SLAMDANCE 2009~~~the most unexpected amazing experience

after we got back from vermont, it was time for me to prepare myself for something i had no idea what i was getting into. about a month before i returned back from rome, laura IMed me and asked me if i wanted to come with her to utah and work at some film festival that was going on in park city during the time of sundance. i immediately said yes because ive always loved movies and wanted to go to sundance so i took this opportunity as soon as it was offered to me, yet i had no idea when it was, what id be doing, or what this thing was called...

the week before I was booked to fly to utah for this film festival I didn't know much about other than it was called SLAMDANCE, I was pretty much the sickest I had been in years, I believed the excessive drinking/smoking in vermont had something to do with it, but I don't like to point fingers...

But I rested up, didn't leave my house for around 5 days, annoyed my mother with the whining she had probably missed all those months I was gone, then by the end of the week I pulled my shit together and packed to begin this journey.
I met laura at the airport, we hugged and swayed for a few moments at JFK, we like causing scenes so that was ok, then we checked in and headed to our gate to board our first flight. We knew we were flying with a man named Tom, we didn't know who this Tom character was but we found it to be a good idea to walk by people who were between 20 and 40 yrs old looking and whisper his name and see if there was a response. we were unsuccessful...but we found him shortly after when we got on the plane and laura asked the man sitting next to us if this was the alleged Tom we were looking for, and he was. He explained to us in his british accent a little about slamdance, how the area was gorgeous but we will never step foot on a mountain or a ski (good thing we brought our ski pants for nothing haha), and that it was a lot of work but it was fun. we were still tired and i think i spaced out halfway through our convo then i passed out until we landed, a great flight, soon it was time for round 2.

we had about an hour and a half or so before our next flight so we thought it was a good idea to get an enormous beer at a mexican place to prepare ourselves for our final flight to utah, we chugged it like champs, got on the plane, i think i passed out before we even took off and next thing i knew we were in utah flying over mountains and it was beautifulllllll!

we got in around 5, got to TMI where slamdance was being held at around 6, met about 20 people in under 49 seconds, met the infamous Drea who ran the show and who we received emails from ever so often, then were rounded up into a van and take 15 min to our condos with our soon-to-be friends. laura and i were sharing a room and were with 2 other girls, alex and liz, both awesome who explained to us a little about what slamdance was, what we were doing, who was who, and what would be going on during those 2 weeks, it was a little overwhelming but sounded fanstasticcccc!

The next day, all we knew was that we had to be u and out by 9:30, which didn't sound too bad at all after being told by tom earlier that day that our days usually being at 7am. little did we kno that it wasnt necessarily the truth, but from that day on, we were up by 6:30 to get ready and shower and be out by 8am.

so we got there the first day, we had our morning meeting, then basically were told to just do what people needed us for, we were setting up everything that day, putting together the gift bags from all the promotional stuff and sponsors, and organizing our area, the merchandise, so it was ready for the next day when tickets went on sale and then the films would begin. we were able to meet everyone on a more personal level that day but were still a little confused with names and who was doing what since everyone was working on everything at first.

that night was the opening party, this let us really get to know people in a more social atmosphere, it was great, we had a great time, drank a lot, and tried not to pay for the it the next day, i think we did pretty well. that night was really fun, i mean how could it not be when jaeger dos equis, and michael collins were our sponsors haha.



The next few days were awesome and hectic but we loved it all. we worked with awesome people who were full of such great advise from their own life experiences (heidi and nicole cough cough haha), we were able to talk to new and interesting people everyday, and lets not forget the very frequent celeb sightings that kept our days very interesting and exciting.

we saw some amazing movies while we were there and met the casts throughout the festival at some point. since we were located right inside the building where people would first come in, we got to meet and talk to soooo many people and have some really interesting conversations with them, this was the best part of our job id say.


