O'Hare I hate you

Just text again. Sorry about that. Please read post anyway. It's almost funny.

Written while at the given airport. There was nothing else to do

I hate O’Hare airport. Two hours before take-off I’ve passed security and I realise that the Duty Free area is basically non-existent. I wasn’t planning on buying much to begin with but looking around is a  nice to pass some time. 

I always go to the gate first to check out what’s where and how long it takes to walk to the gate. On my way I pass a sad excuse of a shop selling magazines, sodas and a little to eat. On my way back from the gate to the sad little shop it turns out that the shitty fucking shop has closed! That means three things: 

1.    I’m not able to spend the last of my dollars. Fair enough, I only had about $12 left anyway.
2.        I’m not able to buy anything to eat or drink. There’s not even a vending machine here. It’s two hours to take-off and I know that I won’t be served that much too eat on the plane. Feck! Luckily I do have some fruit and a power bar in my bag. Here’s hoping it will last.  
3.        My plan was to buy a book at the airport since I finished the one I brought on my way over. I’m hoping I’ll be able to sleep much of the flight time, but considering my seating (see below) this might become difficult. I have my laptop but the battery won’t even last me half of the way over the Atlantic.

This is not what I expect from a large international airport that was once the busiest airport in the world. As if that wasn’t enough, upon logging in it turned out that there were only two available seats left to choose from on the entire plane and they were in the middle of a four-seater. That means that this is going to be a loooong, tight flight. Fuck times four.  

Post-flight note: The flight was excellent. I ended up having three seats to myself due to the priest who initially sat next to me found himself a window seat instead. I slept for most of the flight and played tetris on the flight computer the rest of the time.

Chicago: Day #5

This took place on a monday, a month ago.

Departure day. My flight doesn’t leave until late in the evening. Detty, Jeanette and I spent the first half of the day walking around Chicago’s town centre. We saw a big sculpture called The Bean which was very fun to take pictures of (you’ll see when I post the pics…). I didn’t buy anything. Can’t say Chicago wowed me in any way. It’s a big city, they have a lot of sky scrapers and some cute buildings, bad food and big roads. I guess it’s America. But the weather was nice.

Spent the rest of the day doing nothing in the hotel lobby until a very pretty car picked me up to go to O’Hare airport. The wait at O’Hare is a story in itself and will be posted tomorrow. Aaaand pictures will come in a long time. I haven’t  actually sorted the Chicago-pics as yet even though it’s more than a month since I was there.  

So in the mean time:

by Hugh McLeod from gapingvoid

Chicago: Day #4

 No pictures or images here either. Only text, only text. It's cruel I know.

 Showtime! In x hours anyway… 

I am human, I learn from my mistakes and the lesson was: Bring laptop. Result: Chicago Day #2 and #3. Turned out that the McCormick Place (that’s where everything went down, you know, like, yeah, that’s it, like, cool) had free Wi-Fi. This post is written while I’m on the plane to Bologna via Amsterdam btw. 

The prepping part of this day is best told by looking at pictures which, I promise, will come later. Anyway, skinny bitches (i.e. anyone who is taller and thinner than me, also called models) everywhere, getting their hair done, make-up done, outfits fitted, lips pouted and nails painted while I’m getting my make-up done, hair coloured, outfit thrown in my lap (no fitting needed, wore one of the same outfits I wore at the shoot in London), blogging, eating enormous blueberry muffins, drinking tea, looking impressive while taking bad pictures with a good camera and trying not to feel like the pear among the celery. 

Everybody into the lifts, go backstage, wait while other groups do their thing, DIY collection (that’s us): go, go! We were given a light trim on stage while the TIGI hairdressers talk about our ‘dos. Wait for the other groups to finish, everybody on stage for finale, and were done. 

I was very surprised to discover that I was not nervous at all. We screwed up the routine slightly on stage, and I felt no rush when on stage. Disappointing. (Note: I was told later that the Chicago show was sort of just a rehearsal compared to the Bologna show that was to come. Bologna was the real important one, and I felt it. In Bologna the nerves were there, we did not screw up the routine and it was such a rush! Chicago: boring. Bologna: great fun!)

Sunday afternoon was spent in the hotel room and in the hotel bar.

Chicago: Day #3

Warning! This post contains only text. Read it feckers, it's good for you.

I wrote this post while in Chicago, it's has just been resting in the mean time.  

Basically the same as day #2 with a few adjustments. Went to the gym instead of the pool, spent the day waiting, waiting, waiting, walking, waiting, waiting, only this time the walking was done on stage with lights, film and music filling the surroundings. One of the film pieces they showed on big, big screens was the one we made in London. It’s a strange feeling seeing your own face, blown up to become five metres high, flash across your eyes for a split second. Not too happy about my work though, I look pissed off in a bad way, in the film and in the book (yes, there’s a book as well!) because I tensed my jaw and mouth area too much. Damn, I know I can do better than this. And no better luck next time, there is no next time.  

