World Premiere of "Where the Sidewalk Ends..."

It is Thursday here in Germany. That means only one thing. Today I screen my documentary that I have been working on this entire time I've been abroad. How do I feel about this? Well, to be honest I'm not that excited at all. I can't really comment on how I feel about my documentary either. I don't think I will be able to though, until a few months or even years later. Regardless, it was a roller-coaster in every sense of the word.

Moreover, after today when the credits roll and the lights come up, it will symbolize the completion of my Junior Thesis and the end of my time here. This last week is going to be very tough on me. I've gotten very close to my host family, so much so, that it will be difficult to say goodbye.

Anyways, on this Thursday morning I decided to awake early and watch possibly one of my last German sunrises. I'm glad I did. I awoke to find a light snow falling as the sun began to peek out. I just sat there looking out my window glad I finally got to see it snow. I then proceeded to open my door and found a note from one of my little host sisters. Basically she said she was excited to see the next best film out of all the 18 films. The first being TK's, my new host brother (which truly was amazing by the way, and in my opinion the best in the program), and the second being mine. Followed by her signature and 'I love you'.

I sat back down, note in hand, watched the sun grow in intensity as the snowflakes lightly fell upon our pond. For once in a long time, I felt completely at peace. I felt happy. I honestly don't care what else awaits me today. In this moment I know I was meant to be here. In this moment I'm happy.

Sursum Lovin' in London

Lifting hearts...all over the world!

This past weekend I decided I needed to travel one last time, and I needed to get away from my film for a bit. So TK and I decided to do a blind booking through GermanWings. It's this promotion they offer where you get to choose a theme i.e. party, shopping, culture, etc. and then they give you about 14 possible destinations. We picked the one that had the least places we had already been. We were in fact hoping to get Barcelona of this list, but ended up with London. I was pretty stoked. I had only wanted Barcelona for warmer weather and it's a place I've never been, but currently I have a bunch of friends studying in London. With that in mind I was really happy to be going to the England.

We called them up, and they had a place for us to crash, which meant LESS MONEY to be spent in such an expensive city. London was a lot of fun. On the way over TK and I made friends with a German girl sitting next to us on the plane. We later met up with her and did a bunch of touristy stuff.

What was really great, was being in an English speaking country again. Although, I kept finding myself saying things in German out of habit, especially 'danke' or 'bitte' or 'genau'. It was also really great seeing all my friends there. They were studying for finals, so we couldn't really all go out, but it was nice to be with friends. We all went to a little pub, ate fish and chips, had a pint and watched the Arsenal vs Liverpool game (Arsenal won). It was such a great experience being in a British pub watching football with Brits.

It was good seeing friends again. Made me realize I do miss a lot of people back home, but I still love being here so much. I kinda just wish they all could come over here and we all could just go play in Europe!

Anyways, London was a nice break from all the editing and looking at my film over and over again...

Editing Editing Editing

Well, well, well...I have been busy. I managed to make it up to Berlin again and do some more filming. It was a good time in Berlin. I got a lot of good footage and met some more cool people. I managed to meet up with two friends I had made on my last trip and found a really awesome hole in the wall bar. Literally this place was the sketchiest most awesome place I've been to. You had to knock on this door that was under a bridge. It had no sign or anything that identified it. You only knew it was there if , well if you knew it was there. Then this guy slides open a little slate on the door and eyeballs you. Finally he opened the door, looked at my friend and I and asked "Just you two?" We looked around. "Yea" "Just you two?" again we look around. "Ummm...yea" "Ok! Come on in!" We enter, it turns into this really awesome pub. Low lights mirrored roof. Jazz band playing in the corner. Sehr schon!

As I left my artist to head back to Bonn, she also gave me a parting gift. A Minolta XG9! I was so stoked. I've always wanted a Minolta and I've really been wanting to shoot black and white again. An amazing gift, that was completely unexpected, but extremely appreciated.

So these past few weeks have been pretty much something like this: wake up, edit, remember to eat, edit, edit, edit, sleep, and repeat. Also the occasional helping someone out on their film. This film has been a pain. My hard drive has crashed twice. I lost everything I had been working on (luckily not any raw footage) and had to restart my entire project and re-edit in less then a week. Fun stuff.

Besides that I've been trying to hang out with my host family. Most of the other students edit at the AIB, but since I have a Mac and FCP I can just do it at home. So I haven't really seen most of them in weeks, which is really weird. However, I have gotten close to my host family. We also have a new member of the family! TK, one of the other film students, had difficulties with his original host family and moved into ours. It's been a lot of fun having him here, and we have become brother too.

We all have been going on small excursions together. We went ice skating and to a medieval theme Christmas Market. We've played board games, and just had a lot of fun together. By far the best part of this trip is my host family. They are amazing.

I did put together a short timelapse clip for my film. It actually didn't make it in the film, but hey you can look at it if you want:

Where the Sidewalk Ends... (Clip) from Vincent Patin on Vimeo.