The plane from Syracuse to Chicago has just pulled out of the gate. The safety instructions have just been given and we’re taxing toward the runway.
It was quite a relief to get here and get moving. I’m feeling unreasonably happy and excited to have my trip to Europe underway. The last couple of months have not been the most exciting for me—with the “studying” for the bar—and I’m glad vacation time has finally arrived. Platypus (my backpack) and I are off to Europe.
We’re here! We arrived at 8:45am this morning at London, England. I met Rosie right at the baggage claim and everything went smoothly. We took the “tube” (London’s subway system) to our hotel off the Victoria exit.
The tube system’s trains are about the size of D.C.’s metro, but they are older and dingier. As we were traveling through the countryside places didn’t look much different. Houses are a bit older, but if you glance real quick you can almost believe you’re on the Q train traveling toward Manhattan.
After arriving at the Victoria station we dragged our bags the 10 block walk to the bed and breakfast (give or take 5 blocks of getting lost distance). We were unable to check in so we left our bags and went trekking for food around the hotel.
The parts of the city we saw were rather similar looking. All the houses (which seem to be called “mansions” here, regardless of their diminutive size) are built generally the same from the same type of white stone material. The main avenues have lots of places to shop—mostly for women’s shoes and clothing—but few places to eat and even fewer places to eat that are air-conditioned. After walking for about 45 minutes, we turned back and ate in a fish and chips restaurant near the hotel.
The weather here is hot, without the reprieve of AC in most places including our hotel room. The shower felt good, however, and Rosie and I are getting ready to take a walking tour of some sites.
I am still unreasonably happy and optimistic and only a bit jet-lagged and hot. The 2 hour nap we just took has taken the sting out of our prior miserable existence, and I am looking forward to walking a bit. Platypus still needs to be lightened, but I’ll worry about that when we leave the hotel.
Last night we went on the Jack the Ripper tour in the slummy area of London. Our tour guide, Roy, was a very English looking and sounding chap, complete with the white moustache that ran into his sideburns. While he looked and sounded like I’d imagine such a tour guide would, the tour itself was a little long and unexciting. The facts about Mr. Ripper, however, were as interesting as they were disturbing. What is it with human’s fascination with serial murderers?
After the tour we ate in a styling Italian restaurant near Victoria station. The food was rather good; especially because by then I was completely famished. Everything does seem to be a little more expensive here when you take into account the 1.7 exchange rate. Our projected budget of $50/day has been blown these past 2 days—Rosie has been told, however, that in London you should expect to go over budget, so we’re not too worried.
I am currently sitting in a courtyard overlooking the Tower of London. I was very tired this morning and did not join Rosie in going to watch the changing of the guard at 11:30am; although I did manage to get up for breakfast, only to return to bed for the rest of my well-deserved sleep—my feet have never thanked me more. Rosie is about 30 minutes late now. I’ll giver her another 15 minutes and then go to the Tower.
I’m again waiting for Rosie, but this time I’m outside the Westminster Station, which opens right out into Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. Let me catch you up on yesterday’s travels.
I eventually met up with Rosie outside the Tower of London. The name of the place is a bit of a misnomer; it should actually be called the towers of London. Inside the Tower are lots of little towers each decked out as a museum. We started our exploration (after paying the requisite ₤7.50) with a guided tour given by a Yeoman (also known as a Beefeater—they have 22 years service in the military before they can become a Beafeater. It turns out that our jack the ripper tour guide was also by day a Beefeater). The tour was quite good and brought us through the major history of the tower, which included plenty of torture, execution, and intrigue, with a sprinkle of history.
After the tour we went on foot to explore the rest of the complex. The towers, which consisted of the white, bloody, jeweled, etc. tower each housed a different exhibit. The white tower held the armory and was supposed to hold the torture devices (but they were in the shop for repairs—you know how worn the rack can get if it doesn’t get the proper maintenance, e.g., removing the clumps of skin from the rope). Contained within the Jewel Tower was England’s crown jewels. After a 45 minute wait, the jewels themselves were….
Sorry for the interruption, but Rosie made it to the station and we were off to the Abbey. More about that in a bit—as I was saying, the jewels themselves were magnificent. The jewel hilted blade used during the crowning ceremony was beautifully wrought and sparkled incessantly in the light. Some of the crowns were completely covered in small diamonds ad had huge diamonds as their centerpiece. Although I must admit I didn’t want to wait on the line to see the jewels, it was definitely worth the wait.
The architecture of the tower was not what I expected. The buildings were built up at different times and while impressive, don’t seem to flow properly together. The high walks and water gate entrance (also known as traitor’s gate) stood as an eerie reminder of how different times were and how difficult it was to live in a kingdom controlled by a monarch and a church gone made with power.
Except for the lack of torture implements and the incredible soreness left in my legs after touring the entire grounds, the visit to the Tower of London was enlightening and enjoyable.
After finishing with the tower we headed off for dinner more than a little famished. We ended up in an American-style bar for burgers and beer (they used JFK pictures and American flags as decoration—hence their claim to an “American” style bar). The food was decent and their leather couches made for an excellent rest period after the day’s journey.
We hung around the bar for a couple of hours and then headed for the Bank Underground station for a guided hauntings tour. Our guide brought us through parts of London where ghost stories and rumors had formed. Besides giving an uninspiring rendition of the ghost stories—he was an interesting actor but failed to tell the stories in a way that would make them scary—he also whoo’ed us with amateur magic tricks. Probably the most interesting part was his accusation of one of the tour members of being a witch and his attempts to burn her at the stake at the end. While the tour was entertaining, it lacked a spark that could have made it realistic and spooky.
When we finally figured out how to get home after the tour—the underground is under construction and the easiest route was closed—we stopped at a 24-hour café and had drinks and some pastries. We then went back to the hotel and after talking about some common friends and high-maintenance girls, I fell asleep.
I went to breakfast this morning at 8am and then went back to sleep until about 11:30am. Of course, my mother would be having a hissy-fit if she learned that I spent half a vacation day asleep instead of seeing every possible site—but to each their own. Rosie went to St. James cathedral in the morning and went to Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guard, which she said was interesting, but incredibly crowded; she had not seen it yesterday because it is only shown once every 2 days.
As I mentioned earlier, I met Rosie at Westminster station. As I later came to realize, the tower housing Big Ben (the bell not the clock is known as Big Ben), is not the tower of Westminster Abbey, but of St. Martin, which contains the parliament houses in the back. We walked down to the Abbey and waited 30 minutes and paid ₤3.50 (thanks to our student IDs) to get in.
Inside was tomb upon tomb upon tomb of at-their-time famous people. The monuments, statues and plaques were added in anywhere and everywhere with no particular ordering. The puzzle-like crypt contained, you guessed it, dead people with words explaining their accomplishments (such as being a mother of a monarch) and their devotion to god. While in its pamphlet Westminster Abbey claims to be a devotion to God, inside is more a devotion to dead people, with incredible statues with gold leaf carvings and a distinctly crypt-smell.
After leaving the hall of dead people, we headed to the British museum, which is on a stop of the underground. We ate in a little “deli” outside the museum. The sandwiches they gave us were even smaller than the ones served at the Syracuse Law cafeteria. The meat and desserts, however, were quite tasty. The British museum closes at 5pm and we got there at 4pm, so we weren’t able to stay long. We did get to see the ancient Egyptian (read as mummy) exhibit, and the ancient British exhibit (standard museum stuff).
We left the museum at 4:50pm and made our way to Kingsbridge so Rosie could to go to Harrods. While she’s there, I took a walk a couple of blocks away to Hyde park, where I’m writing this entry while lying on the gras with my shoes off under a sparkling tree.
Rats, roaches and sardines all squeezed in tight,
move to the right or they will push and fight.
Double circle of red slashed in the middle;
to travel underground you space out little.
Tourists all stand in a crowd, gaze and gasp,
watching as locals an chaps whisk on past.
The tracks begin to rattle and light is seen,
off in the distance is the train’s shrill keen.
Doors fly open, we push and run inside,
lunge for a seat before a change in tide.
The train begins to lurch, the scenery pass,
one stop then another as crowds start to mass;
The heat and your sweat slowly down it pours,
with a lovely odor wafting next door.
Transfer to green, red, purple, and to blue,
arrive at your station and get your due.
Ticket in machine, and then out it pops,
eyes on the wall or you’ll miss your stop.
Your trip is all done and your pounds are paid,
break for the sunlight and watch the parade.
We’ve been in Oxford for the past 2 days now. Oxford is mostly—actually completely—a college town, centered around its many colleges, which are collectively known as Oxford University.
More about the university in a bit, but first I have to describe how we got here. On Thursday morning we checked out of our B&B at 10am and took the tube to the airport, which is about a 45 minute ride. It was rather uneventful, and the crowds heading in that direction were not too bad, which was surprising. After getting to the airport, we went to terminal 1 and went to Eurotravel (or something like that). After all the hidden charges, the rental is costing us about $25/day each. After the bus took us to the lot, we picked up our car. It’s a Rover, a medium sized 2-door sedan. Rather nice, except for the steering wheel being on the wrong side. Rosie drove the car from the airport—it was quite frightening, and only got worse later on.
The trip to Oxford is about an hour by car. In about 40 or so minutes we got to the outskirts of Oxford. We drove around aimlessly and lost for about 15 minutes, and eventually stopped in a gas station to buy a map. Rosie was definitely not comfortable driving on the wrong side and barely missed clipped parked cars on the left—barely, that is, until she successfully....
….clipped a parked car, side view mirror to side view mirror.
Sorry about the delay, but lots of things happened. To fast forward a bit, I’m now sitting on the floor of a hostel-and-breakfast waiting for my turn to take a shower in Inverness, Scotland.
After Rosie clipped the mirror, we argued a bit and I took over the driving. We parked and after walking a bit found a nice B&B. We settled in and caught a bus into town to explore the city.
As I was saying earlier, Oxford is a college town that is packed with tourists during the summer months. Most residents either bike or take the bus, which is privately owned and run by a couple of different companies (which seem to share similar paths and prices).
The colleges in Oxford are spaces apart, about a 5-15 minute walk. After paying the requisite fee (from ₤3 to free), we walked through the colleges. Their lawns are gorgeous; sort of like Wimbledon or a really nice golf course. The town is a shopping bizarre with at least 2 Oxford university stores per block.
In one of the free colleges, we were able to watch a drama class practicing an acted out poem. No different here, education-wise, then any other class I’ve witnessed; except, of course, for their funny accents.
We explored Oxford for that day and half of the next day, leaving for Shakespeare’s birth place at around 12pm.
Stratford-upon-Avon was an interesting town. We had hoped to catch a Shakespeare play there, but the only tickets they had left were for standing-room only, and Rosie didn’t want to stand for 3 ¼ hours. We did visit the house he was born in, his granddaughter’s house, and his doctor-friend’s house, all for the affordable price of ₤6.50 (read as around $11). The history of Shakespeare was interesting, as was the old furniture and paintings. For another 50 pence we were even able to see the spot where Shakespeare was buried in his hometown church. While the theories on his education was interesting, and the actual writings were cool to look at, the overall Shakespeare experience seemed like a good way to suck tourists’ pockets—and there were plenty of pockets to choose from. The town that rose around the birthplace has all the shops and restaurants one could hope for—all in celebration of one of the greatest writers ever—one would think.
After having a light dinner we hit the road for Scotland. We tried to get a room for the night at Edinburgh, but all the B&Bs were booked. At 11pm we made a fearful choice: we decided to spend the night sleeping in the car. This choice was made partly because of the ₤30 we spent to fill the car’s gas tank ¾ of the way (i.e., $50 for ¾ of a tank). We pulled over to a rest area and spent a fruitless 5 hours trying to sleep in the glaring parking lot lights, with me in the passenger seat, and Rosie in the backseat under a tent of blankets.
At 6am we washed up and headed for Inverness, the home of Lochness. The ride took about 4 more hours from our sleep-spot. After showering we’re going to explore this seemingly unfriendly and cold area of Scotland.
I’m now in a hostel in Isle of Skye listening to Rosie bitch. She left her Bath and Body works soup at our last B&B—which isn’t as bad as what I did, which was leaving my soap and shampoo at two B&Bs ago. But let’s catch you up on what happened between Lochness and now. (I have to apologize for the last journal entry; I don’t think I was of sane mind—lacking in sleep and all.)
Inverness was a cold and dreary town. My first impression of Scotland were not good ones. I had hoped it would b ea fairyland type place, only to be hit with the cold—very cold—reality northern Scotland is not a very nice place during the summer, and an absolutely miserable place during the winter.
While exploring London and the other English stops, I had felt my throat grow a little soar, which I blamed on the dryness of the climate. After we slept in the car, however, the soar throat blossomed into a full blown cold. You know the type: soar throat, runny noise, and stuffy and painful head. As of today, the cold has gotten a wee bit better and alternates between being completely gone and rearing its ugly head.
Back Inverness. In my sickened state, it wasn’t a very good exploration. We visited a castle (probably built during the middle s�’s) which had “the life of a Scottish officer” type motif. It was pretty cool. Different people played different characters and explained what life for a solider under the King was like (e.g., the women were called “Baggage” because they traveled at the rear and had about as many rights as the baggage did—the Sergeant actor took advantage of this in a humorous tirade).
We drove back to town and had a large and quite delightful 3 course meal at a local restaurant. The soup really hit the spot and about an hour later I was asleep (around 9pm), only to be awoken at 11:30pm, 1:30am, and 6:30am respectively by noisy neighbors and a large throbbing in my stuffed up head.
This morning we hit the road and went west to the Isle of Skye. The weather took a surprising turn for the better and the sun, with all its glorious warmth, managed to peek through the clouds and offer us some thankful reprieve from the biting wind.
The bridge connecting mainland Scotland with the Isle cost ₤5.70 each way to cross (around $10). The Isle is as beautiful as the highlands north of Inverness, with sparkling blue waters and grass covered hills barely covering jagged rocks. Spotted along the landscape are white sheep, which look like floating cotton balls moving about an evergreen carpet.
Before crossing to the Isle, we stopped in Eilean Doven castle, which is a rebuilt castle based upon the ancient castle that once held the shores. The exhibitions were interesting, although the furniture and decoration were geared more towards the 1930s (when it was rebuilt), than the original furnishings. What was especially clever was the recreation of the 1930’s kitchen, complete with plastic food, full-sized wax people and even plastic mice and roaches, to add that homey look.
Once we settled in our hostel, we took a drive down to the town centre and got directions and made calls. I made reservations at a “riding and trekking” place so we could fulfill my dreams of horseback riding in the highland of Scotland. I did finally get in touch with Eileen. Because of the time difference, I’m usually busy at the best times to call home (at around 3pm it’s the middle of the day while its 10am home). Anyways, I did finally get in touch with Eileen—everything is okay at home.
The horseback ride was incredible. The weather was decent and the sun managed to stay out for most of the ride. We only walked the horses and that occurred mostly on the roads, but once we got off the roads it was awesome. If only I had brought my sword….
We also visited another castle—Dunhil Castle on the west coast of the Isle. After sneaking around for a while, we were able to get in and see the outside of the castle and the gardens for free (the ticket office had closed). It was fun just to save the ₤4.80, and the castle did have a great view.
After a so-so cheeseburger dinner I’m ready to hit the sack and head to Southern Scotland, and then leave Great Britain. Too many Brits and Scots can get on anyone’s nerves.
Ugh. I’m falling behind on my journal writing, but I’ve been pretty busy lately driving, site seeing, sleeping, driving... you get the idea.
I’m currently sitting outside the King and Queen’s Bath in Bath, England. Before I describe this city, let me recap what’s been going on since last I wrote.
After leaving....
Sorry for the interruption, but I went on another tour.
I’m now sitting on a bench listening to a guy playing a saw with a violin bow. Strange, huh?
As I was saying, after leaving the Isle of Skye, we took a hellish drive to Edinburgh. We got in pretty late, around 6pm. We parked and went to the TiC (tourist information center). I was not in a good mood, having driven for over 5 hours (we switched off on driving, and I ended up going through this very hellish part with lots of sharp turns and very narrow roads). We were looking for some cheap place to stay the night, but it was very crowded in Edinburgh and the best we could do was a B&B 25 minutes away for ₤22.50/person.
After making the drive to the B&B and getting lost along the way, we finally arrived at the farmhouse. It wasn’t a traditional B&B, but instead this family (with 3 boys) rent out their guest rooms for 3 weeks in August during harvesting season. The house itself was huge, with a guest bathroom the size of a big bedroom, complete with duel head shower and warming pipes for wet towels. The beds were soft and squishy (marshmallow beds), although it was a little cold in the bedroom, the hospitality of the hostess far made up for any deficiencies in the heating. When we moved our stuff in, the day started looking better.
We decided to rest that evening and went to a local movie theatre in the outskirts of Edinburgh. We saw The Matrix in a private theatre, with assigned seats and a rather small movie theatre screen. The day was just about better when it took us 45 minutes to get to the B&B or what should have been a 15 minutes trip.
The next day we went into Edinburgh, which is the capital of Scotland. During the month of August they have a festival with thousands of professional and amateur plays, musical performances, and displays. While we didn’t have time to catch a show, we did get to see some impressive street performers and walk through the sites and streets of Edinburgh. It is a rather large and, at this time of year, crowded city, with a large castle in the center built into a volcanic depression. We spent a very enjoyable day exploring.
At around 5pm we left Edinburgh and drove for Bath, England, which is on the south, western tip of Great Britain. After a not too bad 6 ½ hour drive we arrived here and promptly fell asleep in a room we had booked in the YMCA.
We’ve spent this entire day exploring the sites of Bath, which included the Roman Baths and delightful street performers, like our friend the talented wood saw performer.
This morning there was a solar eclipse that was visible form Bath. At 11:20am the sun was almost completely covered by the moon. Regrettably, it was cloudy and we weren’t able to see much except the sun’s image through the clouds. A little further east in France the eclipse was total. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait another 30 or so years for my next opportunity.
I seem to spend a lot of time sitting and waiting, especially when it comes to finding lodging. I’m currently sitting on the stairs outside Amsterdam’s visiting information building watching our stuff while Rosie is waiting in line trying to get us accommodations for the evening.
After leaving Bath two days ago, we drove down to Salisbury, which is in the southwest corner of Great Britain. The drive took about two? Hours or so and was a straight shot out of Bath. After arriving in Salisbury, we found a nice B&B for the evening, dropped off our stuff and headed out to Stonehenge.
