"You're officially a badass."

... says Project Alice (Milla Jovovich) to Rain's (Michelle Rodriguez) mild-mannered clone in "Resident Evil: Retribution", but lemme back up...
Actually, not necessary. Going to see Resident Evil was pretty much the sum total of my day after writing all morning. And not because there was nothing else playing.
I LOVE the Resident Evil franchise. I was incredibly bummed I was too busy make it to opening weekend in LA before I left, and I was stoked - STOKED - to see it had opened in Sydney as well AND that they had it available in IMAX 3D (even though I think 3D is crap.)
I had been trying to carve out time in Sydney to make it to the theater, and since today was super chilly and overcast, it was the perfect opportunity. I found the closest IMAX theater - a 3.7 km/47 min walk - and hoofed it. Why the hell would I walk that after bragging in my previous post about conquering the bus and train system? After sitting at my computer for 6 hours this morning, my body pretty much demanded it.
Things I noticed on my walk:
-Sydney sometimes feels a little like New York (I'll see you soon, big guy!).
-People in Sydney (Sydnians? Syds?)  walk at a decent pace, but I still walk waaay faster.
-Syds spend as much time on their iPhone, as I'm happy not to anymore- which is to say, tons. They walk and talk, walk and text, stop and text, text and text. Its intense.
-Traffic lights take forever here. I mean minutes and minutes. Forever.
-Syds rarely jaywalk. And they look at you funny if you do.
-In case you didn't know (I didn't), they right-side drive here. Now, I mastered this skill (for real) in the UK, but I was rarely a pedestrian, so I did NOT master the art of crossing the street in a right-hand driving society. Stella and I almost got killed several times this weekend as we crossed streets and it was easy to blame her for putting my life in danger. Now that I'm on my own and still almost dying on a regular basis, it's slightly harder to blame her. Needless to say, I've stopped jaywalking. Even though the traffic lights take forever.
I finally made it to the theater, which was part of this larger collection of entertainment venues (comedy, concert, Cirque du Soleil, everything). I'd missed lunch so I enthusiastically ordered a small popcorn (small = massive here. It was more popcorn than I've eaten in the last year in a tub bigger than my head.) and Slurpee along with my movie ticket. I paid the grand total of almost $40 Australian dollars slightly less enthusiastically.
Stella warned me well in advance about how expensive everything is here so when drinks were no less than $15 and burgers were $20, I was fine. Paying almost $40 for a movie (granted, IMAX 3D, but still), popcorn and a Slushee made me blink. I didn't even get nachos! Price notwithstanding, I actually got back in the concession line and tried to buy some nachos because, at that point, who gives a rat's ass- but they were out or something.
Boo.
Resident Evil was everything I expected, thank God. It barely made sense, looked so computer generated I wondered how many days they had of practical photography because it can't have been much, and Milla's hair looked completely different from scene to scene in a story that was supposed to take place over a 2 hour time period. I LOVED IT SO MUCH.
"Bianca, how the hell is that possible?" the whole world asks.
Fighting, guns, zombies, monsters, hideous dialogue, splatter gore, more fighting, cartwheels, industrial rock music, more fighting, bigger guns, and finally: MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ.
I love her. When I fantasize, I fantasize I'm her. She makes every movie better (don't ask me to prove that and don't try to prove me wrong, just accept it and please shut up). She is one of the rare actors I will go see a movie for because I know what I'm getting- a badass with great arms and a nice sneer.
God, I love her.
You know the only franchise I love more than Resident Evil? Fast & Furious. What do they have in common?

 

"Are you alright?"

Fifteen to twenty crew members ask me this with concern in their voices every morning as I run around trying to get things prepared for my boss's arrival. The first couple days I always answered with a martyr'd sounding, "Yeah, no, I'm good, thanks..." and wondered exactly how awful and freaked out I must have looked to have THAT MANY people concerned about me.

I'm not sure how it clicked, but somewhere I realized their heartfelt "Are you alright?" is the English version of my "Hey, howyadoin'?" Oh, yeah- there's English and then there's English English. I felt like a jackass for letting my drama queen answer for the first few days. Now I toss it right back:

"Hello, Bianca, are you alright?" "Hey, yeah, howyadoin'?"

