My apartment search is still underway, but I've got some leads now. And I'm once again slightly drunk on that orange vodka, so let's keep the ball rolling.
On our first proper day at SXSW, we went to see Much Ado About Nothing. We got our first queue experience. I got saddled with a rather boring music blogger guy, who's seen it all before and sneered at all the people excited about various freebies. I was one of those people, but kept my mouth shut and soldiered through the small talk.
The film was ok. The panel afterwards was better, as the whole cast (and Joss) was there. Everyone, except Fran Kranz, was funny, but I don't remember a single line. Fran just seemed full of himself, and his line I remember: he said something about being grateful for these roles that allow him to show "his amazing acting range". Oof.
The Whedon fans were a bit overwhelming. One poor girl nearly had a nervous breakdown. But you know what - more power to them for standing up and having a public moment.
After the screening, we went to the food truck enclosure to get something to eat, and oh my God food trucks. There were these tiny sliders, they had 6 varieties, I think. One was with pulled pork. One was with a meatball in tomato sauce. One was with some sort of honeyed chicken butter thing... I'm drooling, I need to stop. But yes, food trucks.
When we got back home the acroyoga guy was there, and he juggled Gosia around for a bit while we gawked and giggled. After that surreal interlude, we got shuttled to Before Midnight by our host. We were supposed to meet him for drinks later, but that never really came together... but I'm getting ahead of ourselves. Our next queue line experience turned out to be an elderly couple from Austin who have been attending the festival from the very start. They have a flat in one of the highrisers downtown (which was surprising to me), and at some point the elderly lady mentioned that when she last checked Twitter there was a tornado warning. So yes, twitter-savvy grannies. And tornados.
Unfortunately (well... I guess - I'd like to see a tornado) that never materialized, but when we got out of the theatre, there was a rainstorm. Thankfully our host came to pick us up right off the street. When we got into the car, we realized that a) the boy is drunk, and b) there's someone else in the front passenger seat. A quiet, slightly giggly Indian-looking person who wasn't really introduced to us, so we had no idea what the deal was.
To make matters even more fun, it turned out that there's MORE couchsurfers coming - a French couple who had had a dismal layover in Chicago (they missed their flight) and were due to arrive in Austin any moment. And they kept calling our host, who wouldn't pick up the phone as to not be saddled with international charges. Eventually he managed to learn that they landed, and that the taxi driver dropped them off... somewhere in the vicinity of his apartment, but not quite there. So he delivered us to the flat with the strange guy, and promptly left. Awkward small talk followed, until the guy - who by now we realized was also tipsy - said: God... I'm too old for this. I just want to go home.
And then, as we stared in dumbfounded silence, he proceeded to tell us that our host has this boyfriend, but the boyfriend's going off to college, so he's a bit lost, and this guy is some sort of deal on the side, but he's just really tired and this is weird and he just wants to be home now, but he didn't want to be an asshole, and also he has no idea why he just told us all that.
I started giggling uncontrollably. I tried not to, but I was just not ready to be a supporting character in one of those sitcoms.
At that moment our host arrived with the French people, and the Indian guy quietly negotiated getting dropped off at his own place. The final image from that day is the French guy suddenly perking up when he realized the two boys are leaving and asking: "Oh, you're going out, guys?" To which Gosia, of all people, blurts out in a moment of well-intentioned panic: "It's a private party!"
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