(marta scaring me with her camera during happy hr haha)

each night we were so tired but it sometimes didnt stop us haha. there were a lot of cool bars and restaurants to party at with some of the staff each night like with ali and ash who never let us down and didnt let us live it down when we were too tired to make it out with them haha, and im not gona lie, the altitude made me happy when i would be drunk after a lot less drinks then it would take at home ;0)


(party after the closing night party)

but back to the celebs...heres the official list, sometimes i substituted the role they were in if i didnt know their name at the time haha:

robin williams, the cast from its always sunny in philadelphia (loved them!), dad from freaky friday, dad from smallville, paul giomatti, matt davis, denise richards, jamie kennedy, ron jeremy, writers/actors in beerfest/super troopers, topanga (no corey matthews sorry), benjamin bratt, seth green, mariah carey, daughtry, shooter mcgavin aka christopher mcdonald ?, matthew lilliard, shirt guy in king of queens, ben affleck, spike lee, liam neason, peter gallagher, ralph macchio, oldest brother in malcom in the middle, hot blonde guy in xmen, other guy in 2 and a half men, christopher malloni, singer from everclear, uma therman, mini driver, joseph gordon levitt, robert redford, james gandolfini

great success? i think so

all in all this was one of the best trips of my life, and yes I'm comparing it to my european adventures. it was such a different experience and it was nothing that i expected. everyone we met and worked with were so amazing and so inspiring to pursue whatever it is you want to do in life. of course it wasn't a surprise to my parents that I was now interested in working on tv or film in the future and moving somewhere to do so after this coming summer, so we'll see what happens. I've been pretty good at not doing what I am "supposed to do" with my major so I suppose this is just the next interest in life to pull me in a different direction than what I expected...how exciting!

Back to reality....or so I thought

After returning back from Rome, I was sad but distracted enough due to the holidays, and seeing people I hadn't seen in such a long time that it didn't really hit me for awhile. After christmas passed, then it was time to wait for NYE which ended up being awesome. NYE is usually something I would always care about, but after a lot of us played out the whole new york city on NYE thing we were totally over it, so this year it was interesting to stay more local. I was happy that ended up being really fun. I was with a lot of great friends and had a great drunken time.

To make the new year more exciting, I planned on heading to vermont w/ school friends because elaina invited a bunch of us to ski at her house a few days later...



We had such a fun, relaxing, and drunken time in vermont. I drove up w/ elaina on new years day and the next day everyone else arrived. the house was awesome, the people were awesome, and it was really great to spend time with my friends who i hadnt really gotten to spend a long period of time with for months.

the last days in rome.....

The last days we spent in Rome didnt feel like we were leaving. yeahhhh we drank in our classes and on campus a lot more before, during, and after our classes and finals haha, and yeahhhh we went out a lot more and made excuses for eating out at awesome restaurants every night, but it still didnt feel real. TEAM ROME got together a lot of times, we did our last team theme dinner which was breakfast for dinner, it was very successful as usual, then for our last dinner, the night before we left, we successfully had one of the best means of our entire lives.

I had a friend of a friend call this place we heard of, that many refer to it as the secret place. it is not a real restaurant, it is literally in a mans apartment, and he and his helper or son just cooks us a 6 course homemade italian dinner of a lifetime! we literally had a map drawn out for us, were told we had a reservation for 10 at 8pm, and we were on our way to the greatest dinner everrrrrrr.
we followed this map, took a few wrong turns, then finally saw down a dark alley this man with a large mustache and a dog outside with him waiting for us, these were the clues we were supposed to be looking for..we made it!

we all sat down at our picnic table covered w a tablecloth and out fancy plastic chairs, with this adorable dog playing with us and waited for our meal to begin. due to this man not speaking english, and all 10 of us speaking awful italian, there was little communication, but a lot of words being thrown around that we actually did know such as molto bene! haha. we had 2 vegetable appetizers, fresh bread, home made wine by the jug, 3 pastas, 2 meats, and calamari...by the time they were serving us lemoncello and chocolate we were sooooo full and happy, we were smiling for a long time. then it was time to videotape our favorite moments of studying abroad, it was really sad and cute and funny. we paid our 25euro each which our meal was def worth double that, and to top it off, for the 10 of us he gave us 4 free bottles of their wine, which we clearly had the man open for us before we left so we could drink that night wherever we ended up.

