Destination: “I’m on a Boat”

Inspiration: Audrina Patridge was in Sydney recently and said: “Hiii…. When I was in Sydney we took a cruise around the harbor which is beautiful and also went to Bondi beach and had lunch at iceberg which was amazing!!!!”

Actualization: I haven’t even made the boat yet. I’m sitting here at the airport trying not to cry. I can’t really because everyone’s laughing at me. I’m wearing a santa hat I got at Sluttingham Palace last night. Slutttingham palace was described to me by a 22-year old girl as a place “owned by 3 old guys (um 35) who had parties to get girls.” She also thought I was 24. I’m thinking it was the hat, so I’ll keep it on and be 24.

My story: “I went to Sluttingham Palace and all I got was this Santa hat.” I actually got this sweatshirt too. I took it from the Sluttingham closet. New favorite out of business brand favored by the kings; Fake London Genius.

In the attempt to fulfill Audrina’s moment, the following has commenced…so far: 24 hours in Melbourne (even when I write it I say BORN, but for you Americans, the accent is on the MEL I’ve been told too many times now). I had a flight booked for noon to get to Sydney and go on a sunset boat ride. Woke up in my clothes from the night before and ran around throwing clothes in bags with a confetti sprinkle trailing me. If you aren’t going to be a slut at the palace at least create a costume I went in the bathroom as a confetti trail was falling out of my bra but the Santa hat was staying put. I grabbed Janae and we rushed out for the airport. Janae told me about 17 times. “Angie, I’ll drive you just get me directions to the airport.” I tried a Google search but it seemed easier to ask. We got three sets of directions and next thing you know we are in Dungaroo something, 40 minutes from the airport. Australians are the worst at directions…not only cabbies or people on the street. It’s the entire population. Serious.

I arrived to the airport 20 minutes after my flight standing about a mile from Jetstar’s check-in. I pulled my bags across 4 times before booking another flight on Virgin Blue. Note to self. Book Virgin Blue from now on. My blackberry had died and my shoes were falling off. I could feel eyes on me from all directions. Watching me lug bags in a Santa hat, wine-stained green dress, blue sweatshirt, smeared makeup and foofy hair. People smiled, pointed, laughed, or just hummed christmas songs at me. I wasn’t taking the hat off because it was the only thing keeping me from crying. I booked another flight. Bought a charger. I was able to stall the boat and get a later pickup thanks to the 911 trick. I didn’t believe it worked but had heard if you hit 911 your phone will automatically recharge for an extra 5 minutes. I felt this was a case of 911. Thanks Cade! I had a drink on the plane and was ready for the boat.

Lucinda and Freddy were celebrating his birthday on their friends boat and had invited me to join them. Lucinda is another result of my friendship with VeeV’s Courtney Reum. I had met her and Freddy once for dinner in LA, but we kept in touch. They are adorable and fun. Originally I thought there was no way I’d still be down under. Now it’s December 12th and we are rushing to Newport where they have the boat making a special stop at the wharf there to pick up me, Gilda, and Jacki Bresic. Thanks to Gilda’s quick driving skills, we made it on time. Thanks to Jacki’s attentive skills for reading the invite that said white party. I was already causing a scene, no need to stand out more in my green dress. I did a backseat change into my white frock but kept on Santa. That hat was keeping me sane!

The next 10 hours were a dream. We were greeted by Lucinda and Freddy, probably the most gorgeous couple I’ve ever met. Cindy kissed us and handed over champagne. Freddy gave a birthday speech filled with thanks and funny tidbits about his friends and family. When he gave me a shout out and thanks for extending my stay for his birthday, I knew the mornings airport drama was SO WORTH IT!

Freddy’s friends were all attractive and too much fun. Of course the Bresic girls knew half the boat and by the end of the trip we all had quite the bonding. I even got Stephen Rich to come join us at the “after boat party”! We got our place to stay when tipsy Gilda said, “Angie don’t forget to call your friend Stephen so we can ask if we can stay at his place tonight!” Stephen was sitting next to me when this was said. Good guy that he is, we still got to stay with him. I feel like I’m a party of Sydney – I mean part of Sydney. I’ve definitely made Sydney friends for life.

Realization: No matter how much it may seem the world is steering you towards disaster, just go with it and have a laugh. Janae dropped my dress in water, Aussies steered me towards the outback rather than the airport, the unnecessary taxis and flights were killing my budget, my shoes, credit card and technology didn’t want to stay with me, but life is still good. I’m on a boat

Your Moment:
Audrina Patridge
Veev
Special thanks to Christian Blencke for photos!