Like everything else in that bloody country, Stonehenge cost ₤3 to see (approximately $5). Once there, we were able to walk around the stone pillars, but not touch or walk through them. Even so, it was an impressive sight. Awe inspiring and curious. The guided electronic tour gave little insight into why it was made, but the view was enough without the inanely chatty electronic interpreter.
After visiting Stonehenge, we spent the night reading and resting, preparing for our travels. We left Salisbury and headed for London to drop off our car and take a train to begin our crossing of the channel to mainland Europe.
We dropped the car off in Heathrow airport, took the underground to Victoria station and caught a train to Dover. From Dover, we got on a ferry and crossed to Calais. The ferry was rather impressive with 4 different restaurants, at least 10 shopping stores and a number of lounges, all for ₤12, discounted with out Eurorail pass.
From Calais we took our first Eurorail train to Lille, France. This is where we ran into problems. We attempted to call head to something, Belgium to get a room for the night, but all the places listed in our Let’s go Europe book were booked. After much deliberation, we decided to chance it and attempted to get on the train, but thanks to a broken time display, we missed it.
We then looked around at the local hotels for a place for the night, but after seeing a number of hookers coming out of them, we hopped on a train for Antwerp, Belgium, where we found a seedy hotel to stay the night in. After a McDonald’s lunch the next morning, we took the Eurorail to Amsterdam, where I am currently sitting outside the TiC waiting for a place to drop off our stuff and begin exploring.
Greg is flying in tomorrow. It’ll be nice to talk with someone other than Rosie. As long as I can resist my homicidal urges for less than 24 hours, everything will be fine.
March, my friend. March.
Through the flood of people jigging to the dance of coins.
March and stop and look and jig.
Plead, beg, dismiss, and haggle.
March, my friend. March.
Through the market of fleas.
Waiting for Greg and Rosie to return from the Airport. I enjoy these hours alone more than when I’m with people, it seems. This morning I saw the Anne Frank House. Moving, inspiring, and yet relatively simple. They were doing major renovations, but I didn’t think it needed much more to be just as powerful. Simple views, simple words, and incredible situations, especially if they’re real, seem to inspire the best in people.
After Anne Frank’s house, we headed for a 30 min. walk (thanks to Rosie’s great map reading) to the Rembrandt museum. In there were 2 floors of his sketching and etchings—against, his house was being renovated, so I didn’t get to see it. After that, I wandered around the open flea market and then took to the streets.
I found this incredible fantasy (dragons and wizards fantasy…there are plenty of other, darker fantasy shops about) store. It had figurines of dragons, wizards, trolls, weapons, and jewelry. Truly a great find.
If and when they get back, we should be heading to the other museums.
Returning to the saga that is my life…. (I guess my friends will have a chance to vicariously live through me for a while.)
We left Amsterdam at 6pm and jumped on an overnight train to Prague, Czech Republic. In the train there are 3 sleeping classes: beds, couchettes, and chairs. Being the frugal type, we picked the chairs for $3/person. The ride was from hell. It was impossible to get comfortable in the seat, and even when you did get comfortable a conductor or police would bang on the door to check passports and tickets, about once every hour, usually when you’ve just managed to doze off.
We did meet two interesting people in the car (there are 6 seats which are 3 facing, 3 in a closeable compartment). The first was Derek, an American from Nebraska. He started the trip with us and hung out with us when we visited the castle and had lunch today. The other was interesting German woman—around our age and studying to be a pharmacist. It’s amazing how everyone in Europe is at least bilingual, and usually can speak 3 or more languages. The German girl gave us a running commentary on tourists and her country, which was rather interesting; especially on American movies.
The meeting people on the train was nice, but the poor sleeping arrangements convinced us to pay the extra $40/person from now on for beds.
Once again, as soon as I arrived in Prague, I hated it. I was tired after sleeping only around 2 hours and I just wanted to rest. We booked a hotel and then arduously attempted to get there. After 3 failed haggling attempts with cab drivers and a miserable attempt to use the train, we finally caught a cab to the hotel, which is a nice, quiet, clean, and comfortable location.
The locals that we’ve spoken to have come across as rather rude, especially the information people at the train station. I have a feeling, however, that the rudeness stems from their insecurity in our language and inability to understand us—either that, or they’re just plain rude.
After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we met up with Derek to explore the cathedral and castle. The cathedral is incredible. Part of it was built in the 900s, and the main part was started in 1100 and took 500 years to complete. It’s quite an amazing architectural achievement. The main hall tower you can climb up a spiral staircase to the very top, about a 20 minute climb. It’s quite nerve-racking because there are no landings, just continuous stairs—I’d hate to see what would happen after a misstep….
The view from the top was incredible. The entire city can be seen, along with the fabulous architecture of the rest of the cathedral and castle. After exploring the cathedral and parts of the castle, we were awfully hurting for sleep and a shower, so we had a quick bite (scratch that—that bite was had before we explored. We paid $30 for a 4 person meal with desserts. Wait till you hear what dinner cost us). We returned to the hotel for rest.
At around 6:45pm, we headed to find a restaurant for dinner, and what a dinner it was! Hard liquor to prepare the stomach, a pre-appetizer ham, ostrich, and cream roll, frogs legs appetizer, a duck dish, and desert (not to mention beer, water, and sodas) for 1000kc, or $10/person. During the dinner, Greg and I got into a heated debate about Genius (as applied to painters like Van Gogh) and objectivity. The debate quickly became a silly argument that had more the feel of an abortion debate than a true, philosophical discussion, which is sad. I haven’t had a good philosophical debate in a while.
We’re off to the hotel for my well-deserved rest before I pass out right here.
Stomach tubes far behind left juices churning in throat opening void.
As air rises and below land falls, mortality question for obedient muscle’s falter.
Swimming feet in lakes of slimy residue and legs quiver
thanking muscles of goo, one foot over the other to chant inspiringly vigor.
As thoughts and memories coalesce, and danger and weakness are forefront brought,
memories of falls and jumping fantasies overcome the sensible foe.
Predictions for Rosie’s husband: Sandy brown hair, green eyes, 33 age of marriage (Rosie or him), Hernando named, or something like that, and currently living in Wisconsin.
So much to write since my last real entry. I’m currently in Budapest or Istanbul—or something like that. My head is pounding and my nose is running as I sit in this outdoor café, after having ditched Greg and Rosie, in this rather warm day. Before I go into my miserable existence, I must write my thoughts about our second day in Prague, especially with respect to the Jewish Quarter.
Before going there on Tuesday morning, though, we went to the Old Town part of the city. This part was very much like the other shopping districts of other countries. It had lots of stores, a large portion of them being US chains. I walked around Old City myself for a couple of long and uninspiring hours.
After Old Town, we went to the Old Jewish town, had lunch, and began our exploration of the Jewish Museum of Prague.
We started our journey in the Spanish Synagogue, which was the nicest of the synagogues, with respect to alter design and layout, that we visited. This synagogue was not a working one, as most of them weren’t, but did begin the running commentary of the plight of Jews in Prague, as well as display old Jewish artifacts. After the Spanish synagogue, we went to the Maisel Synagogue, which just continued giving the history of Jews in Prague and showing old paintings and artifacts.
After leaving the Maisel Synagogue, we entered the Pinkas synagogue, which was reworked as a Holocaust remembrance memorial. Upon entering, a brief numerical estimation of the Prague Jews that were killed in the Holocaust is given on eight different signs in different languages. The signs are posted in the open courtyard that leads into the synagogue.
Upon entering the synagogue, you are struck by a disheartening and moving site. The introductory pamphlet describes how the names of Holocaust victims are inscribed on the wall, but that knowledge does not prepare you for the full brunt of what you’re about to see. The first room contains approximately 8 walls, upon which are inscribed in painstaking calligraphy an alphabetical list of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. Each entry contains the family name of the victims, followed by their first name, a grid location of where they were living before the Nazis came, and their date of death, or last known date that they were seen alive.
Each walls’ inscriptions is in the shape of a large tombstone, which is rounded on top and straight along its left and right sides. The calligraphy is done in black letters with red letters signifying the start of a new family name or person.
It’s not the single wall that sickens and saddens you, but it’s the wall upon wall and room upon room that grates on your humanity. As you walk through the 4 or so rooms of wall upon wall of these names, it becomes increasingly difficult to see straight and comprehend what is being shown to you and what it means. The soft praying that is pumped through the loud speakers is interlaid with the reading of the names of the victims. The prayers and reading add to the incredible atmosphere of sorrow, regret, and creates a deep gulf in your mind that yearns to be filled with an understanding of how this could happen.
It does not end there. Going up a little staircase on your left as you leave the wall of names brings you to a room that defies explanation or description. During the war, 10,000 Jewish children were interred in Terezin, which is a concentration camp outside of Prague. Out of these 10,000 children, 8,000 were deported to the East. And of those 8,000 children deported, only 242 survived the wartime suffering, i.e., came back alive. At the top o the stairs is a room filled with the children’s drawings that were made during their interment in Terezin. They are for the most part crayon drawings on yellow construction paper and water color paintings on white paper. There is no way that I could describe what it was like in that room. No mere words could paint a picture of the sorrow and incredible sadness that wallops you upon entering that room. I had to leave a number of times before I could stay in there long enough to truly look and read their stories.
The Pinkas Synagogue houses in its back the old Jewish cemetery, which contains thousands upon thousands of Jewish gravesites, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. They are impacted so closely together—the gravesites, that is—that there’s barely any room between them. It is a long walk around one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the world.
After writing this entry, my current problems don’t seem as important or worthwhile to report. I’ll therefore put off my desire to go home RIGHT NOW for another time.
Not much to report today. I did get a chance to truly explore Budapest, Hungary, and I must admit, first impressions don’t do it justice.
While the country is not nearly as cheap (eating-wise) as Prague, it nonetheless has other beauties. Freedom square is a wonderful sight to behold, with statues gazing down from 100s of feet up and twice life size statues of past kings. The museums and parks near the freedom square are interesting and diverse and very cheap for students. All-in-all, a delightful day.
What made it not start as delightful was our decision to part company to explore places. During dinner, last night, we vented our complaints to each other about what was causing us not to have as good a time as possible. I’ll not bore you with the details, but in summary: Greg and Rosie annoy the shit out of me, which puts me in a bad mood and makes me grumpy around them. I’m not placing blame, but after much discussions it was decided—or shouted at least—that we shouldn’t explore cities together. With that resolution reached during our heated discussions yesterday, Rosie and Greg, after getting showered and ready this morning, informed me that I should meet them at the hostel at 7pm, without leaving me the book or any of our maps. After 2 hours of exploring, I finally found my bearings and began a delightful day of self-exploration, in the external sense.
I’m glad this happened; although I wish they had told me yesterday that it was a sure thing so I could have read the Let’s Go Europe book before they left.
I’m currently sitting in a nice Italian outdoor café and my soup has arrived. Bon Appetite.
Raspy roars summon red-lined clouds,
which overtake bloody thought.
A clarion call demands violence and
the drum’s cadence quickens juices flowing through rivers.
Remembrances of humanity marshal thoughts begging to shine down
as seething primal urges threaten to overtake societal demands.
In a flash of brilliance rationality returns,
leaving behind an empty, helpless dissatisfaction.
Fragments from the first draft:
My mind roars helplessly as a guillotine cleaves rational thought. Where thought existed a moment, a demand for warm blood fills its beheaded void. When does the sullied blade reward the helpless passenger whose trip is answerable to the calls of beast? But once clouds dined in red chase away vision and fill its blinded vessel with ringing thunder.
I’m currently on a train heading toward Salzburg, Austria from Vienna. Let’s recap what’s been happening.
Vienna was a rather nice city. We arrived two days ago and spent two nights in an overpriced hotel (pension in German).
Once again, we parted our ways after we woke up, which is all for the best. Just sitting near them now and listening to their inane chatter grates on nerves. I wonder if I’m just oversensitive or they’re as annoying as I think they are.
Back to more important things. Vienna had a lot of sites and museums to look at. I walked around yesterday and “took in” the sites. I’m getting rather tired of looking at old buildings and statues and looking through hot and poorly ventilated museums and palaces—even thought Vienna had some of the nicest museums.
Vienna is known for its concerts and opera. I attempted to get a seat for the opera last night, but the only seats (and I use that term loosely because it was standing room) did not afford a view of the stage. Isn’t that silly? Why would you design a theatre that has seats that can’t see the stage? The tour guide at the opera house claimed that when they rebuilt the theater after WWII they kept the original shape because it was the best acoustical layout. Strange indeed.
Overall, I did not like Vienna as much as other countries. Some of this dislike might have been caused by the rainy weather and a slight depression that arose as I was wandering the wet streets of Vienna.
The sun is shining today, so hopefully it’ll be better.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell about how we got Vienna. On our last day in Budapest, Greg and Rosie, as I’ve explained before, left me in the morning ad told me—or so I vividly remember—to meet back in front of the hostel at 7pm. It turns out that what Greg was trying to convey was that the train was leaving at 7pm. In his haste to tell me so he wouldn’t feel guilty, he told me incorrectly what time to meet. He now claims adamantly that he told me to meet at 5:30pm and even has the audacity to insinuate that I had purposely come late—in the Greg, I don’t really believe this because I don’t want to be confrontational but this is what I think anyway. In retrospect, I would have appreciated the situation more had he been right and I had purposely done it.
I’ve wasted enough paper complaining and explaining this situation. Suffice to say, I doubt I can remain friends with Greg after this trip. Anyone who can’t trust me and always has to believe he’s right—in that Uncle Serge way—is not worth remaining friends with. This hopefully will be the last time I write about them in length; I think my journal deserves better.
One last thing. After failing to get theatre tickets last night, I decided to go to a movie. As it turned out, “Star Wars Episode I” was opening this weekend, so I was able to see it on its second day in English and without subtitles. The movie theatre was like American ones, but seats were assigned (and cost different for different locations—comparable prices, thought) and there was no AC (surprise, surprise).
The movie was much better the 2nd time and the audience did not get up until after the credits had rolled through, which was weird.
We’re pulling into Salzburg now, so I’ll be signing off.
Hanging in a black oozing sky
floats a brilliant point of night.
Over mountains shadowing blue
glaring down battered sight.
Multitudes glance across its shine
failing to notice its soft sigh.
Yet few do stare and heed its call
and follow to learn chains in time.
And when one does feel lessons learned,
and accepts the untold truth
then fate dost intercede a hand
to impress being’s short turn.
Got a monster headache today. We left Salzburg this morning for Munich, Germany.
Salzburg was a nice small city in Austria. It’s claim to fame—at least to Americans—is that the music competition at the end of “Sound of Music” was based and filmed there during its summer music festival.
The highlight of the city—according to the guidebook—is the castle situated on top of a hill. Although the term “castle” is inadequate to describe it. It’s more of a fortress. It overlooks the town and the fifteen minute climb to its base is more than a little winding. The inside of the castle is the same as all the other one’s I’ve visited: empty and stony.
The city around the forest is small but rather crowded. Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart, and they like to remind you of it at every possible turn. After visiting the castle and wandering around for a bit, I took the rest of the day off and took a nap. I need more of these quiet rest periods.
The train ride to Munich was uneventful. Once I arrived, I dropped off my stuff and headed for Drachau Concentration Camp Memorial.
The memorial site itself is free to enter. Drachau was more of an actual concentration camp rather than a extermination camp. It was the first concentration camp opened and served as a model for all the later ones. While only approximately…
Sorry about that, but dinner just arrived. As I was saying… 20,000 were killed at the camp, the place had an eerie presence. I was not as moved by its contents as I was by Anne Frank’s house or the synagogue in Prague, although, when they showed the movie explaining what happened in the camp, I did get teary-eyed. I’m not sure if my lack of reaction was caused by having seen it so many times now—like my boredom of seeing a majestic castle or beautiful church—or because the Jews only made up a seemingly small percentage of Drachau. Either way, I walked through the grounds, as a disinterested surveyor, barely acknowledging what had happened or how it should affect me.
I just finished my meal at a restaurant outside the Munchen (Munich in German) train station. We’re leaving tonight on a 8:30pm train for Rome.
I spent the day touring the ancient part of Rome, starting with the Coliseum and working into the center city with the help of a tour guide.
Rome itself is the dirtiest city I’ve been in in Europe. Its subway cars are covered with graffiti and the street cleaners pitiful attempts at cleaning the streets are no more effective than cleaning a rug with a fork.
The sun today was brutal, with the temperatures climbing at least to the 80s if not higher. My suntan is moving along nicely, though, and I figure another couple of days exploring Rome and I’ll be ready to hit the beach.
The history and architecture of the ancient Roman sites were extremely interesting. The pictures painted in my mind of Rome at the height of its power with polytheistic temples rising and soaring over the legal and business buildings were quite inspiring. I’d like to do some further research about this epoch and use it as a basis for a novel. I’ll let the idea stew for a while and see what develops.
Where once giants walked the earth and lived in statutes of marble, where citizens, born and conquered, raised eyes to the divine multitudes and lowered necks to chiseled law.
Where the great Caesar conquered and became a god and paved roads all led to his temple where aqueducts the size of stadiums and coliseums were built for the glory of blood, death, and entertainment, lies but rubble and half forgotten chalky memories.
Dear Diary,
I’m feeling kind of crappy now. Not the sick crappy—I got over my sickness a couple of days ago and now only have stuffy-nose occasionally—but the angry, depressed crappy. Part of it was caused, I’m sure, by the overpriced swill I had for dinner here in Rome. I had previously said I wouldn’t eat in a restaurant that had a tourist menu, let alone eat off that menu. I guess I had a case of temporary amnesia because I did both. I also ordered a glass of house red, which turned out to be worse than swill, perhaps pig goop? (It tasted like watered down grape juice with a shampoo after taste.) Excuse me a second, Rosie and I are trying to plan our trip to Greece. (She just went over to check with Greg—it seems hard for her to make decisions without his say so now-a-days.)
Oh, she’s left. I didn’t have any evil thoughts about her while she was here—that’s not completely true. Back to my musings.
I was seriously considering cutting this trip short and flying home soon. My main argument for this is why spend money when you’re not having a good time. I’m not saying I’m having an awful time, just read the previous pages for countless refutes of that, it’s just getting worse as I get more tired of the traveling and bored with the same sites, different places. I spoke to Steven today—Moms is going to be thrilled with the phone card bill, I’ve been racking up the minutes…err…hours lately—about his trip, which was also 7 weeks. He mentioned that he was getting tired in the middle and Greece really relaxed him so he could muster up enough energy to finish the trip. He also very much agreed with the relaxed wandering approach to touring that I enjoy—not that I needed his approval, just as a showing that different people travel different ways.
