Ian

This is Ian, our cinematographer, taken at the very end of our Bratislava tour a few days ago. He was born in Scotland and came to Canada with his parents when he was a few years old. I've worked with him about 5 times now. Here's a still from some of his footage. In this scene our characters are struggling to deal with an event of the past night.

a concert

Last night 10 of us went into Bratislava to see a Cello trio perform in a downtown courtyard. To a full house, under a clear sky they played Bach, Vivaldi, some modern Slovakian and ended whisper quiet with a beautiful lullaby. The audience was very moved. The musician on the right is Elenka's brother. He received a special Bach award at the start of the night for his Bach accomplishments (that's about all the detail I could make out). Elenka is Ingrid's Aunt. Ingrid is the director of the film (the little lady in the front of the photo below)

going back in time 5

The posters were all over town. The purple was supposed to be blue. It was decided that it didn't matter. No one asked me.

Raema came to visit. We went to the islands.

The tourist chair.

The worst craft fair in the history of craft fairs hence the ironic 'happy face'.

Our freecycle credenza. I was determined to make it fit and it did. Years of working on events finally pays off.

Urban myth debunked! Proof that baby pigeons do exist.

The most uncomfortable IV ever. I had a bruise for weeks.

The hospital was quite popular that night. Even convicts were there.

At the Dora's VIP party. The beer is prop, fyi.

On a rock at the islands.

Bratislava daytrip

Ian (cinematographer), Aleco (actor) and I went on a to Bratislava today, the capitol city of Slovakia. Bratislava like Modra is very old. How old?

Wikipedia tells us:
"The first known permanent settlement of the area began with the Linear Pottery Culture, around 5000 BC"

It was very, very pretty, it almost felt unreal. It was like a movie set. We spent most of the day wandering around the old part of the city, which is full of mansions and palaces built by filthy rich artistocrats way back whenever that was. They say Mozart used to come to Bratislava a lot. Yessir.

We just meandered around for the entire day, poking into shops here and there, getting a drink when we were thirsty, taking a lot of photos and tried to walk as slow as possible. Speaking of photos, I was quite excited that I finally found a use for the shutter speed control on my camera. I maxed it out at 1/4000 sec and was able to stop the water in this shot. Kind of cool.



We had pizza for lunch, with a couple Pivot (beer)



Did you know Bratislava is nestled up against the Danube River?



We crossed the bridge over the Danube and went up the horribly ugly observation tower that is supposedly the most famous landmark of the city. It's really awfully ugly and also ended up making us nauseous . Because of it's odd design, the elevator to the top does not go straight up. It seems to be at a 20 degree angle. And then to actually get to the roof, you must ascend the most off kilter, claustrophobic, 'fun house' set of stairs I've ever seen. The tower did deliver though: the view was quite grand. And we spotted a whole wack of what we think are communist era housing projects (Slovakia was communist up until 1989).


So of course we walked over to them and wandered around.



It wasn't nearly as grim as I'd imagined. Most of the buildings were clean and there were families, playgrounds and flowers all over the place. Yay.

Talk to you tomorrow,
Aren

off for groceries

I strolled down the road for some groceries this morning. Billa is the hip new grocer in town. I think they're taking some design inspiration from IKEA. The store was overpriced and had very little in the way of fruits and vegetables. Cool clouds today. The weather is definitely restless.

The other day Ian and I were exploring and saw this weird man crossing the street.


Speaking of weird, what is this odd structure on the right?

crazy storm

Walking home from dinner last night, four of us noticed flashing coming from behind the mountains. There was no sound or thunder so it seemed very odd. We hung out beside the town soccer field for a little bit and watch. It turned out to be lightening after all. Still though, there was no thunder. I suppose it must have been too far off to hear. Later that night, the storm arrived in Modra and helped us fall asleep.

fruit

Plums, nectarines, grapes and apples are found in every backyard in this town. I've tried the apples and nectarines and they were both delicious. I'm going to try a plum today.

update: plums are sour but yummy

Marta

As mentioned, Marta is our cook. Here she holds stuffed peppers. I asked her via Ingrid how long she works each day to prepare these meals. She gets up at 6 and goes to bed around 10 and works the entire time.

Tomorrow we'll be having crepes with jam for lunch


And here's the team about to eat

slovak meals

The director's aunt Marta lives here in Modra. She makes us traditional Slovak meals every day. Last night for dinner we had hand rolled potato dumplings covered in butter, sesame and... icing sugar. It was actually delicious, like pancakes.

Yesterday for lunch I had rice, shredded cheese (tasted somewhat like mozzarella) and pickles.

slovakia

Dobrý deň. (hello)

I'm blogging from my pansion in Modra, Slovakia. I'm here for a month or so working on a feature film called MODRA. It's about a 17 year old girl, Lina, who visits her Slovakian relatives for a week accompanied by a boy she barely knows, a stand-in for her boyfriend who bailed on the trip at the last minute. They share a week together and fall awkwardly in love. Along the way, they meet a lot of funny people, do some silly things and learn a little bit about themselves and each other.

I will be blogging about the entire experience, right here on Sweat + Snow!

Modra is a beautiful little town in Western Slovakia. It is comprised of one long twisty main street of mostly cafes and gelato shops, with a surrounding village of 8000. This city is OLD. People lived in this area as long ago as 3000BC.

Modra shutting down 7:00pm


Looking right from my pansion 10:00am


Looking left from my pansion 10:00am