great experience overall, despite the annoyingness and exhaustiveness of the process. The first location was in a park by a little lake. We carried everything we needed up the hill and set everything up and finally started shooting. Once shooting began, I was in charge of holding a light reflector to make sure it didn't fall. I didn't mind because it meant that I got to be close to the scene as they were shooting and the other runner was guarding the cars down the hill. We switched places after a while and I was in charge of guarding the cars. I mean, really? Guarding the cars to make sure nothing is taken. Isn't that what a lock is for? I'm just saying...
So it was freezing and there were no bathrooms, so when the art director said she needed one of the runners to go with her and help set up the second location, both of us wanted to go. We flipped a coin and, thank god, I won. We got to the second location, which was a loft in an old warehouse-type building, and started taking everything we needed upstairs. There was a lot of stuff to carry upstairs and the loft was up four flights of stairs (of course there was no elevator). I got a lot of exercise that day, lifting and doing stairs for hours on end. Finally the rest of the crew got to the second location and the real set-up began. Everything took forever and had to be set up and re-set up and shooting didn't start for hours after it was supposed to start. Somehow I ended up being in charge of the money for the day and I went to the convenience store next door about 30 times that day for snacks, supplies, and change for the parking meters, which I also filled a couple times. I was even asked to move someone's car. Are they serious? I am clearly American, and therefore do not drive on the left side of the road. That would have been a disaster. I didn't do it, but had to go with the person who did move the cars so she wouldn't be alone and so I could feed the meters.
Near the end of the shoot, we finally got to eat some real food, which I had been denied all day, running on snacks and candy, and we ordered pizza. This was around 8:30pm. Finally, my boss told me and the other runner to call cabs for the actors and for ourselves and that once we had some things cleaned up, we could go. I had tickets to go see Harry Potter at 10:30pm, which is of course very important, and so the cab took me straight to the theatre and I got there just in time. That was the longest and busiest day of my life. I worked from 7:15am to almost 10pm. It wasn't that bad, and was a cool experience, but it left me exhausted. Since I want to be a producer, I know I have many more shoots like this to look forward to, which is exciting and dreadful all at once.
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