Seeing as we’re leaving Gregory tomorrow, I’m hoping his ill-effect on me will leave as well. I truly regret the day I mentioned to him that we should meet up in Europe. This past week has been nothing more than a they-verse-me adventure. I guess I’m just a horrible person and Gregory is always right—or something silly like that.
Once again I’ve slipped into a discussion of my ex-friend. I was thinking today, something I’ve had a lot of time to do lately now that I’m on my own, about my other arguments with my friends: more specifically my “breaking-up” with Romy and the gang and Steven. I looked for some common themes and I came up with the realization that I must be a pain-in-the-ass to be around, probably something to do with my moodiness. After a little more thought, however, I realized that this was not entirely true, no matter how easy it sounds. Besides my hobbies and things my friends and I have in common, I’m not much of a talker. I don’t mind going an entire trip staring out the windows in silence. Will mentioned that I’m very abrupt on the phone. And in a way I am if I have nothing to say or nothing that I need to know. I’m not sure how this relates to what I was talking about, but Gregory and Rosie’s main complaint seemed to be that I didn’t talk much in the morning and I was grumpy. Albeit, I’m not a morning person, although I’m not sure how this has anything to do with the price of corn in Kansas.
Looking back on my friendship with Gregory, it seems all we ever talked about was basketball and school. Little wonder it wasn’t meant to last. Even so, it saddens me that it had to end like this. I have little doubt that the ending was caused by his stubbornness and desire to make everything a win-lose, blame contest. While I enjoy competition, and have been to say, “did you win?” when talking about a life activity, competition is not the end-all, be-all for me as it is for Gregory. I think the thing that truly pain me is that I haven’t and won’t get a chance to say this to his face. He is too much of a coward to talk to me and I’m too civilized to talk bad of him.
Enough bitching—someone reading this would think I was in a relationship with Gregory.
I did get to explore some of Rome today, although I mostly walked a lot and didn’t get any where of note. We leave for Greece tomorrow, and we’ll se how that goes in the AG era. But have no ear, we’ll return to Rome after Greece so we can meet up with Rosie’s friend. It seems an awfully long way to meet someone, but so be it.
I’m currently traveling from Rome to Berdessi where I’m hoping to catch an overnight ferry to Greece. I spent this morning on lines to get tickets for this excursion, getting yelled at by 7 annoyed, rude, and bored train ticket people (the strongest possible argument for the privatization of the train system) and searching for Rosie who, by my seemingly always erred calculation, as 45 minutes late after spending this morning exploring Rome with Gregory and his diving friend who arrived two days ago. Rosie and I haven’t civilly spoken since I finally found her at the train station, and, if I have anything to do with it, we won’t later either. (I’m sounding much more vindictive these days.)
I am looking forward to a relaxing week on a Greek island. Depending on how tonight and tomorrow goes, I might forego the tourist route and spend my days and nights relaxing instead of sightseeing. I’ll play it by ear when I get there.
It was better when the fire of voices were suppressed;
when moments affected me with cold calculation.
When anger, hatred, frustration, sadness could be held at bay,
at little more than the cost of happiness and love.
When only tidal forces could breach my fortress,
and, once breached, would wash away the receding water.
Rational thoughts were clouded less, and rages were few,
except with blood—when built up gases would explode forth on those most familiar and least deserving.
It was better when emotions were suppressed because of memory of pains;
when personalities could be pulled over my face like a poorly fit mask.
When lies and truth mattered little to me,
and each was exchanged for little more than a passing fancy.
But with worse comes happiness and love,
and isn’t the fire of voices but a small price to pay for truly living?
I’m now in Greece, reclining on a beach chair and listening to an amoeba shaped pool filled with drunken 20-somethings while my shoulders are shot with pain every time my shirt rubs against my newly sunburned skin. But it was a good day.
After taking a rather nice train from Rome to Berdissi (still in Italy), we boarded a ferry for Confu, Greece. Rosie decided to stay on the ferry to Presso (or something like that), which is only a 3-hour bus ride from Athens. I was never happier getting off a boat and into a new place—even though the new-city blues hit.
At Steven’s suggestion, I took a bus that brought us to “The Pink Palace,” which is a cross between a resort and a youth hostel. While the rooms tend toward the hostel look—as do the people staying here—the amenities are very nice and include breakfast, dinner, and my own room with a shower for $30/day.
Today I paid for an excursion to a couple of volcanic rocks about 10 minutes by boat away. From the rock I snorkeled, parasailed (really from a pier close by), and jumped off an approximately 50’ cliff. The worst part of the jump was the climb up the volcanic rock—very unnerving and while not terribly difficult, it does look and feel that way, especially when your knees are knocking and you’re unsure if your Tiva will slip or hold the edge. Once up there, it’s just a matter of stepping off—a much easier prospect than attempting to climb down.
The snorkeling was most excellent, especially once I got the hang of breathing through my mouth (the instructions were nonexistent). The reef around the rock was alive with fish and reef creatures. I definitely want to Scuba dive one of these days.
The parasailing was also fun, although it was rather anticlimactic after the cliff jumping. Except for the loss of circulation in my legs caused by the straps, you can almost believe you’re flying free—an amazing feeling.
Now, on to why I picked up my journal in the first place. I don’t understand why I’m not like these people in the water. Granted, I’m a couple of years older than them (for the most part), but even throwing the clock back those years, I still would not be in the water guzzling beers and talking about inane topics like travel and the respective countries they were raised in. I think a lot of it has to do with the mating game, or at least the one night stand game. I’m not really interested in that, but I’m looking for a real relationship, not sex on the first night.
But it must be more than that. More than my shyness or my relationship desires. I’ve heard (probably in a couple of movies) the line “he has an old soul.” That’s how I’ve always felt. I’ve never felt comfortable around people my age. I’ve never felt the desire to share in their jubilations or small-talk rituals. I’ve attempted it many times, I’ve joined in their drinking fiestas—I’ve attempted to talk like they do, do the crazy things that they do. I guess I’ve been a failure at this part of my life—a dismal failure.
Unfinished
The pool is filled with bubbles a sparkling, bodies a crushing, and beers a spilling.
Drunkards yell and laugh, splash and sing, and drink and wobble.
….
It’s a rather rainy day today on the island of Confu. This morning we had a brief thunderstorm. The thunder was incredible. It shook the buildings for at least a minute before dying down.
Yesterday, I went motorscooting around the island. At first, the novelty of riding the scooter was entertaining, and a bit unnerving. But because of the size of the island, and the 35mph max of the scooter, it took about 30 minutes to reach the corners of it, so I spent most of the day scooting around and looking at beautiful beaches, quaint little towns, and, more usually, staring at the map and the lack of signs and trying to figure out where I am and how to get to where I want to be.
Because of the rain I won’t be able to spend the day on the beach like I planned. In a way that’s good because my sunburned shoulders and back can get a nice rest from the pounding sun.
Tomorrow at 6pm I’m off to Athens for a day and a half stay before hopefully catching the boat back to Bindisi, italy.
It’s amazing how different people find relaxation through different means. After 3 days of various relaxing activities, it took playing basketball today for three hours for me to finally fully relax and feel good. A little swim in the late afternoon in the crystal clear ocean after the weather cleared up, followed by a 2 hour nap in the shade next to the Jacuzzi and then basketball, and now I finally feel fully relaxed. Not sure how long it’ll last, but I can always hope it’ll last through the next 3 weeks.
On a bus from Confu, Greece to Athens. Met some nice people on here so it shouldn’t be too bad—all 12 hours o fit. This trip would be much more enjoyable if I met more people. The B&Bs and hotels we stay at do not create the opportunity to meet other travelers that hostels do. That’s really a shame.
I’ll definitely miss the incredible blue water of Greece. When the ship’s propellers froth up the water, the white froth turns the blue water the color of a swimming pool. Normally it’s a clear dark blue through which you can make out the bottom if its 20’ away. Absolutely amazing.
The Pink Palace, where I spent the last 3 nights, was a nice place to visit, but its way too party-al-night geared. I’m not really looking for that, but I was looking for the relaxation which I did get. I would have liked to have left yesterday night, but this is the first bus out. Onward to Athens!
I’m currently in a McDonalds somewhere in Athens. The bus ride last night (and this morning) wasn’t overly horrible; at least there were no police checking our passports every hour. I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep here and there. Of course, we arrived an hour earlier than had been planned just when I had finally fallen into some sort of slumber, at around 3am. The bus dropped us off at a hostel. Being in a tired stupor, I asked for a bed in the “dorm” room (read 4 bunk beds in a room) accommodations. Through all the moving, foul smelling pillows, and endless creaking of beds badly in need of oil, I managed to get another couple of hours of sleep.
After getting up this morning, I realized what a rat hole I had been sleeping in. But I guess you really shouldn’t complain for $12/night—that is unless they don’t have hot showers, which they didn’t.
After getting up this morning, I wandered the neighborhood around the hostel looking for a bank that would tae my ATM card—after 3 hours of wandering lost and looking for the hostel, I did manage to pay and begin y trek through congested, polluted Athens.
That’s how I find myself somewhere in Athens trying to navigate the crooked streets to find some sties on this hot day. Cheers.
I’m feeling a little better now. I’m seated in a nicely shaded outdoor restaurant. It’s a little on the expensive side, but I feel I’m worth it, especially since I’m only spending $12 tonight on my rat’s nest hostel.
I visited the Partheon after another 3 or 4 hours of wandering. It was, not surprisingly, ancient rocks with some structure, a couple of columns here and there, and a museum of plaster filled statues dating back to the ancient Greek age. I guess some people call this the starting point of Western civilization. To me it was more of an ending point for traditional Greek culture.
I’ve figured out why I’m not incredibly impressed by these sites: what interests me is not the ruins or grand buildings of past times, but the civilizations that erected them. The stones and even the tour guides say and know very little about this. But just imagining what it must have been like to live there—experience a different culture, not just a different country, but a different time period. That would be something to write home about.
Less than three weeks and counting—daily.
Here I am writing again—this must be some record for most entries in a day. This will go for in my study of my mood swings.
I’m currently sitting in Victoria Park in Athens. It is perhaps a tad larger than Bedford Park in Brooklyn and according to the tour book, it would qualify as a rarity in a park-free city.
Dinner was excellent. Once again, you get what you pay for (it was around $24). What was especially nice was the clean and well equipped bathrooms. It’s amazing how using a clean bathroom makes you feel human again.
After getting past the Ancient Greek ruins, this city is like most other European cities. It’s crowded, and yet has some interesting touristy and local stuff. The tour guide describes it as a city that no one falls in love with. That describes just about every country I’ve been to. Go figure.
What has also improved my mood is the purchase of another novel for less than $20. It’s a Stephen King book, so it should last me a while. I was beginning to doubt my sanity without a book to read.
Here I am again, crossing the Mediterranean sea on my way back from Athens to Brindisi. I just finished an overpriced dinner in the ship’s cafeteria and I’m beginning to relax in the bar area, which has not become too smoky—at least not yet.
I’m beginning to become convinced that Coca-Cola is poisoning these Europeans. All of its drinks—including it’s Sprite/7up and orange—have twice the caffeine I’m used to. I’m getting wired just drinking a can or two and water is just not looking appetizing anymore. Evil co. indeed.
But to more important things. I’ve done some thinking today that I’d like to try to document. There’s not much else to do when waiting in train stations, ferry embarkation lines, and trains—although I did meet more cool people at the hostel and train station. I can see how traveling could be fun if you meet new people everywhere you go instead of seeing the same people—i.e., Rosie and Gregory—everywhere you go. It’s almost pleasurable to travel.
As an aside, the Australian young people, of which I’ve met a number lately, all seem to take a couple of years off right around “uni” (college) to travel and work in Europe. They’re away for 10 months to 3 years, working some of the time and spending the rest traveling. A totally different outlook. They explain this hiatus as something to do before starting real life, a way to experience more of the world, earn some money, and gain experience. Different. Different and strange indeed.
On to my musings. I was noticing today as I was actually talking to people—which as you’ve probably surmised from my previous journal entries, is not a common occurrence—how mundane and silly connections (i.e., small talk) really is. I’ve always claimed it was, but after “studying” it over the past few days, I now have empirical evidence. Connections with travelers are always the same. Here it goes:
Hi! Where are you from?—Wow, I’ve always to go/been there, loved it. How long you been here?—And in Europe?-Cool (or the home country’s variety). When do you go back?—Bummer. Can you believe—(insert jokes about hostels, unfriendly locals, travel stuff (e.g., hygiene, heavy bags)). Have you been to _?—How was it? I’m going there…, etc.
You get the idea. Repeated for every person who enters the room. Of course, once these preliminaries are out of the way, the general small talk is over. It usually involves weather, plans for day or past days, common acquaintances/experiences, etc.
From this I’m beginning to see that it’s not the conversation that’s important or meaningful, but the social interactions. You generally don’t learn much from these conversations, but you usually walk away feeling good. I guess it can be explained as a basic human pack reaction, but I think there may be more.
When I read the Celestine Prophecy (not worth the read as a novel, but it does have some interesting “New Age” philosophies—if you can get past the writing), there was a-—sorry, had to get something to drink. I even managed to resist the caffeine laced drinks, although even the “lemonade” was Fanta (read Coke) and I’m sure was laced with the drug. I’ll kick it yet!—-section about the exchange of “energies” when people talk, communicate, are near each other. In a way, when watching a group talk together, you can almost see the flows of energy. They come out through laughter and the sense of good feeling when everyone is sharing—even about inane subjects like sports or gossip. Strange, huh.
Not sure where this line of thought leads, but it does explain why I’ve missed talking to people over the last couple of weeks. Talking with oneself—and I’ve certainly done enough of that lately—is never as fulfilling. Hopefully that’ll change—the loneliness, not the fulfilling part.
It’s been a while since I’ve had time to sit back and journalize. After the 20 hour ferry ride from Paras (past 3 hours from Athens) we took a couple of trains through the night to end up in Sorrento, Italy, at around 7:30am. After napping, we visited Pompei, which is a medieval 2000 year old city that had been buried by the eruption of a nearby volcano. It’s incredibly preserved (for an ancient city at least).
As I was saying—I was getting rather tired of writing on the train. I’m currently in a pizzeria in Rome—Pompei was a very interesting site. Its preservation is incredible and you can almost see the wagons and Romans walking down its stone paved streets.
Wes stayed in a nice and expensive hotel in Sarrento, which is about 40 minutes from Pompei and is a mecca for shopping and a jumping off point for ferries and buses to other parts of Rome.
Rosie and I discussed what happened between me and Gregory. Not to waste much paper, I don’t terribly dislike her, although I doubt I’ll ever talk to her after this trip.
On a night as blue as a forever rain,
spinning winds of fate in a web spotted drops,
walks a beauty drawn chiseled force and damaging bearing.
Not a beat of heart or a blink of eye passes
before his tumbling heart falls before her sculpted feet.
As his blood ceases to pump and
fields of cotton sprout on his tongue
their eyes meet like in a choreographed show
All of time waits the darkening sky,
the lady judges and weighs—
he smiles and casts his wager as hope’s spring splashes his quivering lips
As the coin flies through the air and
fate’s web slowly coalesces,
another dream passes before the crooning sky.
I’m more than ready to go home. Every word or giggle of Rosie’s grates upon my frayed nerves. Definitely time to blow this place.
Damn I’m moody. I’ve managed to survive another day without running to the nearest airport and flying home. After hitting Pisa, Italy yesterday (the one with the leaning tower) and then heading over here to Florence, where I’m currently sitting on a shady park bench writing this entry, I’m feeling slightly refreshed. Of course the 11 hour sleep might have had something to do with it. I’m not sure how long this will last, though. My main argument for staying seems to be: what the hell would you do at home? Watch TV? Play video games? And: when’s the next time you’re going to get a chance to be in Europe? Deal with it.
The first argument is the same one that’s been used on me to convince me to go out to bars when I’m sure I won’t have a good time. Not surprisingly, it occasionally works, and you know what? I usually don’t have a good time. As for the second argument, while it’s true I’m here, it doesn’t mean I have to see every fucking thing in every mosquito-ridden country.
We’ll see how the day turns out. It’s a beautiful one here in Florence. Sun is out. It’s not too hot. Although I’m not sure how I’m going to survive the next bout of let’s-go-home-atosie. I might yet be jumping on a train for Rome and flying out of there. Guess only time will tell.
I apologize for not writing about the sites I’m visiting, but while some of them are wonderful, I’ve gotten sick of saying: that church was awesome. It doesn’t do it justice and seems a waste of ink. But to summarize some favorites I haven’t written about:
The Partheon in Rome was awesome. It was build around 10AD and is a huge domed Pagan temple (which, not surprisingly, has been converted into a Roman Catholic church—why do they ruin all the cool sites?).
I mentioned Pompeii before, but forgot to mention it was awesome. Leaning tower of Pisa was cool; although it’d be a hell of a ot cooler if it would have fallen while I was staring at it.
I’m making a break for it. The bloody towel has been thrown in the ring and I’m headed for Milano with dreams of leaving this part of the world for home soon. Not sure if I’ll be able to get on a plane today or tomorrow, but I’m praying it’ll be soon.
Not soon enough! I’m currently in the air en route to Paris and then JFK, NY! We just flew over the French Alps—beautiful, snow-capped mountains.
I met an interesting fella at lunch at the airport today. He was an experimental physicist working in a lab outside of Chicago smashing particles together at high speeds. Who knows—a couple of different twits and turns in my life and I might have been just like him.
Looking back over the last 6 or so weeks I can say I learned a lot on this marathon trail. I saw different countries and sites and re-acknowledged how similar and vastly different countries can be. Mostly, though, I’ve learned about myself and travel mates—regrettably, or perhaps thankfully, not friends. What I learned is difficult to put into words. I’ve spent a lot of time alone and with my thoughts on this trip—when I wasn’t racking up thousands of dollars on phone card calls.
Rather silly, huh?
As we careen over miles of foreign countries with Platypus safely stowed in the belly of the plane, I am feeling quite relieved and unbelievably happy to be heading home. I miss my family and clean bathrooms and beds. But mostly I miss the safety and security of home—being my own boss and not having to carry my life on my back. I began the trip jokingly telling people that I might not be coming back, that I might just find the life of a rootless, carpetbagging vagabond my life’s dream. If anything, such a dream turned out way too nightmarish for me to even joke about anymore.
The inner man hides behind small comments and smaller entertainment.
He grows only when others water and fertilize his fertile grounds.