Destination: Bondi Beach

Inspiration: CSI’s Adam Rodriguez

Actualization: Adam met Rod (Box) when he was in Sydney hosting an awards show there and the head of the network asked Rod to teach Adam to surf. If I make it back to Bondi, I’ve enlisted Rod to teach me too!

Since we didn’t have time for a surf, Rod and I agreed to meet up for a drink in Bondi when I had a one hour window of time between meetings. Rod wasn’t so keen on my last-minute calls and scheduling but I trapped him into this one. Rod Kerr is basically a prepubescent boy in a 30-something year old body. He has a high pitched laugh that people turn to see. He’s always got a little lopsided grin and a boyish charm. He ran into Ravisis to meet me with his pants falling down, holding his belt, and causing a scene. We immediately hit it off. I laughed a lot and made fun of him for repeatedly saying, “well I had to meet you because I couldn’t let Adam down….but oh. you’re cute.” It was 1pm on a Thursday afternoon and I had already had a productive day. I ran the park, wrote for a few hours, and did a video interview. When Rod said let’s have a drink, I felt okay about my glass of Rose. However, when Rod convinced me to get another, I didn’t think about the rest of my day…..I couldn’t resist. I deserved a day drink and it was too much fun listening to Rod talk about working on Bondi Beach. And anytime I mentioned him to the Aussies, they all seemed to know the ex-pro surfer from the TV show, BONDI RESCUE. Rod is one of the lifeguards who stars in the show. When we talked surfing, Rod had the positive attitude you cannot fake that made me want to get out and do it. He wouldn’t listen to my excuses about being the worst surf candidate – uncoordinated, always most improved but never athletic, a wrist that still couldn’t bear weight, the mascot in me. He had me convinced by the end of the first rose, that I would be surfing easy breezy. His confidence in me made me see how he had made his career as pro surfer. Rod tried to convince me to stay for more but I had already delayed my trip all the way over to Manly long enough. This he could not convince me. I had a 2:30 appointment and it was now already 1:45. Rod, the gentleman, walked me to go grab the cab and sent me on my way.
I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing when we hugged goodbye. Did he lean in for a kiss? Nah…and then I received the the following text at 2:27pm: “babe I so wonted to do you xx sorry”
Nuff said.

Realization: Rod brought back the confidence I needed in myself. Do a little investigation,maybe CSI style, and you can always find a dude in a foreign country to make you laugh, remind you what you are capable of, and give you proof that you still got it.

Your moment:

Adam’s recs: “WAY TO LIVE LIFE ANGIE!!! I know we don’t see or speak to each other often, but I just wanted to reach out and say that I love what you’re doing! ENJOY!!! You already did Iceberg’s. Did you climb the Harbor Bridge? Call my friend Box to try some surfing. He’s a good guy I met down there and he took me surfing for the first time in my life on Bondi Beach. His name is Rod “Box” Kerr and I’ll text him to let him know that you might be reaching out to him. He was a professional surfer for many years and a beach legend down there. Have fun and let me know how it works out!”

Rod Kerr
Adam Rodriguez
Bondi Rescue
CSI: Miami

Destination: Skinny Dip, Bondi beach

Inspiration: Rachel Hunter sends me to eat at the restaurants on Bondi beach.

Actualization: We chose Skinny Dip because of the name of course and well the cute old women who seemed to take over the inside of the mini cafe. Outside sat groups of young high schoolers enjoying their summer “schoolies”….

The music blared and I loved that the old people didn’t mind. You could tell they were regulars. Every song that came on seemed to draw up a crazy memory or story for either Janae or myself. Kelis’s: Milkshake and Lauren Hill’s: When It Hurts So Bad.

We had yummy breakfast at 2:30pm and the most amazing bruschetta on big pieces of bread slathered with pesto and topped with strips of tomato and feta cheese. Then since I’m a cookie monster at heart I just couldn’t walk out without the big M&M cookie.

Realization: I like traveling and being forced to try new foods…I won’t be able to go on an actual skinny dip in palm beach if I keep eating like that.

Destination: Pathway from Bondi to Bronte to Coogee

Inspitaiton: David Arquette, always full of inspiration, sends for my favorite thing to do on vacation – run.

