Honing my brokeness

When unemployed, it's best to spend as little money as possible, since you don't have any coming in. To conserve your most limited resource. It's just smart.

That is why I locked myself out of the house today and had to call a locksmith to pick the lock for $75.

How Cool I Am

So I took one of the last metros last night, around midnight. Since it was a Friday night and all, everyone on the metro was wearing nice, stylish, going-out clothes, and talking loudly with their groups of friends.

I was wearing ripped jeans and carrying an apple, a pear and a book.

It actually worked

Last night I suggested to the people I was hanging out with that we make snickerdoodles. And we made snickerdoodles.

I've reached a conclusion:

I'm never going to find a job, ever.
Also...
I don't remember this paper rejection letter thing from last time around. I've gotten this flurry of nicely typed letters in the mail telling me how un-qualified I am to work at Buttfuck Times A, B or C, but how they'll certainly keep my resume on file in case Buttfuck Weekly A, B or C needs an unqualified person like me. Is this a new fad, or have I just become less qualified in the last year and a half? It's like they're telling me, "We dislike you 39 cents much."

So yesterday I sent out five applications -- three online and two via snail mail -- and I'm hoping for five rejection letters to come in the mail within the next week. I'm thinking about making a book out of them. The good thing is The New Republic gives out three-month subscriptions with their rejections (which they, incidentally, send by e-mail -- they don't even dislike me 39 cents much), so if they keep rejecting me I'll eventually have a lifetime subscription.

I had a tryout in Jersey about a week ago, but I got into an I-can-talk-louder-than-you fight with the editor, so I'm not so sure they'll "be in touch," as promised.

And I guess that's about it. Now, I'm going to go for a run, because in addition to being broke, unemployed and unqualified, I'm fat.

Never go to Utah.

So I've successfully made my way across the country, and am in North Carolina with Brian. I'll drive up to Virginia tomorrow, at which point I guess I'll be officially living again on the East Coast.

The cross-country trip took seven days with a very long detour to Bozeman, Montana. We passed through 16 states, in the following order: California, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina.

Between the two of us, we only accumulated two tickets; Brian for running an invisible stop sign in Kenab, Utah, and me for passing an invisible cop at 91 mph about five miles before getting the hell out of Utah. So the consensus is we're never going back to Utah.

Along the way, we saw the Grand Canyon; a place in Bozeman where Lewis and Clark camped for four days while figuring out how to pass through 10 waterfalls in the Missouri River; Yellowstone; Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse in South Dakota; the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville. We also went to a couple of bars in Kansas City, where we stayed with Kansas Paul, who I met in Brussels. Here are some things we learned along the way:

1) Wyoming is so far to the right that even its roads are red.
2) Never go to Utah.
3) Waffle House is too good for the good people of Western Kentucky. They prefer "Waffle Steak."
4) Montana has the hottest girls (this is Brian's verdict), and Kansas City the hottest guys (go figure).
5) Even the people in Kansas think the people in Kansas are bigoted. You pass by myriad cars with bumper stickers that say, "Kansas: it's as bigoted as you think."
6) There are at least 17,000 places called "Bear Country" in Montana and Idaho, but you will never actually see any bears.
7) Valium doesn't work so well on cats (The vet gave me a prescription for them, I swear).
8) The people carving Mount Rushmore had to buy new expensive equipment to avoid delays caused by dirty laundry.
9) Looking for the Gateway Arch, which towers over the rest of the skyline in St. Louis, could very easily leave you en route to Chicago.
10) Brian fails as a motivator to do pushups and situps every night.

So that's it. The trip. I'll post pictures as soon as they finish uploading...

The plan

So, just to keep everyone updated, I'll be leaving to drive across the country on Friday. I'm staying in Fairfax, VA, a suburb of D.C., until I find a job, which I'm going to go ahead and assume will happen immediately, because the only possible reason that these East Coast newspapers I've applied to aren't knocking down my door is that my door's too far away -- it can't possibly have anything to do with me, cause I'm great. But you all know that already, or why else would you be reading my blog?

So Brian, the best person ever, will be flying in tomorrow, and we'll drive up to Modesto and load my stuff into my car on Thursday. Then, on Friday morning, we'll go to the apartment of the two other best people ever, Sara and Kirby, and pick up my cats. Then we'll leave from there.

We'll make some stops along the way -- specifically, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Bozeman, Montana, and Kansas City, before dropping Brian and the cats off in North Carolina (the people I'm staying with in VA are allergic).

That's it. The plan. Now stop wasting time and go find me a job.

Nomadding around

I don't wanna hear it, Aviva. I'm making it a verb.

