Day 42: Pash Attack!!

(**this post has been edited on Dec. 7, in a treaty of peace between two nations)

Thank God The Scot set the coffee maker to brew automatically bc I needed it this morning. AB & I took the train in (my first time on the perth train) & our friend Uta & her boyfriend just happened to get on at the next stop. AB texted them "I can see you. We're just down at the end" and we watched them read it with very confused faces til AB wrote back "...of the train" & they finally spotted us laughing. They had thought it was some cryptic philosophical message! So funny.

The frenchies were already half set up when I got there (ha ha payback for yesterday!) so I lent a hand & then enjoyed THE most delicious iced coffee EVER. Australian iced coffee is espresso & ice cream! Oh so yummy.

the frenchies & their "museum"

Its the last day of the festival & everyone is a bit exhausted & crazy; the conversations over radio are inappropriate and hilarious. Because of my earpiece, I look like an insane person sitting & giggling at nothing. :)

But despite the good start to my day, things unravelled pretty quickly.  I felt like everything between the frenchies and me was a misunderstanding or an argument; I would tell them what needed to be done & five minutes later they'd be doing the opposite & asking to speak to J.  It's unfortunate bc not only are they a tough group to deal with for anyone, I started with them on my first day with the festival, my second day in Perth, so I didn't feel I had much authority or even the knoweldge to execute their requests even if I had had the auhority. So by this point, while they appreciate my help, they don't exactly treat me with the respect I deserve.

They were grumpy, I was really irritated with them, we weren't communicating, I was tired, no one was in the office so I couldn't get my lunch or my money & I was starving -- and we all know how awful I am when I'm tired & hungry.  for reals.  It was taking all my energy to stay civil, professional, and composed.  Let's just leave it at it was a bad afternoon.

Finally, J showed up, the frenchies went to lunch, lovely Jenna came to help me strike, and it wasn't fun but we got it done.  After everything was struck & stored, we moved over to city within a city & started taking apart louise's mongolian urte. Some of the vollies were really getting under my skin; staff was in we're-here-til-this-gets-done work mode & they were in i-can-leave-whenever-i-want social hour mode. Don't get me wrong, they were very helpful, but I just wasn't in the mood for joking around; I wanted to get shit done so we could join the already-swinging closing party in the office.

Jenna (she obviously said something i found really funny at the bbq)

After that, I headed to the Blue Room to move Holiday's heavy as hell real airplane chairs & load them into the ute (pickup truck). At one point, I lifted one side by myself & Sean said "whoa! I didn't think you'd be able to lift that alone - that's the American coming out." And I, cheesy as ever, said "yeah I got the bald eagle in me" but really I was just tired & hungry & wanted to be done with it. But at least by that point, I was with people that felt the same & we got half the chairs loaded in half an hour.

J told me to knock off & take the vollies back to the office for the party, which was great but made me feel obligated to stick with them. It took almost an hour for them to grab some food (I had no money of my own but Jenna asked me to get her some hot chips & I did steal a few to keep me from imploding) and I was trying my very best to be patient as one wandered around saying "hmm what do I want..." (insert rolled eyes & hunger pangs)

Finally dragged into the party, changed, grabbed a mojito & my food from the fridge, saw AB, The Scot and everyone, and felt instantly better.

Two of the girls who were my vollies during the week (and were great) brought me a present - passion pop. Its the equivalent of boones farm, zima, or wine coolers, what you drink in uni, except with more alcohol & bubbly! All night, everyone was like, oh now you're really Australian! and, you're gonna regret that tomorrow... I ended up only drinking it til they left (sorry girls!); I knew I'd have to work tomorrow & I didn't want to risk a hangover.

my vollies Amiee & Emily, and my pasison pop

I spent some time talking to Sean, who works crew but is also an actor, and just had a baby. Its really nice talking to people about acting outside of LA. They're not judgemental and they understand doing it for the love of it rather than for money or fame. We had a really nice conversation.

After he left, Dan waved me over & I sat between him & Jason (crew), presumably so they could take the piss out of me, which is exactly what they did all night. But I did it right back so it was hell fun. Dan kept trying to dig up a scandal, asking who my favorite dutchie was & I would just smile all sticky-sweet & say, I'm sitting right next to him. We talked about America, Australia, Holland; I gave them cootie shots and slapped them around a bit when they got cheeky. They're both the type of guys who love to get a rise out of someone, but underneath their jerkface demeanors (and Dan's im-just-being-honest rudeness), they're good guys & I had a really fun time hanging out with them.

