Definitely not a local

Running around the market looking for our subject while admiring the beautiful produce I was offered these beautiful tomatoes. Later on in the day I ate them like apples and they were delicious. J.R. managed to also get us a big basket of strawberries plus some other varieties of fruit. They were the best strawberries I have ever had. I think I ate 2 quarts.

After walking up and down the streets of “The KW” we arrived at this hotel where there were these two women sitting as if they are waiting for a bus. J.R. finds out that they are members of the Brazilian International girl’s basketball team. Of course finding this out was rather difficult as they only spoke a little bit of English. Except for the obvious height and uniforms we had to ask their translator who they were.

We followed the girls to their basketball practice and observed our subject as she trained with weights, got some cold-bath physiotherapy and took her down the streets of Kitchener/Waterloo. I was wondering how we would get these girls back by their 8 o’clock curfew, but all was well and they were only a little late.

JR can find the perfect guest just by sitting down.

We recorded our 12th episode in Kitchener. Everyone on the crew was pretty gung-ho for the day, driving around in our soccer mom style production van and the huge 8 seat mafia truck. I had a fun time in the market square. It was pretty intense trying to get people to sign release forms; no one wanted to. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a Kitchener thing. I didn’t let it discourage me though. Our team came together to work out the minor problem.

JR was awesome today too. He was delivering some good stuff. He smoothed over some fruit venders for some free produce. I ate a lot of it. We were running around and stumbled into the Brazilian National women’s basketball team. Quickly we jumped on there bus with them and traveled to their practice. It was funny having to get everyone on the team to sign release forms since a lot of them didn’t understand what I was saying. JR got really into the basketball idea. He sported their jersey and all. The teams were not really late night partiers so it was an early good by since their curfew was 8pm, enforced by there coach. I liked that.

JR is the quintessential Canadian-sincere, earnest, and a little quirky. What better ambassador to Brazil could we ask for?

Krazy Kitchener shoot. No map? No location scout? No directions? No problem!  We learned our first lesson of the shoot - do not listen to JR.  Just kidding.  We found our way in the end despite the near eternity it took us to find the market, park, and not pass out from the heat.

Once in the market we found the locals to be (mostly) friendly and helpful as long as JR didn't call anyone names in German like "dumkoff", accidentally.  We met a lovely man named Warren who acted as our tour guide.  Tasted the sweetest strawberries this side of PEI.  But I digress.

Little did we know just how big a star we'd find.  Tall, beautiful, athletic and - a bonus -  English speaking professional Brazilian basketball player, Helen Luce.  Picked from the heavens and placed in our care for the next 6 hours.  Poor girl!  She and her teammates were good sports, ha ha.  Favourite JR quote: "Watch me do this lay-up....(misses)...nooo!  I got mixed up, I got mixed up!"

Kitchener went really well! We had an entire Brazilian Girls basketball team at our fingertips… it went so well, that I am going to talk about our day off the next day instead, where the entire crew (minus JR and Colin) went to AFRICAN LION SAFARI!!!!!!!!!!! I have to say that it was one of the best days of my entire life! We piled into two vans and drove through the safari part first. Monkeys galore jumped on the vans and traveled with us for some distance. There were moms with babies clinging to their tummies sitting on our side mirrors… then we saw lions, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and really cute mountain goats… Once that was done, we went to ride on an elephant, who had a 3 month old baby walking next to her! I was freaking out and wanted to take it home… but I will have to wait for a genetically modified mini elephant to be invented before I take one home… BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!

First road trip had a great drive really hot in southwest Ontario though. The heat is getting to the crew, my backpack starts to get heavier as I have about 40 pounds of camera batteries and that doesn’t help in the heat, especially when JR should be in the Olympics as a speed walker. Almost gave up on the day, JR takes a corner, runs into a girl sitting on a park bench, starts to chat, works his magic, ends up or STAR is on Brazilian Olympic Women’s Basketball team, she is also a Star on the team. I love sports so this is right up my alley. GO Brazil GO!!

I almost got attacked! We did our first show on the road today in Kitchener. We visited an outdoor veggie market in Kitchener and were asking around about its German roots which was news to me that Kitchener had such a strong German influence.

That is one of the cool things about this gig I think, finding out all these facts about small towns I would normally never visit. It was mega super hot out today and the forecast looks the same all week! I am working with a great group of people I am happy to say! Sometimes during casting sessions it gets a little chaotic so I lend a hand to the PA’s signing release form. We didn’t end up finding a German though...but we did end up with a Brazilian. Not the kind you get at the spa either you dirty birds!! You will have to watch the show to find out but it involves very tall girls!

I have to tell you the craziest thing happened after we filmed. J.R. didn’t want to stop filming so I agreed to go with him like the little keener I am. He was shooting a testimonial of me on the sidewalk when all of a sudden theses drunk dudes start descending on me. Gawking and moaning screaming *damn you hot* and they were so obviously drunk or worse stumbling towards us all stumbley and hyped up saying * you should be a movie star* over and over. I didn’t think much of it until they got really close until Kevin jumped in! It was actually kinda scary for a sec. The worst part (other than possibly getting attacked) was that the camera was on standby and we didn’t catchj any of it on tape but you can see a shot of me after reacting to the craziness!