When left out of sunlight and out of reach of hand and mouth
he must learn to grow as a fungus—without sunlight or tending.
But perhaps that growth is more meaningful;
feeding roots that can be reached through others tending.
And so it ends—flying into Kennedy on a 747 out of Paris. I guess the ending is a little different than the beginning. Endings are funny that way. They rarely occur the way you would have imagined them at the start.
I wrote that I was surprisingly optimistic in one of my first entries. Surprisingly, of course, because I’m an ingrained pessimist. I had hoped for so much on this journey, and I had not met those expectations, but I did receive things I had not expected; emotions that I had not felt in a while, ranging from intense anger, frustration, and loneliness, to extreme pleasure and amazement, a deeper understanding of myself and others, and an intense love of my family, which did not reveal itself until I had been away from them for a long time—graduation I believe was the last time I saw them, some 3 or 4 months ago.
I started this journey in the hope of discovering new countries and meeting new people—I dared to hope I would be more outgoing. I guess I accomplished those goals in a limited way. Although, perhaps meeting new people is reserved for non-moody, less honest and shy people.
Looking back I have my regrets. I might have had a better time traveling with a tour or at least by myself; but whatever might have been, I have to remember, sort through, and appreciate what I had—it has been a memorable adventure and experience.
My first poem, “Flight,” sums it up best: “miles over home and heading toward the light…to mysteries and joy over horizons of night and unspoiled dawn.” True then and true now.
Cheers,
David S. Figatner
September 8, 1999
Aloha from Hawaii—Oahu, to be exact. Julie and I arrived this afternoon from LAX and IAH, respectively. I’ve just showered after one of the most productive post-trip days I’ve ever had. Thanks to Julie, I’ve now learned that while I tend to be lazy (and, yes, I want to write a treatise on the whole laziness—and more particularly the conquering of laziness through the “Izol!” methodology—all to be called, The Lazy Monster. But that’s for another time), I’m not really happy actually being lazy. Actually, what makes me much happier is doing things. And, boy, did I do things today.
(I omitted a four-page tirade on giving up seats during airplane flights. You’ve already seen most of it if you read my short story Loud Neighbors. I’m embarrassed that some of those plane stories actually happened: embarrassed and disgusted with myself. I left in the end, because I found it funny.)
…But alas, I’m an idiot who wanted to show that I can stand up to pregnant woman and make their already difficult job even harder.
After we met at the gate, Julie and I picked up our rental car and after a bit of struggling, we checking into our hotel, changed, ate, and headed for a trailhead with water bottles, a snickers bar, and crunchy snacks. The first part was awesome and tiring—I thought I was going to give up. Lots of steep climbs—it went on forever. The rest of the trip, 30 minutes or so, was all a slight downgrade, for the most part not really as satisfying, but a good warm-up.
We also went swimming in the ocean, a nice warm albeit cloudy, bright blue water. I had forgotten how nice it is to let the water wash over you and carry you where the waves will. We swam near giant sea turtles, not getting too close to avoid missing extremities. Don’t all large turtles snap?
I accidentally almost drowned Julie; that’s not the right word since she swallowed seawater but was never actually in danger. I was holding her and a wave came. It wasn’t too high, so I just stood on my toes, enough to get my head over the wave. Regrettably, I didn’t notice that Julie was beneath me and her head didn’t make. I was still joking about the inconsequential things I write here, when she started coughing. She was fine—just swallowed a bunch of salty water. Good job, eh.
We’re off to dinner in an hour. Very nice day and start to my vacation. I think that’s one of the things I never understood before when I traveled or went on a vacation; it’s about the break and ability (opportunity) to experience something. As I’ve related countless times, a food critic I once read relayed profoundly useful advice: sometimes, the best things in life are discovered when you’re dragged kicking and screaming to them. I’ve decided, however, not to kick and scream anymore on my path of adventure/discovery, or something just as cheesy.
Nice job living and writing tonight. It’s probably the hiking energy and late hour. You are a night owl—just a very lazy one.
Out on my room’s ocean front balcony again tonight. Today wasn’t as hectic as yesterday. We got moving early and went to a park in the northern part of the island that’s closing because of lack of funds. It’s a rather uninteresting story, so I’ll leave it out.
After a 3/4 mile hike, we watched a Hawaiian cliff diving expedition from the top of a not-so impressive waterfall. After the show, we were able to swim in the rainwater lake at the bottom of the waterfall. We jumped off some of the smaller rocks, and, particularly, memorable, climbed up the rocks under the waterfall to jump in. it was rather difficult swimming outside the salty ocean, but invigorating in the heat.
Rather tired tonight, so I’ll leave it at that. We’re off to another great sounding (and probably tasting restaurant).
Beach swimming, hiking almost to the top of the Diamond-top crater—not to mention hiking to the entrance of the park from our hotel, quite a feat. I also just finished the last story in DFW’s Girl with Curious Hair. Strange. I had lots of energy yesterday to write after my nap, but never got around to it. Shocking and surprising.
A lot of sleeping today. The stress of the outside world is trying to pierce the vacation bubble I’ve carefully created. I’ll resist, however. Damn I want to write and stop pretending—one of these days, my good man. One day.
Julie lies to me about distance and time. We’re flying near Alaska, miles away from Asia, and our final destination, Taiwan. “Are we almost there,” I ask. “Not far now,” she says. Never a more dishonest answer than when she tells me this a mere hour into the flight. It’s been a long, grueling day, and it’s not close to finished, but I’m with Julie, and it’s better to be with Julie on a grueling day than without her on an ordinary one. I promised myself I wouldn’t complain about the trip, reporting only on the exciting parts and recording what I want to remember. I’m not off to a great start, but since it’s around 8pm Seattle time, I thought it was time for me to write something down for the day. Here it is.
Empty throbbing thoughts fill me head. That blankness, the one that waits in the middle of the blank page, threatens me. I won’t give in to it. I’ll continue writing and see if I can make anything of this day of travels. Trying to give form to nothingness as Julie slathers slime all over her face. She’s addicted to moisturizing her skin, as I’m addicted to distraction. Without it, she fears she’ll grow scaly; without my addiction, I fear I’ll grow interesting, and not in the good sense.
But I complain and I don’t say anything that’s worth saying. I’m going to let go. Let go of all the bars that stop me from saying what I’m thinking and weaving a story from mere strands of thoughts. It’s the place I find when my mind muddles with caffeine, not for the sake of focus, but for the alleviation of inhibitions. I’ve read more of Fortress of Solitude, a good Brooklyn book. The author (whose name I can never remember—at least not yet), has an uncanny ability to mimicry the past, to summon the spirit of a dead time and show it with all its pimples. Not the remembered glory or the reinvented glory, but a clean and honest possession, as if he was there writing about it only months and not decades after it happened. His voice is strong and his characters stronger. Even his story, a simple one when divested of its surroundings and strange characters, remains true to itself, but never predictable. It is life, from his fascination with obituaries as the reckoning of a person’s worth revealed only when they die, to his exploration of the black and white dichotomy, to his exploration of art through music and movies. He stinks of honesty.
Enough revealing other authors. That’s not why I write this. I write this to find a voice of my own, to tell my own story. I’m getting there. I feel I’m right at the edge, if I can get a push, it’ll come out. I have a great fascination with my potential energy, never enough inertia, however.
The Fascination with Covers
The peeling of the layers of bed for me is ritualistic. It is my nightly preparation for joining a secret club. It should go without saying that the bed must be made. Earlier in life, I did not understand this. Adolescents are not given the capacity to understand why a bed must be made, and adults are not given the capacity to explain it. It is something that must be done upon waking or before sleeping. You prepare the cocoon because it eases the mind. Order does that—it provides a calming influence on all around it, and the made bed is greatly affected by this.
What am I saying? This was not the bridge I hoped to jump off, or the truth I prayed to find. The words seem out of reach tonight, almost within grasp, but just outside. I have no ideas and no ways to explain them. I consternate about writing when I am in that calming space where writing should be easy, childish even. My headaches come and go depending on when I last napped, five minutes or two hours ago.
But that’s enough for today, or tomorrow, or whenever now is.
Someone stole Saturday. I remember Friday morning well because I left my house at five in the morning to make the first leg of my trip, SEA to LAX (when flying, you can only talk in code). And I vaguely remember Friday afternoon, with all the waiting for and then seeing Julie, but I don’t have any idea what happened to Saturday. All I know is that when I arrived in Taiwan, it was Sunday already. I’m writing this late Sunday night, so I don’t feel guilty posting this as a Saturday posting, but that doesn’t excuse what happened to Saturday. I might have to put on a reward to find the missing day.
It’s warm in Taiwan, around 70 degrees Fahrenheit when we landed on almost Sunday. The weather reminds me of Houston. It’s a bit humid and it rained, but the rain didn’t cool the air. Julie and I ventured to a 24-hour HK food place to eat what, for all purposes, was late-night dim sum, which was a good start to eating in Taiwan, especially after the horrendous airplane food. (Yes, I know I said that I wasn’t going to complain, but did you really think that was going to last more than a few paragraphs. This is David we’re talking about.)
Now I have a dilemma. It’s Sunday morning in Taiwan but only Saturday early evening in Seattle. Should I count this as part of the Stolen Saturday posting, or the Sunday posting? Such problems I have. We slept an amazing amount, considering we spent the previous 15 or so hours sleeping on an airplane. I forgot how nice it was to sleep on a bed. You grow accustomed to where ever you find yourself sleeping, and when that’s in a cramped, seated position, you forget there’s a possibility of sleeping horizontal.
Since I’ve already written something, and I’m hoping to have much more to write when I get home tonight, I’ll post this is as my Saturday entry.
We tried to fight it. We planned it all out: we would stay awake, not take any naps, and sleep at a normal time. It was going well as I boasted yesterday. We went to sleep at a respectable time last night, and started moving at around 9am, the right time. Things were going swimmingly (there’s a word you don’t see used much. In my sleep-muddled mind, it popped out. That’s why I like writing while sleepy, I find all these words, sayings, and descriptions that I either knew and used before or always wanted to use but didn’t know it),
We started early, Julie’s parents taking us to the Grand Hotel, which looks like a palace (you’ll see pictures when I get back—my site is limited on the uploading pictures front), a large hotel in the hills surrounding Taiwan. Its architecture and decoration is Chinese, with a large red roof, and a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and city. We saw our first view of 101, the world’s largest building. I pulled down some history to entertain you, since that’s what I’m here for: entertaining the likes of you. On April 20, 2004, Taipei 101 became the largest structure when measured from the structural or architectural top, which includes its spires, but excludes it antennas. (They have a terribly uninteresting debate about how to measure and decide on the tallest structure. People need to get lives, man.) Taipei 101 measures at 101 stories (hence the name, I’m guessing), but is really 106 stories, if you count the 5 basement levels, and rises 1,670 feet tall. We didn’t go up it, but I did get fancy pictures from different angles. It rained and was foggy, so the pictures aren’t clear, but the building is a goliath. In NYC and other big cities, it makes sense to have large buildings. They blend in with the surrounding buildings and while they’re taller, when compared to the neighboring buildings, they’re not oversized. In Taipei, there aren’t that many large (bigger than 20 or so floors) buildings. Taipei 101 is a bright, sore thumb, sticking out of a mostly flat city. It looks weird, almost gothic, and it is huge. But, to be fair, there is a reason for the largeness besides national pride. Taipei, like Manhattan and Tokyo, is on an island where space is at a premium, which creates opportunity to build up instead of out.
We visited her parent’s properties that they’ve bought for their Buddhist foundation’s TV station, which are a few floors in a tall building next to Taipei 101. (The temporal order has been lost, so I’ll just throw down what we did, because of the creamy mix that I find my mind in.) We drove by Chiang Kai Chek’s house, the Palace museum, and Taipei’s version of Universal Studios (mostly Kung Fu movies) but decided, because of the rain and lack of parking, that Julie and I would visit them later in the week and take a taxi there. The drivers, from what I’ve seen, are good, better than I expected (my expectations were that the drivers would be Argentina-skilled, which are horrendous: traffic signals and directions are merely suggestive. I made the insightful comment (after writing that I remembered that all of my comments are insightful, so that makes the adjective superfluous—another great word) while visiting that “tort reform would do wonders for the roads”). Most people in Taipei, especially young people, don’t have cars. Instead, they take out their mopeds to go places. There are scooters everywhere, like bugs on a carcass. They park them on the sidewalks and in the streets, and on main drags—there may be fifty of them creeping to the front of the line, massing for the green, only to be overtaken by the yellow taxis and luxury cars that dominate the roads.
We also went to the Jade market, where, during the weekends, miles of aisles of Jade and other semi-precious rock vendors stake out small tables and yell, haggle, and dance to sell the many customers browsing their green treasures. The negotiations were intense, but we walked away, thanks to Julie’s mother, with an assortment of gifts for the family.
Eating. How can I forget eating? Julie has been telling me for a while that one of her goals is to “fatten me up.” She thinks I’m too skinny, and my face doesn’t look as good when it’s thin. (Can you believe how shallow she is?) She did her best today. We started at a standard hotel buffet. I’m sure you’ve been to these places: eggs, sausages, bacon, pastries, fruits, pancakes, combined with Asian fare, such as Congee soup, a clear broth with rice, with all the fixings, and other dishes, which I can’t remember. There was a lot of food, and it was buffet styles. I’ve given my thoughts on buffet before, and this food fell into the good food category, but I’m sure I didn’t get my moneys worth category. The second time we ate, we went to yet another hotel, this one across from their large condominium (the building also houses offices for the Buddhist association, which they rent out to them). This time, we had the lunch fare. I don’t remember what it was, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry, and although they cajoled me, I resisted. Since it’s around 1am, we’ll probably head to the Hong Kong dim sum place for a late, late dinner. There’s been too much food around me, and I’ve eaten little of it, not because it hasn’t been good, but because I’m a bad eater.
I started this by talking about the jetlag, but I’ve left you waiting until now. After everything we did today, we thought a quick nap at around 4pm would be appropriate. You see where this is going. We woke up around 1am from our nap, and I’ve typing away since then. After deciding I couldn’t sleep anymore without risking a terribly soar back and headache, I turned on my computer to start typing this musing. Julie woke up around then and asked what time it was. I told her it was 9am Seattle time, which, in her sleep-filled head she did the math, and proclaimed, “Great! That means its 5am Taipei time.” After wrenching my mind into some semblance of order, I remarked that, no, we’re not four hours behind Seattle, and we realized that we were paying for violating the written rule of jetlag fighting: “thou shall not napeth during the day or face the prospect of thy sleepethless night.”
I have to go now. Julie wants to eat again. Such a good eater.
We tried to get back to sleep and failed miserably. It is now around five in the morning, and we’ve made the executive decision (since decisions made by executive are usually more interesting) to give up. We’ll probably crash by midday but we’ll cross that bridge when we drive over it.
Instead of sleeping, we read. I finished the first of three books I brought on vacation. Idle time during vacations gives me the latitude to read as much as I want. I don’t know why I don’t feel that way when I’m home. It must come back to the distractions. When I’m abroad or traveling, there are fewer distractions, more time with my own thoughts and things that I want to talk about. When I’m at home, distractions surround me and I have few interesting topics. I wish vacations gave me permission to create, but that would be asking too much. Except for my daily tidings report, I’ve been quiet with nothing wandering the corridors of my sleep-fried brain. I’ll eat some yummy caffeine later in the week when we spend some time in one of the many coffee shops around here and see what pops out.
Quest: write a vignette based on nothing I know by researching. After finishing The Fortress of Solitude, I realized that there was no way the author could have known about everything he wrote (if he did, he’s had one incredibly dense life). He must have done a lot of research. By the way, the book was good, but the first third (it was divided into three sections, the first being the longest and the second lasting only a chapter) was much better than the latter parts. The author switched voices, and the new voice complained too much for the reader, or at least this reader, to enjoy. I now know what Julie was talking about when she mocked the first draft of the FBT and made me change it to create a less pathetic protagonist. The author also developed a music fetish in the later parts, spending countless pages describing the evolution of music, particularly blues and R&B, which bored the hell out of me. But the book is still worth reading, if you’re looking for a beautiful betrayal of childhood in 1970-80s Brooklyn.
I jotted down a few notes of what I wanted to talk about today. Yesterday, a few ideas escaped me during the day. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: I have a terrible memory. I’ll think of an interesting or funny story that I want to share, and ten minutes after I think about it, it vanishes into the ether. That’s why I started carrying around the Moleskin again. Not to write in it—I’ve long since discovered that writing my words in longhand takes too long, with the slow writing and the electronic transcribing, and doesn’t save me anything. Instead of writing prose, I’ve started jotting down ideas that I want to write about. (I think I might have attempted this once before. I seem to have to try things repeatedly until they finally stick—like giving up television, or video games, which I’m still in the process of doing.) The last few days, I’ve had lots of energy to write, but nothing to say. If had remembered any of the clever ideas, my trip description might have been longer and more interesting. Yeah. That was funny to me also. Imagine that: long and interesting. I slay me!
After waking up at 5am this morning, we rolled out of bed at around 8am to start our day. We went to a wonderful bakery where we bought rolls and sandwiches for breakfast, and flavored milk. Until this morning, I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Flavored milk comes in regular milk containers but, here’s the twist, they add a flavoring. This morning, Julie bought Apple Milk and (what we think was) Orange Milk. We weren’t sure about the second one since Julie’s command of the written Chinese language is, well, I don’t want to reveal all her deficiencies, but to give you an idea, she reads Chinese almost as well as I speak Spanish. The Apple Milk (I’ve decided to capitalize the name since it’s so strange I don’t know what to do with it) was quite tasty. It didn’t taste like apple juice mixed with milk, which would have been nasty. Instead, it tasted like milk with an apple aftertaste. It’s hard to explain, but a fascinating experience. The Orange Milk was a little less refined. Its aftertaste was more like the orange drinks that I used to buy in school. I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but the drinks came in small, plastic bottles with a foil top, cost twenty-five cents, and contained orange- (orange colored), or cherry- (red colored) flavored sugar water. If you take that sugar water and add milk, you’d end up with Orange or Apple Milk. My pastry, a buttery scone-type pastry with a yummy chocolate filling, was delicious, as was my fried pork sandwich. They cut the crusts off all the sandwiches, which wasn’t a big deal for me, but since Julie abhors crusts, she thought it was the greatest thing since, well, since sliced bread (I’m sorry, I had to go there—there was a armed cliché guard that wouldn’t let me not go there).
