So, here starts my life in Sydney. I arrived and headed straight to work the next day. So much for catching up on jetlag!
We have been working on a project called the WotNext music tour. Basically, it takes Kram from Spiderbait (Black Betty remix a few years back) and Geoff Young from TCO, inserts them into a VW Kombi from the 70's and they travel around Australia finding undiscovered musical talent. Then, we have showcase events where there are bands from the area and they play. Where TCO comes in is we shoot the event and upload it to the wotnext website (think YouTube for music) and people can vote. The winner is decided based on votes and downloads.
Eh, voila! That is wotnext. Apart from that we are doing some work for the FFA (Football Federation Australia) shooting a documentary from turning 1 non-football fan into one. Lachlan, the 6'5" barrister is the non-fan, accompanied by Con and Leon, 2 boys from Liverpool and Amy, the chiquita that has connections to the fan section.
Lachlan got to meet David Beckham briefly when he came to Sydney. He stood up in the middle of the press conference and just asked Becks his question. Then, we went to the Sydney FC - LA Galaxy game and got to shoot. I took stills, which hopefully will be in The Australian (USA Today equivalent newspaper) on Monday. The game was great, though LA lost 5-3, at least we got to see an incredible Beckham free-kick. It is even more insane when you see it in person. There is no way a goalie could stop the bend.
Up next for work is putting together something for Myer, the department store, Purina and MakePovertyHistory in Africa.
So, picking up from where I left off the stories in Africa...
So, after Jinja, Uganda (you have to say it like that. One can't just say Jinja, you have to put in the locator, it has a nice ring to it) we headed off to the waterfalls in Uganda. We saw our first hippos and crocs on the way to the falls. We took the boat and then hiked up to the top of the falls to look down at the raging water. Insane! And it was about a million degrees out, which is always pleasant. After that we headed to our first game drive. I will never forget the first time I saw a giraffe in the wild. It was pretty far away, but I was still in awe of the size and grace of it. Little did I know, we were about to see a few hundred more.
We pretty much saw every type of wildlife possible, except the big cats. We were just hoping for some elephants when we were driving back to catch the ferry. Just off the side of the road on my side of the ferry was a herd of them! We stopped and took some photos. It was insane to think that we had to have a guide with an AK-47 just to scare them off in case they attacked us. I am pretty sure that if the elephant wanted to cause us pain, nothing could stop it.
After that, we went to catch the night ferry across the river. We had to wait while the ferry loaded up on the other side of the river. There were some hippos nearby but as long as they were in the water we weren't worried. A few minutes passed and then I realize that Stuart had been saying something. I realized he had been standing watching the hippos and said, Hippo, out-of-water. Hippo, out-of-water! Little did we know one of them had crept close to the bus and our safety. Luckily we got back into the bus and caught the ferry away from Africa's most dangerous animal!
The next day we were about to embark on one of the longest drives of the trip. Pretty much 15 hours in a crappy bus to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Oy!
Nothing I say can describe what it feels like to be in a car that long, doing nothing but dozing and looking out the window. Looking back on it, I can't believe I survived Africa without my ipod, seeing as how it died in Greece. But somehow I managed. We arrived in Kampala, a freaking bustling metropolis and headed to our hotel, Jeliza.
Oh, Jeliza.
We get there and go to our rooms. Not the best hotel ever, but by African standards it was alright. We immediately took a nap and got showered up before eating dinner at the hotel. We got there and ordered, and I think took the girl by surprise. 10 people ordering food was probably the most business they had had in a long time. So, I order spaghetti bolognaise. Who knew it was going to take... an hour and 15 minutes. And I was one of the first. Literally, another hour goes by and maybe 1 person's food comes. All in all, it took 3 hours for the meal to complete. Absolutely laughable. And, the best part was all of our food came out with plastic wrap on it, as if it had been cooked somewhere else and they had just brought it to us.
The next day, we realized we no longer had running water in our room. And, our light bulb was not working in our room. Christine asked the reception if she could fix the light and what was the concierge's response? "Do you really need a light?" Yes! It is Africa! And we need to SEE in our HOTEL ROOM!
So, we got it fixed, sort of. And the water still was not working. The next day we had several options to go around and see the sights of Kampala. The idea of getting into another cramped car that stunk and waiting in traffic all day did not appeal to me. So, instead I proposed we go to the mall. Karen and Bob accompanied me, and we ended up having a great day! I bought a canvas map of Africa, we got pedicures, we checked internet, we ate Japanese food. It was an incredibly relaxing day. Then, we headed back to Jeliza, the now infamous hotel.
Whenever you take a taxi in Africa, you have to build in the time it takes to fill up for gas. Every time. Why? Because there is so much theft of cars that nobody ever fills up their tank more than the bare, BARE minimum. I'm talking, they put in 1 liter. And then they stop and fill up. 20,000 Ugandan shillings is about $15 US. That would last them about 2 weeks. But instead, they put in 1,000 shillings. Just when you think you aren't going to have to stop for gas, the taxi driver pulls in to the station and you wait.
So, we finally get back to Jeliza, which is by now the bane of our existence. We find out, there is still no water. And what is worse, the construction on the place continues. Jackhammers starting at 7am. Dust everywhere. And, the water had to be brought in by truck. But, the truck pulled in before our bus pulled out. So we wait. So Africa. By this time I wanted to shoot someone. Karen asked the concierge biyatch if she could have a bucket of water to bathe with. The lady was like, I will help you. We can work together. Oh. My. Jeliza then became adopted as a swear word. For the rest of the trip, whenever things went poorly we would say, Jeliza!
After that, we went out in Kampala seeing as how it is the safest of the African cities we would go to. The night life left a little something to the imagination. We basically had a few expensive drinks (even expensive for Western standards) and danced around. I am going to be in somebody's graduation video as the white girl dancing around. Then we left and went back to the... place we were staying. The next day we were heading out. Thank GOD. I am sure when we left nobody ever wanted to return.