So I returned from China on Wednesday, and I'm in Santa Monica now. But it looks like I'll probably be driving across the country very soon... looks like beginning July 7. Now let's not get too excited here. This isn't because I have a job, or, for that matter, any prospects. It *is* because I believe I will never, ever get a job on the East Coast if I don't move to the East Coast. So that's what I'm doing. Nomadding.

For now, and into the future, I can be reached on my cell phone, the same number I've had as long as I've had a cell phone, which I think I e-mailed to just about everyone who ever checks this thing. If I haven't sent it to you, feel free to e-mail and ask (Gotta keep the number away from all my crazy fans who follow my every move, of course). And I can also be reached at my brother's number till July 6.

So that's the word.

I'll keep everyone updated.

Some keen Shanghai salesmanship

I was looking at a skirt in a store in this mall under the train station in People's Square, and the woman comes up to me and says, "No, big." This led me to look more closely at the tag on the skirt that I had simply been glancing at, and I saw that it was a size small, which is, in fact, my size. So why was she telling me that this was too big for me?

She wasn't.

When I realized this I looked at her and asked, "I'm big?"

"Yes," she said. "BIIIG," and she made the fatty gesture, like the circumference of my waist is approximately equivalent to that of Jupiter's largest moon.

"I no big," I said, and then started laughing because a) I was being called a fatty by a salesgirl, and b) I had just used broken English to match her broken English.

"BIIIIIIG," she said, not understanding why I was arguing this obvious fact. Then she looked through the row of skirts and took out a Large for me. "Big," she said again, and then looked at the label. "Laaaaarge."

"No," I said. "Small."

She was very confused by this statement, apparently thinking her English vocabularly may be deceiving her. So she put her hands on my waist to see what size I truly was.

I removed them.

"No. Big." I said. "Just. Looking."

She looked confused.

"Just. Looking." I repeated. "You. Leave."

"OK, OK, you look," she said, at this point realizing she'd done something wrong but having no idea what it was.

I left, too, and have decided not to do any more shopping in China. I mean, I did put on a few pounds in Europe, but I ain't no Large-- I don't care what country I'm in.

Things I've learned about the Shanghainese

1) They talk. Loud.
2) They perpetually honk their horns. There could be one person on the road. And that one person would still be honking his horn. In Shanghai the traffic lights turn yellow right before they turn green, and I had a bus driver the other day who would honk his horn when it turned yellow.
3) When you're trying to figure out how much things cost, instead of showing you the numbers with their fingers like in every other country I've been to, they make strange hand gestures, like their fingers are doing a little dance. Then they absolutely don't understand why you don't understand.
4) People with motorcycles ride along on the sidewalk, and honk and pedestrians. This is completely legal.
5) At least half the cabbies have no idea where they're going.
6) They like their humidity. They even make sure that it's humid *inside.*
7) The hospitals are dirtier than the train stations.

In any case, I'm going to take a big stride here and not go up to 10. That's right. I'm going to leave my list at seven, which is not only *not* a multiple of 5 -- it's an odd number. And I'm OK with that.

Anyway Shanghai isn't so bad. I've been to the zoo, where I had to flip out on a couple of people who were harrassing the cougar and the leopard (it was fun -- I finally had to show them the throat-slitting gesture to make them understand). I've been to a couple of temples, and I've been to this market, where you can get any name brand product for about $5. They're all knock-offs, but they're made by the same people who work for the companies anyway.

So that's Shanghai, so far. Today there's not much to do because a huge portion of the city is closed off because of some conference. Apparently you're allowed there but they don't recommend it.

Shanghai

So it looks like I can update my blog, but I can't view it from behind the great firewall of China. Anyway I got to Shanghai last night, and I'll be here through the 20th. Haven't done anything yet, but I'll keep you guys updated on things as I do them...

Shoulda been a zookeeper...

So I'm headed to China for two weeks on Monday, and I had to apply for a Chinese visa. Well everything was all set, the place told me I could pick up my visa on Friday, and all of a sudden I got a call from them yesterday.

Apparently the Chinese consulate was very concerned about my career, which is listed as "journalist."

I hadn't even thought about that, especially since I had kind of thought of China as a much more progressive place than, say, Morocco, where I decided not to write "journalist" on the visa application. I wrote "sportswriter," Nicole wrote "zookeeper," and neither of us ran into any trouble.

As for the Chinese consulate, I had to go back in yesterday and write a letter saying that I did not plan to practice any of my journalism while in China. I wonder if I would have had to write that letter if I'd listed my profession as witch?

Back...

Well I'm back in the States. It took more than 48 hours and I'm going to bitch to American Airlines until they give me a) flight vouchers or b) a LOT of cookies. So I'm going to go to sleep now, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I survived it. I'll write a more detailed post about Morocco and the trip as a whole when I get a chance. And of course post some pictures.

