WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH; THE TOUGH GET GOING!

I'm back in London. I've just returned from the hospital, where the doctor had just confirmed what I already knew. I have a bad infection, which had plagued me for most of my time in Romania. He's put me on a course of anti-biotics and told me to take it easy. I look in the mirror. I look awful. Im still not sleeping well and have bags under my eyes. I have skin like a spotty teenager and I've dropped over half a stone in weight while being away. I'm jobless and have lost my flat, and now, I look at my life piled into boxes, in the room I have rented from a friend for now, until I decide what I'm doing with my life. On top of that, the guy I was dating has been a real jerk, and was dating someone else the whole time. It has left me feeling like an idiot for thinking that he ever liked me in the first place. It's not been the best start to the year. I feel broken: mentally and pyschically. To sum it all up: everything is a bit shit! 

Now there are two options you can take when you feel this way:

OPTION 1

You can sit around feeling sorry for yourself and go "Why me! I don't deserve this!" Bla, bla, bla and be another of life's victims.

OPTION 2

You get can the Hell over yourself and go and find something that makes you happy.

I WOULD CHOOSE OPTION 2 EVERYTIME

I'm on the phone to my friend Lauren. She had rang to see how I was and to let me know she's happy I'm back from Romania. I'm moaning to her on how bad I'm feeling.

"Why don't you come to Mexico with me?" She says

"Don't be silly! I can't come to Mexico!" Is my response 

"Why not!"

"Because your leaving Monday and it's Friday now, and I just can't!"

The next morning I'm surrounded by mess as I try and pull from my storage boxes what is needed for my everyday life. It's freezing and I have a hundred layers on trying to keep warm. I look out the window. It's grey and raining. I get a phone call to say the job I was waiting on has fallen through. After I hang up the phone I look at the screen and begin to text Lauren:

"F**k it! I'm coming to Mexico!"

I'm walking out the airport at Cancun! "Shit! I'm in Mexico!" It all feels a bit surreal. The heat hits me and it feels wonderful, even though I'm wearing a thermal top (not a good look in Mexico)!  I go to find Lauren and her friend Millie who is travelling with her as they were on another flight an hour a head of mine. Funnily enough I find them in the bar sipping on Pina colada's. Lauren is like my baby sister. I met her while she was doing work experience on a film I was doing dailies on a couple of years ago. I instantly liked her (but it's kind of hard not to like Lauren) so then employed her as our trainee on one of my jobs, gave her lots of stick and gave her the nickname Sugar Tits (I treat all my trainees well)!  I've been stuck with her ever since. I'm quite surprised I want to travel with Lauren again though as she seems to bring bad luck with her. She was my side kick on my third trip to India, where I had never got ill. I go away with Lauren to India and in the first week we both come down with E. coli, which can kill you! I must say though, it really cements a friendship if you can still look each other in the eye after you both puked a hundred times in front of each other and have had to drop your pants at the same time, so a heavy handed Indian doctor can inject you in the ass! After that Lauren went to South America where she had her bag stolen in the first week, her leg swelled up so she had to spend a fortune at a hospital getting it checked out only to realise it was the heat, and when I melt her in Rio she had a face like a beetroot because she was covered all over in a rash after having an allergic reaction to some shower gel. I sit next to her in the bar to find her blowing her nose. She is full of cold which she seems to have caught on the plane ride over. The curse continues! Millie, her housemate is a brunette with a sexy, husky voice. I instantly like her as she has got a good sense of humour and she is the same height as me, so I won't feel like some Amazonian freak like the last time I did Mexico, as the average Mexican height is five foot nothing.

Lauren and Millie have booked us into a hotel in Cancun for the first night.