Dan & Staya (AB's & Lauren's Dutchie crush)

The last vollie standing was Shawn, who is really nice but really quite "special" and once he's cornered you into a conversation, you'd better get comfortable bc you're gonna be there for a while. His favorite topic is religion; if you don't believe in God or do believe but don't go to church or have permarital sex or do anything else catholics disagree with, he'll tell you, with a huge grin & a laugh, "you're going to hell ten times over! But I'll pray for your soul." yeah. Thanks, Shawn. As you can probably guess, it gets pretty old, pretty quick. He'd been hovering around me all day & by the party I was seriously trying to dodge him. He kept singing "oh Nikki you're so pretty, you don't understand" but he wasn't mimicing the Toni Basil song, he thought he'd just made it up. I don't mean to be high school about it but omg sooooo embarrassing. And awkward. And seriously, what do you say to that? By the end of the night I was just ignoring him & Dan & Jason were cracking up.

me & volley Shawn

AB stole my camera & got some great shots, including a few buttcracks - boys, pull your pants up! - and fantastic silly portraits of just about everyone there. Good work, little girl!

Jason & I had a really interesting conversation about the aboriginal culture & why there's such a racism problem here. In general, aussies are more racist than Americans & their civil rights movement is way behind ours. They're a younger country too, which explains a little of it. It keeps coming up in conversation (maybe that's my fault) & he gave the best explanation I've heard yet.

Jason & me

Around bumble stumble in the morning, AB, Tegan & Lauren ran out to pick up some pizza (during which time the Dutchies went crazy over a Paul Simon song - hilarious), and when they got back, Lauren & I opened up the dance floor doing interpretive dance, the robot, jumping around. We did NOT care that we looked like idiots.  All the Dutchies (except Dan, he's too cool for school) joined us and they were dancing even weirder than we were!  Hansel* kept pulling me over to dance with him but I kept wriggling away - I'm dancing with Lauren, yo! (Plus, to be honest, he was a little stinky.)  Man, I love me some tipsy dance parties!

I was still going strong when the dutchies started saying goodbyes; they had to catch a plane at 7am & I'm not even going to tell you what ridiculous time it was by this point. I gave the requisite hugs & cheek kisses to all of them, said bye, and resumed dancing, when suddenly Hansel came beelining back in, grabbed my head, and placed a big fat smacker on my lips! Aack!! Right in front of everyone, very abruptly, very awkwardly. Jason was standing right next to me & he said my face was priceless - pure terror. Hansel then picked me up, spun me around, set me down & attacked my face again. Not being able to get through the barrier of my tightly closed lips, he sorta gnawed my bottom lip for a second & then gave up, hugged me goodnight & left. Yikes. Then he actually came back again (what kind of signals does a girl have to give?!?); I looked at him, said "did you forget something" as I took a sip of my drink, and quickly ducked out of the room. That seemed to do the trick; he didn't try again.  kissed me!

Tegan & one of the Dutchies

Now, don't get me wrong, he was a nice, attractive guy, but - boys let this be a lesson - that was the worst way to pash a girl, ever! Without even having had a conversation with her all night, in the middle of all your friends, armpits a-blazing, coming at her like a grizzly bear. No thank you.

But hell, it was pretty funny for everyone else. :)

So Lauren got her wish, I kissed a Dutch boy. Sort of. I found out later that not only did Kat tell Hansel that one of the girls had a crush on him (actually Kat had the crush!) and Jason & Dan were egging him on all night, but when Lauren hugged him goodnight she whispered, you should kiss Nikki. Traitors!! Poor guy probably thought I was just pining away for a big wet smacker. Sheesh.


Then After the laughter from the face mauling incident died down, we reckoned it was time to go. Lauren & I still wanted to go out but by this time am, nothing was open! Jason very kindly gave all us girls a ride to Tegans house, where we snacked on carrots, laughed about the nights events, and finally collapsed on the pullout sofa bed.

(*names have been changed & details have been edited to protect the forgiven)

Today I am so grateful & happy for:
~ shenanigans
~ self-respect
~ hilarious boys
~ cameras
~ my last day working with the frenchies

Xo! n.