Heads up for anyone who wants to reach me -- I haven't turned my cell phone back on yet and I'm not sure that I will until around June 20 (although I haven't decided for sure). So if you want to reach me (and seriously, why *wouldn't* you?), you can call on my brother's home phone. I'm not posting his number on his blog (he gets enough calls he doesn't want, and in the end, he's bigger than me), so you can shoot me an e-mail if you need the number. For Samo guys, it's the same number I had in high school.

Madrid/Casablanca

Well we had to slaughter some shrimps, but we finally got the good paella that Nicole was hoping for. Apparently the paella varies throughout Spain -- the kind in Barcelona and Cadaques is different from the kind in Madrid. We went to a place that was recommended in my Let's Go book (thanks, Ben), but what Let's Go said was about 12 euros per person ended up being about 20. And eating the shrimp required cutting off the heads, etc., but once we got past the beady little eyes staring at us, it was really good.

The second day in Madrid we went to Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which has a really diverse mix of 19th and 20th century art (ranging from Spanish to Dutch to samplings of a few others), modern art, and impressionism post-impressionism. I mostly went to see the impressionism, since I've kinda gotten my fill of the rest for now. There was one room filled with Monet, Van Gogh and Pisarro, which was pretty awesome.

From there we went to Parque del Retiro and lay out in the sun by a waterfall at the lake for a while, and I finally convinced Nicole she wanted to rent a rowboat with me and row around in the lake (it was 4.50 euros for 45 minutes). I eventually got the thing floating along in the right direction, and it took about 15 minutes for me to realize that I was getting very seasick on the rowboat. We didn't stay out the whole 45 minutes out of fear of me throwing up. So I can't really do things like that.

Anyway, it was hot as hell there, and we ran out of energy before making it to the modern art museum, so we pretty much just chilled in a tapa bar and ate tapas until it was time to leave.

Casablanca

I still haven't completely processed that I'm in Africa -- it's pretty cool. One one hand, you have these women walking around dressed in djellabas and headscarves, but right next to them you have younger girls dressed in jeans and tee-shirts (although it's pretty standard that women keep their legs covered here). Apparently, cleavage is more socially acceptable than leg.

And the headscarves are optional. Girls decide as teenagers whether or not they're going to wear them, and girls who decide on the scarves never leave the house without one after that. It's a big life decision for them, I think. It's not a religious requirement or anything here; it just sends a message -- I'm a good girl. Any Moroccan girl who goes out at night is essentially considered a slut, and men whistle and make obscene comments at anyone who shows any skin. (this includes elbows and calves). But from what I can tell, they seem to respect the women wearing the djellabas.

It's really interesting being here though. Casablanca isn't a very touristy town (and certainly isn't a big American tourist destination), so the locals seem to automatically assume that we're French. I haven't really felt unsafe at all (although it certainly helps that we have Nicole's friend Emmy, who teaches English here, telling us where to go, etc.) -- it's just been a little frustrating hearing all the mating calls from the locals. They learn to say "hello" in like five languages, apparently in hope that one will be right and we'll, I dunno, have sex with them?

Today we went to this Moroccan marketplace, and had Emmy guide us around and tell us what everything is. She said it's more fun to go shopping in Marrakesh, because there are more options and you can haggle there. Tomorrow we're headed to Rabat, and then Marrakesh on Sunday.

But today was cool -- after the marketplaces we got lunch at an local place that Emmy's boyfriend recommended. Apparently Friday is Coos Coos Day, so we got coos coos. Then we went to Mosque Hassan II, or The Great Mosque, which is right up against the ocean and is really stunning. It's one of the biggest mosques in the world, either the second or third biggest depending on what book you look in. We couldn't go inside though, because they don't do tours on Fridays.

So yeah. Casablanca's been cool. I expected it to be a lot more touristy than it is, and we certainly saw some tourists on the ferry, but it's not a big American or Canadian destination, which is a nice change. The cabs are pretty awesome, too -- the cab drivers all play their own kind of music (as loud as they want), so we've listened to everything from authentic Moroccan music to LL Cool J. And apparently everyone here is obsessed with Celine Dion -- Emmy's Moroccan boyfriend was singing along to it in the restaurant last night.

Anyway I'll post again at some point... I can't believe this trip's almost over. We leave for Valencia on Monday and fly out from there.

Cadaques/Zaragoza/Madrid

So we got stranded in Zaragoza (or as Nicole's been calling it, Zoolander) for a night. We had to get a bus from Cadaques to Barcelona, and then were going to take a train from there to Madrid. So we got to the train station and were told that all the trains to Madrid were full, but that we could simply get a train to Zaragoza and then connect to Madrid from there.

