Wow, I don’t know what to say

I would like to send a mention to my good friend Jenna S. After reading her blog I felt inspired to start one of my own (even though this is only my second entry this year, I am practically not worthy of even calling myself a blogger!) However, memories of my good friend resurfaced yesterday when I swear I met one of her priceless characters who appeared in one of her paris blogs last year. Jen… U were not wrong!

It all started as a pretty crappy day. The weather in the current European country I reside in is depressing, its cold, I was up all night working, didn’t sleep and just found out that I was doing a fashion show in my new market (that I just started in this week) that went from 330 pm till 10 pm.

I drag myself to work at 330, end up being lectured by the security guard in French for like 10 minutes (I still don’t know what I did to deserve it but he seemed pissed so I guess I must have done something wrong). Then I end up walking in circles for about 15 minutes because I am still not a pro at translating French to English, but eventually I end up at work.
Now I am already not in the best mood because it was dark and I hadn’t eaten all day (the client also didn’t feed us just to add insult to injury) but then, what usually would make me quite livid, was all made so much more interesting by the clueless people screwing up around me.

All of a sudden, I became like a fly on the wall, observing in awe the scene unfolding before me. Bossy models, clueless models, clueless people in general.

My first endeavor happens when I go and sit in the makeup chair. I knew I was going to be at work for hours so I was pretty chilled and not really caring how long it took. The young lady beside me however was in a whole other mind set.

The girl starts whinging to the makeup artist
‘Oooo am I done yet?’
‘NO, I have only made up one of your eyes.’
‘Ooo but I don’t think you really need to do much more!’
‘Yes, one of your eyes is silver, the other one is bare.. Perhaps the other needs to be silver as well.’
‘Ooo but it won’t even make a difference, everything you do, I will just look exactly the same.’
(No one made any reaction to the last comment she made.)
She presently starts talking very animatedly on her mobile headset, moving her head in all directions as the poor makeup artist is trying to put sticky silver shadow around her eyes. Later she ends up getting in a one sided argument over when she will do her mascara, lipstick and when the makeup artist would get off his ass and fetch her some water.

My next endeavor started because the designer was very concerned that I hadn’t eaten all day and told me he would go and buy me a muffin at star bucks… The same girl from the makeup chair then comes up to me
“o what is this? You are not dieting?’
Me: ‘ No, do I look fat to you?’
Her: ‘No but I have to starve myself and I am still not skinny. Here you are eating a muffin.’
Me: ‘Yes. That is correct. (I point at my muffin and say very slowly for her) a m u f f I n.’

I go and sit in the corner to eat my muffin in peace (or half of it before the client in charge confiscated it and made me reherse) when all of a sudden I hear this loud, shill voice in my ear.
‘O I hear you are from Australia as well!’ the girl screams
I just kind of look at her.
‘Wow do you like Europe? I really like Europe. The Australia agencies are shit. They know nothing. They think I am not good enough. I tell you, If it were the 1980s I would be famous. They liked shorter girls in the 1980s. The would have loved me!
Me: ‘ Oh okay but there were also other famous girls in the 1980s that would have probably still been famous instead of you.’
Her: ‘You tall girls don’t know what it is to fight. You get everything handed to you because you are tall. Any agency would take any girl who is 5’11’
Me: ‘Not true. Some girls are not what the agencies are looking for. Just because they are tall does not mean they are going to work.’
Her: ‘O you don’t know anything Brittany. Tall girls can get agencies everywhere. If I were as tall as you I would be in a better agency to. I would have been famous in the 1980s.

Now here is when I start to have an epiphany back to Jenna’s blog last year. She mentioned that she met an Aus girl at a casting who ended up lecturing her on the fact that vaccines give children autism and she would rather have her children have the chance of dying of tetnus, hepatitis, measles etc. instead of having there brains turn to mush in there heads and become autistic.
I had to know if this was the same girl. Couldn’t help it!
She starts coughing
Me: ‘O are you sick?”
Her: ‘Yes, maybe I am just a little sick because of (….. Cant remember)
Me: ‘Haha maybe you need some sort of v a c c I n a t I o n so you don’t get sick so often’
Her: ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN VACCINATIONS. I can’t believe you agree with that. How would you like your brains to turn to mush and become a vegetable in hospital, not even be able to feed yourself and become autistic.
Me: ‘I didn’t realise that all autistic people were complete, hospitalised vegetables.’
Her: ‘Vaccinations make people turn into vegetables. There is no way around it. My children will never be vaccinated.
Me: ‘I was vaccinated for some diseases and I am not a vegetable.’
Her: Well you should be ! (and angrily walks off and sits in the opposite corner).

Wow. I don’t even know what happened last night.
This was the highlight conversation.. It was maybe a little better than the girls who couldn’t count to ten during rehearsal. But even though I ended up working until midnight and only got fed half a muffin, maybe these scenarios were worth staying up for.

A very eventful trip to the market or marrakech

 

I send out a big thankyou to my French agency for sending me somewhere to get some sunshine! After being uninspired and freaking out every time I even have an hour off work (because I have nothing to do and Paris is bloody cold!) I booked a nice editorial job in Morocco for 6 days. I went with low expectations but by the time I was on the plane decided this would be a good experience.

