In case you are wondering, I am off this week so don't worry that I being bad writing during work. I am not. I have been napping all day and dong nothing. It's wonderful.
Ok, time to continue my story....
As you can imagine after hanging out in the Red Light District to the wee hours of the morning it was hard to get up but get up I did. After another 4 hours of sleep I woke up at 7AM. Apparently I had made it to Europe for some of the longest days of the year so I was experiencing early morning sun as well as late night sun. Even though my room had really good black out windows I still woke up early. I just couldn't sleep. In fact on Sunday, June 22, I didn't have to be up until 9AM but that didn't stop my brain from waking up.
That Sunday morning, I meet my friends for breakfast along with two VP's from the LA office. They all laughed at me because I was tring to peel a soft boiled egg. Who knew there was a special way to eat a soft boiled egg? The previous day the chef must of hard boiled the things because I had no trouble peeling the egg but today it was a goopy mess.
At 9:45AM we headed over to the convention center to reposition all of our materials. The day before we built everything and by the time we got to the convetion center the staff had arranged all the materials. It was a sea of standees and banners. We were the first studio to make our presentation so it was our goal to position all our materials in the main areas of the convetion center so they can be seen. Our second duty was to see how that helicopter was coming along in the party area.
By 11AM my girl friend and I were bored. The boys seemed to be handling everything and since we both had never been to Holland before we asked our boss if we could sneek off for a few hours to do a bit of site seeing. He told us to have fun and to be back by 5PM for the tech rehearsal.
So sneak off we did. We hailed a cab that took us to the Rembrant House which was a house back in the day and a museum in the present. I must say I enjoy going to museums. It's always fun to see what went on in the world before you entered it. Although his paintings were not my cup of tea, I did enjoy the tour. The house itself was a piece of art and I could hardly believe it had been around for hundreds of years. This is why Europe is so charming, history is oozing from every cobblestone and building within reach.
After the museum, we walked around the streets and went into a few shops. Surprise, surprise we ended up in the Red Light District again. The girls were still dancing away in the daylight. Having had enough of that we heade dout of the district and looked for the canal tour rides. Next to the Red Light District we happened upon a boat tour place that gave a hour long tour of the canals. So we bought tickets. I am afraid we learned nothing about the canals as we were too busy talking about what its like to work in London vs working in LA. The canals were impressive and it sure would be fun to live in one of the massive cobblestone houses along the canal. You would have to be careful if you ever were drunk inside your house because many of the houses had doors that opened up into the canal. There were no decks or stairs just a door that opened up and if you weren't careful you'd find yourself falling into the canal. Even though we talked and missed the Dutch, German and English translations of what we were seeing, we did, visually, see a lot of the city. The weather was really beautiful. It was supposed to rain all week but it was nothing but sunny the whole week.
After the canal tour we wanted to grab lunch but found that most places only had beer and liquor menus and not food menus. Like me, my girl friend secretly likes McDonald's. So we decided to check out the local McDonald's. I am happy to say the quality was just as good as the US. The only thing to complain about was that they charged for ketchup packets. Isn't that just weird?! Can't the McDonald's Coproration afford to give away some ketchup in Holland? Apparently not. At least the ketchup was good unlike that watered down crap they have in Canada. I pride myself in being an expert in McDonald's around the world and was secretly glad to have met someone else who enjoyed the greesy burgers as much as me. Around 330PM we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel for a quick nap.
At 5pm we had our technical rehearsal. Basically we ran through all the footage we would show. We timed stuff and I sat in the booth with all the techy guys and learned what they do. I think my boss wants me to take over for him someday. So I sat there and learned waht everyone did. It was cool. We were done with our rehearsal at 9PM. Amazingly, it was still sunny outside. You would think it was early in the evening not late. On the walk back to the hotel we stopped to have Indonesian food. Our group sat at two tables. There was the adult table (all the bosses) and the kiddie table (us worker bees). The kiddie table didn't like the food. It was my first time having Indonesian food and based on that I don't think I would try it again. One of the gals at our table told us that we shouldn't let this place change our mind as she quite enjoys Indonesian food and that this place wasn't very good.
Nic is the gal that takes care of everyone. She is at all the events and travels all the time with the excutives and makes sure those boys have everything they need. With all of her experience she knows where to go in each town and where to eat. She had been the one to suggest the museum and the canal ride.
When we got out of the restaurant it was still sunny and it was 11PM. It was the weirdest thing for it to be late and stil bright as day. It made it hard for me to go to sleep so I went back and watched some TV in my room. Apparently, Chef Gordon Ramsey has TV shows in Europe too.