on our tipsy walk home from the restaurant we decided to drink our bottles and head to campo di fiore for one last time. we sat at sloppy sams, drank our wine and a ton of beer, then hugged as a group in the piazza for about 20 minutes, it was awesome and sad and the best ending ever.

that next morning we would all head to the airport and put an end of the best 4 months of our lives...

i forgot something verrrry important....

a few days after i got back from marias wedding, back in november, me,devon and the 2 other ppl in our physics group had told our friend max that we would come to his house for dinner b/c he wanted us to experience dinner at a real italian household. we clearly were all for a free fantastic meal, but when the day came, it looked liek devon and i were the only 2 attending this dinner. we felt soooo awkward before we went, i told devon about 5 times i wasnt going and was leaving her to go alone, but i went and im so happy i did. max drove us to his apartment about 20 minutes away from school, but still in the city, but he lived in a more upper-class residential area of rome. he said we;d be eating with his mom, dad, and his sister and her boyfriend. he said the dad spoke zero english, the mom knew some, and the sister spoke it very well but was too embarrassed to talk to us in english. this would be interesting...

when we got there the place was really cute and homey. they hugged us hello, none of us knew what we were really saying to each other, but we made our way over to the dinner table while the mom finished the last parts of the meal and the rest of the fam did there own thing before dinner. we sat down and there was a platter of fresh mozz balls in all diff shapes and sizes, as well as some bread and wine. we knew at this moment we were in for a great dinner haha. then as the fam came to sit the mom brought over the rest of the appetizers. these included fried olives, potato croquettes, fried zucchini flowers, and some thing that looked like pound cake but was really made of cheeses and egg and something else, everything was fantasticcccc. we were full already but it was time for main course #1. this is when the mom brought over a huge dish of pasta in a broccli sauce. i cannot describe it, i hate broccoli, but this delicious and i ate everything on my plate. time for round 2...lasagna! i was in heaven, thats all i have to say about that. then round 3, pork wrapped in turkey, wrapped in heaven. not only were we overly stuffed and satisfied, then they brought out gelato and sambuca and metaxa, and lemoncello. this was one of the best meals i had in my life, despite the lack of communication at some times during the night, all in all we had a fabulous time.

on the way home, max thought it was funny to drive us down this rd where allll you see are tranny hookers. this was interesting. he said that b/c its a rich area, the hookers stand there b.c rich business men will pull over often for a quickie of some sort. this is when max pulled over with 2 scared americans in his car, asked in italian how much for a threesome, the football player looking hooker peeked in the car, told him there was too many of us and thanks but no thanks haha. what an interesting but great night haha

i dont believe in studying for finals...i believe in fucking around...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

class for the first time in 2 weeks...then off to poland!!

After my return from the wedding, and matts visit, it was winding down to our last few weeks and our last few trips to be planned. There was a lot of talk about skiing in the alps, which first of all sounds fucking awesome, but yet again i was torn as to what to do since i've been to interlaken before. I had to decide if i was going to go with the crew for our last trip, or venture outside the box and either go somewhere with someone else or go somewhere i wanted to go, but by myself.

i was sitting in physics one night, perusing a map of europe which seemed to be a re-occurring thing when deciding on trips (which i miss doing a lot) and i found myself interested in seeing a concentration camp, something ive always wanted to do. actually, on my list of top 5 things, seeing one was about #4...pretty sweet to cross something off a life list haha.

so i gathered some balls, found that if i flew to krakow id be within an hr of aushwitz, and booked my flight in class that night, then my hostel a few days later. i had an idea that the exchange rate would be in my favor, but who knew id be loaded when going over there and early my poorest time in my life haha, it was straight out of Eurotrip when the group ends up in that really poor part or russia or something and they live like kings!

when i arrived in poland i was a little nervous because it was like 1am, but i found myself a cab, ended up at the hostel, and was pleasantly surprised! i had a room which looked like it was straight out of ikea, and a bathroom in my place, so it was like my own little apt, and to top it off, i had wifi! so i put on a movie and passed out.

