Tag: XBOX

Guadalajara, chilly Cuba, next stop New York

Well Guadalajara seems a distant memory of sitting in the bar of the Hilton Hotel catching friends as they flew past from one film or party to another.  We did a press conference, we met some of the recent graduates, we saw old friends from Mexico, Guatemala and everywhere.  I ate too much spicy food as usual, probably even more as now I live in Cuba where there ain’t much spice!

I forgot how the dry desert climate and the pollution of the big city irritates my eyes and makes them water for 3 days.  They usually get used to it just before I leave.  I was also horrified by the amount of shops and the fact that everyone seemed to have big huge monstrous new cars.  Have I been Cubanised or is Mexico getting even more Americanised?  Obscenely huge four wheel drive vehicles with darkened sinister windows and huge growling wheels.  I was persuaded by the reception of the Hilton against my better judgement, that we should go to the new bigger and better shopping mall.  We waded through spaghetti junction streets packed with traffic and spotted in the distance the biggest Office Depot of my life and a huge Walmart and a Zara that looked as though it could disconnect itself from the Mall and conquer the world.  I want to do some shopping, but I don’t want this I wailed pathetically to Rafa, who hates shopping at the best of times.  We did a U turn and fled back to the hotel.

But hey I still love Guadalajara and Mexico.  The Mexicans full of smiles and good service and great food.  After my aborted attempt to check out the new shopping centre, I did my usual run to Grand Plaza to power shop, get a much needed new wardrobe for Rafa, taking the plunge into kiddy technology and buying an XBox for the boys late Christmas and Birthday presents from us and Grandma.  Also a quick trip to Walmart to do the usual supermarket basics that only us Cubans have to do.  We even bought new smart luggage to use one day when we can travel like normal people.  Now I still have to take my big old suitcases everywhere to fill them up, even on the shortest trips.

We got home to a Cuba decidedly chilly, and cold front after cold front blowing down from the north and through the windows of my beach house.  I tried to see if I could turn my aircon into a heater last night but with no success, so back on with the cashmere cardy and Rafa’s socks.  I know I shouldn’t be complaining as most of the UK is still suffering snow, sub-zero temperatures and winds blowing in from Siberia, but this is not normal for March in Cuba.  But maybe just as well as I have no air con in my car, and we are not sure when we can get hold of the parts to fix it.  Also recently butter, lemons and bacon have been tricky to get hold of.  The ebb and flow of products here in Cuba always keeps you on your toes but I am missing my bacon and tomato sandwiches.

I have also been enjoying time with my children and trying to get them back on track.  Saskia is hitting tantrum time and I am learning how different little girls are, especially this little princess manipuladora who rules the roost but in such a charming fashion.  The boys tantrums revolved mainly around fights over toys and were resolved by time outs.  Like two wild puppies they would fight and scream and yap and I would be constantly breaking them up and separating them.  Things have improved but still the same model applies:  Paulo is a total wind up merchant and knows how to press all his brother’s buttons, especially as he is verbally adept in 3 languages.  Nico is reduced to an emotional mess of injustice but his shouts and tears drive us all crazy.

Saskia on the other hand knows how to play all of us and Mummy has to be the one to stand up to her, although her brothers too are beginning to loose patience and have been caught swiping or pushing their dearly beloved little sis.  When I am dealing with her tantrums and trying to be consistent (the hardest parenting conundrum) her favourite thing right now is to wail for her Papa or anybody else she can think of, which I have to admit is sometimes hard to ignore and rise above.  Anyway a list was drawn up for Paulo and Nico 2 nights ago and there have been some slight improvements.  Also I have been strict with the nanny that she has to make them clear up toys and wash up their plates otherwise she is not helping me.

Drama at the film school never abates and Rafa has been having a tough time trying to resolve everyone’s problems with little help from the Cuban authorities, and students at their tense emotional time of pre shooting their thesis have been creating dramas of their own which inevitably have to involve us.  The injustice of one particular drama has upset me so much that I haven’t wanted to go to the school this week, I don’t trust myself, I may just have to give a few people my opinion and that is probably not my place.

We had promises of donations of cameras in Guadalajara but it all came to nothing in the end, and we are having to leap through burning hoops whilst playing bagpipes to get cameras here in time for the students to shoot.

The French school visited the Film school and for one morning my two worlds came together.  The children had  a great time and asked lots of questions like  ….How do you make blood?  How do you make it look as though someone’s head has been chopped off?  How did they do the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park?

Anyway all is going well for our preparations for our trip to New York which is not easy as we have to fly through Mexico or Canada depending on which flight we get.  We will be there for the Havana New York Film Festival organised by our dear Colombian friend Diana and I am looking forward to it so much.  We already have meetings with 3 Film schools and a lot of interesting people who support and love the school.  I feel very positive about the people in New York and the good connections we will make but frantically organising things so that the children won’t miss us too much the 4 nights we are escaping.  I can’t believe I am doing it again but feeling happy in the knowledge that we are all going to the UK and France for our summer this year.  The boys can’t wait, they love going to the land of their mother and it has been a couple of years since they last went.  They also want to try out their new language in situ and go up the Eiffel Tower and through the tunnel ……… and up the Elephant and round the Castle.

Ipad mini, NBC and my first ever script.