I know I’m focusing on food, but one of the biggest experiences I’ve had so far has been the food. Taipei has, if nothing else, a tremendous variety and amount of places to eat. There are food vendors in carts on almost every block and no two of them sell the same food. While walking around today, we visited an outdoor market, which reminded me of markets in Paris. Storefronts along three long blocks displayed their wares outside the sidewalks. There was raw fish, chickens (and, yes, I stayed away from all dead birds—the NY Times Sunday Magazine article on avian flu in Asia scared the crappies out of me. Luckily, there were no live birds to run away from), tremendous varieties of cooked and raw foods, clothing, jade, chotskys, school supplies, you name it, they were hocking it. I took some pictures, but you’ll have to wait for those as well.
We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets around the condo. There is plenty to see here, since the condo is in a central part of Taipei—don’t ask me which central part, since the geography, like most geographies, confuses me, but there are plenty of stalls, stores, malls, subways, and vendors in the neighborhood. While it rained a bit when we started out this morning, by midmorning, the sun burnt through the clouds and warmed the day into the balmy 70s. We would have walked more but I finally figured out why so many people wear surgical masks while walking around or riding their mopeds. Taipei, while generally a clean city, has an awful problem with pollution. The smoke put out by the mopeds, the cars, and industries clogs the city and makes breathing difficult. The overhanging buildings, which line most streets, allowing the pedestrians cover from the rain but trapping smog, exasperate this. It doesn’t help that mopeds have no problem driving up on the sidewalk to either park or cross traffic, releasing their noxious fumes into the semi-enclosed space. After a few hours of walking, we decided we needed a break. I recommended an oxygen bar, but they haven’t evolved far enough to open those. Taipei is still at the coffee house on every other block stage. (As a side note, the coffee shops appear to have replaced the yummy bubba-tea shops that Julie promised me. We’ve not found one place that sells the tea with tapioca balls.)
Buddhism is an important religion in Taiwan. As far as I have been able to tell, there are no bums or beggars in Taipei. Instead, there are Buddhist monks walking around in their orange outfits collecting money. My theory, and this is just a theory for now, is that these monks, who obviously know Kung Fu since, as far as I’ve learned from Hollywood and Hong Kong movies, all monks know Kung Fu, act as a gang to keep regular beggars off the street. Whenever one tries to make his move on a Buddhist monk’s territory, they meet the fists of fury or crane technique followed by stinging bee. Both the jade market and the outdoor market we visited today had one monk wandering the rows. To be fair, there was a strange woman in the Jade market seemingly asking for money, but since she never got any, I can’t know for sure what her intentions were. If she was successful, my feeling is that the Buddhist monk would have unleashed one of his flying palms of death. Speaking of fighting, there are many Buddhist sects in Taipei, each with its own “Master Teacher,” one of which works with Julie’s parent’s Buddhist association. When I learned there were other Master Teachers—just as in the movies, they always have disciples traveling with them—I began thinking of what happens when two of the Master Teachers get together. I’m sure you see where my mind is going with this. We’re talking epic Kung Fu battles. I’m sorry if all of this appears rascist, culturalist, religiousist, and/or ignorant, but that’s what movies taught me, and who am I to doubt or fight movies’ lessons?
Story idea: From a memory—going to the aquarium, mother gives money; spend all the money on buying gifts for sisters, none left for me. The hard lessons in life and money.
Because of the time difference, I had difficulty determining when to celebrate my thirty-first birthday, either using Taiwan time, which means today’s my birthday, or Seattle—or for that matter, NYC—time, which means tomorrow’s my birthday. To simplify the decision, I’ve decided to celebrate my birthday for two days. That way, whichever one is the “correct” day, I’ll have it covered. I’m thinking of traveling to Asia for my birthday more often (well, I was thinking about it until I remembered the flight. Have I talked about that yet?). Unlike last year’s birthday, this one is unimportant. I’m not sure why decade birthdays have such a milestone feel to them—it probably has something to do with the digits on our hands and feet—but they do. After receiving many AOL-based e-mail greetings (which were quite good—who says AOL can’t do anything well?), I managed to call my family this morning and basked in their birthday wishes. For the record, the call was for their own good: I did not want them to feel guilty for not talking to me on my birthday. This had nothing got do with me and my desire to feel special. Nothing at all.
Getting back to important topics, we slept through the night yesterday, finally shaking off the jetlag that has kept us in a bewildered state for most of our time here. It hasn’t made my trip bad, just dreamy, as if I’m searching for something and can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Thanks to Julie’s parents insisting we accompany them to dinner, we woke up from our ill-thought out late-evening nap and headed to a fancy French restaurant on top of the second tallest building in Taipei. While the restaurant did not revolve, the five-course meal made the room spin a bit afterwards. The food was decent but the décor and view made it an enjoyable evening. Waking up from the nap was painful, but because of it, our time clocks should finally be reset, and you won’t here me bitch about it anymore. Well, at least not until I return home on Sunday. Then I’m sure you’ll hear lots more complaining while I readjust to the right-coast time. Aren’t you the lucky ones?
I jotted down a few more notes to talk about today. They weren’t as expansive as yesterdays, or as interesting, but I’ll get to them in a moment, first a recap of the day. We enjoyed a warm and mostly cloudless day, a bit of a difference from the “artic storm” that descended on the east coast, which resulted in Julie’s sister missing her flight here. We visited the National Palace Museum, which included a collection of ancient art, calligraphy, early writings, jade, pots and pans, paintings, and Buddhist relics. The Palace Museum is located on top of one of the many hills that surround Taipei, and the air is clear. For the first time since arriving, I breathed fresh, invigorating, non-toxic oxygen while outdoors. (The indoor air quality is much better thanks to the many air conditioners, which I’m sure only add to the outdoor pollution.)
While I enjoy visiting museums, there are types of art that interest me more than others. For example, I can’t stand pots and pans, and related artifacts. I don’t know why it is, but every time I visit an exhibit that has a vase, a pot, a pan, or something similar, I begin to look frantically for the door. The same things happen when I see anything ceramic or, and this is the worst, clothing. I’m sure it’s interesting (whatever that means—I read that interesting, like bad before it, has taken on a negative connotation, making my million-definitions for it less probable) to the clothing whores out there, but to me, I can’t imagine a more fitting torture for all the bad things I’ve done during this life than to lock me in a museum housing the entire history of clothing, from fig leaf to space-age jumpsuit, and force me to explore and read the histories until time itself feels pity and halts.
There were many good exhibits in the Palace Museum, including fascinating histories of calligraphy, writing, and early painting, and a wonderful collection of Buddhist statutes. Thanks to the no-camera rules, I wasn’t able to take many pictures, but if you’ve been to a museum with an Asian exhibit, you’ve probably seen a sampling of what the Palace Museum offered. That is, unless you’re a certain Asian studies person, who I’m sure would have found every last artifact of incredible historical and artistic value.
Now, I must talk about the bad part of the museum. I’m not referring to the jade thing-a-bobs or the large collection of ritualistic cook pots (I really can’t make this stuff up); I’m referring to the restaurant. There’s a small, modern coffee shop in the main part of the museum, but if you want to eat, there’s only one place to do it: a small building with the badly lettered restaurant sign. After getting up at the reasonable hour of 8am, we decided to breakfast at a different bakery. Julie once again indulged her Apple Milk whimsy, and while they didn’t have a chocolate filled croissant, I was satisfied by a creamy pastry and another fried pork sandwich. The pork part was completely accidental. I thought it was a fried chicken sandwich, since there’s nothing like fried chicken in the mornings. We brought the food to a nice little park near Julie’s home. Along the outer curb of the square park, they installed large, low U-shaped bars. If not for these bars, the park would have been inundated by mopeds. They’re like roaches here, filling every space along the sidewalks and streets.
After breakfast, as a small birthday gift to me, Julie and I spent many hours reading. I’m halfway through my second book, and I’m beginning to think that I didn’t bring enough to read. We might have to go searching for an English bookstore before our flight on Sunday. The new book, Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a light read. It goes by fast as movies go by fast, with a good story, archetypical characters, and fast-food style writing. It’s enjoyable, but except for the wonderful futuristic setting, there’s not much meat there. There’s something releasing about reading. When I’m in Seattle, I spend many hours alone, and although I love spending time with Julie, it’s hard for me to remedy my needs to be alone with my desire to be with Julie. Reading (and by extension writing) gives me the time alone, even if I’m lying next to Julie doing it.
By the time Julie’s father dropped us off at the museum, it was lunch time already, and we were hungry. The museum restaurant had a mildew smell, which should have tipped us off, but we were hungry. All the servers wore masks, probably to protect our food from their germs. As you’ll see, it didn’t work. We ordered a vegetable plate and a duck dish. The food wasn’t terribly impressive, but we were hungry and finished the vegetables and some of the rice. For drinks, they served lukewarm tea. I was thirsty and figured since the water was boiled, what harm could there be. Innocent are the babes that run through the fields barefoot. Innocent, I say. After lunch we took in all the exhibits the museum had to offer, and decided to take a walk to Taipei’s answer to Universal Studios. We never made it there, but from what Julie and her father said, they filmed many Kung Fu movies in the studio (they weren’t able to tell me if the Master Teachers fought there, although I did, of course, ask), and, this is where during the telling Julie’s father became very excited, they took your pictures after dressing you up in costumes, like a king and queen, or, I’m postulating here, Grimace and the Fry Guy. Halfway to walking to the studio, I felt a rumbling in my stomach. I thought that I would be able to make it to the studio, and I concentrated on that goal. After walking for another ten minutes, I began to realize that (a) we didn’t have a clue where the studio was and (b) I needed to use the bathroom, and I needed to use the bathroom bad. We walked for a few minutes when I made my plight known to Julie. I hightailed back to the Palace Museum, leaving Julie to fall far behind me, and made it (barely) to the conveniently located bathrooms.
I was in there for some time, and Julie, not realizing why I walked so quickly to get back, began to get worried. She was waiting outside the bathroom, and I heard her phone ring while in there. I assumed everything was okay and she would wait there. But Julie, you have to understand, gets paranoid sometimes. After fifteen minutes, she left the bathroom area and began backtracking, thinking I had somehow slipped past her. She was getting frantic at this time (I’ve recreated this part from Julie’s account) and began having crazy thoughts. She was thinking of having me paged, or calling he parents, or the police. Whatever would David do, a white man who doesn’t speak English, alone in Taiwan? While frantically trying to figure out what to do next, I finished my business—and it was a long, painful business. Julie wasn’t outside the bathroom like I expected, and she wasn’t by the Confucius statute outside the building either. I figured she probably went searching for me in the other buildings, and decided to wait her out. It would have been silly for me to wander aimlessly. I knew she’d be wandering since that’s what Julie does, wander aimlessly. I finally found her running up the stairs leading to the building, sweaty and confused looking, waving her cell phone in the air with a worried look on her face. I waved. And an innocent American tourist was saved from drifting through the streets of Taipei without his beautiful Taiwanese escort. Julie has since given me 1000 TK (new Taiwanese dollars) to carry around, and has instructed me, on the off-chance we get separated, to find a taxi and tell the driver to take me to the hotel that’s across from her parent’s condo. She feels better knowing that I won’t be wandering the streets, a confused white-man. What she has forgotten is that I tower over the inhabitants of this fine town. My stomach has since recovered, although it’s been delicate for most of the day. I don’t know if there’s anything worse than museum food. I don’t care what country you’re in. Captive audiences and no competition can do that. Long live capitalism and competition!
While driving to the museum, I observed a few more facets of the life here. This is a young city and it bustles with activity in the mornings. The mopeds are a sign of its youth. There is a great deal of energy when you look at the streets, the markets, and the shopping areas. Those thoughts seemed much more profound when I wrote them down—this was before I spoke about my bathroom activities. Oh, and about the title of today’s musing, it was the name of a Buddha at the museum. I was a little tipsy from the tea’s caffeine and my mouth was running in overdrive as I joked about the exhibits. “Call me Makahala” was (in my brilliant estimation) one of my more clever comments. Julie never did.
It’s late and I’m exhausted. We woke up before 6am—the legacy of jetlag—and we just arrived back at her parent’s condo at 9pm. Luckily, most of what we did is meticulously recorded in our photographs. I only need to add a few tidbits to round out the day.
After eating our customary bakery breakfast, we went with Julie’s mother to a studio to watch her rerecord the introduction and conclusion for a weekly lecture given by the Master Teacher for her satellite television station. The studio had many cool switches and levers, and Julie wouldn’t let me play with any of them. After ten takes of each section, I think she finally nailed it. When she made a mistake or didn’t like the take, she’d say, “NG,” meaning not good. I think it is secret Hollywood talk. In my estimation (since I’m in an estimating-type mood), I thought she nailed it after the first take, but what do I know, she was speaking Chinese after all. When I say ten takes, I wasn’t counting the rewinds when she made actual mistakes—just the finished NG versions. Ten of them. We spent at least eight of the recordings wandering the streets near the studio, where Julie found a shopping area. I dodged shopping with Julie and her mother yesterday by feigning it was my birthday, and she went without me to spend her mother’s money buying a third wardrobe. I wasn’t as lucky today, and while it was still early when we found the shopping area, many of the smaller stores were already opened. Man, I can’t even do shopping humor right tonight. You should give up now, nothing interesting here. I can’t seem to throw my brain into a gear, the engine is revving but I ain’t moving. And, as an added bonus, I couldn’t bear reading it after I finished, so you’re reading a low energy musing with no edits. Talk about lucky! (I think I used that line yesterday.)
We were driven to the studio by two camera guys from the television office. They ended up accompanying us through the rest of the day. One of them, I’ll call him droopy dog, took most of the photographs you’ll see. Droopy Dog spent fifteen years in Queens, NY. Although I assume he spoke flawless English, he was quiet. While the driver and main camera guy was polite, helpful, and easy to laugh, Droopy Dog was the opposite. He grunted and did little. We were able to get out of him that he was very happy to return to Taiwan from the states. Contrast this with a young kid we saw in the evening. He went out of his way to greet me, the white man who speaks English (there we go, while this musing is painful to write (and I’m sure read), at least I won’t forget which language I speak today). He said, “Where you from.” I told him Seattle. “I’m from LA,” he thought a moment. “We’re both west coasters. West coast, represent!” Okay, I made up the represent part, but it was strange how proud he was to be an Asian American visiting Taiwan. He wanted everyone, including the tall white dude, to know that, no, he wasn’t like the people around him, he was from America. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. It’s been a long day.
We ate dinner at a local hotel—Julie’s parents eat many meals at this hotel, which offers seven different dining experiences, ranging from Cantonese to Japanese to Taiwanese to Western to some other stuff I can’t remember—and one of the courses they ordered was Drunken Chicken. Julie’s grandmother made this dish for me before. It’s like chicken soup mixed with a gallon of rice wine. It’s as tasty as it sounds—if you’re an alcoholic. But Julie’s father really enjoys it, and they cook it at the table in the hotel. Being the polite guest that I am, I took a bowl full, ate the yummy noodles, and picked at the chicken. One of my rules of eating is that I believe if food is prepared for me, I shouldn’t have to do work to eat it. I’m willing—not happy but willing—to cut meat where necessary, but don’t ask me to put together fajitas or peel shrimp. There’s a reason I go out to eat, and it’s not to have to prepare my own food. The chicken in the Drunken Chicken soup is on the bone, either small, attached legs, wings, or other various chopped up parts. Not only are they soaking in the rice wine, but they’ve been soaking in it for some time, creating a highly flammable and alcoholic chicken, which also happens to be dry. I nibbled a bit, manipulated my soup so it look like I ate more than I did, and stopped eating it to focus on the more delicious aspects of dinner. After Julie told her mother that I did not want any more chicken because I didn’t even eat the chicken in my bowl, she promptly ordered me a fork and knife, sure that western utensils would make the chicken more palatable. The serving lady didn’t have to look to see where the utensils were going, like it’s not bad enough I’m a white guy.
I woke up with the beginnings of a cold this morning, sore throat and body aches. I sent Julie to search for medicine—she is a doctor, after all, and I figure she should be good for something. She brought back a bottle of children’s Dimetapp. Before I drank the four cups of yummy purple medicine, Julie’s grandmother suggested I eat Japanese herbal medicine. The medicine came in a sugar-sized packet, which, when torn open, looked like a packet of brown birdseeds. The only thing I understood on the Japanese-lettered box that the packet came in was a big C, which Julie assured me, meant the medicine had Vitamin C. I figured that out for myself and asked her what else was in it. Like a good doctor she said, don’t worry, it’s herbal medicine, it must be good for you. Her mother told me to take it with water, but I rarely take medicine with water. When you’re a professional medicine taker like me, water is unnecessary. I tore open the packet and poured it down my throat. The medicine had a pebble-like texture and was terribly dry, sticking to my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I ran to the kitchen and guzzled a glass of water. When mixed with water, the medicine turned thick, cement-like, but I managed to swallow it. It was strong medicine. Less than twenty-minutes later, it knocked out my congestion and me. I woke up an hour later, feeling drowsy, but much better.
Jennifer, Julie’s sister, arrived this morning after a terrible travel experience. She flew from Boston, where she’s attending Har-vard—she’s the smart one of the family. She was supposed to arrive yesterday, but there was engine trouble on her first leg, from Boston to Newark, and when she arrived in Newark, she missed the next leg of Newark to Seattle. She spent the night with her sister, the middle one, Janie, who has an apartment near the U.N., and took the Newark to Seattle to Taipei flight the next day. She’s surprisingly refreshed and awake today, much more so than either Julie or I managed after our much shorter travel experience.
While visiting Shanghai last week, Julie’s father purchased a traditional-Chinese shirt. The shirt is black with black Chinese designs and wide buttons and loops running down its middle. I’m sure you’ve seen these shirts in Bruce Lee movies. Julie’s father liked the shirt and finally had a chance to wear it when we went to the hotel for dinner last night (don’t ask about Julie’s parents fascination with hotel food). When I woke up from my herbal medicine-induced nap, everyone was readying to go to lunch. Before we left, Julie’s father offered me his shirt, telling me that it would keep me warm and stop me from getting sicker because it was made of silk and therefore very warm and light.. (Julie and her parents believe you get sick from being cold. It’s the same belief held by most people in the world. While temperature is a factor on how well your immune system responds to attacks, it’s the viruses and bacteria that make you sick, not the weather.) While it is a nice looking shirt, I knew that I would look ridiculous—check that, more ridiculous—if I wore it. I was already fighting the white-man’s prejudice, and I don’t want to even think what would happen if they put me in a Chinese shirt.