Those next few days were amazingggggggg! i went to auschwitz and it was incredibly eerie and sad, but really interesting and i was so excited i got to experience such a thing. i spent the rest of my days walking into the main square, checking out awesome shops, buying really cool stuff that was mostly home made like jewelry and clothes and trinkets. I had a fabulous time, but the only weird part i must say was eating dinner alone lol. i think its when they pull the table settings for the other ppl off the table is when u feel a little lonely haha but on the other hand, sometimes it was really great and relaxing and cool to only do what i wanted to do haha,

this trip was fucking awesomeeeeee! i highly recommend that everyone visits poland at some time in their lives, it seems odd but it was seriously an amazing place!

THANKSGIVING WEEK....we were so drunk i said i was thankful for wine

the monday we got back from amsterdam was a rough day for all of us, we were soooo tired, burnt out and going through withdrawal....not ok

i actually went to class which was surprising but i figured i should being that matt was still sleeping when i had class at 4...as well as still sleeping when i returned at 5:30, i literally kicked him for about 10 minutes at around 7 to make him get up, shower, then get ready to go to dinner. we walked around trastevre and got dinner, then went near stephs apt to order our turkey which we were really nervous about that it was too late. luckily for us the place she got hers from had ordered a bunch so we were pretty happy about it, we ordered 2, 6 kilo turkeys b/c according to steph thats what we needed, we didnt think to check the Lb to kilo ratio, little did we know, we ordered 2, 14lb turkeys for 10 of us...thanks steph!! haha jk...we were able to sell our extra turkey to jay and the guy on the black market luckily on wednesday when we picked it up haha.

the next day we did a bit of sightseeing, we had intended to see the pantheon and a few other non-energy needing sights b/c we were still being lazy, but of course we ended up walking across the world, seeing via del corso, the spanish steps, the church made of bones, as well as a restaurant my moms friend told me to go to that i thought id never find, its called ciao bella...i mean what are the chances id find the exact restaurant in rome thats called ciao bella haha...clearly it was way out of our price range so i made a quick call to the mom and told her my findings...when she was happy i found her friends fav restaurant i worked my magic and convinced her it was only appropriate that she treat us for dinner if we went one night, somehow it worked and we planned to go monday night before matt left on tuesday.

that night we picked up some pot, went to dinner, then hung out and watched movies. the next day melissa, jackie, matt, and jess's friend chrissy would arrive...this is when our apt would become a glorious madhouse.

clearly, i felt wednesday was not a day to attend school lol...we did some adventures through rome, went to dinner in trastevre, walked around a lot, then came back to get ready with everyone to go out that night. we all decided this would be a great night to go to campo since we hadnt been there in awhile. we all pregamed a lottttttttt then got on the tram to go to sloppy sams. we had a lot of fun there, this is where the night seems to get a bit foggy, one thing lead to another and a few of us split up here and there, i dont know how but matt and i ended up at a diff bar and drank a lot more. we all got home at different times, 2 here, 3 there, then one by one people came stumbling home, this was interesting haha. the next morning was going to suck, matt and i hadta get up by 9 to start slicing dicing basting and cooking everything for the next day, mind you, very hungover.

matt woke me up around 930 and pulled me into the kitchen, we were both still drunk while handling sharp objects, not ok. we threw whoever was sleeping on the couch into my bed and began our day. first of course, we had to light a blunt, i mean how else were we really supposed to handle such a task at such an early hour? haha

