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Thursday, March 25, 2010
AWR Europe, Country #2: GERMANY
Friday, February 26, 2010
AWR European Wrestling Tour - Part 2 –France
AWR European Wrestling Tour - Part 2 –France
Day 4 –Caen: A nine-hour bus trip. This would be the norm each day. Every morning we would meet in the lobby bright and early, drop off 689,000 pounds of luggage, have breakfast and board the bus for a long ride to the next city.
France and its food to me were like a Vegas orgy to a recovering sex addict. After months of strict contest dieting, this was a terrible temptation to be dropped into. Warm, crusty bread…soft, oozing Camembert…smooth, creamy chocolate…flaky, buttery pastry with sweet, soft fruit inside…arrgghh. It was so hard not to completely commit carbicide. The hotels were amazing - and the breakfasts were amazing. I got coffee. And shitty, mushy eggs, ham and any other protein I could find.
But the routine of stealing “bus lunch” was that I’d grab as much fruit, yogurt, applesauce and hard cooked eggs as I could fit into my oversized purse for the days’ travel. The reason for this was that we were told once we got to Europe that our meals would only be provided on actual show days. On travel days, we’d have to fend for ourselves. Considering we had almost as many travel days as show days and Europe ain’t cheap this forced the stealing of “bus lunch”. This was Unexpected Financial Setback #1. I was suddenly glad I’d packed so much food into my luggage. Also, Europe was in a recession, so many fans weren’t spending much post show. Our show pay was directly deposited into our banks so we were living on whatever we made in autograph sales. Some days it was nil. I often grabbed food for Portia (who was heel; heels never sell as well as babyfaces) Joe or Raven and shared protein bars.
Joe E Legend, being the angel that he is, lent me his DVD player until I could get a replacement.
The guys kept pissing up the toilet seat on the bus. SOAKING it. I understand that even when toilets are NOT attached to lurching vehicles being driven by a mad Frenchman their aim ain’t so great…so this was exceptionally awful for the token females on the tour to maneuver around. At one point, I thought I had a solution…go in, close the narrow door to the tiny cabin…pull pants down just enought and crouch/hover above seat while stabilizing by placing hand as far up on walls as possible…then we lurched around a roundabout and I fell backwards into the seat…as did the rim of my pants. Fuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkk. Gross!
By law, every French commercial driver must stop after a 3-4 hours for an hour. Long drives became even longer. I started to hate that stinky, wet, toilet with a passion. The mood was sour because it was Ireland vs. France in soccer/football finals and the drive was taking so long we were missing the game. We’d left at 10 am and hit the hotel around 10 pm. (France won - by cheating.)
What made things a bit better was that the bus was packed with bottles of Kronenbourg beer, soda, water and stocked with chocolate bars. There were also sandwiches (on French bread!) awaiting us every night post show. Ah, France. J'taime.
When we got in, Portia was feeling ‘swiney’ and went right to bed. We marveled at the fact that French hotels would allow their guest to jump out of 6th floor windows and doors if they so chose. Huge openings, nothing bolted shut, no gates. Free will, baby!
Day 5 – Caen: They serve Beaujolais Nouveau wine at catering. How cool. I managed Rene Dupree (who was living the gimmick and swigging entire bottles of Beaujolais), whom I’m not a huge fan of. He’s not a very nice person. Somehow, I was privileged enough to manage him or managed opposite of him for most of the tour. I will say this, though…I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a fan of mine, either, but when it came down to business in the ring, he was a professional.
“Will fade gradually in 5-7 days.” Yeah, right. My contest pro tan is flaking off in weird chunks and I look like I have Michael Jackson-like skin problems. We’d been getting out of the venues really late. AWR policy was to do autographs after the shows, as to keep their stars less exposed. By the time the last person got on the bus, it was usually half past midnight. Call time in the morning was usually between 8-10 a.m., so if you wanted to work out, you had to get up pretty early. I’d attempted to herd some of the slower guys into the bus…ooh, heat. They did not like that. So, I had to make the rounds and apologize. And such are the politics of the wrestling world.
Day 6 – Lille: Got up early and jogged. Been doing laps at rest stops off the tour bus. The handle on my big oversized suitcase broke. Fuck Air Canada brand luggage! Joe E Legend quote of the day: “The knee pads smelled like open ass?”
We were on the border of Belgium. I’ve noticed when we work border towns (Strasbourg was on the German border), we tend to make more money.