"Can we make the reservation from Zaragoza to Madrid?" I asked in my best version of Spanish.

"No, regional train, regional train, regional train, can't make reservation here, regional train."

He also told me I wouldn't need a reservation with my rail pass, and that we would just have to wait in line for Nicole's ticket since she has no pass. He lied.

We got to Zaragoza, bought Nicole's ticket, and then I asked -- just to be sure -- if I needed a reservation with my rail pass. Not only did I need a reservation, this assclown said, but he also said he'd just given the last seat to Nicole. More lies.

There were more ordeals (like another ticket man telling me the only seat left on a train to Madrid was on a 10 p.m. train in first class), but long story medium-length, we ended up changing Nicole's ticket and crashing in Zaragoza for a night.

The man at the hostel there had a thick accent and instead of just speaking more slowly for me, he instead tried to speak some strange combination of English and Spanish and flustered himself to no end. At one point he asked if he could photocopy my meat. Took me a while to figure out he was talking about my passport, but I can see how one might get the two confused.

So, yeah. Apparently some month-long festival began in Madrid yesterday, and that's why everyone was going. In the end, we think, it all worked out for the best, because we assumed that the first night of a festival in Madrid would include costumed people, and Nicole is very, very afraid of costumed people.

But now we're in Madrid. And we already made our reservations to leave. We had to take a number at the train station, where there were 150 people ahead of us. But we're all set. And tonight we're going to drink sangria. Lots of sangria.

I spent most of today in the Prado, while Nicole went shopping, and tomorrow we're going to two more museums and then maybe renting a rowboat on the lake.

So that's it. One more day in Madrid and then we're headed to Morocco, where it's about 90 degrees but we're not allowed to wear shorts. But I'm excited.

Barcelona/Figueres

So Nicole and I have been together more than a full day and haven't killed each other yet, although I'm not sure we'll both make it through two weeks...

In Barcelona I convinced Nicole that she wanted to go to the zoo, but it ended up being not the best day ever because a) the cats were all sleeping, and I wasn't completely confident that all they weren't drugged, b) the food we got for lunch didn't appear to be very... cooked and c) the ice cream had peanuts, but mainly it was the cats sleeping. What was cool was they had a dolphin show, although when I understood absolutely nothing the dolphin trainer was saying I started to think my Spanish was even rustier than I thought. Then I realized they were probably speaking Galician, and I felt better.

At the very least we got to see baby dolphins, so the zoo wasn't all bad.

We also went to the Picasso Museum, which wasn't as good as the Musee Beggruen in Berlin, but was still interesting. We were going to go to this modern art museum after that, but got distracted by the zoo and then wanted to hit Parc Guell, which was all designed (but not all completed) by Gaudi, before it got dark.

Now we're stuck in Figueres until our bus leaves for Cadaques, and whatever Web site Nicole found that described this city as a "donkey's ass" was pretty right-on. But we've only got about another hour and a half, and the Dali Museum here in Figueres was worth the stopover -- despite the obnoxious Spanish kids who thought it was OK to repeated shove into me until I told them otherwise. I need to learn how to say Fuck Off in Spanish. Anyone?

Anyway, Cadaques should be cool tomorrow... I'm not planning on leaving the beach.

The French Riviera

So apparently, even though it was a bank holiday and the reception guy at the hostel called the museums for me to double-check that they were actually closed, the museums weren't actually closed. I know this because someone else in my rooms went to the two museums I wanted to go to that day, that day. And of course since the museums *were* actually closed on Tuesday, because they always are on Tuesdays, and those were my only two days for Nice, I didn't go.

But the weather did get sunny and I did take a day trip to Juan les Pins, which has beaches with actual sand instead of rocks that leave salty white marks all over you. That's not to say the beaches in Nice weren't pretty -- they were -- they're just not much to lay out in.

So I was at the beach in Juan les Pins with Deona (How do you spell your name? I'm guessing this ain't right), who is from Canada and was backpacking through France for three weeks and actually knows some French. We were in the water, not very deep at all, with the water just past our waists, maybe (it was damn cold) and all these little silver-colored fish were darting around by our feet.

Then Deona looked out into the distance and saw what looked like a ray of some sort swimming around pretty close to us. Of course, we weren't sure that it was a ray even though it was moving like one, because it seemed to be this aqua-blue color... but maybe that was just the water. So we were maneuvering around, trying to get close enough to see what it was but not so close so that it could attack us. Deona even threw a rock next to it to see how it would move, and it just floated about. Then she asked a woman in French what she thought it was, and the woman said she thought it would bite.