Monday, June 23rd was an early day. It was show day. We had a dress rehearsal in the morning. I had the pleasure of being the CEO of one of our lables during the rehearsal. Meaning I read through his lines while footage played on screen. Our president and all the big wigs of our studio were there and they complimented me on the way I read the lines.
Time flew and at 3PM the show started. First we showed the 2008 line-up, then an animation show by the CEO I was pretending to be earlier and then our 2009 line-up. The show went very well. I guess last years show went poorly so the big bosses were very pleased and people congratualted the big bosses which trickled down in thanks to us. After the show we had our big party. This whole section of the convention center had been turned into a war. There were girls dancing in bamboo cages, tiki huts, army jeeps and of course the big ole helicopter. The party planners had hired some good looking people and dressed them in army gear, nurses uniforms, etc which went down well with the crowd and our photographers got a ton of photos. Everyone really liked the party and had fun. I don't mean to be bias but it was the best party of the week.
After the party we showed our big war movie that comes out in August. I had already seen it so I stayed behind and helped with the organization of the gift bags. We gave away dvd's in different regions so we had to organize the various tables.
After the 23rd, we were free to just be delegates of the conference. On Tuesday, we saw the Fox line-up and they flew in movie stars which was kinda neat and kinda not. Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson, Hugh Jackman and Keanu Reevers were a few of the star that showed up. Fox had a screening earlier int he morning of THE ROCKER but Wheeler and I decided to explore a local farmer's market. We came up with several plans on how to take over Hollywood by noon. We did go to Fox's beach party for lunch and got our goody bag full of DVD's! Luckily they had a very nice day for the beach party as the sun was out.
In the afternoon we went to Sony's line up which was short and boring. But what wasn't boring was the 10 minutes of footage from the new James Bond movie. They had just wrapped filling last week and cut something together to watch. The Brocoli's came themselves to show it to us. What we saw wasn't finished but it looked sweet! That Daniel Craig is hubba hubba!!! That night Sony hosted a Bond Party with more girls in cages and dancing near an Ashton Martin car. It was an ok party. The difference between our party and theirs was that after about 10 minutes you were bored. They deocrated with the same thing over and over whereas, there were differnt things to do in different areas of our party. Plus, you could mingle with the beautiful girls and guys at our party and you couldn't do that at the Bond party. Even the food and liquor was limited. That night Sony showed Pineapple Express. I was exicted to see it being that Seth rogan was in it. But after 30 minutes in it didn't look like it was going to get any better so we left and grabbed our goody bag which was a 007 martini set. Cool gift but hard to get back home.
On Wednesday, my co-worker and I grabbed breakfast at a small cafe near the convention center. Everyone in Europe sits in cafes and drinks coffee. It's really relaxing. We sat and watched the millions of bike riders go by. That morning was the Warner Bros line up. Looked like they had a few cool movies coming. I can't wait to see STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and HARRY POTTER. They shuttled everone over to an IMAX theatre and we were the very first people in the world to see THE DARK KNIGHT. The movie was completely awesome and perhaps my favorite Batman movie ever!! Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was just amazing! If they gave Oscars away for action movies then he'd get one. I have to say, I liked him better then Jack. Anyhoo people, you are in for a real treat. This is a very good movie. Full of action and a great storyline. I can't wait to see it again! The Warner Bros gift bag was awesome and at the same time disappointing. They gave away Region 2 DVD's which are completely useless to Americans who don't have an all region player, which we don't anymore. I was so sad to give away my dvd's. I was so looking forward to seeing I AM LEGEND's new ending. Bastards!!!! It got me all upset.
Later that afternoon we saw the Disney line-up and those people made over a billion bucks on only 4 movies last year. That is cool. Diseny has cut the number of films they make down from all the other studios. I guess they are doing something right as their 4 films made a ton of cash. We screened Wall*E. and I liked it. Some people didn't because the little robot doesn't really talk (depends on your definaition of speaking) for 30 minutes but to me he talked. I thought it was very artsy. I liked it alot and I am taking the Hub to see it this week at El Captain Theatre. Previously pissed off at the Warner Bros gift bag I told my big LA Boss Man that Disney better have a good gift bag to make up for my dvd losses. He said Disney should be a little more organized. Well, he was wrong! They too had region 2's and I was soo pissed because I wanted all 4 movies. They were one's I hadn't seen in theatres. I was so bloomin mad!!! You can't invite Americans to a trade show and not have region 1's. Everyone told me to get an all region player but why should I? Why would i want to see other people's movies when ours our the best!!!! hehehehe :)
Since it was our last night in Amsterdam before heading to Austria the next day, the gang, upon Nic's great suggestion, went to this really, really, really, good Italian place for dinner. Drank way too much wine and ate way too much food. It was a fun night. The night was just enchanting. Being in a new city, amongst good people/friends and just enjoying yourself was a treat! It had been a great week but I was ready to move on to part two of my European adventure.
