Europe Part 1 Blog

(Hey guys, I'm going to put this out over the next day or so, in parts. I had trouble putting it in my dropbox, so the blog will be here).

My oh my, where to start!
This is my first blog with Patreon after a thrilling trip to Europe, so I think I'll begin here. 

 I flew from Los Angeles to Montreal to Paris to Sicily. All in all, it took about 20 hours, and then I had a 2 hour drive to the Villa where I was staying. *Total exhaustion* I tend to sleep well on airplanes, but this time not so much. I got to watch some mediocre movies though, and I finally finished an Anthony Keidis biography which I had been reading for far too long. As soon as I landed in Sicily I went on the hunt for food. Of course they had baguettes filled with just mozzarella and tomatoes. Although I really dislike tomatoes, I grabbed one as well as one of their fancy "real sugar" cokes and had my first Italian meal, lol. Little did I know they would be force feeding me the rest of the time I was there.
My main reason for going to Sicily was for a photography workshop put on by a good friend of mine, Anastasia Arteyeva. These events never pay much, but it covered my travel, and it was an opportunity to go to Europe! I've been overdue for a trip on that side of the pond. The first day there I was a bit overwhelmed with exhaustion, but also excitement. The villa we were staying at was amazing. I was roomed with an Italian model named Chiara, and there were two other models in the neighboring room; Porcelain and Kacie Marie who were already quite chummy. Although by 7pm I could barely keep my eyes open, I forced myself to take a shower and join the group of models and photographers for dinner. The chefs prepared a special 5 course meal for the group and 2 courses in I thought I might explode. The plates kept coming and I was stuck between insulting a great Italian chef and just swallowing everything put in front of me and gaining all the weight... all of it. By the end of the meal, I waddled upstairs and passed out around 10pm. That was all well and good because we had a 5am wake up call.
 The first day of shooting, a group of 7 photographers, 5 models and 3 assistants boarded 2 shuttle buses and we went off to an ocean side location. This place was AMAZING.. but sort of dangerous. We had a big hike down to the water, and a photographer fell on the trail and banged himself up pretty badly. When we arrived, I excitedly stripped down and grabbed a photographer and told her to photograph me. The location was just too gorgeous to not take advantage of immediately. As I crawled through the rocks though, I quickly realized that it was more along the lines of coral and it was leaving razor thin cuts all over my body. I had a pretty good gash on my left foot on the first day (that is still healing a few weeks later!), and as I started to look around, I realized everyone else was beat up too. Anastasia got stung by a jellyfish, the other models had scrapes, the photographers had cuts from laying on the rocks, and then after a group of us decided to swim to a cave, one of the photographers couldn't make it back. He grabbed onto a rocky wall and a wave smashed him into it. He was dripping with blood. It scraped the skin off of his elbow and down his knees. Thank god there didn't seem to be any sharks in the area. We were all a mess!
As we packed ourselves up onto the buses, the rest of the trip turned into a blur of whirlwind experiences. We did a lot of shooting at the Villa we were staying at, and the next day we went to an amazing abandoned island with donkeys and pomegranate trees and decaying sculptures. The sunset was magical! All the while I'm trying to keep posture and look statuesque, the chef is still feeding me what seemed like 5000 calories a meal. By the 3rd day I could feel weight sticking to my body. Damn them and their delicious delicious pasta and cheese! Anastasia organized everyone to go to an old Castle in an ancient town. All 5 models went onto the 2nd floor of a restaurant and waved for photos, and a huge crowd gathered around. Sicilians were cheering for us as the photographers took our pictures. It was adorable and quite surreal. How is this my life? I am so fortunate to get to experience this.
On the final day the last thing we did was go to the salt lakes. Essentially the salt content is SO high in the water that it looks pink from the crystallization instead of blue. It was incredible... until you stepped in. Then it just fucking hurts. 

I was so excited that again I was the first model to jump in and demand people photograph me. I was in for probably 20 minutes max. Every cut from day 1 was burning like mad, and the crystals on the bottom of the ocean stab you so you don't want to put any weight down if possible. The other thing (and maybe I'm sharing too much info), but it stings your urethra like mad. As soon as I got out of the water I went and found a bush to pee behind so that I could get it out of my body, lol. 

Although I will say I was pretty uncomfortable after getting out of the salt lake, the walk back was just stunning. It was sunset, and we had about a mile walk from a sandbar in the middle of the ocean to the shore where our cars were parked. Its amazing to be so far into the water and still be standing knee high. 

Half way through my walk, I passed a dog, he was just.. doing dog things I guess. Sicilian culture appears a lot more lax with pets and strays, and at that moment, it just seemed so funny that this dog was walking through the ocean. Perhaps he had an agenda.. a place to be. A date with another dog for some pasta and meatballs.
With that and one more overwhelmingly big and amazing meal, Sicily came to an end. Next stop ... Paris.