Wednesday, February 21, 2007
I easily ate the worst ketchup of my life this past week. Now I have never met a non-Heinz ketchup person, but I know that they're out there. Otherwise how would Hunt's stay in business. But I would have given anything for Hunt’s; in fact I probably would have enjoyed the opportunity for a taste test. This shit wasn't even the Finnish version of Hunt's, Felix, at least that would have been something I've tasted before - there are non-Heinz people all over the world, I have no idea why, but there are.
No, the proprietors of Harjulan Piha in Hammaslahti, North Karelia, Finland (a.k.a. the absolute middle of nowhere) enjoy another kind of ketchup all together, and I decided, since we'll be keeping weird hours during the movie shoot, I should have a steady supply of turkey, with which to make a turkey with ketchup sandwich whenever the time called, and you would be surprised how often time called for turkey. And each time it was that damn ketchup. My god it was bad.
I just got back from the coldest place on earth and we spent hours and hours outside every day in temperatures ranging from 20 F to - 10 F in flat, open and windy areas. I just got back and went to the grocery store. It's about 5 F out tonight and I thought it was warm. I think I thought so because I was able to take deep breaths and feel my toes at the same time. I was generally worried for my feet this past week.
I thought, since I had lived in the area for a two winters that I knew how to deal with seriously cold temperatures. I think it's possible that I did learn, but only how to deal with those temperatures for short amounts of time, like an hour, at the most. This was 10 - 12 hours and well into the night. We always had a bus or a van or a cottage to escape the cold. I was with the actors and the actors got it good on the set. Not like the other 20 or so people who are working their asses off in this stuff the whole time.
We sat around until it was time to film and whenever they were speaking, I was there. Sometimes the set up would last a couple of hours, sometimes 30 minutes, depending. But when it went into multiple hours, at night, it was awful. The last night was the coldest, - 10 F. I had on 5 pairs of socks, 2 wool, 3 thick cotton and this was inside of wool lined boots and still my toes went below ice cold and took hours to thaw, or at least until we got back to the ketchup crazy hotel and sat in the sauna for 30 minutes or so at a toasty 190 F.
It was a real fun time hanging around though, except when it was boring. Even the cold is bearable, for example my toes didn't fall off, but the boredom is the killer. I've always thought that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do and, just like my ketchup preference, I'm right. It's true that the boredom is usually broken up by laughter, but until it happens it's horrible, and it's especially horrible if the break is forced and doesn't do its job correctly. And to top it all off, after we dropped the actors off at the airport for their 1 hr plane ride back to Helsinki, I got into the train and prepared for a 5 hour train ride and I had just finished my book the day before. AND because we finished shooting so late last night and there was very little booze left in the hotel, I got a good night's sleep, so I wasn't even tired. I came home and did laundry, went to the grocery store, and cleaned the kitchen.
No, the proprietors of Harjulan Piha in Hammaslahti, North Karelia, Finland (a.k.a. the absolute middle of nowhere) enjoy another kind of ketchup all together, and I decided, since we'll be keeping weird hours during the movie shoot, I should have a steady supply of turkey, with which to make a turkey with ketchup sandwich whenever the time called, and you would be surprised how often time called for turkey. And each time it was that damn ketchup. My god it was bad.
I just got back from the coldest place on earth and we spent hours and hours outside every day in temperatures ranging from 20 F to - 10 F in flat, open and windy areas. I just got back and went to the grocery store. It's about 5 F out tonight and I thought it was warm. I think I thought so because I was able to take deep breaths and feel my toes at the same time. I was generally worried for my feet this past week.
I thought, since I had lived in the area for a two winters that I knew how to deal with seriously cold temperatures. I think it's possible that I did learn, but only how to deal with those temperatures for short amounts of time, like an hour, at the most. This was 10 - 12 hours and well into the night. We always had a bus or a van or a cottage to escape the cold. I was with the actors and the actors got it good on the set. Not like the other 20 or so people who are working their asses off in this stuff the whole time.
We sat around until it was time to film and whenever they were speaking, I was there. Sometimes the set up would last a couple of hours, sometimes 30 minutes, depending. But when it went into multiple hours, at night, it was awful. The last night was the coldest, - 10 F. I had on 5 pairs of socks, 2 wool, 3 thick cotton and this was inside of wool lined boots and still my toes went below ice cold and took hours to thaw, or at least until we got back to the ketchup crazy hotel and sat in the sauna for 30 minutes or so at a toasty 190 F.
It was a real fun time hanging around though, except when it was boring. Even the cold is bearable, for example my toes didn't fall off, but the boredom is the killer. I've always thought that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do and, just like my ketchup preference, I'm right. It's true that the boredom is usually broken up by laughter, but until it happens it's horrible, and it's especially horrible if the break is forced and doesn't do its job correctly. And to top it all off, after we dropped the actors off at the airport for their 1 hr plane ride back to Helsinki, I got into the train and prepared for a 5 hour train ride and I had just finished my book the day before. AND because we finished shooting so late last night and there was very little booze left in the hotel, I got a good night's sleep, so I wasn't even tired. I came home and did laundry, went to the grocery store, and cleaned the kitchen.
// posted by Howard @ 10:28 PM 
