Trippin to the Tip of the Boot.

My first location shoot in Italy was for an Italian department store called La Rinascente....God, I hope I spelled that right, my preggo brain lapses on me quite often nowadays.....and location was in Otranto at the very tip of the heel of the boot that is la bella Italia.

I packed my bags, thanking the modeling gods that I had a roommate like Penny that would not take off with the rest of my stuff while I was gone, and headed to Linate Airport. Now I mention thanking the modeling gods about Penny, because I had heard many a horror story from other models about leaving for an out of town location shoot only to return to their apartments after a few days to discover that their roommate had taken off with all of their belongings. Now how on earth do you go about tracking down a girl in Lithuania so that you can get back your Samsonite full of pretty much your entire life on the road? Not something I ever wanted to deal with.

At Linate I spotted another model that I figured I would be working with. She didn't seem at all approachable so I kept to myself and off we went. Upon arrival in Southern Italy we were picked up by the client's driver and taken to our hotel. It was late at night by the time all was said & done (the car ride from the airport to the hotel was a long one), so we checked in and found our rooms. After gingerly looking around my room...something I always do no matter how nice the place, because yes, I am totally OCD about cleanliness...I started unpacking my bag. To my awesome surprise I realized that I had left my toothbrush behind and I would be on location for three days with no way to scrape the plaque off of my pearlies. Fanfreakintastic. If the shoot had been in a CITY I could have hoofed it out somewhere and found a toothbrush no problem....but the hotel was completely isolated and therefore I was pretty much shit out of luck to put it bluntly.

So, while muttering a lot of choice profanity under my breath, I prepared for a shower which I hoped would help make me feel somewhat clean even if I was gonna be stuck with yuckmouth. Well, my friends, my shower was the equivalent of standing under a stream of lukewarm urine...not that I have ever partaken in a golden shower, but if I could equate it to anything, that would be it. A tiny trickle of lukewarmth.....shaving under those conditions is not a good thing,....you end up razoring off your goosebumps. It feels divine, let me tell you. So there I am shivering, razor burning and cursing the fact that I can't even so much as brush my teeth when I get the brilliant idea to use one of the cotton balls I had packed in lieu of a brush. Okay, not so bad, I put toothpaste on it, rubbed it on my teeth, rinsed.....much better. At least I wouldn't be killing anyone with dragon breath or developing a severe case of gingivitis anytime soon. But the combo of what was happening in my hotel bathroom was not in any way, shape or form helping me feel like the model I was supposed to be. I could almost forecast waking up with an entire colony of cystic acne on my forehead at that point. Luckily, that didn't happen.

The next morning, talent and crew gathered for a quick breakfast and we were off to shoot. We drove around Otranto and its vicinity shooting in cobblestone alleyways, piers, seaside cliffs, by a lighthouse.....it was a long day. Beautiful but long. This culminated in a very large and loud pasta dinner at a local restaurant where a random patron had a rose sent over to me. I got eyeball daggers from the other model who was left with nothing, but what the hell, the dude that had sent me the rose was no Prince Charming. Think Tony Soprano with gold teeth.

After two more days of shooting, and all the while I am loving my lack of a real shower and my cottonball dental hygiene, the clients let me know that they had called my agency and told them that they wanted to keep me for two more days. Great for the money, but no so great for the fact that that meant my personal hygiene would really suffer now, especially since I, still being something of a modeling tenderfoot, had only packed just enough underwear for the time I was supposed to be away. I will spare you the details, but whoever the maid was who had to clean my room out must have gotten a kick out of seeing my knickers hanging from the shower rod. Shampoo makes for great laundry detergent if you are ever in a pinch. Smells good and it leaves your items smooth and tangle-free.

The last two days we spent shooting this job took us to another seaside town called Gallipoli. It was amazing, breathtaking, and a million other descriptive words for "beautiful" that I just can't think of right now. We shot all over the town and every square inch of it was a dream. Whitewashed buildings, azure waters, cobblestoned streets, stunning architecture, painted fishing boats in the harbor.....it was the kind of place you honestly wondered could truly exist....had you just walked into a painting? I was humbled and happy and in no hurry to ever return Stateside.

Gallipoli.....amazing....





On our last evening in Southern Italy, we were invited to have dinner at a villa belonging to a close friend of the photographer. I won't bother to describe it to you other than to say that it was my dream house. The minute I walked in I fell in complete lust with that house and it's gardens. It was some crazy hybrid of Pottery Barn New York loft & Tuscan dreamscape. Oh to be rich.......At the end of the evening the photographer approached me and let me know that his friend wanted to extend an invitation to me to spend a weekend at his villa whenever I wanted. Flattering? Yes. Tempting? Nope. Although I would have taken the house in a heartbeat, it's owner I could have done without. And since I have always had an aversion to sugar daddies, that little dealio was nipped in the bud. But I have to say, roses from Tony Soprano and villa weekend invitations from a would-be Casanova were making me think that this whole hot shower, shaving, tooth brushing, clean underwear wearing thing was overrated.

The next night found me in my little Chinatown hovel taking an embarassingly and completely non environmentally conscious loooooooooong and very hot shower. I was so glad to be home. Oh, and I prectically kissed my toothbrush and lingerie when I got home too. Penny must have thought I was completely out of my gourd.