Burley World Tour – Part 2: Aspen
For anyone who’s been listening, Burley! has been selected to screen at Aspen Shorts fest at the start of April. Lucky for Gareth and I, we have the opportunity to head over to Colorado to be at the festival with our film. Tough life. Only months ago, I didn’t have the foggiest clue that I would ever go to Aspen.The plane ride was never going to be as long as the trip to France however I thought Gareth and I would be able to get some sleep on the way over. We didn‘t have much luck. We watched a couple of movies, but every attempt at sleep failed quite miserably. It was a bumpy flight too.We arrived into LAX at about six in the morning and our next flight wasn’t until half past one. We survived US customs, got fingerprinted and photographed on arrival but generally it wasn’t as bad as the stories I had been told. We were in the country though! LAX is a pretty rubbish airport and we weren’t sure what we were during the time we had to wait. Eventually we decided Venice beach was a good option and we could head down there for a couple of hours.As we arrived at Venice early in the day, the beach was just waking up. Mostly hobos and weird folk that stared at us when we walked past. Not much was open but we found a little café where we could have a cup of coffee and some breakfast to keep us going. There was a glass wall between us and the locals, so we were safe. We also had our first encounter with American tipping which is a strange, strange procedure. You have to tip everyone which I did know but I didn’t know this meant EVERYONE. Not just waiters but anyone who does anything for you. Venice is massive and we spent some time walking around, however, as we were fully clothed, there wasn’t too much to do. We decided to make our way back.We arrived in Denver at about four. We had a small wait and so started to get some liquids into us to cope with the altitude sickness. I opted for the traditional “water” where as Gareth wanted to by a milk shake. He sat down carrying his “super sized” milk shake with both hands. It was about the size of a two litre coke and made entirely of ice cream. I’m sure it helped with his altitude sickness. By this stage I had managed an hour or two of sleep in different airport chairs. Gareth didn’t have as much luck. We were both thoroughly exhausted though and still had another four hour shuttle drive up through the Rockies that we hoped we could sleep on.
Again we were not so lucky but it was a very spectacular drive. Even after night fell, it was magical driving into a large mountain valley to see the hundreds of town lights at the base of the mountains. There were more towns up there than I realized and every one that I thought was Aspen turned out to be something else. It was a long drive.
After surviving a collision with a mountain deer on the way up, we arrived at our lodgings at eleven at night. We were starving, tired and thirsty and just wanted to go to bed. When we entered the room, our jaws dropped at the quality of the place they were putting us up in. It was a fully decked out Aspen condo with everything that we could possibly need including 3 bathrooms and 4 televisions. I actually think it is bigger than our flat in Brisbane.
I haven’t mentioned the snow yet, but it is hard to miss. It’s everywhere… on the sides of roads, on top of houses, and on our balcony. It’s pretty cool. Before we were going to go to bed, we decided to head out and get something to eat… in the snow of course. We found a New York Pizza joint that made great pizza. Gareth and I both smashed a couple of giant pepperoni slices and finished it off with a bud light. Did I mention we were watching baseball also? We’re like on TV or something.
After that we went back to our palace and crashed. I have the feeling that I’m going to get a wakeup call in the middle of the night.
Dave
Posted on 4 April 2008 in Directors Blog
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