So after about 10 minutes, an Australian guy came into the water, and we asked him if he thought the creature was a ray. Without hesitation or warning, the Australian guy dove into the water and made a beeline for the creature, and we were immediately terrified that we'd be responsible for Australian Man Loses Hand to Amputation After Stingray Attack, American and Canadian Women Watch. But as abruptly as he'd dived in, the guy emerged from the water like a sea lion would (heavily creating waves all around him) and held something up in the air.

It was a light blue plastic shopping bag filled with sand.

And we had our "ray."

Juan les Pins and Nice were both pretty, but Deona said they could just as easily be beach towns in Florida, and I'm inclined to agree. There was nothing spectacular about either place, although Juan les Pins seemed somehow more authentic and less touristy, and I think it's a little weird that Nice somehow became the heart of the French Riviera when there are a million other towns with, well, sand.

I did end up lying on the rocks in Nice the first day, but the weather never got much better and I had to wear jeans and a windbreaker, both of which were covered in the aforementioned white salty spots by the day's end. Of course, there was a particularly helpful French guy who was very eager to brush me off while I was walking back to the hostel. I had to convey to him that I liked the white spots to make him stop, and I imagine he was thinking that I'd missed the point.

Now I'm at an Internet cafe across the street from the train station in Montpellier, where I have a two and a half hour layover (is that what they call it with trains? Maybe stopover?) en route to Barcelona. I'm pretty excited about going to a country where I know more of the language than hello, goodbye, please and thank you, although how much more remains to be seen. I did understand a surprisingly large amount of Italian while I was in Italy, just because of its similarity to Spanish, so maybe I'll surprise myself again.

On that note, I think I'll use the rest of this time to answer e-mails and read the New York Times.

Venice/Nice

OK, so I have the utmost respect for other cultures and all, but I'm getting a little tired of all these so-called "bank holidays" that screw with my trip. In Naples I would have had a hell of a time trying to get from the port to the train station with all the public transportation shut down because of one of these alleged holidays if it weren't for some Italian kids who walked me the two and a half miles from the tram stop I was waiting at (for nothing) to the station. Now I'm in Nice, and I only have two days, and one of their holidays has left everything, including the museums, shut down. And since the museums aren't open on Tuesdays, and this was supposed to be my museum day, well...

AND the weather's not quite shitty, but certainly not sunny.

So.

I don't want to seem like one of those typical American tourists who only likes thing that don't feel foreign, but Venice was amazing. I know it's got more tourists than residents, and I know that half of the conversations I heard around me were in English, but I liked it. And there's nothing you can do or say about it (although I imagine Aviva will bring up something about perpetuating stereotypes).

It's just such an interesting city since there are no cars or buses or anything, and the only way to get around is by walking or boat. Even the cops have their little police boats that they float around on. The taxi stands are boat docks, and people just row or motor along these canals from island to island. It's pretty awesome. And expensive as hell. If anyone would like to send me some money, they should feel free.

I went to a few art museums in Venice, but I'm hungry and don't feel like describing stuff, and anyway I think I left my journal in my other bag, so I won't. I will say the Peggy Guggenheim collection is cool, and you can even visit her and her dogs' graves. She had a lot of dogs.

I went to Palazzo Ducale, which used to be where Venetian government was carried out, and also has a prison, with this bridge called the Bridge of Sighs leading the way from the sentencing area (it's not a courtroom, so I'm going to stick with 'sentencing area') to the prison cells. People think it's this romantic thing because of Casanova, but it got the name because prisoners could get one last glimpse of freedom from the barred windows of the bridge before heading to their death. It was kind of interesting to walk across, but would have without question been better without the massive French tour group that kept getting in the way.

That said...

Nice
I just got into Nice this morning, but so far the people have been really surprisingly, well... nice. Maybe it's just Paris where people are mean to me.

I've even been trying to speak a little French with people who are helping me, like making looking up in my little phrasebook (thanks, UK Paul) how to say "aisle" when making my reservation to Barcelona or even just asking "Do you speak English?" in French instead of English. People seem to respond better to that, but maybe it's just because they're not from Paris.

I'd heard that Nice had rock beaches, but I was picturing more of a Paradise Cove-esque kind of pebbles (sorry, non-CA people)... instead they've got these big rocks that you really can't find a comfortable nook in (not that I've tried yet, though -- I've been wandering around all day under the overcast skies).

So that's about all I've got for Nice, partly because I've only been here a few hours and partly because everything's closed and I can't go where I want to go anyway.

Finally
As for Aviva's comment and the e-mails (OK, e-mail) about my not posting a lot, that's got something to do with lack of time, something to do with laziness in finding an Internet cafe, and something to do with my policy against spending more than 3 euros an hour on Internet. All over Venice it was 6 euros, and in Rome I was too busy chillin' with the Pope (we're so tight he has me calling him Benedict now).

