Polaroids & Prose

I found myself in Melbourne. whilst previously I had felt myself growing pouring over the words and lives within the pages of a well crafted book, found solace in a nice sharp 2b pencil and a blank sheet of parchment, or immersed myself in the escapism that is forged in the worlds and mazes of video games. there was always something so stable about a nice heavy plethora of pages, a well balanced pencil, or a weighty controller that I could palm for security and use to navigate myself through an impossible world, something so reliable about the tactile sensation and consistent comfort that afforded me  instant validation and a silent growing confidence in myself.

Melbourne was all touch. All taste, all sight and all sound. the feel of sun on skin, the drapery of clothes, the piping hot coffee cups filled with espresso to get us through the 15 hour days. the taste of burgers and onion rings after a long flight to toast to our first day, and the sickening sweet flavour of eager bombs and strong cigarettes on the last. the sight of soaring buildings adorn the entire city, a beautiful harmony of old and new. luminosity and gloom, burnished and rustic. the sounds that were the thunderous cacophony of squeals and laughter, accompanied by backtracks of birds and buzzing cars and the sea shore. Melbourne was all stimulation. It was music in ears, steam and sweat, smoke and liquor, concrete and sand, a camera shutter.

Opportunity effervesced at every corner, dancing across all of my senses at once. I could feel the vibration in the air as everywhere I ventured. Every part of me stood on end in anticipation. 11 people, 11 stories to hear, 11 friendships to forge. 7 days, 7 nights, 7 adventures to seize. I’m still reeling from the idea that the real adventures I experienced with these people grew from the cesspool of consumerism that had lead us all there to play pretend. With this truth, came the melting away of my scepticism, and raised a contemplative question that whether the production industry wasn’t so bad, or if we were an anomaly: it was a notion I was nonetheless grateful for.

Having known the debilitating and insatiable loneliness that can accompany one despite being surrounded by people, from the moment I stepped out of Harry's car, the first time I'd ever truly been on my own, accountable for myself entirely: and I didn't feel alone. I felt an almost anthropomorphised support inside me that had manifested itself from the cocktail excitement, healthy anxiety and anticipation for the next week.

Such sensory overload, new people, new places, new experiences.

Where I had found myself in the pages of a book, I saw myself in the mirrors of a hotel elevator filled with laughing strangers I'd met less than a week ago but had felt I had known much longer.

Things that I had otherwise previously deemed to be cliched, overrated and meaningless grew like a tree to sprout and twist itself into a profound and constant sense of elation. “A durry on the deck’ became the slow and ruminative inhalation of a demonised amalgamation of chemistry that gave my body and mind some solace from its constant standing to attention. necking eager bombs became the adopting of a quick, dirty attitude change that warranted an insatiable desire to know and feel the friends around me, for my eyes to rest on them with a dizzying new fondness and affection that would suffocate me if I didn’t. “Trashing the hotel room” became rearranging our lodgings in a flurry of giggles to make a place so far away from home feel like our own.

Melbourne challenged my perceptions on people and the judging of a book by its cover. While we all like to say that we don’t, something in our instinctual code will always try to bring it down to that in any given new experience. Whether it be being pleasantly surprised or rudely disappointed by who someone was, it is always through making these assumptions. The truth behind a face will always be there despite expectations, so why set a standard to begin with. I felt this was particularly relevant in an industry where the jobs of these 11 people was literally to sell that cover.

Melbourne was 4 days that felt like the 4 weeks we were portraying in the campaign, and these strangers became the friends we acted like on camera.

This trips inception was born upon walking back from a day feasting on all the goodness Milan had to offer on a Saturday evening. Feet crushing on the pebbles of back alleys while gelato dripped down our hands and stuck our lips together. Having felt like we had seen everything Milan had to offer thus far and figuring we had another day before it was back to 10 hour days of castings, we decided to see what we could do in a day. You see the fortunate thing we came to learn about Europe, is that everywhere is just a train ride away. Lugano was just an hour and fifteen minutes north of us, and so it was decided. Tomorrow lets just hop over to Switzerland!

Olivia and I rolled out of bed at 7am, put on our most comfy pair of shoes and packed our admittedly impressive vegan picnic we had excitedly slammed together the night before into our bags

2 x punnets of blueberries

2 x giant servings of pesto macaroni

4 x wraps

1 x packet of dates

1 x hazelnut chocolate block

1 x can of nuts

Equipped with our passports and an unwavering sense of adventurousness we marched on to Centrale metro where we would embark upon our day trip.

Flurrys of rich greens and dusty shades of wheat effervesced before our eyes out the windows of the 295km/hr train up to Lugano. We shovelled great handfuls of rich berries and nuts into our mouths as we people watched, wondering where they're all going, who they're going to see.

When we stepped out of the station into a walk way down to the quaint town of Lugano, we looked up and across Switzerland’s trademark sweeping mountains and I swear I’d never felt such a sense of frivolity and inconsequence and freedom as we skipped down the cobblestone walkways past chocolate shops and thrift stores into a tremendous park adorned with sculptures and the soft waft of jazz music.

2 hours, 2 delicious wraps down and a handful of unseasonably large, sticky, gooey dates later, I swung my little red kanken over my shoulder and we headed back to the station, but not before we went via a chocolate shop (at which we ate all their free samples) and convenience store where we were taken by these tiny little wine bottles for 5 Euro each.

We sipped on them at the station and on the train until we arrived at Como. We sat languidly on the stairs waiting for the apparently stronger-than-we-had-anticipated grape juice to ease its hold on us. In the mean time, we just giggled and planned out how we would spend the next few hours

We ended up in the park with a bottle of wine and a caramel filled vegan brownie. little did we know that the wine needed an opener. it was Verona all over again, except we had nothing at our disposal to crack it. two men saw us struggling and sauntered over with confident smiles on their faces. after trying for 5 minutes to no avail, they up and left disappointed that they couldn't be our heroes. We asked a near by bar very politely if they could open the bottle for us, to which they rudely declined. Eventually, we caved and bought one.

Taking sips and passing it back and forth while the sun bared down on our skin and the smell of blooming flora filled our noses, we made our way to the cable car ride that would take us up the mountain to see the lake from the heavens.

After 20 minutes of walking we had arrived and upturned the last few drops of sparkling golden wine into our mouths, we found our selves disappointed as we felt we’d been ripped off as neither of us had felt the wine yet. this notion was promptly short lived as when 10 minutes later when we boarded the cable car lift, we both wobbled a little bit and then stared at each other for a good 3 seconds knowing exactly what the other had in mind, it had hit us both at the same time, and we stifled an instantaneous outburst of giggling.

When we reached the top we mustered as much composure as we could, and trundled on down to somewhere quiet we could eat our second lunch. We found an abandoned house that overlooked Lake Como, stay down on its cobblestone steps and each got out our pesto macaroni. This was, of course, a great time to realize we had forgotten forks. But this wouldn't get in our way, we were determined and hungry and just a tad drunk, so we scooped up servings with our hands. Faces rouge from the wine and moist from the hot Italian sun, we covered our faces with our sticky hands covered in pesto as we laughed about the whole situation. Never had I felt such freedom and content in just being.

On the way home the clouds that had been cumulating over head all day finally let go of each other and down poured the rain, as if the sky was saying: “Okay kids, don’t get carried away, its back to work tomorrow”. We let it wash away the rambunctiousness our Sunday away had built up in our spirits and boarded the train home feeling refreshed and aligned.