Actualization: I actually did David’s moment twice. Janae and I fortunately….and unfortunately..caught the last day of the Sculptures by the Sea on the Bondi pathway. People kept saying, “oh you are so lucky you got to see the Sculptures by the Sea! It’s only here for two weeks a year.” There were some fun sculptures, like shoes that looked like they were made of sand.
However, for me, climbing over all the nerdy tourists taking pictures of every item even remotely resembling art…is not that fun. So today I went for the moment I much more prefer. An early run on the empty path. I walked along feeling the breeze and ocean mist, watching the older couples who seemed to be doing their routine walks, and hot surfer boys preparing to hit the waves. I ended up running past Coogee and past a cemetery, over to a golf course, and a cool waterway where people were swimming in place against the force of the current.

Realization: Make the moment your own

Your moment:

Here’s David’s whole email in case you head down under:

“Walk from Bondi to Bronte (and further if you are up for it to Coogee). Brekky at Bills ( must each Turkish bread ). Lunch at Balmoral beach, then the zoo which has the best view of the harbor. Blue mountains are stunning (you can take the train). Palm beach is great too, stroll through the botanical gardens at Circular Quay. Shopping on Oxford street in Paddington. Watson’s bay/Vaucluse on a Sunday afternoon for fish and chips and beer (great surrounding cliff hikes) you can catch the ferry there“.

Check out Sculptures  By The Sea.

Destination: ICEBERG Restaurant, Bondi Beach

Inspiration: Naomi Watts says, “ICEBERGS bondi beach is the best”

Actualization: Iceberg’s is famous and not an easy reservation!  Thanks Nicole Perna for hooking it up! Janae and I had a yummy dinner watching the sunset Sunday evening.  I’m going to pretend to be a foodie for a second….here’s what we ordered:

To start: A bottle of Cettadon Pinot Noir. Red wine has become a staple for me in Australia.  Always Pinot or Shiraz.
Butter lettuce and mini prawns fried with aoili.  The prawns sounded better than they tasted.
Main course: STING RAY!  A first for me.  The sting ray was good and prepared with mushrooms and spinach. Side of white aspargus was my favorite…the veggie in me:)
Dessert: Another staple. Espresso Martinis.
Now I’m not sure if it was the bug I caught the night before or just after effects of the sting ray but I dreamt, rather hallucinated some crazy stuff. Here’s my stream of consciousness. Post dream. It’s 5am.

Hallucination #1:
I go to a party. I am having fun but feel too tipsy and friends are angry when I say I need to go home and cannot get us into Paris Hilton’s party. Guy driving car takes us to party anyway.  We go in the Paris party and I eat cookies (chocolate chip oatmeal) and people are sleeping on every floor of the mansion.  When I say sleeping, I mean sprawled out, questionably alive. About 12 to a room.

Hallucination #2:
Heading back to the car, we jump in and as we are about to pull out there are 4 dogs and a dude with a shotgun out and he’s pissed we parked at his garage. The girls….transformed to Angela and Janae, are outside the car and Jeff (that’s what we’ll call the guy driving the car. He is a familiar face to me as a professional going-outer in LA) drives off without them and the girls are chasing car. I keep asking Jeff what he is doing? “Go back. Get them now.” He says he will when he can get far enough from the guy (shotgun shots in background). But then when we are far enough he just picks up speed. I’m freaking out about the girls and then all of a sudden the road ahead starts breaking and these transformer things are digging up the road and then from the depths of the earth rises a large blue all-earthly superhero. He has his arms crossed and he’s staring down and says. “You won’t go further into these soils. Turn around. Go. Go.”  Jeff freaks and reverses and I think, well we are getting the girls but I’m scared for my life and close my eyes thinking holy shit, holy shit, superhero and then I wake up (fake wake up). I start to tell Janae the story but as I get to superhero part I start to fall asleep as I keep saying,  “you are going to think I’m crazy you think I’m crazy” (PS Janae says I was really saying this aloud).

Hallucination #3:
Then I half wake up realizing I am talking in my sleep (still in the dream) and there were cockroaches in my bed biting me and making me crazy and I am having some sort of panic attack..can’t remember this one, but fake wake up again and my roommates are now Blake Lively and Jean Kwolek. I explain to Blake why I was crying and panting in my dream and halfway through the story she is like you are crazy and runs out of the room. I start to go back to sleep..

Hallucination #4:
Cut to Penn Badgley almost crying (trying to) but it was really bad acting and he was saying I can’t believe I let it happen. I just cannot. I’ve lost her. Blake really gave her virginity to Chace but I really wanted her back…yes Gossip Girl style but with their real names.

I wake up to Janae for real about to throw up again and I used her inability to move or speak to recite everything I just wrote.

The END

Realization: