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The Europe Tour 2000-2001 >
Dublin, Ireland |
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Since I actually had a decent night's sleep before the drive to Dublin, I arrived in top shape ready for the day. What did I do for the first day? Wandered around the city with Renee and another friend. We were actually on a mission to find a place to print out the booklet we had been working on for our closing night party. Finding places that actually let you hook up your own laptop to a laser printer is damn near impossible!! In fact, we never found one...most places' employees looked at us like we were crazy! We also stopped at one big "professional" copy shop and asked about copying on some nice paper. They said they didn't keep any paper in stock. What kind of copy shop doesn't keep paper in stock?!?! Very bizarre!! For the rest of the day and evening Renee and I worked on music for the slide show. Tuesday morning I did very little other than work on the slide show, before having to go to work in the afternoon. Since Mike, or previous head electrician had moved to another show, I had to go in for rigging this week (deciding where all the motors which lift the lighting grid will hang). The building is small and very old, and had a very limited rigging points. I had to place two lighting beams within a step of each other...there was no other way to do it, and cutting a beam is not much of an option. Plus I had to make a decision on whether to place one point either one foot one direction or 8 feet the other direction from its specified point. Obviously I chose the one foot option. But the whole day was easy, and I went home not tired or anything! That night a group of us decided to go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. We were warned, though, by one of the Japanese members of our cast that she had been to some of the so-called Japanese restaurants around and that they were indeed not Japanese, but Chinese. They advertised as Japanese but served Chinese-type food...probably thinking that most people don't really know the difference! So we walked to a different place called Luigi Malones. Some of the best food I've eaten all year! I started with some buffalo wings which were REAL wings. Spicy, messy, GOOD! And a serving large enough to feed an entire table (and all for me!) Not the crap wings you get in most other European locations. Then, I had fajitas for my main course, and those were delicious. By the time I was done, I could not bear to walk home, so I hopped a cab! Wednesday was a bad day. Bad bad bad. First, the two beams that were so close together became a big nuisance, in some places touching with various outrigged pipes. Not good. It's when I took the grid up that all hell broke loose. Remember that choice to move a point one foor or 8 feet? Well, I made the wrong choice. By the time the grid was near full height, the chain was pulling at a very bad angle. I could not take the grid up anymore, but I still had another 18 inches to go. So I had to have 6 points rerigged in the air, a very difficult and time-consuming operation. I felt like shit, and guilty for making the wrong choice. It meant that the show was not close to ready in time. The show went on, and worked, but it looked like shit!! After the show, I just had to go home! I was tired and I was dirty! My friend Cecilia from sweden had come into town today (her best friend is living here now), so I called her when I got in and she came over. Thursday, Cecilia and I and walked around a bit before I had to go to work again. After work, our company actually held a barbecue for the cast, crew, and concessions. It's not normal to have the company actually do something FOR us! I stayed for a while, ate a few raw hamburgers (it was the only way to get one before someone else stole one from the grill!). After that I went and met Cecilia at the hotel. Friday was Good Friday. Not much happens on Good Friday in Ireland. About the same, we wandered around psuedo-shopping, although not much was open (Ireland is a very religious place). Soon it was time for work again. When I got home, we attempted to go out to dinner in town at the same place I had gone to on Tuesday. They were closed tight, along with most other restaurants around there. We ended up back right next to the hotel at a Chinese restaurant. Maybe not wings and fajitas, but it was still damn good! Saturday and Sunday were both 2-show days. Not normal for us!! Saturday night I was supposed to go to a party at Cecilia's friend's place. I called and it was just her and two friends...sounded good to me! But they decided to go to a club, so we went there. We got to the club, which was nearly dead, but not for long. Within 30 minutes, the place was PAKCED. Dublin is the makeout city. Everywhere in this club people were making out, even just after meeting each other. I think I should move here!!! Before too long, Cecilia and I decided we were ready to go home. It was impossible to catch a cab, so we ended up walking back. It was quite cold and very windy, so the walk was miserable! But I got warmed up pretty quickly. Monday was "Easter Monday." Yes, they have 2 Easters around here. I had two shows, so the day was pretty much spent at work. Monday night after work, we again attempted to go to that restaurant to eat. But we arrived 10 minutes late to be seated. Ugh. We instead ate at in Italian restaurant nearby which was so-so. And from there we returned to the hotel for Cecilia's last night in town. Tuesday was one busy day!! We had to get up early, because Cecilia's had to make her flight. When she left, I immediately started work on the slide show, which was showing Wednesday night. I didn't have much time left!!! After the two shows, there were skater auditions. I did lighting for the nearly hour and a half of auditions. I had a great time, and got numerous comments (some all the way from the corporate offices who saw the video). After the auditions, I returned home and Renee and I spent several hours until near-daylight working on the slide show, getting the nearly 150 pictures in the desired order. When neither of us could keep our eyes open anymore, we each went to bed. There was still quite a bit to do, but I would have to finish that druing the shows the next day! Wednesday was