We went to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant for lunch. The restaurant served the foods that the Chinese emperor ate, or at least that’s what the placemats said, and we all know placemats never lie. When we sat down, the waitress brought me an extra dish and a fork and knife to replace my chopsticks; clearly they had dealt with people like me before. All of the waitresses wore cheaper version of the traditional Chinese shirt that Julie’s father had offered me. I’m thinking not accepting the shirt was the smartest thing I’ve done since I arrived.
There were many starter dishes, some good, and some with beans—and by definition, not good. They served the main course in a crock pot with a heating element in its middle burning wood or coal or something. Air would flow in from a bottom element which held the cooking bowl, up through (what I assume) was an empty middle area of the cooking bowl, into a chimney heating element. Smoke would escape through the top, which had a flap over the opening, and ash would fall down the chimney part into the hole in the bottom. (Yes, I remember my deficiencies, but I keep trying to learn to describe things better.) The water touching the chimney heating element boiled, which heated the rest of the water. The soup was an herbal brew, dark colored and rich. The vegetables and noodles that the waitress placed in the pot were tasty, although the clear noodles were exceptionally long and almost impossible to scoop out of the donut-shaped cooking pot.
I’ve been to many countries where I didn’t know the language, but Taiwan is a unique travel experience for me because (a) its culture is different than western culture, and (b) I stick out like a throbbing thumb thanks to my height and whiteness. To compensate for this, I try to emulate the manners of this country as best I can, and look to Julie for help. Julie provided such help by telling me that you scoop the bean paste that came with soup into your soup bowl before eating it, which I happily did. Her parents laughed when they saw what I was doing. You were supposed to dip the vegetables in the paste, not add it to the soup. The paste clouded the soup and gave it a chewy consistency. Julie’s mother called over the waitress to bring me another bowl, which the waitress probably expected, seeing as if I can’t use chopsticks, I clearly don’t know how to properly eat soup.
After dessert, they served traditional sour-plum juice. The liquid was dark purple and thick, and tasted like a slightly sour prune juice, or what I imagine prune juice to taste like if I ever drank it. What was most memorable about it, however, was its distinct aftertaste. Just like prune juice, I never had occasion to eat mothballs, but if I did, I’m sure they’d leave the same taste in my mouth as the juice did.
After a restful afternoon and early evening, we went to Taipei 101’s neighborhood. I viewed 101 when I first arrived, the day was hazy and I saw it from a distance. My reaction was that 101 was an oversized monstrosity that didn’t fit in with the rest of the city. After getting close that has changed. While it’s still huge, I can appreciate its accomplishment and aesthetics more. Taipei 101 has a presence, like a mountain, and at night, when lit up with spotlights and blue-neon lights, it is impressive and beautiful. Even its gothic architecture seems right when you stand at its base.
The area around 101 is newly developed. The building itself isn’t even complete—they are still working on some of the office space and restaurants. Attached to 101 is a huge five-floor mall. Like everything in 101’s vicinity, the mall has plenty of open spaces. From any floor, you can glance casually through the huge openings cut out of the five floors, or stare up toward the ceiling, at least ten stories above you. In the states, a mall that size two days before Christmas would have been packed. Here, the mall was rather empty. I’m not sure if that was because it is relatively new or more expensive than other malls. The 101 mall is attached by a second-story sky bridge to the New York, New York mall. While we didn’t go inside that mall, from the looks of it, it was at least as large as 101. The area around 101 has been completely redeveloped. Originally, the area contained old, one-family houses. They’ve all been torn down and replaced by spacious parks, hotels, malls, and office buildings. What everything around there has in common is its openness and size. That’s what caused the change in opinion of 101. While the surrounding buildings aren’t anywhere near the height of 101, they make up for their shortness by their size and spaciousness.
Now, on to food—since that’s mostly what I do here: eat, eat, and eat—we ate in a Japanese restaurant inside the mall. Julie’s mother chose a seven-course meal—this is after eating a six-course meal for lunch. You can probably tell by the last couple of paragraphs that my brain is moving slowly. All the blood that should be supplying my brain with clever and insightful comments is pooling in my stomach, trying to make some sense of all the food. The problem with fattening me up, as Julie puts it, is that when I eat this much, my stomach hurts as it grows larger. Once I return to Seattle, its going to hurt as much when I don’t feed it as much and it shrinks. That’s why I like to eat the same amount every day—avoid growing and shrinking pains. We’re going to relax for a few hours before sleep time. Jennifer succumbed to her jetlag and fell asleep at around 3pm, missing dinner. We’re sure she’ll wake up in a few hours hungry. If Julie and I are still up, we’ll head for yet more food at the HK-style 24-hour restaurant. Yes. That means more eating.
We did more touristy things today. I would let the pictures speak for themselves, but when we arrived at Cheng Kai Shek’s memorial—think Lincoln Memorial—my camera ran out of batteries. It had something to do with me not charging it last night. My decision was a rational one: we didn’t use the camera much yesterday, and, this is the important part, every time I charge the camera, I have to remove the battery, which, in turn, means I have to reset the date and time when I put it back in. This is a serious flaw in the camera. Had I remembered that the battery wasn’t really charged two nights ago (the charger has a red/green LED indicator showing the charge, but if you wiggle the battery the wrong way, it sometimes doesn’t charge and stays red, which it did two-nights ago). What this means is that in the middle of taking a picture of the ladies in traditional Chinese hats weeding the flowers, the camera stopped working, and pictures of the memorial and the changing of the guards were not to be. So sad.
Julie’s grandmother is making drunken chicken for dinner tonight, and we spent the first half of the day browsing a farmer’s market to buy the ingredients. We took plenty of pictures for your enjoyment. While walking through the market, I felt like I was walking downhill. I could see clearly over the locals’ heads to the far end of the market. I thought that was a clever observation and thought I’d share.
I was stopped in the street today by a university student who had an English assignment to interview five foreigners. I tried to push Julie toward him, explaining that while she looked Chinese, she was really American, but they wanted to talk exclusively to the tall white dude. I acquiesced and provided them with one word answers to all of their questions. My voice has been recorded and I fear that recording will one day surface to haunt me. I knew I should have created a pseudonym, but I wasn’t fast enough. When under pressure, my mind does not work well. Give me a couple of minutes, and I could have thought of clever and insightful comments to all of his questions. But, instead, I had to rely on, “We have lots of 7/11’s too,” in response to his query about my opinion on 7/11’s in Taipei. I mean, really, even if I had thought about it for hours, could I really have come up with a clever response to that? It’s too incredibly depressing to know that 7/11 makes it on a questionnaire by a University student studying English. Is that all we have to offer?
Other than that, I have little else to report. I know this is a disappointingly short entry, but there you have it. I’m off to eat drunken chicken and perhaps share in the chicken’s fate.
We were tourists today, fabulously productive tourists. During our all-day tour, we visited—and here I have to foreworn you that this is an honest reckoning—in excess of three-hundred sites. Or thereabouts. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Since it is the 25th of December, Merry Christmas to those that share that opinion.
Today is my last full day in Taiwan. At around six o’clock local time tomorrow, we head back to the states. I’ll try to give overall reflections on my trip before I leave. I would have waited until the airplane ride, but the seventy-dollar airplane/car/outlet adapter I bought for my computer, which I took instead of my existing outlet-only adapter, didn’t work and my computer hasn’t been charged in days (edit: Julie, being brilliant, realized that my laptop was a Toshiba, and her old laptop, now one of her father’s many computers, was sitting, charging in her living room. I’m happy to report that my laptop is charging contentedly waiting for me to type away tomorrow night). It now houses a few minutes of power. If not for Julie’s father’s fascination with all things computer and his large collection of peripherals around their house—some of which actually work—I wouldn’t have been able to write any of these entries. I didn’t want to wait until I landed at some late hour tomorrow (we’re making back all the time we lost on the way here—you remember, the “Where’s Saturday?” entry), and have to write an entry. I have a feeling I’m going to be very tired when I get home and the only thing that will be running through my simple mind will be, where are my video games, where are my video games. Oh, wait. I wasn’t supposed to say that aloud. I’m trying to hide my addiction, not force people to force me to acknowledge it, or something like that.
Getting back to my day, I took a few notes and many pictures to record the activities. Since I can’t share the photos with you yet, I’ll give you the highlights. The day was coordinated by Julie’s middle aunt and husband, which is how her family refers to her aunts and uncles: little aunt, middle aunt, little uncle, big uncle, etcetera, but in Chinese. Her mother is the oldest of six children, and she has a smattering of aunts and uncles and cousins to keep track of. I met the middle aunt yesterday at my and Jennifer’s birthday dinner (Jennifer’s birthday is a few days after mine). The middle aunt’s husband drove, and I was a little worried about his driving. His gray Camry displayed many dents and there was a part of the front bumper that was missing, as if someone had taken a large bite out of it. Their dog, a bad-mannered but surprisingly quiet Pomeranian, which they brought along in lieu of their children, was too small to have caused it. They found the dog at their doorstep a year ago and took it in. It’s a cute dog who likes the husband better than the wife, which probably has something to do with him feeding the dog. This was the second dog they found and kept from their doorstep. In Taiwan, when a dog comes to you door, it’s considered good luck to accept it. One explanation for this is that if you have a dog, you can feed it scraps. Wasting food is considered a bad thing, which, if you think about it, makes me an awful person. Perhaps it’s time for me to invest in a dog. Getting back to the condition of the car, without a mutt culprit, I figured the damage could only be caused by his driving. The story he told at dinner last night didn’t help things.
Before I tell it, I’ll set the stage. The middle aunt’s husband (he’s not the middle uncle, who is an entirely different person) was given the name Ronald by his English teacher, and I’ll use that to refer to him. (It’s not as bad as his wife, who the English teacher named Fifi—I think they give language teachers way too much power.) Ronald visited the states with his family once, about ten years ago. They’re planning to move there permanently once their papers settle in the next year or so, which is ten years after they first put them in, the papers that is. Part of the fault lies with the real middle uncle, who didn’t tell them for five years that he had made a mistake in filing the papers, but that’s another story. Ronald rented a car and drove while in the states. The first time the police pulled him over he didn’t know what the flashing lights on the police car meant. It wasn’t until the siren sounded that he figured they wanted him to pull to the side of the road. In Taiwan, Ronald claims, the driver gets out and hands his license to the policeman. If there’s one thing you don’t do in the states when you get pulled over, is get out of the vehicle. Although Ronald received a name from his English teacher, he did not receive much else, and his English is not terribly good. Ronald got out of the car and the officer ducked behind the police car door, his hand on his holster, screaming at Ronald to get back in the car. Ronald eventually understood what he was being told, and sat down, his hands grasping the steering wheel hard enough to leave marks the next day. Three more police cars pulled up, and only then did the cop approach the car and collect Ronald’s information.
It gets worse. A few days later, he’s driving with his family on a long stretch somewhere in Middle America, speeding. In the telling, his wife chimes in and defends Ronald by saying speeding was acceptable because the road was so long and straight, how could he help but speed. The police pulled behind him and turned on its lights and sirens. Ronald wasn’t sure if the police car, which was right behind him, wanted him to pull over or one of the other cars, so he weaved in front of the car next to him and accelerated—just to be sure. The police car followed him and he pulled over. After he stopped, the middle aunt told him to get out of the car to pay for the ticket. Ronald said, “No way. I’m not falling for that again.” I like Julie’s aunts—we met the small aunt, an elementary school principal, yesterday for lunch. They’re small, thin ladies with a lot of attitude and a young outlook on life. Ronald was very kind during the tour, staying in the car when we arrived at places where he knew we wouldn’t find parking (there are many such places in Taipei, which is probably why everyone drives a moped), and acting as tour guide and ordering yummy food everywhere else.
In the end, Ronald turned out to be a good driver, but my second impression wasn’t much better than my first. The first stop we made was a coffee shop for breakfast. Upon pulling over, I opened the door and placed a foot outside the door. At that moment, Ronald decided to pull the car forward, to make it easier for us to get out. I thankfully had not put weight on my foot and I pulled my leg inside as he started to roll. Things got better from there, but there were many windy roads as we made our way up the mountains surrounding Taipei, during which I was glad I was still feeling a little sick. It gave me the perfect excuse to close my eyes, rest my head on Julie’s shoulder, and sleep. Better than having to watch him drive the single lane, windy roads.
Unlike some places I’ve visited, such as Norway, most people in Taiwan do not speak English. Speaking English is more the exception than the rule. Julie has done an admirable job translating conversations for me, but I’ve discovered one boon to not understanding what people are saying. I have this thing about small talk: I really dislike it. I can say that now because I did research on it. There was a time when I thought that I didn’t like small talk because I wasn’t good at it, and if I learned how to effectively participate in small talk, I would be a more social person, the world would be better, cats and dogs would live in peace, etcetera. To this end, I bought books on it and researched it. What I discovered, after finishing the research and trying small talk was (a) it’s not too hard; and (b) I still hated it. Julie had a knack for translating only the interesting conversations, such as Ronald’s story. She skipped over the boring stuff, the small talk. In the week that I’ve been here, I haven’t had to suffer through any small talk. Small blessings are all I ask.
Intertwined with our tour today, we spent much of the day, yes, you guessed it, eating. As I mentioned before, and will probably mention again, Taiwanese people love to eat. Today, we ate at least five times. There are food places everywhere, especially in the outdoor food markets we visited. I was introduced to stinky tofu. Julie had talked about this food for weeks before I arrived here. It’s the Chinese answer to stinky cheese, one of my favorite food groups. I am not a fan of stinky tofu. The smell is rather noxious and the taste, it’s hard to explain. It tastes like grilled or fried tofu (depending on how they prepare it) but it has this scary aftertaste. We ate at a dive seafood place near the shore tonight, which turned out to be quite tasty, even forgiving the bottle cap openers attached by a string to each table. A few of the dishes had regular tofu, and while I usually like tofu in my dishes, every time I ate a tofu dish, all I could think of was the terrible stinky tofu aftertaste, and I couldn’t eat it. Perhaps it’s an acquired taste, although I’m not sure I’m ready to acquire it.
And lastly, before I succumb to the Dimetapp I took for my cold—I started sneezing like a crazy man while writing this entry, and had to down my four tablespoon dose to continue—I spoke about a French restaurant we visited on top of the second tallest building in Taipei, and I mentioned that the restaurant did not spin. As we were driving back, the middle aunt pointed out a tall building with a restaurant that did revolve. The funny thing about the building, though, was that the restaurant was not at the very top, but slightly below the top. On the top, you see, was a large garbage incinerator. Talk about yummy dinners.
I have nothing but muddled heads and complaints today. I’m sorry about that, but it’s been a long travel day and other than flying and waiting and flying and sitting, not much happened.
I’m stuck flying 30,000 feet over somewhere. I’m not sure where and I’m not sure why it refuses to end. It’s now almost 11am and I still have another three hours on this leg. Then I have another three hours on the LAX to SEA flight. I promised not to complain, but I’m going to make an exception here. There. I did it. See, it wasn’t that painful. It was just something that I had to do and I think I’m a better person for it. Now, if I can stop my right, front brain from pulsating somewhat painfully, I’ll be able to get things done, important things.
I spoke yesterday about summarizing my trip to Taiwan. I’ve given it some thought, and I’m not sure what I can say that I haven’t already said. It was fun, a bit long for my tastes—after four days, I tend to start missing my home and comfortable bed and the routine that is my life—but it was understandably long. I wouldn’t want to travel this far and stay for a few days. The flight is too damn long. Yes, I know, I did it again.
I planned to edit the Trophy vignette, but I can’t find the energy. It’s still early or late, or I’m very confused. Julie’s family claimed that the jetlag going in this direction was easier. I find that hard to believe, particularly based on how I’m feeling now, but time will tell as it has a way of doing.
I spent the last thirty minutes reading old entries I had saved on this computer, particularly the ones I wrote a week or so before November. I thought most of the vignettes I wrote then were quite good. I have to get back to telling a story every day. But for now, I have to find a way to survive the rest of this trip.
I made it to LAX. I now have to wait to get on an Alaskan airplane to Seattle. The problem with Alaska Air, for those of you lucky enough never to have flown this excuse for an airline, is that their planes never depart on time. There are four to five flights heading to Seattle today. The one that was supposed to have left at 2 (it’s now 4), it was just announced will be leaving at midnight. The next flight, the 4:25 on which I’m on the standby list, just arrived, and it will certainly not take off by 4:25. After over 11 hours on an airplane, it doesn’t much make a difference how much longer I have to wait. I’m content to sit here and read.
I’m wondering what happened to DFW in Oblivion, his newest collection of short stories. He’s one of my favorite authors, but his stories now seem—what would be a word DFW would appreciate—masturbatory. I’ll withhold final judgment until the end. I’m sure he’s waiting to pull a rabbit out of his hat. He does that: makes you read fifty pages broken up into three paragraphs (for the entire fifty pages), and when you to get to the end, you’re hysterically laughing (or crying) as he ties and explains his long-winded story together.
Today was a long day. I traveled to Boise, Idaho for work. It was cold but nicer than I expected. I attended a meeting that lasted a couple of hours, and then the person we were visiting gave us a tour of Boise. Before you ask, I didn’t get to see any potato farms, but I did ask about them. They have farms that run up a river with a snake-like name. The one-hour flight each way was less tiring than I expected.
I hoped to write more. This is the best I can do for today. And, yes, I realize that these entries are becoming shorter and shorter. But I give you monsters to make up for the length, which is caused mostly by my refusal to share my consternations, beyond these introductory consternations. That and I’m not spending the time (or the caffeine) on writing as much as I have in the past. I’ll get back to my old ways one of these days.
***
Rachel waited until the coffee pot filled, and poured the coffee into her mug. She sipped her mug and almost choked as the scolding liquid drained into her stomach. She didn’t stop drinking, though, and finished half the mug before putting it down. Her tongue and throat felt raw. It was worth it. She shook her head a few minutes later to stop herself from staring into space. Work to do and I have no time to dilly dally in the break room. She left the room and walked down the hallway back to her office. She heard another crash, this time closer. She spun around to see if she could catch its source. There was nobody in the darkened hallway.
She listened but heard nothing after the echoes of the crash. That’s it. I’m going to give that cleaning lady a good talking to. Rachel approached the lobby where she usually found the cleaning people speaking Spanish loudly to one another. The lobby was empty and after finding the front office door lock, she knew the cleaning agency had left. One must have stayed late. Maybe they’re trying to steal something. The thought of calling the front security desk flitted through her mind, but she squashed it. I’m no coward. The thoughts of her work vanished; she began to examine the hallways and offices, searching for the source of the noise.