Our 2nd AD is doing his best to train me away from a lifetime of American English. The trash can is a bin, my trunk is my boot, and its not WATER, its WAH-UH. I'm not very good at it. But I have adopted the long, cute British phone goodbye.

Rather than the usual, Thanks-Bye-Hang-up, I notice calls end as follows with both participants speaking in a higher and higher pitch until its kinda singy:
"Ya, alright, thanks, cheers, bye, buh-bye!" And its a call-and-response, too, so you can really get into a few rounds of the "bye, bye" section. Adorable. I can't help myself.

Furthering my transformation away from American Girl, I've pretty well mastered Right-side driving. I don't hesitate with crossing lanes to turn right, I've figured out the rhyme and reason to roundabouts (hint: KNOW where you're going and PAY ATTENTION to what lane you need to be in) and I'm now comfortable running over someone's lawn to pass. The roads are narrow- usually too narrow for two cars to pass comfortably, so both cars drive half on the grass, gutter, or embankment on either side to make it. I'm excellent at this.

I found myself so good at Right-side driving, I got relaxed enough to re-adopt some of my awful American driving habits like working while I drive- UNTIL exactly 30 seconds into writing a reminder to myself on a piece of paper when I drove onto the curb of the highway. The curb was too high for me to drive off lest I pop my tire, so I stayed on the curb/sidewalk until it disappeared for a second and I was able to steer my car back fully onto the road- and realized I had popped my tire anyway. See sheepish in the dictionary? That's me.

(What's funny is all three driving Americans had an incident of some sort on the same day. Two flat tires and a busted side-view mirror. The crew definitely had a laugh about that.)

Sun sets over The White Lion Hotel, our Thanksgiving hosts

Uncle Sam says "Eat your turkey!"

 This week was Thanksgiving ("It's a big deal to you people, isn't it?" said my 2nd AD). Being NOT in America, we had a full day's work but afterward found a restaurant in nearby Aldeburgh (the ONLY restaurant) serving a Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey dinner. The appetizer choices were hot wings or mozzarella sticks- clearly American (?), if not traditional fare. We didn't care, we went straight for the turkey (amazing), green beans (actually yummy) and sweet potato mash (oh yeah) topped with pretzels (...what?).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pretzels, my new Tgiving tradition

                          The restaurant was bleeding red, white and blue wrapped in Forth of July decorations and we couldn't get enough. It was really very sweet- Yay, America!

Our shooting schedule has us working 6-day weeks so when you consider I worked all last weekend, this has literally registered as the longest week of my life.  I'm starting to go kind of bats. The hotel I'm in has no gym and I'm working from before dawn until well after its dark. On the suggestion of one of my set friends, I decided to try running at night after I got home. I was so restless, I was open to anything...

So it's black as pitch here at night. No streetlights. None. I knew this and decided to run anyway thinking my eyes would get used to the dark. They don't- it's THAT DARK. Thank God for my flashlight app (yeah, I'm in love with my stupid iPhone, shut up.), its the only thing that kept me from breaking my ankle on the uneven roads. Also, I don't know my way around my neighborhood- I haven't had the chance to explore anything yet- so my plan was to keep the curb on my left and I would retrace my steps... instead, I found our neighborhood pub (ANOTHER place I haven't had time to explore) and realized I just jogged a 10 min circle. I chalked the experience up to "super stupid" and made fun of myself for doing it. Until-

Cheshire Cat watches over my run.

I did it again. Hotel life is either lonely as hell or you're in the hotel bar every night. Having spent every night in the hotel bar to this point, I decided to try again. This time I was armed with a working knowledge of which street I would take and I had Rihanna's new album to keep me company. And it was pretty fantastic.

There is really NO ONE around and it is REALLY DARK so if you want to dance down the street or pretend you're running away from a hideous maniac in the dark or sing at the top of your lungs with the wind blowing your hair around like you're starring in your own music video you totally can.

I know because I did.

This was the scene as I left my hotel for my run tonight. I actually had a bit of dusk to light my way the first few minutes.

This pic has nothing to do with this post other than its what I woke up to this morning and ITS SO DAMN PRETTY!!!