Day 7 – Le Mans: Blah. Tired. Sore. I bought a little stuffed bear thing with red braids named Kalidou. So, now I have a familiar ‘face’ to see every time I wake up, no matter how clueless I am. I’d always wondered how bands on tour would forget where they are…”Hellooooooooo, Cleveland!” - but now I understand. I forgot my hotel name, what room I was in. At the front desk of “Hi, I’m April Hunter-what room am I in again?” I ran into many others in the same exact situation. I valeted Rene Dupree again and worked Portia in a match, who is very fun to work with. We are all getting wicked sick. When one person gets it, the entire bus will get it. Rene was playing Season Three of The Trailer Park Boys on the bus...you know, where J Rock gets caught wanking by his mom. Reminded me of home. (The TPB DVD did, not getting the caught by m! y mom part. I’m too slick for that.) J
Day 8 – Limoges: Call time on this lovely Sunday morning was “eight turtey” (if you speak Irish). The French (who are rumored not to shower) have an aversion to shower curtains in nearly every hotel but are apparently okay with wet floors. I obliged. Portia and I did laundry. And by laundry, I don’t mean we hit a Laundromat. Nope. We washed it all in the sink and tub, and then spread it out to dry in our room. When you arrive in a town the day before and you get to spend not one, but two whole nights in the same place, that’s the day to do your washing. I was in a mixed tag with Xpac as my partner vs. Raven and Portia. It was a so-so match, BUT…and this is a big but…it was badass to be a part of ‘DX’ for 32 seconds. As a DX fan, that was a “life’s little highlight” for me. And bad matches are usually kind of FUN. And I honestly ! and truly like X Pac/Sean …I think he’s a super nice guy. At the autograph session someone said, “Love you guys together, she’s like a redheaded Chyna!” Waltman (who was one of nicer people I’ve met in wrestling) made a face and said, “Ugh. No man, she’s a redheaded April Hunter.”
On this night, I broke. I had Chocolate Dinner. A night of just chocolate. For dinner. After eight days of denying myself, I had to taste it all.
Day 9 – Travel day: My clothes didn’t dry, so I packed them into plastic bags for the next town. Which was Nantes. At the rest stops, I’d carry a shaker of protein power and a package of oatmeal with me, then try to get the person behind the counter to give me water. This, bien sur, was always a challenge. I would always ask in French, but because of my American accent, I was sometimes ignored (although most were helpful). Or in one particularly nasty bitch’s case, I was passed over in lieu of real French people who apparently had a different kind of money that was more fun to accept than the money I was offering.
On this day, I was in line with the Irish, bought a coffee (because I’ll always buy something instead of asking for freebies) than asked (in French) if the guy spoke English…he shook his had no, so I asked for “l’eau chaud, sil vous plait.” (Hot water, please.) The guy did The Puppy, cocking his head sideways at me with a blank look on his face. Speaking my request in French was my trump card, so I looked helplessly behind me at Paddy, who yelled in his thick Irish brogue, “ HOT WATER!”
I guess we all were too much for the dude to deal with, because approximately four minutes after we pulled out of the service station, we saw flashing lights and the tour bus pulled over. Customs & Immigration demanded all our papers. They tore everything apart and went through our luggage. Everyone was sorted, so they were forced to let us go. You could just see the massive disappointment in their eyes.
Day 10 – Nantes: One the way to the gym (where I negotiated a half price day rate for us, in French! Yay, they understand me here), there was a huge political protest against privatization and capitalization. I love the French spirit. Say what you want about them, but they stick together for the country as a whole. You won’t find scabs working if everyone has decided to strike for a protest like you do here in America, where we only worry about ourselves. There was just one meandering cop car. One. If this happened at home, they’d have the military out armed with pepper spray.
I popped into FNAC and got a region free DVD player. $120. Unexpected Financial Setback #2. Raven had joined the tour and was pulling rank, demanding Joe’s DVD player for himself. Didn’t feel like dealing or going without music-and movie-less for 10-hour drives.
AWR was playing in venues shared by Snoop Dog and Tom Jones…and filling them. It was FUN.
In general, I didn’t get to see or do much of anything at all. I had to choose between working out and sleeping, so I picked working out. Figured I’d sleep on the bus. Thanks to the Irish guys and Scotty Too Hotty, I had a lot of dedicated workout partners. The money wasn’t great this week either. I’d really wanted to go to one of my favorite lingerie shops in France, Soliel Sucre, but we didn’t have time. I got the guy at the front desk to print me out the address of one in Toulouse and I made Portia promise to go with me. Right of passage for women - lingerie shopping in France.
Tomorrow, we were switching busses and drivers, as we were headed off on the fourteen-hour drive to Germany.
To be continued…in Deutschland…
UNCENSORED vers. w/ photos: http://www.AprilHunter.com
AWR European Tour - First stop, France
It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "As pretty as an airport" appear.
AWR European Tour - First stop, France Traveling is not advised pre contest because it screws up your diet and workout patterns, yet I'd done it nearly every week.