I have just spent a delicious week locked up in the house with my gorgeous little Babygirl (known as Saskia to everyone else) for lazy mornings snuggled up in bed, she with Charlie and Lola, and me with one of Rupert Everett’s amusing autobiographies, kindly smuggled by a new European contact.  The weather has been unseasonably cold, which means like a good English summer and perfect for skulking around indoors wearing my cosy cashmere cardy over normal Cuba attire.

Although I have been chastising myself for my inactivity and all the things I should have been doing in this beautiful and fascinating island, sometimes we Mums just have to bed down again with the infants.  Another international party in the house tonight so I will re-launch myself like an ageing rock star.

After 3 exciting weeks out of the house I have returned to Havana life slightly jaded, not helped by the disappearance of 2 of the more genuine people in my life, one escaped to New York and the other to Paris.  I suddenly felt as though I was doomed to return to a social life of po-faced mothers and gossiping diplomats.  Which is entirely untrue, as I know plenty of lovely mothers and diplomats and I just need to be reminded of all the wonderful bohemians and down to earth people in my life and get them all together again.

I have also been fretting over what appears to be an in-growing eyebrow hair problem, which does not abate and is disproportionately painful.   I am rather embarrassed that my first visit to the doctor’s here in Havana will be for this slightly ridiculous ailment.

Many weeks have passed by without me clocking in and I have many heady tales to tell so not sure where to begin.  Off the island, Chavez died (big shit for Cuba) and we got a new Argentinian Pope.  On the island the new Cuba battles on trying to grow in a graceful and dignified manner and not always being allowed.  The film school remains an exciting hotbed of passing talent and interesting worldly friends with a background scenery of one of the best soap operas you could wish for ….. eat your heart out Eastenders and new Dallas.

I managed to make it through my workshop, although the odds and gods were against me, way too many things going on around me.  Old friends rocking up, new dear friends disappearing, children on holiday, grumpy nanny not stepping up, my chef gone slightly loopy and dressing like a hooker, my car broke down and we had no parts to fix it.  I got food poisoning at the end of the first week and the film school doctors finally got their hands on me, injecting me in the butt cheek and putting me on a drip for 3 hours with me pathetically saying … I want to go home, and then giving in finally when I remembered I had the first series of Breaking Bad on my laptop.

So somehow, throughout all this, I got to write a script and Paul was a wonderful teacher and mentor.  A laid back Californian scriptwriter, with many other talents and a thoroughly nice guy.  This course was very practical and although I did not have much time for writing my homework in the end, I did finish a script outline and fudged together a first draft for a short film.  I did however, get a really good sense of how to pull one together and still have to get that Final Draft scriptwriting software I was sniffing around for the whole of the second week.  Maybe when I do my rewrite I will share it with you right here on my blog ………  I expect you can’t wait!

My house has now become more technical although we still don’t have broadband, ADSL, wifi or anything else of this century we are now the proud owners of an X-Box (guiltily purchased for neglected nippers in Guadalajara) and an Ipad mini, that I didn’t even know existed.  But there is a story behind that …

We had a visit from our new American buddies from Morgan’s Creek (not Dawson’s!) and NBC and some other production houses.  David, Kim, his wife and Kia arrived 2 and a half hours late to our house.  We were all quite pissed off, Rafa and I and two other friends working at the school who shall be named S & S.   It was Sunday and I was starting my workshop the next day and wanted to get the children and myself to bed early.  When they arrived I shot from the hip along the lines of …… if there is one thing I expect from you Americans it is to be on time (years of living in Latin America have made me appreciate this punctuality).  They apologised and took it all with good grace and proceeded to charm us all evening, and we had a lot of fun.

The previously planned seaside sundowner drinks were reduced to us looking into the black of the Mexican gulf listening to the waves crashing, but we made it out to the local newish Sushi restaurant around the corner and then back home for more drinks and chat.  At one point I could see Rafa’s face looking slightly concerned and the warning bells sounded as I lightly skipped to his side like a gazelle on too much Cava to see what was going on.  He was refusing to accept their very generous gift of the aforementioned Ipad mini.  I did some verbal shin kicking and reluctantly Rafa received this wonderful present that even has his name engraved on it.  I on the other hand was getting on with everybody so well I would have felt justified in receiving a couple of cars from whoever at this stage, and Kim did manage to give me a pair of cool reading glasses which the (grown up) boys later confiscated from me for bad hinatera behaviour.  I got them back the next day and now don’t know how I lived without them, as you do in the material world.

Kim had confessed to me at dinner that his mother’s cousin was Meyer Lansky, shady character numero uno of pre revolution Cuban gangsters.  His mother had been very ashamed of this side of the family and refused to talk about the old mobster, merely spitting under her breath…… He was a killer.  It just all seemed too weird and wonderful that here I was nearly 60 years later sitting not far from Lansky’s old empire and planned Vegas of El Caribe talking to his second cousin.  Gotta be a script in there somewhere.  Maybe I’ll write it for NBC and make them loads of money ……. on my new iPad mini of course!

So the iPad sat on Rafa’s desk snarling at us with its sleek cool new world look until Rafa brought it home and the boys got their hands on it and that was that …. No going back.

 

Next stop Guadalajara and Mexico City.