Mike Esa, the choreographer/producer/man-in-charge was brilliant. Shut up, pay attention, listen, do what I just said – kind of style, which was very effective and easy to comprehend. Hence we finished on time.

Well, sort of. The rehearsal bit finished according to plan, but the TIGI team ordered the girls to go get their hair colouring done, or at least started. Luckily for me they decided to do me the next day. I went back to the hotel and did nothing, which wasn’t really that different from what I’d been doing most of the day already, but now I was in charge of deciding when to start doing something. 

My doing nothing was however interrupted by Hunger. (Damn those basal needs, telling me when I need to do what…) On my way down I ran into Jeanette and Charlotte in the lift, both with their hair full of hair dye and capes around their shoulders. Apparently they shut off everything, including the water, during evenings and nights at the McCormick place centre. Unfortunately no one had told the TIGI team this. What do you do? You send your models running back to the hotel to wash their own hair.

 The girls, including me, ate at the bar in the evening, I ate chicken tendrils, no vegetables were included (I don’t count fries to be vegetables, they’re just potatoes metamorphosed into pure junk food). I do believe I am in America, the land of the fat.

Chicago: Day #2

It's Friday. I start the day by getting up at 6.30 in the morning, well rested. This never happens. I am obviously jet-lagged in a weird way since I have suddenly turned morning person. I start the day by going for a swim in the hotel pool. Lots of work-out-crazed people in the gym, only me in  the pool. Amazing.

hotel pool. source

Breakfast buffet too good. I'm bursting by the time I'm finished and I still want more because there's so much delicious food.

Us five girls go over to the venue where everything's going to happen and turns out it's huuuge. Gigantic. Everything's bigger in America. Even the hallways are enormous, high high up under the ceiling. They tell us 2500 people are coming to see this show. Crazy!

Anyway, the day is spent waiting, waiting, waiting, walking, waiting, walking, done. I'm lucky enough to get very comfortable shoes, as comfortable as stilettos get that is. We learn and practice our choreography but most of the time is just waiting and watching while the other skinny bitches, and there's a lot of them, learn and practice their choreography. It's a strange feeling being surrounded by girls who are all taller and three sizes smaller than me. This is going to be a big show.

Finished not too late after all, around 4 pm Chicago time. Me, Jeanette and Detty went downtown looking for food and playing tourists with our cameras. I'm not very impressed by this city. It's big, flat, somewhat worn down and a form of segregation is still evident. For example, at our hotel almost all of the staff except for the receptionists are coloured, either black or hispanic, while almost all the guests are white. Scary stuff.

Anyway, ewe found a cute little sushi&smoothie place, bought take-away and ate at the hotel. On the way back I had to stop by Dunkin' Donuts and buy myself a glazed donut. It's tasted like pure sugar. I am truly in the land of the fat. It's actually hard finding something healthy to eat.

Fell asleep at ten.

Chicago: Day #1

Okay, since I never got past day #2 for the London trip I've got a new plan. No pictures until later because that's what stopped me. Choosing pics takes forever, so I'll just write, you can handle some posts with just text, you're grown ups sort of, and then I'll post pictures later.

Okay so I'm in Chicacgo in the USA, first time in the states for me. The TIGI team decided to send the collection girls (that's me and the four other girls) to participate in hair shows in Chicago and in Bologna in Italy. Bologna will be next week.

The flight over was long, I didn't sleep much. The arrival at the O'Hare airport was... peculiar. The first encounter one gets with America is an interrogation with the customs officer. After talking to the other girls later I concluded that all US customs officers take their job veeeeery seriously. Mine looked ridiculously American with short short blond hair, a large jaw, he was white, slightly fat, never smiled and called me ma'm. In a very strong American accent he said: "for how long are you staying the states? Have you been in the states before? Are you here on business? No, why then? That's a strange reason for a first visit... What city do you live in? What do you do? Okay have a pleasant trtip ma'm". Never even a hint of a smile. It's kind of scary knowing that the US government is now in possession of my name, passport number, photo and fingerprints.

After picking up my luggage I was met by  a brute of a man standing there with a sign with my name on it, just like you see in the movies. He looked like a bodyguard and told me to wait here while I get the car around. 

The hotel is big. It has 800 rooms, a gym and a pool. Breakfast is stupidly expensive but de-lish. I'm sharing a  room with Detty, the hungarian. I fell asleep at 9.30 in the evening and slept very well until Friday morning.  

the hotel. source