"It's spring break! We should really experience it!" They tell me excitedly. On my last trip to Mexico all I saw of Cancun was the airport and that was fine with me. Cancun is not my type of place when it's normal, but Cancun during spring break: well that's just my worse nightmare! It will be full of drunken students but they will be American which means they will be louder and the behaviour worse, as Americans like to everything bigger and better. It will be full of people called Chad, who have been working out for months for this one moment in time to parade his pumped up body around on a beach, while downing some tequila, in the hope to have sex with as many females as humanly possible in his one week vacation. Yep! Experiencing Spring Break is really not up there on my list of things to do. First we have to get to Cancun. This seems quite an effort due to the fact Lauren and Millie don't seem in that much of a rush as they are drinking Pina colada's. I on the other have to abstain due to being on anti biotics (the horror)! When they eventually do move, Lauren suggests that we walk outside the airport to flag a taxi as it's much cheaper according to her guide book. We drag our luggage in the heat and walk outside the airport to the road. It turns out Lauren's guide book is crap as we cannot flag a single taxi. We then drag our cases back inside the airport and get a bus, which we have to wait an hour for as we have just missed the last one. We eventually get to the hotel. It's is now dark. The hotel is very nice the only problem is, it's in Cancun town. All the parties and nightclubs are along the beaches which we are nowhere near. It's getting late and we are starving so we head round the corner to a restaurant to try and gain some energy. Two margaritas later Lauren is as white as a ghost and nearly face planting the table she is so tired. She hasn't had sleep for over 24 hours due to the fact she thought it would be a good idea to stay up all night before her flight watching Frieda and drinking red wine in bed (the mind boggles)! Millie isn't far behind her either. 

"I think I need to go to bed! Oh my God! This is the worst attempt at doing spring Break ever!" Lauren moans. I have to agree with her it's a pretty dismal attempt. Half an hour later we are all tucked up in bed with massive jet lag.

"What a massive failure. I guess we will never get to see Spring break?" Lauren's yawns.

"Yes it was a massive failure!" I think to myself as I close my eyes, but for once I have never been so happy to fail. 

Next stop Tulum. 

FILMING CLUB

Never complain,

Never explain.

Kate Moss

FILMING CLUB RULES

Rule 1: You never talk about filming club

Rule 2: You never talk about filming club

Rule 3: You never walk from filming club

Rule 4: You must sacrifice all for filming club: relationships, friends, social life and family.

Rule 5: You must deal with extreme stress and pressure for filming club, as your freelance, so you don't know where that next job is coming from. 

Rule 6: You must cope with extreme lack of sleep.

Rule 7: Filming will go on as long as it has to. 

Rule 8: If this is your first time at filming club, I suggest you have a strong deposition

I BROKE THE RULES: I WALKED FROM FILMING CLUB

I think I was seven when I first fell in love with film. I remember being sat alone in my grandmother's caravan. I don't know why I was on my own but I recall that I was there, alone for a very long time. Why? Because I watched the whole length of Gone With The Wind in isolation. It was light when the film started. It was pitch black when it finished, but time didn't really matter. It had stood still for me, as I was entranced by this world that I had entered. It was such a beautiful world and I wanted to be part of it. As the years progressed I try to educate myself with different genres: the black and white classics, where watched with my Grandmother; the best war movies were watched with my brother; and foreign language films where watched on my own due to the fact that nobody else in my family had the patience for subtitles. I would collect books and absorb all the knowledge I could and I became an annoyance to my media studies teacher as I would never let anyone else answer a question, in class. I had always studied fine art because drawing was the only natural talent I had, but instead of going down the artist route I decided to combine it with my love of film and went to study costume for 3 years. Then at the age of 21 fresh from university I finally got to enter this world that I had longed for, for so long. It was a different world to what I expected. I remember clearly my first day on set and how overwhelming it was. So many people, doing so many different things, none of which I had a clue of. I was a little fish, in a big pond. I soon came accustomed to things and learnt fast. If you don't, you sink  for filming is a brutal and unforgiving industry. You get tough quick and you become part of this world. This world where night can become day, or day can become night; where the heavens can be made to open up; where people look perfect; say perfect things and where there is usually always a happy ending. This is a world where you spend more time with your colleges than you do with your family or friends.  A world where you forget the outside world. It's a world where I've missed weddings, birthdays, even a funeral for. It's a world that has destroyed many a relationship for me. This is a world that is all encompassing. The problem is, this world is not real, but it is very easy to forget that as we get caught up in a bubble. The bubble is what keeps it together, it's what has got be through many a tough shoot, but then something terrible happened to me on this job! The bubble burst! 

