Seasons on the Move

London – March 21

We had a morning coffee with John and Lynn and then said goodbye. John told me he that had connections in London to get my film screened once it was finished. I told him I would get in touch with him once I got it ready to send out. It´s good to have friends in different places.

Getting back to Fab´s brother´s place took forever. Part of the Tube was shut down so we needed to reroute using buses and a number of different train lines. Once we arrived, we had breakfast and then spent the rest of day doing laundry, burning our photos on to discs and getting ready for our departure to Russia the following morning.

At night, we went out for drinks with Emanuel and a couple of his friends. Tanya, being pregnant, stayed at home. We were also supposed to meet up with Niall, a Kiwi friend of ours from Toronto now living in London, but he fell ill and couldn´t make it. Too bad, we had spent a good deal of time hanging out with Niall in Toronto and his cynical, caustic wit would be missed.

We met Emanuel´s friends down in Picadilly Circus, just across from the blinking Sanyo sign. The area was filled with tourists looking lost and young Londoners out for a night on the town. I took it easy and limited myself to one pint. I didn´t want to face the flight the next day with anything more than common drowsiness.

London – March 20

The miserable weather outside forced us to stay indoors for most of the day. Fab and I watched a couple of DVDs and made ourselves some tasty sandwiches. I was feeling more positive. I´ve been rejected enough times by enough people to not let it get to me anymore, although admitting to that depresses me somewhat. As far as I was concerned, the only plan that changed was attending school. Mike and I still had a script to shop around and something we were both committed to making.

At night, Fab and I went down to Shepherd´s Bush to have dinner with John and Lynn, friends we had met in Kerala. We got there late due to the perpetual delays on the Tube. It was nice to see them again. Even though we´re twenty years younger than they are, the conversation always seems to flow. They ended up teaching us things about the fashion industry and the London arts scene. We try to the best of our abilities to teach them things about film, which is not easy because they are into just about everything.

After a long drawn out dinner and a few bottles of red wine, Fab and I realized we had missed the last train. Lynn had assumed that we were going to spend the night and had already made up the beds in the spare room. Fab called her brother and told him that we would be back in the morning. John and I talked about Fassbinder and Lynn brought out desert.

London – March 19

I heard back from Mike and found out that he still hadn´t heard anything. I wasn´t sure as to whether that was positive or whether the school had lost his application and forgot to get back to him. Hopefully it was a positive thing. At least if one of us got an interview, all of our work together would be appreciated by someone. On the other hand, even if he didn´t get an interview, the entire application process had forced us to complete a feature script and allow us to make plans for the future. I guess all we could do was wait.

London – March 18

I wallowed in my self pity for most of the day. Fab went down to the Brazilian embassy to see if we could get our visas processed before Good Friday. She found out that we couldn´t and I tried to convince myself that I still had worth as a filmmaker and that the film I was currently making was worthwhile. I wasn´t entirely successful in either regard, but I did manage to realize that if I was depending on a school to turn me into a successful filmmaking then I was already lost.

London – March 12

Having booked our flights to Amsterdam the night before, Fab and I made it our mission to obtain our Russian visas before departing. We went down to the embassy, dropped off the extensive paper work and paid $200 each. Viola! Our visas were ready by the end of the day. The process was painless, except for the fees, because my friend Pavel in Moscow had done all the leg work for me. He had everything approved in Moscow, got the required forms filled out and then sent me the documents via courier. After picking up our visas, we went back to the apartment to stretch out and relax.

London – March 11

We had wanted to sleep in, but instead we got up before seven to go down to the Brazilian embassy. When we arrived, we found out that our visas would take three days to process, which didn’t work for us since we were planning to fly to Amsterdam in two days. Defeated, we went to a grocery store and stocked up on food for the next couple of days. After traveling in India, the Middle East and Africa for the previous five months, the variety of food made our heads spin. We held off on our mutual urge to buy too much food and decided that we would wait until Amsterdam to indulge.

At night, we sat around and talked with Fab’s brother Emanuel and his wife Tanya about their unborn baby, now three months old, and the problems they were having with socialized health care. Back in Mexico, they had become accustomed to private health care. Now that Tanya was pregnant, they found themselves unable to navigate the health care system in Britain. Although their concerns were real and justified, I couldn’t help but defend universal health care.

London – January 5

I did some more work on my CFC application in the morning and then spent the afternoon watching BBC World and the coverage of the Kenyan election violence. In the evening , Fab and I took the Tube down to Covent Garden to meet up with Fab’s brother Emanuel, just back from Christmas in Mexico. We had a drawn out dinner at a chic Mexican restaurant and filled him in on our travels. He was obviously exhausted from the plane ride, but did his best to remain chipper and interested in our ramblings. After an hour or two and a blown budget, Fab and I bid farewell to Emanuel and made our way back to John and Lynn’s place.

We went through the usual motions of packing and re-packing our bags in anticipation of our arrival in Egypt. Before going out for dinner, I had emailed a hotel in Cairo to make reservations. I didn’t expect a response, but was pleasantly surprised to find my inbox lit up with a confirmation. The hotel said they had a double room set aside for us and that they would pick us up airport. Although I was glad to get a response, my experience in India had made me wary of any promises made by hotels via email. I guess we would have to wait and see if Egypt would going to be a different.