Milan...Without the Naked Fat Guy on Silk Sheets

Initial apprehensions aside, once I returned to Milan I have to admit that I was pretty damned excited to be back. It is not the most beautiful of European cities esthetically speaking but it is a European city nonetheless and being that I am also a hopeless Europhile I had to love it.

After somehow jigsaw puzzling all of my luggage into the Smart Car, my driver took off down some narrow cobblestone streets at a velocity I did not think possible of what could not be more than a 2 cylinder car....I swear every Italian was born to be behind the wheel of a Ferrari.....and miraculously got me to the agency alive and in one piece. Eye for I had their offices on the top floor of a beautiful old building with sweeping views of Parco Sempione. It was stunning.

I walked into the agency, looking a bit (ok, a lot) worse for wear after an International flight...what do you expect?! Patty and Giuseppe, the owners, walked right over to me and gave me huge hugs as if I were the prodigal daughter returning to make amends and then introduced me to who would be my bookers, Fabio, Giorgia and Federico. What an awesome team, I have to say. I felt at home with this group immediately. The vibe was good, not seedy....things were off to a good start. Giorgia then took me to the conference room where I had to proceed to strip down to my underwear (totally protocol, they have to see what you look like under clothes, jeez!) so that she could polaroid me and take my measurements. Thank God I wasn't in some granny panties and a sports bra! I did get a little warning though.....as my hips had dared stray to 34 1/2 inches...that I needed to stay away from the pasta. Well, that was gonna be easier said than done, my friends.

After my measuring session I went back to the booking table to get the low down on what bookings I had coming up and what my holds were. Nice. I had been in Milan for one day, gone to zero castings and was already booking work. I like. I like a lot. You have to understand that even though I had been to Asia and Miami, Milan was one of the big dogs when it came to fashion and rather intimidating because of that. And seeing that I am not a "model's model", meaning that I am on the shorter end of the modeling scale, and while thin, I am far from skeletal (Cuban ass. Amen.), nor do I have any odd or edgy features, I was humbled and surprised that things were starting off so well. I honestly came back to Milan with zero expectations beyond getting some cool tests done to expand my portfolio. Obviously I had been placed with the right people.

Within the hour, I was done with all of my agency business and was handed the keys to my new apartment and driven, once again within an inch of my life, to my new digs on Paolo Sarpi which is the main vein that runs through Milan's Chinatown. My roomate was out of town for a booking and would be back that evening, so I got to nurse my jet lag with a nap and hang out on my own for a while. The apartment was a tiny one bedroom that had seen far better days. It was dirty....a recurring theme in model's apartments....since the cleaning lady only came once a month and apparently the girls that lived there previously had a hard time finding the trash bins in the courtyard or cleaning supplies at the local supermarket. Oh well....I was starting to get used to this.

View from my living room window:



My new roomie ended up being a sweet girl from South Africa named Penny. She was darling and immediately I felt like a mousy dwarf standing next to her. Here was this 5'11'' blond beauty with porcelain skin while I was tan, short haired and feeling very androgynous. Was this what all of my competition was going to look like? I hoped not! Anyways, she took me on the rounds, showed me where the local Blockbuster was that rented American movies out, not dubbed, and where I could buy a map of Milan and get my groceries....all things essential.

The next morning we headed back to the agency to get our list of castings for the day. Luckily we had many of the same appointments so I got to tag along with her. This made things a lot easier since normally, in European markets, you are given a map and a list of places to go by your agency and the rest is up to you....totally sink or swim. The amazing thing is, when that happens you learn your way around a foreign city in a matter of a few days....by the end of my first week there I knew where pretty much everything was and how to get there. You also want to learn this as quickly as possible, since there is nothing more frustrating, or obviously touristy & embarrassing, than lugging out your huge city map every few blocks or so to see where on God's earth you are supposed to be heading.

At the end of the day, and after making a few stops for the best cappucinos on earth, we headed back to the apartment. I got a call from the agency to give me feedback on the appointments I had had that day and for another list of go-sees for the following day. We cooked dinner.....pasta of course!...and watched some really awful Italian MTV then I crashed out. The end of my first official day in Milan.

Oh, and no weird agency dinners this time around. No shady phonecalls at this apartment, thank God. Penny was quiet and reserved and therefore avoided the hounding P.R.s.....I missed Miami, yes....but Milan was gonna be okay after all.

My new Italian business card!