Florence/Ischia/Rome

So you know how sometimes you're wandering around, looking for the Sistine Chapel, and all of a sudden you pass thousands of people crowding behind barricades and you hear the word 'Papa' every few seconds, and you realize that the Pope's about to give his weekly address? I like when that happens. It sorta like finding a $20 bill in the pocket of your winter jacket the first time you wear it that season.

So yeah. It was a pretty good time, although the Pope was so far away and there were so many people that I could barely even see the big screens they had up around the Vatican courtyard. I knew the Pope was supposed to be in his chair in front of this white tent-like thing, and I could hear him talking, but it seriously could have been a little white puppy in the chair instead and no one there would have noticed, as long as they showed some video of the Pope on the screens.

Anyway Rome's been pretty awesome. I got here Monday afternoon and have seen the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel (and Vatican Museums), St. Paul's Basilica and about a million other things. It's also really strange, because nuns are walking around everywhere. AND they're the worst line-cutters ever, because no one's gonna bitch out a nun for cutting in front of them in the hour-and-a-half line to St. Paul's Basilica.

There's something amazing about standing inside the Colosseum, looking down at it, and about standing in the Sistine Chapel, looking up at it. The Sistine Chapel experience is tainted a little by the masses of tourists pretending not to see all the signs and taking pictures of it. One poor security guy is in charge of trying to stop them, so he runs around yelling NO PHOTOS NO PICTURES in seven different languages (seriously, I counted) and pokes people who don't listen. A lot of them even take pictures with a flash, and then when Poor Security Man walks away after yelling at them they take another picture. People suck.

Oh, and I figured out the real end to the "When in Rome..." saying. It has nothing to do with doing as the Romans do. It's all about waiting in line. For the museums, the churches, everything. That's right. When in Rome, you wait in line. So now you know.

There's so much more to write about but I have to get going soon to see if this girl I met in Poland wants to meet up tonight. So I'll move on...

Ischia

I was walking around the streets of Florence a few days ago when I realized I was dead tired. Florence is this beautiful city but all I could think about was not walking around anymore. So I figured I'd put off Rome for another day and head to Ischia, this small resort island about an hour and a half into the bay of Naples. I figured I'd take a day, relax on the beach, read and generally do nothing, then be completely energized when I got to Rome.

The rain started about 10 minutes before the ferry docked. The downpour started when I got off the ferry and started walking to the bus stop, which was not, as the books would lead you to believe, right near the docks. And on a little island with no sidewalks, walking in the dark on the side of the road in a storm makes you very wet, very fast. I finally made it to the bus stop after about 10 or 15 minutes. It wasn't covered. The bus arrived about 5 minutes later, and I told the driver where I wanted to get off.

He knew no English and I know no Italian, but I think he liked me. I think this because he knew where I wanted to go, but still proceeded to keep me on the bus all the way to the end of the line, despite my repeated reminders ("Ostello Il Gabbiano? Soon? Pronto?") He just kept nodding and pointing forward.

Finally, after going the whole way there and turning around and going halfway back, he told me we'd arrived at my stop. All I could think was he wanted to drop me on the right side of the road.

It stormed well into the next day, but the sun came out around 1 p.m. so it wasn't a complete bust, although I'm not sure it was worth what amounted to a full-day trek to the island.

With a massive hangover.

Florence

That's because I capped my two and a half days in Florence with a bottle of wine while watching the sun set over the city from the Piazzalle Michaelangelo. My tolerance has gone down considerably on this trip, because for the last month and a half I've been much too tired to go out much at night after a full day of stuff.

I was feeling good after half the bottle of wine, but then I got to talking to this kid from Chicago (the one who made a comment on the last post, who despite what he wrote was very, very tired of hearing about cats by the end of the night), and over the course of the conversation I finished off the bottle. Then it was getting a little cool out, so we went for a nightcap at a bar, where I had two Guinnesses.

The sunset over the river was amazing, and the conversation was a good time, too (although I get the impression I did most of the talking), but the head hurtiness the next day was less fun. Much less fun.

And on that note, Jamie should be finishing with work now so I'm going to find a phone and give her a call.

Next stop is Venice, then Nice and maybe Cannes, and I meet with Nicole in Barcelona in a week. I can't believe that this trip is almost over.

Vienna/Florence

Well there's absolutely no way I'll be able to get in everything about my three days in Vienna or my first day in Florence, but I'll try to hit on the best stuff.