D-Day. Closing night party was Wednesday night. Wednesday morning, we went into the club to test out the slide show on their equipment and to decorate. I didn't do much decorating, but I helped with the mood lighting! We were supposed to meet their technical person at 10am to test everything out. He wasn't there, nor was anyone else who could help us. Finally at 10:45, some guy shows up, but he is not technical and doesn't know how to work any of the equipment. He tries to call the technical guy, but he is nowhere to be found. This is turning out to be a disaster. I finally went upstairs to try out the projector on my own. They keep the main power turned off, however, so that was fruitless. Finally, by almost noon, we get in touch with the technical guy on a cell phone, and after some back and forth problems, I get the thing working. I basically had enough time to see that a picture came up and leave, becuase I had to get to work. I spent most of the first show getting the final section of the slide show done. The worst part was between shows and the last show. We still needed a music track for the show. We had picked out a few songs, but not nearly enough to fill up 13 minutes of slide show. I started flipping through any CD book I could get my hands on, and importing those songs. The part I had the hardest time with was a good song for Christmas. We were using all modern, popular music, not something like "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," so finding a song that worked for a formal Christmas party was difficult!! After listening to about 15 mix CDs and finding nothing, I just threw in some Dave Matthews jam. I finally got the music track done 20 minutes before the end of the show, about two hours before the party!!! I was quite stressed out by the end of the show. We ran home after the show, changed very quickly, and booked it to the club, to get the last minute things done before the crowd showed up. I got there and realized I had forgotten my mini-disc player at the hotel. The music for the show was on mini-disc, so I needed it. I managed to get in touch with someone at the hotel and got him to bring his, so we were saved there! We got the whole thing working then opened the doors to the rest of the 85 attendees. What followed for the next few hours was bar none the most enjoyable, fun...just the BEST closing night party ever put on. The awards may have lasted a little long, but they were still funny. The slide show was a massive success, people loved it. I had about 20 requests for a copy of it. Then there was dancing, food, and lots of beer. Even after we overran our alotted bartab, our manager said to keep going, and that the company would cover the rest. That was cool. By about 4am, I had to go home because I couldn't stand up anymore. Thursday I tried to combat the desire to stay in bed. I don't think it worked. I got up in just enough time to make it to work. since I had so many requests the night before, I made a sign-up sheet for people who wanted a copy of the slide show. I had about 30 signups, which is cool. I haven't decided yet whether I will do the copying, or whether I will just have it mass copied at a copy place. Friday was just another normal day...two more shows. Saturday was a 3-show day. Afterwards I decided to take Renee out to dinner, since it was the last night possible. We tried to go to the same restaurant again that I mentioned earlier in the week, but yet again were turned down at the door. I BEGGED the guy to serve us, but he said he wouldn't, so we walked across the street to another restaurant and had a delicious meal and a really good time talking about the year and the next year. Where would we go? What would we do? For hours we sat and talked until we had to go home. We continued talking in her room for a while before I had to get back and pack. I spent the next few hours packing and getting rid of anything that wouldn't fit. Sunday. The last day of tour. Again, we did three shows, followed by a seemingly slow load-out. I don't know why, but this load-out seemed to be going so slow, and everyone was so exhausted, but it was the same time as any normal load-out. When we finally finished and closed the last truck door, we all gave a sigh of relief that we were done with this tour. After a quick picture of the crew and all our skater crew, we packed up our stuff and got in the bus to go back to the hotel. As exhausted as I was, I had to finish packing. It was already 2am. but the hotel bar was still open and a large group was still in there. I thought it only right to go and hang out with everyone for the last time. Around 4am, I finally retired upstairs to pack up. At 6am, I headed back downstairs to see off the first bus of people, notably my best friend of the year, Renee. After a tearful goodbye, I went back to my room for some sleep. I only got about 2 hours before I had to be up to make my own trip to the airport. I got downstairs, said goodbye to the few people who were down there, including one of my other best friends, Monique. I then got into a taxi for my trip to the airport. I had a real, nice talkative driver. However he got really upset at one point as he was talking and just got a bit emotionally involved in his subject (how hard it is to make it as a taxi driver). I almost had to get out of the van. But I toughed it out and made it to the airport. After a short wait, it was time. Time to board the plane and wish the European tour of Jungle Adventures -a show I had been with from the first day sweeping the shop in preparation for the build, just one week shy of a year ago - goodbye. I thought back to everything I have been through this year. The good times, and the bad. I thought of the interesting people I met, from the psycho building people of Glasgow, to the wonderful locals of Oslo. And the places I've been...boring Lille, France and amazingly fun London, England. But most of all, I thought about amazing friends I have made, some of whom I will never forget. Some of whom I hope to be around forever. It was these people who shaped each and every day of my year. I could not have asked for a better group, and I only hope I can be blessed enough to work with such a great group again next year. And that is the end of the end of Jungle Adventures Europe. |
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