I'm nearly 2 months into my job out of 5, and there is no escaping it. Im lonely, homesick and I'm miserable!  I've stopped sleeping and I've stopped eating. I'm a mess, so much so that the production coordinator pulls me to aside and asks how I am as she's worried about me, because I'm pale and gaunt. I go into a shell. I'm quiet and unsmiling. I have no passion for anything, even the costumes themselves.  I feel like there is nothing left of me. The thing is you can't leave, that's just not the done thing. The show must go on no matter what. I've never in 15 years in the industry walked no matter how bad it's got (apart from a Bollywood movie, but that was a joke and I only left 2 days early). So I battle with this feel for a long time. "You can't leave! You just can't leave! It's career suicide!"  I keep telling myself over and over again. It's part of the job to keep going. You don't complain or explain, you're just meant to get on with it.  The feeling doesn't go away though.  It's eating away at me inside and I'm living on my nerves and then one day I just crack. 

"I can't do this anymore. I want to leave!" I say

I'm sat opposite my boss. I feel like I'm going to throw up I've got myself in such a state, but she is calm about my decision and no great thunderbolt from heaven has come and struck me down either. A sudden weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel lighter than I have done in weeks. The decision has been made. 

I sit here now, a week later, away from it all, and ask my self "Did I make the right decision?" I know with my decision I have burnt bridges and made myself unpopular with the production. Some people didn't understand my decision, but it was my decision and the right one because it's my life and no one else's. This doesn't mean I still don't love filming and costumes. I still do. It just means this wasn't the right venture for me at this moment in my life. I've learnt it's OK to walk away. It doesn't make you a bad person. It just means sometimes things are not right for you and life is too short to be unhappy.

The person who summed it up best for me was my line producer, a small, golden haired, overly tanned man from South Africa, who chained smoked himself through the stress of his job. I was very fond of him and had a great respect for him as well. As I handed my notice into him fretting he could see I was broken, and he said:

"We make entertainment Carly! That's all, but when it stops being entertaining, then it's not entertainment anymore."

With that he patted me on the back, told me it was OK and went out side to have another cigarette to relive the stress of which I had just added to. As he left, I thought to myself if he found it entertaining anymore?

HOME SWEET HOTEL

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN STAYING AT A HOTEL TOO LONG WHEN:

* The bar staff have got you your drink before you have even ordered it. It's a glass of Argentine Sauvignon Blanc and the excuse is always "It's been a long day at work!"

* You have tried everything on the menu!

* When you have started to observer the habits of your next door neighbour. Mine, always permanently has do not disturb on his door ( but actually blue tacked to the door which is weird) and listens to the TV really loud (mainly CNN, but late at night I hear grunting noises so I think he's watching porn as well)? 

* All the hotel staff know your name. Some of them tell me, I'm their favourite! Yeah right! I bet they say that to all the hotel guests? 

My driver Dan (who actually happens to be the nicest guy in the world)  is dropping me off after a long days work.

"Your home!" He's says

"No I'm not! I'm at the hotel!" Is my response, and then it suddenly occurs to me, that I am home! My home is a hotel! Oh God!

Hotels are actually quite exciting! Well if your in a good one, which I am. Everything is new and modern! I have have a king size bed, with fresh cotton sheets, that some one washes and changes for me. I have 2 plasma screen TV's which have loads of channels, most of which are foreign and I can't understand. I don't have to cook and I can just order room service if I want. I have a power shower and lots of cool free toliettries, which I still feel the need to nick, and put in my bag so I get more!, which is kind of stupidi when your there for five months (I now have a huge stock pile)! Yes living in a hotel is cool! Well it is at first, because as we all know most of us never spend more than 2 weeks living in a hotel. After that, it, well? It becomes kind of weird. There is nothing really of you in it. It's just a box to live in with the essentials but no essence. It feels sterile! 

It's not only the room that's weird after a bit but the whole environment and you suddenly find that your living in this crazy artificial community. That said it the most amazing people watching experience ever and I start to become accustomed to the ways of hotel life. 

The hotel had a gym which I've been hitting hard to try and get Fit but my main excuse is to relieve the stresses of work. It has all the modern wonders of any gym you will find back home and had just as many posers as well. I put my head phones on and then listen to some hard cord music (usually the Prodigy) that gets me through the pain barrier of running 5km on the treadmill as quick as possible. Whilst I'm sweating my way through this process I observe the attendees of the gym. There are the regulars who prance around like they own the place in far to tight of shorts looking at themselves in the mirror. Then there the girls who come looking amaculate with full make up and designer sports gear who mainly take selfies of themselves. The gym is always completely crowded here, but overall my main observation remains that it's more a hangout place rather than anyone actually doing any work outs. 

