Marseille, France June 2010. During an European tour with my drama teacher, I ended up alone in the city while she was, with the director of the play we were perfoming in Italy and Spain, in Barcelona.
I decided to take the advantage of an offer of a plane ticket to Marseille for 3euros. I was staying in a very comfortable hostel in the centre of the city, where I'd been told to visit "The Calanques", a group of clifts around the coast with many hidden villages and a wonderful view of the Mediterranean sea.
So in the morning I took my most comfortable trainers, a bag with my swimming suit and good bottle of water since it was a very hot summer in Souther France and I was highly adviced to take plenty of water with me to avoid dihydration.
When I got there, I found out that the whole place was a tracking centre with many three kinds of paths, for beginers, intermediate and advanced. I decided to stay in the easy way since my shoes, although comfy, were not suitable for an advanced traiking path.
The place was beautiful! a virgin forest with many rocks and cifts, and although it was very hot, the breeze from the sea was quite refreshing. After an hour or two of walking around, I found myself complety lost. Admiring the views and smelling the wild rosemary on the side of the path I complety forgot about the signs along the way. Before I could notice, I found a red mark on one of the stones. I was in the advaced path! As I was complety lost, and I knew I had no training but I decided to keep going, may be the way was not so difficult or I might find some help along the road.
After one hour, I was stil in the advaced road and I was facing a huge stone wall, straight and sharp in a very tall part of the clift right next to a free fall into the sea and the only help available was a thick chain. There were two options, whether I climb that wall with no training and the wrong shoes or I turned back looking for another path. After may be 20min considering my opctions and the consecuencies, I decided to climb the wall. I was very scared, but turning back is never an option to me. It was vey hot, the wall was very tall and the clift was extremely high. I could see only sky and the sun above and the deep sea below. My legs were already tired and I was scared that I might have made a terrible mistake, may be the safe path was better. I was alone and nobody knew I was there except for a couple of girls at the hostel and my nearest familiar face was in Barcelona.
I kept going. I have no idea how long it took me to reach the top, but onces I was there, I had the most amazing view of the whole Mediterranean sea, the breeze was cool and i could see many fishing boats in the blue-green water of the sea, I could smell the wild rosemary and the salty soft wind. I was so happy I wanted to cry.
Sometimes it is like that, sometimes we think the safe path is better because we don't feel confident about something we have no training in and we are too scared if some obstacle makes us turn back. But where there's a will, there's a way, and I strongly believe in that. That's why I quited Puan and started taking drama lessons, and that's why I wanted to cometo London and give my carreer a try, I mean, why not?
Last wednesday, I felt I was climbing that wall successfully. I had my first acting experience in the UK filming a pilot TV show episode for the BBC. If the producers buy it, I could become a TV actor for a BBC show.
I had to wake up at 4am to be at Heathrow airport for shooting at 7am. We had 20 hours of filming. And my character was a French guy, so I had to make a foreign accent using a language that is not already mine. It was challenging indeed. The crew was very nice though, as well as my colleagues. We shot the last scene at 3am. I was tired, but with the most amazing view. I know I stil have to reach the top of that wall, and I have a lot of thing to achieve. But I alraedy feel so proud of myself for not turning back for the comfortable path! And the people who believed in me and stil does is my chain that helps me to climb every step. Thank you to you and please stay with me, I promess you an amazing view at the top of this wall we are climbing together.