To Be Continued
Ok, time to continue my story....
As you can imagine after hanging out in the Red Light District to the wee hours of the morning it was hard to get up but get up I did. After another 4 hours of sleep I woke up at 7AM. Apparently I had made it to Europe for some of the longest days of the year so I was experiencing early morning sun as well as late night sun. Even though my room had really good black out windows I still woke up early. I just couldn't sleep. In fact on Sunday, June 22, I didn't have to be up until 9AM but that didn't stop my brain from waking up.
That Sunday morning, I meet my friends for breakfast along with two VP's from the LA office. They all laughed at me because I was tring to peel a soft boiled egg. Who knew there was a special way to eat a soft boiled egg? The previous day the chef must of hard boiled the things because I had no trouble peeling the egg but today it was a goopy mess.
At 9:45AM we headed over to the convention center to reposition all of our materials. The day before we built everything and by the time we got to the convetion center the staff had arranged all the materials. It was a sea of standees and banners. We were the first studio to make our presentation so it was our goal to position all our materials in the main areas of the convetion center so they can be seen. Our second duty was to see how that helicopter was coming along in the party area.
By 11AM my girl friend and I were bored. The boys seemed to be handling everything and since we both had never been to Holland before we asked our boss if we could sneek off for a few hours to do a bit of site seeing. He told us to have fun and to be back by 5PM for the tech rehearsal.
So sneak off we did. We hailed a cab that took us to the Rembrant House which was a house back in the day and a museum in the present. I must say I enjoy going to museums. It's always fun to see what went on in the world before you entered it. Although his paintings were not my cup of tea, I did enjoy the tour. The house itself was a piece of art and I could hardly believe it had been around for hundreds of years. This is why Europe is so charming, history is oozing from every cobblestone and building within reach.
After the museum, we walked around the streets and went into a few shops. Surprise, surprise we ended up in the Red Light District again. The girls were still dancing away in the daylight. Having had enough of that we heade dout of the district and looked for the canal tour rides. Next to the Red Light District we happened upon a boat tour place that gave a hour long tour of the canals. So we bought tickets. I am afraid we learned nothing about the canals as we were too busy talking about what its like to work in London vs working in LA. The canals were impressive and it sure would be fun to live in one of the massive cobblestone houses along the canal. You would have to be careful if you ever were drunk inside your house because many of the houses had doors that opened up into the canal. There were no decks or stairs just a door that opened up and if you weren't careful you'd find yourself falling into the canal. Even though we talked and missed the Dutch, German and English translations of what we were seeing, we did, visually, see a lot of the city. The weather was really beautiful. It was supposed to rain all week but it was nothing but sunny the whole week.
After the canal tour we wanted to grab lunch but found that most places only had beer and liquor menus and not food menus. Like me, my girl friend secretly likes McDonald's. So we decided to check out the local McDonald's. I am happy to say the quality was just as good as the US. The only thing to complain about was that they charged for ketchup packets. Isn't that just weird?! Can't the McDonald's Coproration afford to give away some ketchup in Holland? Apparently not. At least the ketchup was good unlike that watered down crap they have in Canada. I pride myself in being an expert in McDonald's around the world and was secretly glad to have met someone else who enjoyed the greesy burgers as much as me. Around 330PM we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel for a quick nap.
At 5pm we had our technical rehearsal. Basically we ran through all the footage we would show. We timed stuff and I sat in the booth with all the techy guys and learned what they do. I think my boss wants me to take over for him someday. So I sat there and learned waht everyone did. It was cool. We were done with our rehearsal at 9PM. Amazingly, it was still sunny outside. You would think it was early in the evening not late. On the walk back to the hotel we stopped to have Indonesian food. Our group sat at two tables. There was the adult table (all the bosses) and the kiddie table (us worker bees). The kiddie table didn't like the food. It was my first time having Indonesian food and based on that I don't think I would try it again. One of the gals at our table told us that we shouldn't let this place change our mind as she quite enjoys Indonesian food and that this place wasn't very good.
Nic is the gal that takes care of everyone. She is at all the events and travels all the time with the excutives and makes sure those boys have everything they need. With all of her experience she knows where to go in each town and where to eat. She had been the one to suggest the museum and the canal ride.
When we got out of the restaurant it was still sunny and it was 11PM. It was the weirdest thing for it to be late and stil bright as day. It made it hard for me to go to sleep so I went back and watched some TV in my room. Apparently, Chef Gordon Ramsey has TV shows in Europe too.
Monday, June 23rd was an early day. It was show day. We had a dress rehearsal in the morning. I had the pleasure of being the CEO of one of our lables during the rehearsal. Meaning I read through his lines while footage played on screen. Our president and all the big wigs of our studio were there and they complimented me on the way I read the lines.