Vienna
First off, everything went *so* smoothly when I got there -- too smoothly, I thought, so I was waiting the whole time for Hell to break loose and when I didn't I was very suspicious. I immediately found an ATM to withdraw euros, it worked, and (and this is maybe the first time this has happened all trip) I found my hostel without any wrong turns or getting-losts. It was very unnerving.

In the end, nothing bad happened in Vienna, and the weather was absolutely phenomenal. I even bought shorts because I didn't have (and hadn't needed) any up to then, but of course it's raining in Florence so I still haven't used them.

Now that I'm actually sitting down to write, it's occurring to me that since I don't have my journal with me I'm not going to remember most of what I did... my memory's been shot for the last month. But here's me trying...

One of the museums (I think it was the Leopold Museum) had an exhibit of Robert Hammerstiel, a Holocaust survivor. His stuff was amazing, abstract-type paintings with this feeling of impending doom in every one. His earlier work is all dark colors, but I guess a trip to New York in the 80s convinced him that bright colors were the way to go, and his later stuff is brighter and seems less fitting to me, but sometimes the juxtaposition between the dark and the bright works perfectly. Hammerstiel believes that as one of the few survivors, it's his duty to record the history through his art; here's his quote:

I overcame the life of a rat in my childhood and youth; many of my friends were
tortured to death. I often herar their warnings at night, I ought to do
something for them, I am the one who survived and I am responsible for ensuring
that we do not forget.

Anyway, some of my favorite paintings were "Tragedy, Dignity and Finally Bread," a triptych that reminded me of the stories I've read about smuggling into the ghettos, and "The Conversation," which depicts and kid standing in the shadows, overhearing a conversation of two adults. Obviously there's more to both than that, but I guess if you're interested you can look it up.

The Oberes Belevedere (I think) had a painting I liked by Josef Danhauser called "The Game of Chess." It depicted a young woman beating an older man in chess, and in the background was a sculpture of Omphale and Hercules (because Hercules was Omphale's slave). I like when art depicts women in control... doesn't happen enough.

On my last day in Vienna I went on a tour of the Parliament. The tour was given in both German and English, which they do a lot here, so you just kind of wait while the guide is speaking in the other language. On the German/English tour I did of the synagogue, the guy would keep his explanations to about two minutes before switching to the other language, but the woman giving the Parliament tour was all about the long stories. In German. Seriously, the German part would always last twice the time the English would last. I feel like I should have gotten it for half-price.

And finally, the Haus der Musik. It's this really interactive museum where you can do things like add sound bytes to the "Brain Opera," this strange amalgamation of sounds and music that you compile with big computer chips generated by visitors throughout the museum; conduct your own virtual orchestra; and create music based on your voice. As for the brain opera, one way to generate sounds is through a word association game. I think my words ended up being Bush, Monkey, Force, Head. But it's their fault because they said "evolution," which clearly made me say "monkey." Then when it looped around again I couldn't help but say "Bush," and in the end I had Bush Monkey Force Head. Apparently that's my subconscious.

Now, Florence, but I don't have much time.

I got here on an overnight train at about 6:30 a.m., so after checking into a hostel, I figured I might as well get an early start on the day since I'd read about long lines getting in to some of the places. I got to the Galleria dell' Accadamia before it even opened, and was in the first group that was let in to see Michaelangelo's David. I was kind of expecting a similar experience to the Mona Lisa, where it's been played up all your life and then you get there and think, "So that's that." But in reality it was amazing. You turn into the second room of the museum and see it at the end of this corridor, towering above everything else that lines the walls leading up to it. The detail is so precise and amazing; you can see the veins on his hands and feet and the creases around his knuckles. I also read that if you stand in the same position he's in, with a sling over your shoulder the same way, your muscles will react the same way Michaelangelo sculpted his. It's pretty amazing to see.

I also saw the Uffizi, which I guess is one of the most famous art museums in the world. It has the work of all the Ninja Turtles, and a lot more. Unfortunately I was so tired after the overnight train, two other museums, the Duomo, and an hour-and-a-half wait throughout which the two people in front of my in line made out non-stop, that I could only spend two hours there and wasn't taking much in.

Anyway, I've gotta get this thing posted before this place closes. More from Florence another time...

Political/social stuff no one else is interested in...

I feel like the comments are stopping... You people should do something about that.

OK so I've been talking to different people, and learning, you know, things and stuff:

1) Foster care in Hungary
The foster care system in Hungary is even more fucked up than the one in the United States. A lot of kids are placed in these dormitories (the girl I was talking to kept referring to them as colleges, but I think this is what she means), places that make group homes look like livin' it up. Some kids live there from birth until they turn 18, and this is often not because there's no one who wants to adopt them, but because there's so much red tape that kids constantly get lost in the system.

