Door Series #14

Weekend at the Markets

Hummmm where to start?

Italian wedding dress anyone?

I am tempted to buy this old Levis ad to bring a piece of Americana to our Italian apartment.

Come With Me and You'll Be In a World of Pure Imagination....

Do you remember that part in Willy Wonka when Gene Wilder sings Pure Imagination and drinks out of candy daffodil tea cup, and then he eats the cup? Well what if that cup was made out of chocolate? I found one in a cafe in Torino. Imagine having a hot shot of espresso in this cup as it slightly melts the chocolate and then you eat the yummy cup, spoon, and saucer! How Mad Hatter tea party like. Cafe heaven...I know what I want for my birthday...and sadly not it's until November.

An Empty Museum

 To get out of my freezing cold house and go some place warm I decided to head to the Torino Museum of Antiquities. A museum full of items found of ancient civilizations from the area and a museum with temperature control. Little did I know that on a brisk February Saturday afternoon, I would have the entire museum to myself, which I did. Being alone in a museum is perfectly peaceful AND it allowed me to take many up-close pictures of naked Etruscan wrestlers on vessel pots with out anyone judging.
The empty museum:

Will someone please tell me where I can get these fabulous sandals?:

And where I can get my hair done like this:

Ancient earings:

The naked Etruscan wrestlers:

Update: The Glamorous Life

 Today I took a bucket shower. A shower with a sponge and a bucket of hot water. I had to do this because we still don't have a working water heater. Today, in true Italian fashion, the construction guy came and said the problem was the makers fault and the repair guy came and said it was the constructions guys fault. What do you do then in Italy? Somehow my mother in law got them both in a room together to work it out. After the dust settled everybody decided that the repair guy needs to fix it by replacing a mother chip board....which has to be ordered....it will come on Tuesday. Tuesday. Bucket showers until then.....

Above: The prosecution and defendant of the case of the broken water heater.

The Glamorous Life in Italy

Ah the glamorous life in Italy...yes let me let tell you about the fabulous life here. The day before yesterday our water heater just stopped working. Period. That means no hot showers, no warm home, no dishwasher, no laundry, and no Pier, because he was on a business trip in Turkey. Did I mention that it has been raining for 2 days now? Last night I burned everything I could find in the fireplace to keep warm. Old receipts, newspapers, recycling, boxes, and an old umbrella stick that I had been meaning to fix. Jolie and I went outside to forage for sticks of wood but the center of a bustling city like Torino is a tough place to find firewood. We came back with only a few twigs. Going on my 3rd day now, without a shower but wearing every sweater I own to keep warm and Jolie staying under the blankets.

For a brief moment I had a crazy thought that I was brave enough to take a cold shower. I could do it if I'm fast , right?! I got as far as turning the water on and taking off all my clothes but once I put one hand under the stream, I immediately pulled it back and ran and put all my clothes on again, plus a few more pairs of socks. Shards of ice was the only was to describe it.

Finally in the late afternoon, a very nice Italian man came to the house accompanied with my mother in law to take a look at my boiler. He opened it up (keep in mid that it is only months old) to find the whole thing rusted from the inside. See photo below:

My mother in law was immediately on the phone to the handy men that remodeled our apartment and installed our boiler. Friday they can come. Friday.

It might be a good time to become better acquainted with my neighbors.

Drats!

I have returned home to find that all of the scaffolding was finally taken off the castle (the view from my window) and we can finally see the whole castle in all it's glory....until the fog came and covered it up again. Drats!

A Italian Bachelor Pad

 For Valentines Day Pier and I went to welcome his brother, Tomaso, to his new bachelor pad. An apartment in the city center where one Italian care free bachelor will live. Lucky guy. It's roomy, has a nice kitchen, flat screen TV, and small closets but what does a bachelor need with large closets?

Door Series #13

To Answer Your Questions

First, thank you for your comments on my last post, 7 Things You Didn't Know About Sundance. It was a good idea (Sheena). I received a few questions and so here is the follow up to those comments:

1. ms said...
What is Robert Redford like? What did you think of him when you met him?

Well, Bob, depending on the day can be sweet as pie and then angry as a hornet. Just like everybody else. I would say with my first experience, he didn't talk to me when I spoke to him. My second experience he thanked me for working for Sundance for 10 years, and my last experience he told me where to stick it. So it just depends on the day really.

2.toysruskid said...
Jonny Lee Miller has been my favorite actor for nine years! What made him one of your faves to talk to and what did you talk about? What's he like?

He is a favorite of mine too! We passed each other in the hallway at the Sundance Headquarters and I smiled at him and he smiled back- We shared some brief moments together as I gave him some directions and some movie going advice as I tried to keep my cool and act professional. Then he was gone....

3. wakame salada said...
Hi Chelsea! You are a nominee to the Sunshine Blog Award :)

WOW! Thank you Wakame! I am ecstatic! See her blog at: http://wakamesalada.blogspot.com


I will work on my nominees to keep it going...

7 things you might not know about the Sundance Film Festival (The Tag)

I have been tagged by my good friend Sheena at La Bonne Femme! Her tag was 7 things you might not know about me, BUT she changed it 7 things you might not know about the Sundance Film Festival. So here goes:

1. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can come to the Sundance Film Festival and see the films. Often times you could be sitting right next to the directors, actors, and producers who made the film. It is totally open to the public. Other film festivals such as Cannes, are completly closed to the public.

2. To run 10 days of Sundance it takes 1,640 volunteers and that is on top of the 100 or so full time staff.

3. SFF is for Independant films. This means films that have been made by freelance filmmakers and not by studios. These films are looking to be bought and distrubited to a wider aduience and/or theatres.

4. Famous films that came from Sundance have included: Little Miss Sunshine, Garden State, The Blair Witch Project, Reservoir Dogs, Super Size Me, and Napoleon Dynamite.

5. I have volunteered for Sundance for 14 years. I have spoken to Robert Redford 3 times.

6. The festival was first called (in 1978), the Utah/US Film Festival and then in 1991 the Festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's character The Sundance Kid from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

7. My personal favorite stars that I have talked to have been: Ozzy Osborne, The Edge, The Beastie Boys, Al Gore, Johnny Lee Miller, and of course Bret and Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords!

See Shena's 7 things at: http://labonnefemme1.blogspot.com/

Let's Wrap It Up People

Today was my last day working for the 2010 (that's twenty ten) SFF. We were super busy this year in the merchandise store as you can see by my sign below.

For the most part I set up the store by myself with direction from the creative team. We started with a hotel meeting/board room and in one day, turned it into a professional (for the most part) merchandise store. Here are a few pics of what the merch looked like this year, just in case you couldn't make it here...

Until next year.

I Would Like To Thank...

Last night ,don't ask me how, but I found myself at the Awards Ceremony and celebration party. It's like the Oscars for Independent films. There was a open bar with champagne and the MC for the festivities was David Hyde Pierce, AKA Niles. The highlight of the show was DHP doing a cover of the Black Eyed Peas Boom Boom Pow, but changing the words to fit the name of every film in Sundance this year. Hysterical.
See the best clip here:


Some of the fun presenters: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Josh Radnor:

Parker Posey:

After all the awards were given out, the party really started. There wern't too many pictures after that as I was mostly on the dance floor.