Time flew and at 3PM the show started. First we showed the 2008 line-up, then an animation show by the CEO I was pretending to be earlier and then our 2009 line-up. The show went very well. I guess last years show went poorly so the big bosses were very pleased and people congratualted the big bosses which trickled down in thanks to us. After the show we had our big party. This whole section of the convention center had been turned into a war. There were girls dancing in bamboo cages, tiki huts, army jeeps and of course the big ole helicopter. The party planners had hired some good looking people and dressed them in army gear, nurses uniforms, etc which went down well with the crowd and our photographers got a ton of photos. Everyone really liked the party and had fun. I don't mean to be bias but it was the best party of the week.
After the party we showed our big war movie that comes out in August. I had already seen it so I stayed behind and helped with the organization of the gift bags. We gave away dvd's in different regions so we had to organize the various tables.
After the 23rd, we were free to just be delegates of the conference. On Tuesday, we saw the Fox line-up and they flew in movie stars which was kinda neat and kinda not. Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson, Hugh Jackman and Keanu Reevers were a few of the star that showed up. Fox had a screening earlier int he morning of THE ROCKER but Wheeler and I decided to explore a local farmer's market. We came up with several plans on how to take over Hollywood by noon. We did go to Fox's beach party for lunch and got our goody bag full of DVD's! Luckily they had a very nice day for the beach party as the sun was out.
In the afternoon we went to Sony's line up which was short and boring. But what wasn't boring was the 10 minutes of footage from the new James Bond movie. They had just wrapped filling last week and cut something together to watch. The Brocoli's came themselves to show it to us. What we saw wasn't finished but it looked sweet! That Daniel Craig is hubba hubba!!! That night Sony hosted a Bond Party with more girls in cages and dancing near an Ashton Martin car. It was an ok party. The difference between our party and theirs was that after about 10 minutes you were bored. They deocrated with the same thing over and over whereas, there were differnt things to do in different areas of our party. Plus, you could mingle with the beautiful girls and guys at our party and you couldn't do that at the Bond party. Even the food and liquor was limited. That night Sony showed Pineapple Express. I was exicted to see it being that Seth rogan was in it. But after 30 minutes in it didn't look like it was going to get any better so we left and grabbed our goody bag which was a 007 martini set. Cool gift but hard to get back home.
On Wednesday, my co-worker and I grabbed breakfast at a small cafe near the convention center. Everyone in Europe sits in cafes and drinks coffee. It's really relaxing. We sat and watched the millions of bike riders go by. That morning was the Warner Bros line up. Looked like they had a few cool movies coming. I can't wait to see STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and HARRY POTTER. They shuttled everone over to an IMAX theatre and we were the very first people in the world to see THE DARK KNIGHT. The movie was completely awesome and perhaps my favorite Batman movie ever!! Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was just amazing! If they gave Oscars away for action movies then he'd get one. I have to say, I liked him better then Jack. Anyhoo people, you are in for a real treat. This is a very good movie. Full of action and a great storyline. I can't wait to see it again! The Warner Bros gift bag was awesome and at the same time disappointing. They gave away Region 2 DVD's which are completely useless to Americans who don't have an all region player, which we don't anymore. I was so sad to give away my dvd's. I was so looking forward to seeing I AM LEGEND's new ending. Bastards!!!! It got me all upset.
Later that afternoon we saw the Disney line-up and those people made over a billion bucks on only 4 movies last year. That is cool. Diseny has cut the number of films they make down from all the other studios. I guess they are doing something right as their 4 films made a ton of cash. We screened Wall*E. and I liked it. Some people didn't because the little robot doesn't really talk (depends on your definaition of speaking) for 30 minutes but to me he talked. I thought it was very artsy. I liked it alot and I am taking the Hub to see it this week at El Captain Theatre. Previously pissed off at the Warner Bros gift bag I told my big LA Boss Man that Disney better have a good gift bag to make up for my dvd losses. He said Disney should be a little more organized. Well, he was wrong! They too had region 2's and I was soo pissed because I wanted all 4 movies. They were one's I hadn't seen in theatres. I was so bloomin mad!!! You can't invite Americans to a trade show and not have region 1's. Everyone told me to get an all region player but why should I? Why would i want to see other people's movies when ours our the best!!!! hehehehe :)
Since it was our last night in Amsterdam before heading to Austria the next day, the gang, upon Nic's great suggestion, went to this really, really, really, good Italian place for dinner. Drank way too much wine and ate way too much food. It was a fun night. The night was just enchanting. Being in a new city, amongst good people/friends and just enjoying yourself was a treat! It had been a great week but I was ready to move on to part two of my European adventure.
To Be Continued
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