Sunday, November 15, 2009

Moving My Model Self Back to Milan

After my last stint in Taipei I hightailed it back to Milan. All of my friends and roomies had left Taiwan so I was ready to head back to Europe and re-surround myself with my crew. Returning to Milan was nothing short of a homecoming. I was going to be represented by my old agency, they had bookings already lined up for me and one of my besties from Miami was going to be there for the first time, the bellisimma Marissa Juliette! This was bound to be an amazing trip!

The minute I got off of the plane, boarded the express to Cadorna and disembarked in the city center with all of my luggage I felt fit to burst with excitement and anticipation of another amazing season in one of my favorite cities. I got my cell phone charged (Omnitel baby!) and headed for the agency. Everything seemed the same once I walked in except for my favorite booker, Giorgia, was missing....and no one would say why. Then I was told that the apartments were all overbooked and that I would be living with 7 other girls and to please take a cab to the apartment right away to wash up and get ready for castings.

That was the first red flag...a taxi? My previous season I had been driven by the agency driver in the agency car (yes, emblazoned with Eye for I on the side) and graciously helped with my luggage up the three flights of marble stairs to my apartment. Hmmmm. The second red flag was that I would be living with 7 girls rather than the 1 or 2 from the season before. SEVEN girls in a tiny Milanese apartment.

Ok, I'm not a picky girl....I could handle it. I took the cab and got to the apartment. Once there, I Quasimodo'd my suitcases up the stairs (the lift was broken) and met my roomates. The first one I met was a drop dead gorgeous redhead named, Judith Bedard. We bonded as she was another half Cuban like me. I liked her right away, she had a no nonsense thing about her that was refreshing. She then showed me the only open bed in the place...it was a little bed in the living room of the apartment that had a sagging mattress because it was missing 4 slats right in the middle of the bed. Nice. Then I saw the kitchen, where every shelf and countertop was covered with food, and lastly the bathroom...the single bathroom for SEVEN models. SEVEN. And to make it all the better the shower only ran a piss warm, shoelace sized stream of water. Luxury.

After washing up and meeting a few photographers, I was dead tired. I grabbed a panino and a bottle of water from the paninoteca downstairs and made a beeline for my cot. It must have been around 9pm and after eating I was ready to pass out...jet lag from Asia to Europe is a bitch. But, since my bed was in the living room, the idea of privacy or getting any sleep at all was going to prove less realistic than a two headed unicorn showing up in the foyer. As I was getting comfortable in my saggy bed, a sweet little girl from Alabama came in with her Canadian boytoy and after two seconds of introductions, they started making out and then watched a movie on the TV. I started to feel a little homicidal at that point.


This was NOT starting off how I had imagined or expected it to.

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