i've never been to portugal

even though i am in lisbon, portugal i have never been here before. that's what happens when you come to a country realize that 6 of 12 checked bags did not make it on the flight from london, spend 2 hours filing a claim, get picked up outside the airport, chauffered to the hotel, pass out for an hour from jet lag and your 20 hour trip, go eat amazing food 3 blocks away, come back to the hotel, talk on the phone, watch an episode of law and order on your ipod, sleep for 6 hours, get woken up by the phone at 9 AM, go back to the airport at 10 AM, spend 3 hours in various lines, search a room with approx 1,200 lost bags, find 4 of the 6 bags, file another claim for the 2 missing bags, go back to the hotel, go back to the airport at 6 pm, spend another 2.5 hours on the same lines and in the same room, argue with people of various annoying euro nations because they abhor a line over here over access to that room, miraculously find the bags, go back to the hotel, slip notes under peoples doors, write this stupid thing and start hoping that you will actually be able to get some sleep since you've only had 6 hours in 2 days. the funny thing is because of the jet lag i don't feel sleepy. and now i am paranoid about our flight to amsterdam tomorrow and our flight to helsinki next week, etc. and if the gear will make it on those trips.
basically it was a real reminder that this is a pretty unglamorous job.
and it made me miss LA, shit it even made me miss london.
in the span of about 2 days i went to this

from this

that was a birthday iced tea party that lisa, nina's co worker, friend and downstairs neighbor had on sunday. ok. so maybe it was three days but it's still a shock. it was a great party and nina's chance to show off her amazing house to a lot of her friends that hadn't seen it in the 4 years she had owned it. i was happy to be there and to mow the lawn and water the garden, which looked amazing. it was a great day and a fun way to head off on a 4 week euro tour.
nina's garden:

hilary showed up fresh off her cirque de soleil tour! she's subletting for the summer in LA, thinking about moving here and upset about the high temperatures and quantity of bums outside of her loft apartment downtown. and scout was drooling everywhere and totally cute.

and even portugal started off not being so bad. despite only sleeping about 4 hours of the total 15 hours of flying. we have had our own rooms the last two days which doesn't happen often on tours this size. and, this is the most amazing thing, i didn't have two tiny fucking beds pushed together. i had an actual real king sized bed. this is a first for me over here.

some of us slept the whole flight via the magic of pharmaceuticals and couldn't quite snap out of it well after landing. as a matter of fact i think i was the only one that didn't have any pills to knock me out. it sucks being such a square.

and this is the lady i wanted to punch in the throat the most today. somehow she showed up and managed to play dumb and act like she didn't know that everyone else had been waiting for at least 30 minutes. and pushed her way to the front. of course she was from england. and when i said "hey. there's a line here. or at least a group of people that have been waiting way longer than you." she just sort of tittered and acted stupid but stood her ground.

and so i thought about knocking the wind out of her. now i am not gonna act like i am some sort of good person. i am not going to pretend that i don't have these thoughts on a daily basis about people. sure i wish i was better. i wish that i could say it was merely the fact that i was trapped, surrounded by mountains of unclaimed luggage, ravers from all over europe, and silly accents and ridiculous jeans. i wish that it took a confluence of circumstances such as that to make me want to knock somone's lights out. but it doesn't. all it takes is the grandma from newcastle on tyne or essex tittering nervously. and maybe the mountain of baggage. there's nothing that makes you hate humanity more than seeing shitloads of luggage that you know is filled with crappy jeans from eastern europe.

isn't it funny how everyone on tour hates europe?

Comments

[Ollie]

Silly. Haha, I love the pictures though.

[cali]

Meanwhile I'm here in LA wishing I could troll around Lisbon with Betsy and look at all the funny jeans..