I knew it was too good to be true. I had a window seat with no one next to me. Best of all: no screaming babies. I'd just gotten about halfway through "Julie and Julia" - a movie I highly doubted anyone would watch with me – when Air France ended up “de-planing” (when exactly did this become an English word?) everyone sending all of us to a hotel with a scheduled flight for 26 hours later. I was almost happy, since it meant I could sleep for 23 of those 26 hours. And that was the last time I did. Sleep, that is. I emailed Anne from American Wrestling Rampage and she purchased me a flight to the town they’d be in by the time I got to France. Odd fact: I’d had my contest bikini bottoms glued to my butt with Bikini Bite. When I ripped my suit off that night, my tan came with it, in the form of two ultra white striped on my cheeks. It looked ridiculous. I had to catch yet a third last minute flight in Paris to Strasbourg (which was on the German/France border) once I'd landed since I’d missed the AWR tour bus from Paris. This would prove to be very, very stressful, since I had to find the 'domestic' area of the insanely big French airport without the benefit of anyone who seemed to work there or speak English and too many heavy bags to once again collect and recheck in. At one point, I started to cry from frustration and the realization that I was going to miss this flight, no one was helping me, I'd packed too much and was tipping the cart over going around corners and my phone didn't work, so I couldn't call Anne to let her know anything. I was stranded. What was really pushing the weight over the limit were protein supplements (protein is an afterthought in Europe) and full sized bottles of toiletries. My penance would be to a.) drag 180 plus lbs of luggage with me everywhere…and b.) some places didn’t have carts. This is where I really paid for it. Or relied on chivalrous men who liked my rack. But I had all I needed with me. Small comfort when you’re tearing your shoulder out, and tipping wonky carts whilst trying to keep up. Which is exactly what happened in Paris. Day 3 – Paris: There I was, trying to negotiate the bazillion floors of Charles De Gaulle. I had to collect all my stuff in International, take it to Domestic, recheck in and fly to Strasbourg. Easy, right? Nope. I barely made the flight, got lost, couldn’t find anyone who spoke English, got bad directions (and a multitude of shrugs), had a 3 wheeled cart that kept tipping over, was sweating profusely and was fairly convinced I was going to miss yet another flight. So far, this trip had taken me three days to get to France…and I still wasn’t caught up with the tour. A flight attendant got me checked in at Domestic (thankfully) and pointed me down the hall to International. As I redoubled back towards the elevator in the bottom floor of CDL after hitting another dead end, I started to cry from frustration. I’m sure I looked disturbing and unusual…this insanely dark pro-tanne! d, ripped & veiny amazon woman pushing a tipping pile of luggage with tears running down her face in the basement of the airport, but that’s how it was. This trip was now the current winner for Single Worst Travel Experience in my book. A kind French woman took pity on me and pointed to the right shuttle. The shuttle driver came down and helped me with my 8764 bags. I just barely made my flight. I threw myself into my seat and was instantly asleep. One nice thing about Europe is that if you’re already checked in, they will usually hold the flight for you figuring you’re either lost or held up in the airport somewhere. They don’t do that in at home…but then again, a bottle of water isn’t $5.50 at home either. Another thing I do like about the French…they aren’t afraid on emotion or to show it. I saw a fed up flight attendant go off on an idiot customer…it was refreshing! It’s not uncommon to see exasperation or emotional outbursts from professionals in this country, which is socially acceptable. I like that. I’d rather people didn’t hide their true feelings. They didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t hide mine, either.
Day 3.5 – Strasbourg: Made it. Barely. Got straight off the plane from the all night/all day flight and went right to the venue where I faced Portia Perez…and got pyro. All is happy. Portia was short and stocky, like a Japanese wrestler, I found out very quickly that she was as safe as one, too. I started feeling much better about putting my back in her hands and we began to have some pretty decent matches on the tour along with the help of her charming manager & trainer, Justin Shaype. She would also be my roommate for much of the tour. She’d just gotten over a wicked case of swine flu. “When someone tells you it’s the sickest they’ve ever been, it’s no joke. I was getting blown up just eating. A meal. Had to stop EATING because I was out of breath.” We were quite opposite on our schedules which made us compatible to live together. She needed a lot more sleep than my normal 6-9 hours, (LOL) so I’d get up early and sneak out to find a gym with the Irish wrestlers or hike the streets. At night, I’d crash as early as I could and she’d stay out late drinking with the Irish. As the tour bus left a city one day, Paddy said, “Well, will ya look at dat. There’s an entire city there beyond dat Irish pub!” I was beginning to wonder if the Irish ever slept…
View UNCENSORED vers. w/ photos: http://www.AprilHunter.com | ||||
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