The job worked like this.. There were 6 of us (everyone so cool and nice to talk to..I couldn’t believe that I was actually enjoying the conversations I was having!). On the first 2 days I shoot an editorial and on the last 2 days the other model shot her editorial thus, forcing us to each have 2 days off.

Ofcourse, as I am uninspired and don’t really entertain myself well, I was a little worried about having 2 days off by myself while everyone else was working. So the first day, I did practically nothing and sat by the pool.. Not too bad and actually really enjoyed it but, the other model told me I should go out and see Marrakech as it is a nice place.

Now I must say, given even the guys in the hotel are a little sleazy, I was a bit daunted at the prospect of venturing out into this place by myself when I have NO idea of the customs, streets, language, where to go or anything. I almost didn’t go but decided I must socialise myself!
I went to the front of the hotel, was surprised when the taxi driver spoke English and ended up at some antiques store (somewhere).. So I guess his English was not that good as I was trying to get to the market.

Within in 1 minute, some fucking annoying guy is following me down the street shouting ‘It’s alright! I am a new yorker, I am a New yorker!’ (like it almost makes me want to speak to him.) ‘Come with me to the travel agency and then lets go to the markets’ (I would just like to say that I didn’t speak a word to him other than ‘no’. But naturally he is better than everyone else in the world and we have to accommodate that by wasting our whole day doing boring shit with a random stranger).
I chose to run away and jump in a cab. Fortunately, this time it took me to the markets.

The first thing I saw was about 50 dried fruit store and orange juice stands. Given my current addictions, I was already in love. One guy who had a dried fruit stall gave me some free dates so I gave him some business (he knows the way to my heart). I was incredibly happy and concentrating on that success when I ran into some guy with one of those fake but ‘oh so real’ snakes and started screaming, stopping all those around me in there tracks and getting laughed at because it was fake. He starts chasing me saying ‘buy, buy!’ and I was like ‘U have got to be kidding me!’.

Next I found an alleyway with thousands of stalls all the way down it. The owners are yelling ‘Sister come into my store, come buy!’ Then they are grabbing my arms and trying to drag me in. Then, another store owner comes and I am being dragged around like a rag doll until I run away into another store where the owner wasn’t bothering me.
I was looking at a necklace, and sure enough, the owner just wanted to make a sale. I believe I won this one but. I got the necklace from 80 euro, to 25 with free earrings. Very proud!

I go away for another walk once again immediately run into the fake snake guy. Now a whole group of English tourists are laughing at me. As I try to calm myself down I am dragged away by 2 women who grabbed my arms and are forcing me into a seat (as I am yelling No No!). A thrid woman then starts painting my hand with henna saying ‘Its good luck! You will find the man of your dreams, its amazing!’.
Meanwhile I am still trying to get away. And when she finally finished she says ‘1000 dirum’ (I was thinking more like 20).
So I saw ‘fuck off no way!’
she says ‘Its only 100 euro.. No money no honey!’
(I now blame my non successful love life on a curse from the henna lady!)
I ended up giving her 10 euro and She stole my necklace!

As I was running away from the bitchy henna ladies I run into 4 more that are trying to get me.. ‘100 dirum, 100 dirum’ (still trying to rip me off but not as bad as the others).
I was like ‘No No go away!’
In my fury and trying to get away from these irritating people, I turn around to discover I am in the circle where the snake charmers are and there is a real king cobra standing up about 1 metre away from my foot.
I left the market faster than the henna lady cursed my love life.
Definitely an experience, and my hand will look like I have contracted some form of skin disorder until this henna finally wears off!

Hey from ME

Why hello everybody I am Brittany and I am currently travelling the world for… work. That’s right. Basically I go to many amazing places and hardly ever see anything!
I am a 20 year old from Australia. It was definitely never a dream to end up in this industry but in some ways ‘luck’ gave me a career.

My mum put me into a ‘fashion’ summer program when i was 15.. because like most 15 year olds, I did not get along with her (some would say ‘brat’ but i disagree). The idea behind this was as a sort of ‘deportment’ and to teach me some manners.

The prospect of people judging me based on my skin, height etc. did not sit well with me but I did learn very quickly that it is an efficient way of being able to travel, while earning money.
I moved to Sydney at 16 and decided that it was, and still is, my favourite place in the world. I did a brief stunt in Hong Kong when i was 16 (hated it) and NY at 17 (hated it) and back to Sydney I went. A year ago I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and head back to NY and Paris for work. I am not going to lie, I still strongly dislike NY but I will bear it for a few months of the year.  Paris takes a while getting used to, but given I do not know the language, it’s a beautiful thing when you sit back and just observe, listen and watch a person’s body language in order to understand them. I hear that some of the things that are said to girls on the street are quite vulgur, but as I don’t understand yet, I will just assume they are nice people.

So I start this blog in order to force myself to do things. I tend to get bored if I have even an hour off work a day and won’t leave the house. Currently (when I am starting this blog) I am in Paris, it’s winter and I should bloody be in Australia when i belong.. with the sun, my family and friends. I am trying to come up with some other life decisions, such as where I want to be and what I want to do (that would require having a home and not having to move my things every other month).

Now, hopefully my plan will work and I will have something interesting to write about! Enjoy