I like to mainly hang out in the bar at the lobby. Its here I reel off emails and write. It's the best observing ground ever and the barmaid, Tina has become a good friend and she gives me free home made chocolate as I'm a good customer. It's a real melting pot of the strangest mix of people. The weekends are the best. It's a five star hotel but it's filled with the dodgiest mix of Eastern European gangsters on a Saturday night, with 80s style leather jackets, chest hair on show, with lots of gold bling. They are usually not the most handsome or youngest of men but always have a harem of young girls in tow with lots of make up, tight cleavage dresses and thigh high hooker boots.  I feel strangely plain in comparison with minimal make up, baggy jumper, turn up jeans ans scruffy boots, but at the same time I've never been so happy to be plain as I have no desire to attract any of these people's attention. Also at the weekends many Israelis come over to play in the many casinos that overload the city.  There're not very popular here, Tina tells me as they are very rude, which I witness first hand as Tina is confronted by one demanding ice for him and his mates own drinks they have illegally brought to the bar, as they don't want to pay for drinks. Then Tina goes and calls security on them and they get frogmarched out of the bar area while swearing at the staff in Hebrew (I don't know Hebrew but I'm 99% sure they are not saying "Have a nice day!" as they are leaving)? This process usually occurs about three times a night, and it's always quite entertaining and much better than watching CNN in my room (which I do a lot as its one of the few English channels). 

We are not the only film crew staying in the hotel. Another crew is in town making a movie for an over the hill 90's action star. The crew are usually quite easy to spot as they are all American and like to talk loudly so everyone can hear about them working in the movies and living in LA. It's one night like this when I'm sat down for dinner, that I hear the table talking about the movie. There're stunt men, I realise as the conversations flows and they are also talking a lot of shit as well. I'm looking over at them. One of the stunt men seems really familiar to me, then I realised he super liked me on Tinder the night before! Shit! I hide my face with a menu, and try and finish my meal as quickly as possible before he notices me. To be fair he's actually very hot but he's a stunt man (usually very arrogant) and he's just been talking shit for the last 10 minutes about his kick boxing skills. I decide its best to delete my account after that. To be fair I hadn't been on Tinder in ages, but I was bored and feeling sorry for myself as I've finished with the guy I've been seeing as what is the point of dating some one when your the other side of Europe from each other for 5 months. Anyway What I did see of a Tinder Romania was, well? Quite different. No one really smiles in their photos, and quite a lot of guys had 

"Do not disturb!" with "I'm already disturbed!" Written below it, as their profile picture! Maybe this is some sort of wooing technique in Romanian? Also lots of guys are called Vlad which just reminds me of Vlad the impaler or Dracula and I really don't want to be dating some one that could potentially bite or impale me in my sleep, as it's just not cool. I delete my Tinder account with a sense of relief. 

I don't know any of the crew here and most of them have worked together before, so I'm a newbie to the group, which has been quite hard. I'm getting back one afternoon from my usual Saturday walk that has become my routine when I bump into Angela from the crew. She's South African, with a lip piercing, half her head shaved, and always wears knee high boots and mini skirts to work. I like her as she's a real character with "I don't give a shit!" attitude.  I feel really honoured when she asks me to come for a drink with her in the bar later, though I think she just feels sorry for me as she always sees me on my own. I turn up to find her with a beer already under way and a cigarette in hand (you can still smoke inside in Romania). I pull up a chair beside her and order a drink and we start chatting. She's fun and entertaining. Then we have another drink and then another. Then some guy called Andy turns up who she befriended the night before at the bar, who is on a business trip. The next thing there are tequila shots being downed and then some more drinks and then more tequila! The bar is closing so Angela thinks it's a great idea that we all go back to her room for more drinks and I drunkenly agree. I'm half way through another glass of wine in her room when I'm handed a cigarette which I decide to start smoking. I know I'm drunk as I don't smoke and this sends me green. I'm sat there while the room is spinning and Angela and Andy are talking, thinking of how I can't throw up on my new colleagues sofa. They are in full flow when I stand up mid conversation, and very loudly say:

"I have to go! I'm going to throw up!" and then I'm gone in a cloud of dust! I'm racing down the corridors; hanging on in the lift; flinging open my door; and rush to my toliet and that's it! I'm sick! I'm really sick in fact! 