Rachel was a tall woman with dark hair and colorless skin. She wore little makeup because she had nothing to hide. She had never had a blemish on her face. Her eyes were dark brown and surrounded by spotless brilliant white. She painted her lips a dark red to add color to her face, and wore severe and tightly cut suits. She prided herself on her posture, and because of it, her clothing never became wrinkled. She had worked at the office for three years, and been promoted twice. She was one-step away from vice president, which she expected to happen after her Christmas bonus. She carried an air of command with her like other woman wear scarves. She had no question of her worth, and she shared it with anyone who asked.
Today's Monster:
A bad omen this morning: As I tore open an English muffin—the authentic variety with no relation to Thomas—the muffin shredded into pieces. I don’t believe in omens, but the muffin shattered and that must represent something. Sure, people may say it’s only an English muffin, and remind me that I managed to toast and eat the broken muffin. To those people, I offer exhibit B: last night, while attempting to wash the fish caked dishes, I broke another large glass. First the glass, and then the English muffin, now do you see where I’m going with this?
My mind wanders because of a poor night’s sleep. I awakened at strange hours, and surrendered to wakefulness at four. Nerves hammered me down. I’m underway flying from Seattle for the first leg of the journey. (Why do journeys always have legs?) I’ll see Julie in a few hours, and then we’ll prepare for the haul to Paris. I feel ready after skimming through the Paris section in Rick Steven’s France guidebook.
Below this line, nothing waits. I feel stretched across time, pulled by distance and velocity. Nights when no thought slips my mind; days when my mind doesn’t recognize thought. I draw words to see their shapes. What good are the shapes of words? Silence reverberates off my skull and I will it gone, replaced by dreary shapes.
She glanced through the index of a Ziploc bag. She searched and located the airplane pretzels on her weight-watchers card. No go. I sat scribbling to scribble, but my brain has no cares.
Richard studied his name in print. As he stared, the words became garbled and strange, the dark ink of the letters running together. He felt joy in the meaningless symbols, lifted the newspaper to his nose, and smelled the printed ink. His fingers were black. The paper published his article, his first published article. During college, Richard dreamed of writing articles for newspaper. The paper, the Ostrich Daily, was no thte type of newspaper Richard envisioned.
So it goes, with words on paper to hurry the time. He hummed and sang off pitch without diffidence or thought for others.
Snow covered the mountains and filled the lakes. With a fork, he dug valleys, creased hills, and lifted mountains from the potatoes and gravy, dumping packets of sugar at the peeks. Stuffed beaks sang of whistled nights and putty clogged the night’s sky. Geometric farms fill the vista. I forget how large LA is until I fly over it.
We arrived in Paris a few hours ago. (You can stop worrying, mom.) The flight was the flight. It lasted ten hours, and we managed a few hours of sleep. The food was better than the flight to Taiwan, but it still it tasted of airplane food. They supplied us with earplugs and nighttime masks, the type you wear over your eyes to block out the light. I wore mine, and named myself Batman, except I couldn’t see, making me more similar to Daredevil. I fought a small sleep-related headache most of the flight.
After checking in to the hotel, we slept a few hours, which scared away most of the pain. We’re to meet Will, Cecilia, Erik, and Gloria in an hour for dinner, our first night in Paris.
The “phone that is smarter than me” works in Paris with, what I’m sure are, ridiculous roaming rates. Only call it if there’s an emergency. I bought a 60-minute hotel internet card for 18 euros (the bastards!), which should give me plenty of time to post my musings. I’m not sure about the photos—I’ll test the speed once we start photographing.
The weather is as promised: cold with snow lining some streets.
Good morning. It is 9:10pm Seattle time, and we’ve woken up, which is good because it’s also 6:10am in Paris. I’m not saying we pummeled jetlag; all I’m saying is that if we to kept score (and the one thing I do well is keep score), we are 1-0.
After a crucial nap yesterday, we met GWEC (Gloria, Will, Erik, and Gloria—and, yes, I wasted valuable brain heat on that acronym) for dinner. Will and Erik (along with Scott in Seattle) are my remnant friends from graduate school. We adhered to Rick Steve’s guidebook for our restaurant selection, and braved the cold, snowy night to walk from our hotel, which is near the Louvre and US Consulate, to the Eiffel tower neighborhood in Rive Droit. Okay, Rive Droit isn’t really a neighborhood but translates to the right side of the river (so useful having Julie around), which doesn’t give you much information because there are plenty of neighborhoods on that side of the river. I just wanted to show off my memory skills.
Many tourists read the same guidebook, and the first restaurant we visited turned us away. The second restaurant (Will and Cecilia, being consummate travelers, had a plan B), was a few blocks away, reasonably priced (especially the wine), and delicious. The highlight was my wonderful paté appetizer, served in a large white bowl with toast. It was different from other patés I ate, seeming fresher and more authentic. I guess what they say is true: everything tastes better in Paris. (Okay, I’ve never heard anyone say that, but it sounded good as I was writing it, like a cliché, a topic we spent much time discussing during our fun dinner talk.)
Wine filled our heads as we strolled back to the hotel with frozen ears and feet. They lit the Eiffel tower with sparkling, flashing lights, and a large spotlight turning parallel to the ground on its top. The rain and snow illuminated the path of the spotlight, which reminded me of the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Julie finished planning our day, and we plan to shower and start early. We’ll meet GWEC tonight for dinner and rehash our days.
Addendum: after Julie scheduled our day, she realized that few places open before 11am. We’ve made the executive decision (since what is a decision if not executive) to sleep a bit more. I know, it smells like a mistake, but we’re rebellious. Very rebellious.
After a walking day of sightseeing, we’re resting in our hotel room, our feet and legs throbbing. Dinner is in an hour if we can’t convince GWEC to postpone it. We’re exhausted. The jetlag battered Julie and me at different times during the day. By the end, neither of us had much left. We napped after I wrote this morning, leaving the hotel around 9am. Our first stop was the dreary Notre Dame cathedral. Its only redeeming feature was its dark architecture and musty smells.
Sleep smacked us upside the chin after I typed the first paragraph. Will telephoned at ten to six, twenty minutes after we were supposed to meet in the hotel lobby for dinner. We went to the quaint dinner place that didn’t have a table for us yesterday. We called for a reservation, but it was unnecessary, as we arrived early with plenty of open seats. GWEC enjoyed the food, while Julie and I thought it simple and salty. The owner cooked and waited all seven tables in the small restaurant, with only the help of a young woman, who arrived after we finished our first course. The food tasted of the French countryside, with simple ingredients and an easy cooking style. The restaurant catered to the many Americans who visited the restaurant; most arriving after “discovering” it in Mr. Steven’s guide. If I were Rick, I’d demand a bigger cut of the business he sends to these small places.
I’m writing this late. I have many notes from the day, but I’m tired and I’m not sure I’ll get through them all. We finished a wine nightcap at the fancy bar Room 126, also known as Erik and Gloria’s hotel room. It seems Julie and I received the small stick. Except for the double-high ceilings, our room is tiny compared to GWEC’s rooms. From what they tell us, however, it’s a nice change from the hotels they stayed when they visited London and Amsterdam. I don’t think I mentioned this, but we’re catching them on the tail end of their European vacation. With Julie having five days off from work and me having had enough of traveling to London while living in Houston, we decided to skip the beginning of their tour and meet them in Paris.
After leaving Notre Dame, we spent the next couple of hours wandering the cold streets, looking for a few neighborhoods. The weather was warmer than yesterday, but when outside for too long, the cold seeped into us. At Julie’s urgings, I bought a reasonably priced black coat to replace my ratty green one. I’m happy with the purchase, except that the zipper is on the wrong side. I didn’t realize how difficult it is to zipper when reversed.
One of the neighborhoods we went to was the Jewish quarter; the part we visited consisted of two blocks with kosher delicatessens, Middle Eastern food, butchers, kosher pizzerias, and a few Jewish art stores. A class of young children sang loud French and Hebrew songs from inside the pizzeria.
We next visited the Jewish museum of art. The museum, which was also difficult to find, was a few blocks outside the Jewish quarter. They built it from two converted mansions. The museum was empty, containing more attendants than visitors. There was good reason for that. It was a dark, dreary museum, following the history of the persecuted Jews in France and parts of Europe. There were not enough French exhibits, and they imported many items from other parts of Europe. The items on display included tarnished silver Torah covers and menorahs, and faded cloth, mostly Torah covers and old clothing. They wrote most of the descriptions in French, and except for the free (well, relatively free when you consider the entrance to the museum and “special exhibit” was twelve euro per person) audio machine, there was little to understand, particularly in the special exhibit, which followed the Jews as they fought in Europe during World War I. This included a floor dedicated to the German Jews with great irony considering what happened in the next world war.
I left the museum with an uneasy feeling. The museum portrayed the Jewish religion as ancient and dreary, and most of all a persecuted people. While there has been much bad history in Judaism, there is much more that we should celebrate besides our survival of persecution. I’ve found this disheartening theme repeated in many Jewish museums I’ve visited.
I heard that the Parisians are hard workers but I now have my doubts. As an example, many of the people we purchased tickets from always seemed to be talking on the phone. We stood there waiting for them to acknowledge us, and when they did, usually with a quick hold on or the French equivalent, they looked to us as if our interruptions were insulting. This was before we they even knew we were American. Julie tried to charm them were her attempts at French; the ones that spoke English switched quickly to English (which insulted Julie since she wanted to show them how well she spoke French); although, she did rather well with the ones who did not speak English, which either says something about Julie’s French or their patience.
After leaving the Jewish quarter, we walked over to the Pompidou, a delightfully modern art museum. The architecture is brilliant, with many pipes and gates surrounding the main building. The exhibits were fun and decidedly modern. I’ve grown to enjoy modern art. I heard an explanation of it that I loved: Paul was viewing art with Vivian (I made up the names—ain’t I clever?). They staring at one of those scribble pieces; I’m sure something similar to Cy Twombly’s work. Paul says, “My seven year old son could draw that.” Vivian, an avid art lover, says, “But he didn’t.” That’s the beauty of modern art. Sure, after seeing the art piece, a seven year old might be able to copy it. But the idea to create art in that fashion is what makes art of any type special.
I’m a subway person. I adore local transit, having traveled often on the New York subway, Washington D.C. metro, and London underground. The first day we arrived, we walked to all our destinations. After finishing at the Pompidou (unfortunately, we left before seeing most of the exhibits because of jetlag-induced exhaustion), we decided to brave the Paris metro service. While I’m embarrassed to admit it, the first station we went down into intimated us, and we skulked back to the surface to find our bearings. After walking to Notre Dame, we remembered how long it took us to walk there in the morning, and decided to brave another metro station. This time we were successful. Julie struck up a conversation with a Frenchman who was looking through the map, and once he told us where we were on the map, we (okay, Julie) figured out quickly where we wanted to go. Once you understand the starting and ending points (which is not easy because of the language and the Parisians’ deliberate obfuscation), the colored and numbered routes are easy to follow. We used our Metro knowledge to impress GWEC later. They thought we (viz., Julie) were quite worldly.
Before heading for drinks in Room 126, we made our pilgrimage to the Eiffel tower. Julie had her misgivings on the flight over, her family telling her about terrorists’ plots to destroy the tower, but we decided it’s wrong to visit Paris with visiting its most famous landmark. I’m not a height person. It turns out Erik is not one either. After traveling to the top on the ancient elevators, we climbed the final stairs that led to the outside top portion of the tower. At first, Erik and I hugged the walls, afraid to step toward the rickety balcony. It’s not that we were technically afraid, it was more because we’re both educated men that understand the physics and engineering principals that hold up the tower, and know that, having been built in the 1800’s, it’s not the safest of structures. We did eventually brave the fence to peek heroically over the side. We took many pictures of the tower and us and the tower. Hopefully a few of them came out.
I’m exhausted, and I’m sorry for the laundry list of accomplishments. I hoped to share some insights, but my mind and fingers are barely working, and this is the best I can do. Until tomorrow.
Today was a sleep-in day. Our clocks reset partially to European time, and we (mostly I) thought this would be a perfect morning to sleep late. Julie would have none of it. She woke up at five this morning, and poked me repeatedly to a semi-conscious state. We ordered room service for breakfast, at the overpriced fare, and slept. We didn’t leave the room until noon.
Our first stop was the Louvre, a must for any Paris tour. The Louvre is huge, and our 3-day museum passes—which we acquired through much research and ticket sellers turning us away because of telephone calls—let us in with no line. Of course, since this is winter, there was little line to speak of, but Mr. Steve told us to buy the pass outside the museums, and we would never dare question Rick Steve (I’ve been misnaming our illustrious guide—his real name is Rick Steve, not Rick Stevens). The Louvre consists of three major wings, and we toured the Doron wing because that’s where they house the Mona Lisa, and you can’t say you’ve been to the Louvre until you see the most overrated painting in history. Did I say that? I’m sure art historians can explain its significance, but to me it was a crowded piece, both dark and lackluster, like most of the paintings of that era, which, I theorize, is caused by either aging or the dearth of colorful pigments for the artists.
I used to appreciate the art of the Renaissance (I’m assuming their Renaissance—my history, like my knowledge of art, is highly suspect) because of its realism, and while I still enjoy the sculptures because of their size and forwardness, I find most of the paintings boring. I’m convinced that the paintings of this era were the TV and movies of their time. If we knew the stories as well as the people of that era, they would be much more entertaining. Regrettably, I don’t and without knowledge of the story, the paintings appear less interesting. As it is now, most art historians study the paintings for their composition and artistic technique, which, while important, is less entertaining to us laypeople. Overall, I appreciate the modern and abstract art over the classical. With photography and computers, the medium has become less important, and the artistic skill has moved from the technical to the innovative. At my insistence, we skipped the pots, pans, and furniture because of my previously revealed abhorrence for ancient kitchen and living-room ware.
We took many pictures in the museum. I don’t know when they changed the rule, but whenever they did, nobody told me, and I didn’t figure it out until today. It seems they allow photography, even flash photography, in museums. The flashing of old paintings is discouraged with an invisible plastic or glass cover, which bounces the flash into frame. Had I known, I would have taken many more pictures yesterday. We plan to return to the Pompidou and flash away. I’ve also lost some of my distaste for locals identifying me as a tourist by showing my camera. I admit I was silly for thinking that way, but as part of NEQID, I’m trying to find my faults and move on. This is not to say, of course, that I’ll show my camera in NYC. That would be wrong because I’m a local there.
After returning from the Louvre, we walked over to Angélina, a chocolate restaurant near our hotel. They sat us in the middle row of three two-person tables, making us feel like the unlucky passenger in the middle seats of an airplane. We ordered the house specialty: a hot chocolate unlike any hot chocolate I’ve drank before. Imagine melting milk chocolate and drinking it. They served it with unsweetened whipped cream, and it was almost too thick to drink. A good experience, but I wouldn’t order it again unless they added a couple of shots of caffeine. Now that would be delicious.
An older couple was sitting next to us. Since they squished the tables together, I had no choice but to eavesdrop. The man and women were old friends, and from their accent (obviously they spoke English or I wouldn’t have been able to relay any of this) they hailed from New Zealand or South Africa, or somewhere other than the states. The woman spoke most of the time, which was annoying at first, but she did tell a couple of things that I thought worthy of note. She traveled as a salesperson and compared the people of NYC with Paris. It seems that New Yorkers, while seemingly rude, are actually much friendlier than Parisians are. For example, she said that a tourist who looks confused in NYC is more likely to receive help than a similar person in Paris. While I like to imagine us New Yorkers as cold people, it turns out we’re only energetic and busy; we don’t share the cold heart of the Parisians. Okay, that’s probably unfair, but I thought it funny.
There was an archway near the Louvre named the Arc du Carousel or something like that. I figure taking pictures of that removes the need to photograph the Arc du Triumphe, which we saw from a distance on Friday. When you see one Arc, you’ve seen them all.
After I finish writing this (assuming I can wake Julie from her David-writing-induced nap), we’re leaving for our early evening sightseeing. Our plan is to visit the D’Orsay museum, which roughly translates as Museum of Horsies, or at least that’s what I’m telling Julie. Once we see the horsies (or impressionists, which, when you think about it, are closely related to horsies), we’ll head back for our evening dinner with GWEC.
Oh, and if my sister Randy reads this (which is unlikely), Happy 30th Birthday!
We just returned from a nice evening with GWEC. We went to a more authentic French bistro for dinner—authentic in that most of the diners were French—and sitting next to us was a particularly French threesome, who smoked a pack of cigarettes before starting their main course. The food was good again (which is getting rather old), and I ate yet another superb fois gras. Julie and I are responsible for choosing the restaurant tomorrow night, our final night in Paris. We’ll see how Julie does. (Julie is the planner of the relationship; although, I’m happy to take team credit when she does something well.) Mr. Steve has many suggestions, and we’re looking for a nice restaurant in a different but close neighborhood.
After napping after writing earlier, we visited the D’Orsay museum. As expected, there was a horse statue outside (I have photographic evidence), which validates my Horsie Museum name. The museum was better than expected, containing the impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. We arrived at 5pm and the museum closed at 6pm, with sections starting to close at 5:30pm, which left us little time to run around and take photos of famous paintings. As Julie liked to say, “That one looks famous, take its picture.” We rushed to the top floor, which housed the impressionists, including Monet, Van Gogh, and a whole bunch of other painters whose names I would know if I remembered anything. I discovered I’m a late-stage Van Gogh person, enjoying his paintings where he sees everything in crooked swirls. My theory is he painted these when he was in his less sane state—something I am capable of appreciating. I can’t wait to see the Picasso museum tomorrow because I understand his work is even more bizarre.
After leaving the museum, we bought t-shirts for my nieces, which (hopefully) completed our shopping for the trip. Other purchased items include: new socks and sneakers for Julie the first day out, since she only brought “stylish” shoes, which is the same as terribly uncomfortable shoes; a new scarf and jacket for me to replace my tattered-green coat; chocolates from the hot-chocolate joint; metro tickets; Jewish Art museum tickets; 3-day museum passes; and heaps of food.
After dinner, we went to an Irish pub and had a great time drinking beer (GWEC drank beer and Julie and I watched) and talking crazy talk. It’s nice to drink and eat with good friends. Julie is showering the smoke off her body, and after I finish this, I plan to reacquaint myself with sleep. We have an art-museum heavy day tomorrow, attempting to make up for our shortened earlier visits.