we started peeling like 900 potatoes, seasoned the turkey and threw it in, ran to the store to get some last minute things, then at around 11 we decided it was time to start drinking wine, about 5 hrs later when we ate dinner we were so trashed im surprised i ended the day with all 10 fingers. someone made a toast and all i could be thankful for was my wine haha, not ok. after dinner me matt and ali had a little pt to smoke that ali brought as a surprise, but as soon as matts fork went down he passed out, then after i smoke the world was spinning and ali was wearing mini mouse ears for some reason and it bugged m out! lol...i yelled at her to remove them then passed out too, this was at liek 7pm. i slept until around 1030, woke up and realized no one was there except for matt who was passed out in my bed, and kaitie and susan who were about to leave. they were meeting up with everyone at testaccio so i somehow got myself together, called ali and susan when i was ready and ali said they were going to scholars so i hoppped on the bus to meet them at the stop. when i got there it was only kaitie and ali and the others were apparently supposed to meet us, that didnt happen. me kaitie and ali spent the night there, kaitie and i had a nice performance of blackedout ali all night haha..we left at around 2, came home and passed out.

the next day me kaitie susan and matt went searching for the catacombs, #1 ali gives the worst directions ever #2 it was pouring, #3 we were in the middle of no where and ended up in the biggest park the world has ever known right near the zoo, we never made it to the catacombs but did end up at piazza del popolo then went to st. peters to show matt the church. that night all of us decided to go to coyote in testaccio, i had never been there but jess said it was awesome, and that it was. it was liek half inside and half outside, all i kno is we took a lot of tequilla shots, and matt tried to trick me into taking a shot of jack and i almost threw it at him haha. we were all soooo drunnk, got home around 5, then planned to get up at around 745 to go to florence that next day...this was going to be a long day ahead of us

me matt ali susan and melissa actually got up and went to florence on a 10:00 train that next day, how, we still dont know. we spent the day mostly shopping..i bought a bag and some other things, matt bought a leather jacket and a lot of stuff for his family, and the others bought some leather stuff too. by the end of the day we were soaking and freezing. we went somewhere for dinner but we were dropping like flies and needed to come back. none of us made it out that night, we were all soooo out of it and needed to rest up for the roma soccer game the next day!

matt ali and i went to the market the next day by around 12, spent about 2 hrs there then left with kaitie and susan for the roma game, this place was insannneeeee. the fans were crazy, singing, cursing at the opposing fans, waving flags, attacking the wall between roma and the other team, i couldnt believe it. we found seats pretty close to the field surprisingly, and halfway through the game the wonderful aroma of hash came floating our way, i look over and matt is getting a joint passed to him by the guy behind us! what a dayyyy!..then i look over and susan the junkie was smoking too! we found a way to ask the guy if we could buy some and we did, this was just amazing lol. after the game we took our hash and started our venture home, this was not easy. we had no idea how to get back so we hopped on the first bus we saw. as we were in traffic we looked over and a car was on fire! liek huge flames. we hopped off the bus and started walking, finally we got out of there and headed to abbey theater to meet up with jess and some others to watch the giants game, as well as to eat everything we could find b/c we were starving. we got there, all had beers, burgers and fries and finally decided just to leave, we were so tired and out of it.

the next day was matts last day in rome. we did the colosseum, the pantheon, and a few other things. clearly i didnt feel like class was a good idea lol so i skipped it again. then we came home, showered, rested, then went on our way to dinner at ciao bella. when we got there we knew we'd love the place as soon as they greeted us with champagne as we sat down haha. we shared delicious pastas, veal, lots of wine, and a glorious italian cheesecake. we knew we did some damage but we did not realize how much....128 euros later i was speechless deciding how to break the news to joanne haha. instead, i put 40 euro on my card and the rest on hers...when i signed the 2 receipts i noticed something...they only charged 12 to my moms card! what a dayyyy....we sprinted as fast as we could when we left and i took matt to get gelatto since he hadnt had it yet, even after the enormous dinner we had....of course it started downpouring and put a damper on our plan to show him the trevi fountain. we decided to have a cab take us there, let us sprint to take a pic then jump back in the cab, the driver thought we were nuts but we clearly needed a picture in front of it haha...it was a great success

when we got back matt packed up and we just watched a movie and went to bed, we had to be up at 5am to take him to the train to get him to the airport....it had been a great and long 12 day visit!