"So much for fitting in and making a good impression with the new crew!" I think to myself as I hang my head over the toilet! 

The next day I'm dying, but I'm in a nice King size bed, with fresh sheets, watching a plasma TV, ordering room service to relieve the pain. The conclusion is: living in a hotel is the best thing for a hangover but maybe only a hangover? I guess I need to be hungover a lot to cope? 

DAM IT! I'M HOME SICK!

10 THINGS I MISS ABOUT ENGLAND 

* People that get sarcasm.  It's wasted here! 

* Sunday roasts

* Topshop (I know this is Materialistic, but I don't give a Dam)! 

* Goggle box ( I can't believe I just admitted to that)!

* Purdey's vitamin drinks ( I have addiction to them and right now the cold turkey isn't feeling good)!

* BBC radio 6 music

* Queuing! Some one pushed in front of me the other day in H&M! Do they not know how much that annoys an English person? We love a good orderly queue!

*  People understanding everything I say all the time and not everything being lost in translation! Actually I take that back, as no one understands what I'm saying back home half the time and their English.

* Being able to find a good avocado (first world problems)! 

* My friends and family. 

So now I need to counteract that with with 10 things I like about Romania 

10 THINGS GOOD ABOUT ROMANIA

* It's cheap!

* It doesn't rain that much!

* Everyone is nice. Well apart from one person who actually just one of the most evil people I Have met!

* The bread is good!

* It's cheap! Shit I've already said that one! 

SORRY THATS ALL I HAVE TO GIVE, ROMANIA RIGHT NOW.

"Mum! Something terrible has happened!"

I'm face timing my mum for like the second time that week! She's in shock! I never contact my family that much. It's not that I don't love them: I do lots! It's just that I've always been very independent. I'm Carly the lesser spotted. A sighting, or a call is a rarity.

"I'm homesick!" I say.

"Oh my God!" Is her response.

At the age of 36, the girl that has travelled most of the world on her own, with never thinking about coming home; and who is fiercely independent, is home sick for the first time in her life and it's a horrible feeling! I remember when people use to tell me they were home sick when I was travelling. I would look at them weirdly as I could not emphasise with them as I'd never had this feeling. I always thought they were weak. Now I take back that view, because it's one of the worst feelings I've ever experienced. It's like a constant nausea and discomfort. I can't sleep and my appetite has more or less completely gone. All I can think about is getting on a plane home. It's all come as quite a shock to me this feeling, and I don't know how to make it stop. I have days better than others but the feeling is always there. 

To counter act my home sickness I'm try to make things as English as possible.  I'm doing this by:

* Saying lots of English little phrases, which we have lots of. I'm also calling everyone love a lot (which is very northern thing to say)! Most of the time this is completely lost on everyone as no one else on the crew is English and there are mainly tumble weeds of silence.

* I'm watching lots of English TV as I've downloaded Astril which allows me to watch stuff probably illegally? (Life on the edge)! This means I can watch as much crap TV as I want (which we have lots of in the UK) and I suddenly feel completely at home!

* I'm finding I'm ringing a lot more uk companies for Enquiries than other countries, which means I can talk to English people and spend a lot more time on the phone talking to them than I should do about such crap like the weather and should we leave the EU? How terribly English! 

CONCLUSION TO ALL THIS!:

I'm a idiot and just need to get over myself! As Scarlet O 'Hara famously said:

"After all; tomorrow is another day!"

WELCOME TO ROMANIA!

Hmmmm! So what do I know about Romania? Well there are the obvious things: Dracula! Translyvania! Then there was that gymnast in the 70s that kept scoring perfect marks at the olympics and looked rather smug with herself when she did. The horror of their orphanages. Errrr....they have the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Oh! And I remember when I was a kid, they had a ruler who they didn't like very much, so they went and shot him and his wife, which I found quite distressing at the age of nine when I found out, because I then started wondering if people didn't like the Queen, could they just go and shoot her and Prince Phillip?  Which would have be wrong as they looked like grandparents and no one wants their grandparents shooting! Oh! And there are the Cheeky Girls! Actually lets not mention the cheeky girls! 