At these dormitories, one nurse has 20 kids/babies to tend to, and this is the closest thing to a parental figure that any of the kids grow up with. There's a similar teacher-to-kid ratio, and I got the impression that they all go to school together instead of being integrated into schools with kids in normal family situations. I didn't have time to ask too many questions because the bus was leaving. In any case I'm sure these schools get about as much funding as my toe.

Anyway a huge segment of kids who can't get adopted are gypsies, the largest minority in Hungary and the most discriminated against. There are about 10 million people living in Hungary, and half a million of them are gypsies. But gypsies are often poor, many live without water and electricity, and people tend to stay out of their parts of town.

2) Healthcare in Hungary/Poland
Doctors in both Poland and Hungary generally get paid shit. But in France at least, money is still among the benefits to becoming a doctor (the other is prestige). Since France has universal healthcare, the way these doctors make money is through tips. Huge tips. This means if you have a $20,000 operation, you tip $5,000. If you don't, next time you get sick... well, just don't get sick again.

That's why there's a push to privatize healthcare in Hungary, to reel in the money-grubbing doctors, but we all know that presents a whole new set of problems.

So basically, it seems that even with universal healthcare, the poor people are the ones getting screwed. I feel like the system in England is better, though... UK Paul, any thoughts?

3) Education in France
Teachers in France who work in the poorer public schools actually get paid more than the ones who work at middle-class schools. Initially, that sounded like a really good idea to me because I thought the bad schools might be able to retain good teachers and sort of narrow the gap.

But it doesn't work that way.

The young teachers generally work at the poorer schools because that's the only job they can get, and then they move on as quickly as they can. Since salary is based on a sort of sliding scale (similar to how they do it in California, with increases based on experience and education, but in France it also takes into account the neighborhood of the school), young teachers are able to move to wealthier schools and not lose money because their salary increases with experience anyway.

In France you get your first sort of degree at 14, then at 16 and then the high school diploma at 18, and at the poorer schools only about 5 percent of kids even receive the first degree.

So...
I guess that's it for my social issues. I'd elaborate more but a) I'm limited in time, b) I don't want to bore you *too* much, and c) I don't know all that much about this stuff, since all my conversations have been relatively short and I couldn't learn everything I wanted to.

But if you're interested (haha), you can always look it up and tell me more stuff.

And finally...
I never told my arriving-in-Budapest story and I feel it merits a short blurb.

I took an overnight train from Prague and arrived an hour late, which stressed me out because for the first time this trip, someone was actually meeting with me at a tram stop. I hate doing this because things always go wrong and I'd rather have as much time as I need, since there are always delays and I often run into problems when I get into a new country.

So I got to the train station, all stressed out and grumpy anyway since I never sleep well on the overnight trains, and I needed to withdraw money from the ATM. Hungary uses forints and I was coming from the Czech Republic, which uses crowns. Well the first ATM I found, on the train platform (I knew that was too easy) was locked in a glass box. Then I found one downstairs, but it spit my card back out at me and said I couldn't use it since I wasn't a customer of a specific bank. I finally walked a couple of blocks out of the station and found one. But at this point I was so flustered that I wasn't thinking straight and couldn't figure out how much to withdraw (one forint is about 200 dollars). Suddenly I felt pressured to choose an amount, so I pushed a button and immediately became terrified that I'd withdrawn the equivalent of 1,000 euros (I hadn't, but it took me a few hours before I was sure of this). Now the thing about ATMs in Europe is they tend to give you the Biggest Bills Possible.

So now I had a 20,000-forint bill.

I waited in line at the ticket booth for the metro, placed my 20,000-forint bill in the little spinny thing that allows you to pass things through the glass window, and acted out "one ticket" for her. She promptly pointed to the bill, spun it back to me and sternly said NO, or whatever the Hungarian equivalent of 'no' is.

I tried to tell her this was all I had, but she a) didn't understand and b) didn't care. So I then tried to act out, "Where can I get change?" But she just kept saying NO and then punched some numbers into her calculator, apparently to show me NO. After telling me NO a couple more times she brushed me off and called for the next person in the line, which was not a short line.

Well, I was frustrated. And grumpy. And at this point very, very indignant.

So I bitched her out. Screamed at her, cursed at her (of course, she understood none of it, and still really didn't care), and in the course of my little rampage spun the spinny-thing as hard as I could while yelling "FUCKING BITCH!" and really hurt my nail.

Then I stormed off.

And was actually so stirred up that it took about 20 minutes (about as long as it took for me to figure out where to get change) to become really embarrassed by how ridiculous I'd been. I actually tried to change my appearance when I went back again half an hour later to buy my metro ticket with a smaller bill, but she'd been so indifferent throughout the whole process that she wouldn't have recognized me anyway.

So that's my story...