"Anyway why am I wondering all these things about Romania" you ask? Well it's because Bucharest,  Romania is going to be my home for five months!!!!

I wasn't even meant to be in Romania in the first place. I was meant to be filming in Sri Lanka for the winter months, in the heat and the sun, amongst palm trees; slipping a cocktail by the pool after a hard days work, but as I know all too well things can change very quickly in my job. My job gets axed 3 weeks before Christmas. I find myself jobless at the worst time of year and stressed as I'm seeing a mortgage advisor the next week.  Then the next week like a ray of shining light I'm offered a job In Romania,  be it with a team I have never worked with before, but hey!  It's a job! The money is good and it means I can save for my flat that I so dearly want. On paper this is a good move. The reality feels a little different as I leave the airport at Bucharest and I'm confronted with a mass of snow and the temperature at -21. This is definitely not Sri Lanka! For anyone that knows me well, this is my worst bloody nightmare. I hate the cold with a passion! I normally have the costume truck so hot that my designer says its like a reptile house at the zoo, as he's stripping off his jumper in a hot sweat, and opening windows to let some air in (I would always shut them again as soon as he left)! I'm met at the airport by a big tall, serious looking man. This is Dan and he is to be my driver. We shuffle through the snow with my case to the car. I sit in the car a bit shell shocked trying to take in the surroundings as we drive by. Everywhere is just one big sheet of white. It's just after New Year, so the festive lights are still up. It seems Romanians  like lights. A lot of them! It's kind of like a eastern block Blackpool with all the tacky lights. I guess it's to distract from the fact it's not a very beautiful city. It mainly grey and concrete, vast blocks of buildings left over from the communist era. It does not have the elegance and beauty of Prague and Budapest. I'm dropped off at my hotel, a vast modern five star hotel in the heart of the city. It comes as a relief after the drive from the airport as it had made me think I'd be staying in some soviet style prison. The hotel is just as modern and as fancy as anything in London, but the next night as I sit there in its restaurant, looking out at the snow, I realise this gives me little comfort. I'm actually sat there thinking: "Why the Hell am I here?" I've left all my friends and family, to come to country that is cold and bleak; I don't know a single person here; I only have a suitcase of belongings and I have been dating someone I really like and it's been going well for once, and now, yes now I decide it's a good time to bugger off to the other side of Europe for 5 months! I could quite easily be  doing a job back in London. "Seriously I need my head checking!" I think to myself. There was one over riding factor to all this and the reason why I came here in the first place. The money to buy my flat. I know that I would never be able to save the money I want in such a short amount of time in London. Five months of sacrifice for years of security. Nothing really. "I must remember this" I tell myself and grab a black sharpie marker and pull out my treasured note book that I take on every job with me. I find the front page and scrawl across it the words: "Remember why!" in thick black letters. I tell myself no matter how bad or lonely it gets, you have to remember why you are doing this. I must keep looking at those words so I don't forget. I look out the window. It's dark and it's started snowing again. All I want is to do is down a glass of wine, but as I'm on a detox for a month after the indulgences of Christmas, I down a glass of water instead (how very unlady Warrington)! 

OBSERVATIONS

* Fashion traits that I have observed still in Vogue in Romania are: Leather trousers for men; 1980s dynasty style, big fur coats and Sun in (lots of people have orange hair)! 

* I've never eaten so much bread in my life, that's because strangely enough the bread is good here. I'm still scared I'll wake up though, to find I've turned into a big loaf of bread or something like that.

* Nanna Mouskouri is still big here!

* There are a lot of stray dogs here. I'm not sure if they out number people at times?

* I think Romanian TV has a thing about Mickey Rourke as the first week I'm here there seems to be a Mickey Rourke film on every night, but only his 80's ones when he was still hot before he decided to mess up his face with crap plastic surgery 

* They use horse and cart here for rubbish removal instead of a bin truck. I would like to say it's takes up less of the road and is quicker than the bin trucks back home, but this would be a lie. It also leaves a huge trail of horse crap where ever it goes, which you have to step over a lot!