We exhausted the morning and afternoon inspecting our dinner restaurant, playing at art museums, and returning to the Jewish quarter to, in film industry terms, pick-up shots—i.e., take photographs at places we missed during normal shooting. I hoped to revisit the Horsey Museum to purchase postcards for my office, but after a second lunch, we went to rest in the hotel room, and as happens, we woke up hours later with barely time to write and prepare for dinner. It’s for the best. Julie’s feet and legs hurt from the walking, and mine aren’t much better. We’ve drank many sights with a large straw over four days, and we’re now taking time to savor them—or at least that’s how I justify laziness.
Today dawned cold, with moments of sun giving illusions of warmth, which the troublesome clouds smashed with ice picks. We started by tracing our—as in the Julie/David team’s—plan for dinner to impress GWEC. While Julie did all the preparations, I provided slight ancillary support in the form of choosing the time. We then visited the Jewish quarter. Our plan was to take photographs of the few orthodox storefronts in Paris we visited earlier. I don’t think I would have gone if Julie hadn’t dragged me, which highlights my dilemma with Judaism. I enjoy its beauty, ancientness, and traditions, but there are parts that I don’t identify with, and parts that embarrass me. We did manage to shoot a few photographs and eat lunch at a kosher-falafel restaurant. It’s been too long since I’ve reexamined my beliefs, especially since I want to convince Julie to join me in my faith.
During our nap, I dreamed I attended a banquet where the diners interrogated one another about some crime. It turned out a female diner sitting next me was a Holocaust doubter. I verbally attacked and vanquished her (not sure the details on the vanquishing, but the dream had that hero-quality I’ve related previously). I don’t know if this erupted from today’s thoughts or because I’m in France, one of the seats of the massacre.
After leaving the Jewish district, we visited the Picasso museum. Rick Steve, who’s opinion we’ve trusted, gave this museum one triangle (he rates sites based on triangles—don’t ask) and three triangles for the “Picasso fan.” While any self-respecting Picasso fan would not look to Mr. Steve to decide whether to visit this museum, it turns out that I am a Picasso fan. I loved his work (Picasso’s work, not Rick Steve’s, who I appreciated but didn’t love in the traditional sense). As I mentioned yesterday, I enjoy imaginative work that pushes the edges of sanity. Picasso has plenty of this, from his sculptures to his paintings. I purchased half dozen postcards with some of his stranger (and therefore more interesting) work, which I’ll use to decorate my work office. I tried to buy a larger poster, but all the large posters were of his more standard fare.
After visiting the Picasso museum, I must correct yesterday’s declaration of being a late-stage Van Gogh fan. I’m actually a Picasso and late-stage Van Gogh fan.
After leaving the museum, we headed back to the Pompidou. During our first visit, fatigue kept us from understanding its layout, and we missed the entire top floor crammed with the modernist movement including more (but slightly unsatisfying) Picasso. This gave a wonderful sense of how the painters of this movement worked together, freely borrowing one another’s ideas to move the art forward. Some of my old fears and doubts rose up during this visit. I wondered again if I discovered art too late. There were whole worlds of expression and, more importantly, ways of perceiving the world that I didn’t know existed until recently. It’s the same thoughts I have about my writing: I wasted so much time not writing, I wonder if it is it too late to begin now. In my insides, I know that loving art is not a question of when but if. It is better for an eighty-year old to spend the last years of her life enjoying a newly discovered love of art, than spending that time lamenting that it took her so long to find it. I’m not eighty yet, and I should use my exposed passion not by regretting the past, but with joy of the future. I do not want to write about cleverness; I want to write about revelation and squiggly mental imagery.
I wrote some of the above after napping from the latent jetlag and exhausting walks. When I woke, I asked Julie what time it was. I should have known something was amiss when I asked and she answered, “what time?” When I asked her for a third time, she said, “I said it’s five,” and fell back asleep. We planned to meet GWEC at 7pm to start our evening activities, and I made a note of my computer’s clock, which I never bothered to reset from Seattle time, and added an hour and a half to ensure that we’d have time to prepare before dinner. When the phone rang thirty minutes later, I knew we were in trouble. Erik called and said, “We waited until 7:30pm, but then had to call you.” I thought he was joking. When he convinced me that he was serious, I looked to Julie, who woke up confused, and with no recollection of checking her watch earlier (or of the conversation). This was the second time we were late to a GWEC dinner. Our first night in Paris we had a good excuse: we deplaned early in the afternoon and were still affected by the flight. Even with our lateness, we succeeded with tonight’s dinner. The dinner Julie planned was tasty, and our night walk to Notre Dame went well. Okay, that’s probably stretching the definition of “well.” The plan was good, but the weather was vicious; with the wind-chill factor, the temperatures probably dipped close to zero degrees Fahrenheit. We tried to make do, but after snapping a few pictures, we hurried to the Metro station to return to the hotel.
Julie is now sleeping and I’m finishing typing my thoughts for the day. I still have much to supplement in the earlier sections, and I’ll save my final thoughts on the trip for tomorrow’s ride home.
As customary, I scattered sleep before morning because of my early flight. I woke and hunched over my computer to write the first sentence, which echoed through my brain and made transcription a condition of sleep. Julie still sleeps, her warm form next to mine, her back turned to conceal the computer’s light. My silent typing wakes her. There’s not much left of Paris except popped ears at thirty-thousand feet and stressed backs.
We’ve flown a few hours from Charles de Gaulle airport to LAX. I’ve not slept yet, but seeing as it’s only around 5am Seattle time, I’m preparing for a nap to aid my temporal transformation.
Continuing my hourly detail, I slept a few hours and now I’m fidgety. Four hours plus coins remain, with another three tacked on the end to deliver me to Seattle.
I struggle in my seat, alternately looking for distractions and permissions. I devoured the Atlantic monthly, The New Yorker, and The Economist, and my current book, Austerlitz, is not holding my interest. I jump from moments of tiredness to specks of sleep. A French monster screams. Time taunts me and Julie sleeps unfazed. A movie flickers on the TVs, but it holds little entertainment. Orange pillows and blankets decorate the plane.
And finally, a few words to sum up my experiences on the long flight home.
This trip was wonderful. Julie had mentioned (repeatedly) her desire to visit France. Like most things involving long-distance travel, I deferred. Will and Cecelia thought up the idea for this trip, and asked me months ago if we wanted to join them. While their 14-day itinerary to London, Amsterdam, and Paris was too much for me (and didn’t fit in Julie’s “vacation” schedule), the last leg to Paris was perfect, satisfying Julie’s Paris dreams and providing me an impetus to travel. Erik and Gloria signed on to the full package, and we booked the trip. I have to give huge thanks to Will for pressing forward with the idea. We had a great time, and I’m not sure when (or if) we would have made it to Paris without his goading.
The evening meals with GWEC were always a highlight, allowing us to relive our vacation days in a relaxed environment with those who shared akin but different experiences. As always, it’s also fun to reminisce with school friends, and the occasional political debate or practiced belittlement added additional flavors.
We spent most of our time in Paris enjoying fine food and brilliant (if squiggly) art. The five-day trip was the perfect length, giving me a taste without excess. Returning, I regret Seattle’s cheap, imitation art museums. They’re expanding the Seattle Modern Art Museum, but as it is now, it would fit in one walled section of any of Paris’s museums. We fly home full of memories and good photographs. I’ll share them with you once my website stands up. Erik promised to send more photographs to give a fuller picture of Paris, since he (and Will) traveled to more places than art museums, which I still can’t understand.
We’re less than two hours from touchdown. Flying west always seems easier because I don’t have to force myself to sleep, I need only stay awake until a normal bedtime. While this won’t cure jetlag, it will lessen it. I expect they’ll serve a cold dinner soon, and then we’ll land. I’m still seven hours away from Seattle, but much of that time, I will spend in LAX.
I’m flying in an airplane and I’m at war with the guy sitting in front of me. I’m not sure if he knows it, but he declared this war when he leaned his seat all the way back. There are some airlines where I accept this practice. Those airlines have seats squished so close together that it is impossible to find comfort without reclining the seats. My current carrier, Alaska Airlines, is not one of those airlines.
When I first moved to Seattle, I studied the airport. I knew that I would travel often to visit Julie and NYC. While I was disappointed that Continental, my Houston-based airline of choice, did not have many flights in Seattle, I found Alaskan Airlines, a Continental partner who respects (somewhat) my Continental Elite Platinum status (yes, you remember—I’m a god to them), to fly to Orange County. While I very much enjoyed my visit to Alaska, I discovered quickly that its airline namesake was awful. It is commonplace for Alaskan Airlines to have a 60% or worse on-time departure record, with delays lasting over an hour (for today’s anecdotal evidence: we sat at the gate for thirty minutes while the ground crew unloaded misplaced cargo). The one advantage of Alaskan Airlines is the seats. With its older planes, they afford more legroom even when not reclined. Because of this, few passengers recline the seats.
The man seated in front of me has gone against this policy and fully reclined his seat. I type this with my arms pulled back in a mockery of dinosaur arms, and my wrists bent at an awkward chicken-wing angle. As my contribution to this war, I press my knees forcefully into his seat in what I hope provides an uncomfortable experience. At times, I blow air onto his bald spot, which floats a few inches from my mouth. While I mastered control of my breathing through my collegiate trumpet training, I doubt he feels it. Even if he doesn’t, it’s deeply satisfying, probably because of the meditative aspects of breathing deeply.
The worse part is after he napped, my neighbor pulled out his computer. He’s playing solitaire as I type, in full comfort with his fully reclined seat, and ample monitor and keyboard space, thanks to the person in front of him, who has wisely chosen not to lean her seat back.
(I know my anger derives from the frustration of the flight, and the man in front of me had every right to lean his chair back. But at times like these, rational thoughts flee my brain and I clamp on to all perceived or real slights.)
I feel ill. I’ll pretend the sickness is from a virus or bacteria because the truth is worse. I drank two large glasses of red wine last night, a house red I couldn’t identify (and don’t care to because of its sour aftertaste) and a red Zinfandel, which had a pleasant taste, but couldn’t hold itself up to even the cheapest wine I drank in Paris. Two glasses of wine, even the large-sized American glasses, shouldn’t have affected me. Shouldn’t and wouldn’t, is what I say. I felt terrible last night after Julie and I returned to the hotel room from the restaurant. My head felt like a red balloon inflated past its breaking point, my stomach flipped and cut a rug, and my hands shook. Julie hoped to join her friends for an evening of dancing, but I had to give her the no-go sign. It wasn’t until a few hours ago that I regained control of my faculties.
I’m flying back from Newport Beach after barely making my flight. There I go again, lying. I made my flight with time to spare—enough time, even, to switch from a one-stop flight to a direct one (I didn’t realize that my original flight stopped in Portland until the ticket guy asked to switch me to the nonstop flight to make room on my original, sold-out flight). The traffic from Palm Springs to John Wayne Airport was bad. So bad that I started freaking out when the traffic dropped to the stop-and-go variety. This isn’t the first time that anxiety gets the best of me and turns me from kind mannered to angry monster. I know I do this, and I try to avoid placing myself in situations where my evil monster displays its evil head. We timed the trip back from Palm Springs close, stopping in Riverside for Julie to sign medical records she’d neglected for years because of its distance. I ended up making the flight but I left Julie mentally thrashed as unfair payment.
Two hours left in my flight. Before we started the drive to the airport, we stopped at the aerial tram in Palm Springs. This was my second time riding it, the first when Doug and I hiked the “Desert to Clouds” trail during a CLE. The first time, Doug and I looked with disdain at the “tram people,” as we named them. We spent six hours hiking up switchbacks and different climate zones to reach the tram level. Julie, a few of her doctor friends, and me were one of those tram people. This was for the best, since six-inches of snow covered the ground at the top of the tram. The views were extraordinary, and I’ll post the pictures after I sort through them.
The purpose of this visit (besides the obvious visit-Julies purpose) was to attend Julie’s residency retreat. As a second year (there are three years of residency), her year was responsible for organizing and running the retreat. Julie, as usual, took lead of the organizing efforts. She’s good at that. The retreat went well and everyone, including the family members, enjoyed the activities. I went to most, but missed the talent show, where Julie impressed the lot with her incredible voice (remember: how can such a skinny girl, etc.?). Except for the wine (which might have questioned more my constitution than quality), the dinner last night went well and the food was quite tasty.
Since I mentioned the dinner, I should try to clarify what I discussed previously. I did have good reason to drink. When sober, I’m unsocial around people I don’t know, and last night strangers surrounded me. Once I started dipping into the spirits, however, I became more talkative. Had I drank one glass, I would have been sleepy but okay, but I mistakenly decided to push it. For what it’s worth, I did have a good time this weekend, even with the anxiety and travel (this is the third weekend I’m traveling in a row. Next weekend I’m heading to NYC for a CLE, which will hopefully be the last time I travel for a while).
Since I locked myself out of my website (I keep fixing things without testing them, particularly before trips), you probably were unaware that I didn’t write yesterday. I spoke about not attending the talent show, but I didn’t explain why. In the morning, I helped the residents set up their slideshow, ate lunch, and decided I needed sleep. I didn’t really need sleep, but I felt the afternoon activities would be boring (from what I heard, they weren’t). Once in the room, TV got the better of me. I didn’t leave the hotel bed until dinner. Did I mention I lack self-control? Since I was clickerman, I didn’t have the power to open my laptop and type up an entry. I did have a few notes for yesterday, which I’ll tack on to the end of this entry.
Mountains floated on clouds over the horizon. I didn’t realize clouds could raise mountains.
Few creatures walk the Castle. I’ve found only a couple of crawlies, one dead, the other barely moving. A healthy proto-queen flies through the Castle, but I haven’t caught it, yet. When I do, it’ll learn to fly within the confines of my vacuum cleaner. (For those who’s hearts go out to the little buggers, when I emptied my vacuum into the trash yesterday, most of the ants were still moving, leaving me with two possibilities: (1) they’ll survive their garbage adventures and start a new colony in the dump; or (2) they’re suffering a slow and agonizing death in my trash bag, begging for it to stop with no euthanasia in their future. I’m hoping it’s the latter.)
I leave for NYC tomorrow, and as part of my tradition, I’d like to share the weather report. But before I do, I have exciting news. I caught the wayward flying ant (stop thinking of your spinster aunt—she neither flies nor infests the Castle). In an exciting turn of events (as if a turn of events could ever be anything but exciting), the flying ant, which flew surprisingly well for an ant (I think all the flights I had previously witnessed were injured flying ants), flew through my dining room and slammed into the ceiling. It bounced off the ceiling and onto my ledge, where it remained quivering on its back. I turned on the vacuum cleaner before she had a chance to right herself, and sucked her up. She’s now crawling—I assume is contently—in her glass cage. Does my heroism know any boundaries?
Getting back to the weather, in Brooklyn, my first stop on my five-day trip, it is now a balmy twenty-eight degrees (Fahrenheit for all you foreigners), with a wind chill making it feel like twenty-one degrees. For my visit, the weather will range from a low of twenty-one degrees to a high of—get your swimming trunks because there’s going to be some beach going—forty-two degrees. I don’t know about you, but I’m having second thoughts about leaving Seattle. It’s fifty-five degrees during this beautiful night, with highs of sixty-nine (tomorrow), and lows of thirty-four (on Monday evening). As I keep reminding you, Seattle has had an atypical winter. These last few weeks have been sunny and warm. I’m sure that this afternoon, the temperatures rose into the seventies and the skies were that diamond blue I spoke about in one of my poor attempts at a story. If this is what winter is like in Seattle, I’m not sure I’ll ever leave. (I bet that made a certain Brooklyn mother’s heart thump faster.)
Do you see what a bug-hunting incident did for me? When I started writing the first paragraph, I was dragging my feet, unsure if I would gather enough energy to write about anything. But after I successfully sucked up the bug, with adrenaline pumping through my delicate system, I was the man of steel, the righter of wrongs, the doer of things that needed doing. And how can such a man not write insightful and provocative things? (Imagine that: me writing something insightful and/or provocative. I kill me!)
I’ve reached the end of my thoughts for today. I’ve been reading more web comics, and I’m anxious to start drawing another pictures. I’m hoping it comes out better than yesterday’s pitiful painting. I drew that with a new drawing program I’m trying out, which let’s me sketch and color in layers. It’s the same program I used on my flights with my work TabletPC (remember the geometric designs), but a different program than the one I used to draw the troll. I’d like to find that troll program again one day.
One of my colleagues convinced me that purchasing books was not a good use of my money. I have always bought, read, and stored books on shelves. I’ve filled overweight bookshelves in my homes (both the Castle and my mother’s house in Brooklyn) with books I’ll never read again. My colleague doesn’t have a book club as, say, Oprah has a club. Instead, she knows enough people who read that she collects and distributes good books. I’ve not given up on buying books, but I am trying to use the library and other people to cut down on the size of my library. I’ve bought enough into her scheme that I’m now donating some of my better books to her club. As part of her program, she lent me Austerlitz.
Austerlitz tells the story of Austerlitz, a Jewish boy born in Prague in the 1930s whose parents send him to England before the start of the war. His parents perish in the war, and a cold minister’s family raises him in England before he escapes to university. He has a peculiar understanding of time, seeing his entire life as a massive conglomeration of moments that are not necessarily ordered. Austerlitz tells his story to the narrator in a somewhat broken form. W. G. Sebald wrote Austerlitz, and stylistically it is difficult novel to read. Sebald doesn’t believe in chapters or paragraphs, and the words blur into one another. Throughout the novel, black and white photographs emphasize parts of the story, as Austerlitz is an avid photographer and student of architecture.
After drudging through the first three quarters of the book, I’ve arrived at a more interesting section where Austerlitz tells the story of how he realized he blocked his memories of his childhood and the war. After a nervous breakdown, he begins to trace his life back to Prague and fill in the missing parts. Sebald used wonderful symbolism in this section, which is what I wanted to share with you, and why I bothered to summarize the novel.
When Austerlitz returned to Prague, he found his nanny, Vera, who survived his parents, and they reminisce. Austerlitz walked through a park and saw a squirrel. Until he returned to Prague, he didn’t realize he understood or spoke Czech, but when he saw the squirrel, the word veverka popped into his head and he was overwhelmed. His nanny confirmed that veverka meant squirrel, and she related this story:
And then, said Austerlitz, Vera told me how in autumn we would often stand by the upper enclosure wall of the Schönborn Garden to watch the squirrels burying their treasures. Whenever we came home afterwards, I had to read aloud from your favorite book about the changing seasons, said Vera, even though you knew it by heart from the first line to the last, and she added that I never tired of the winter pictures in particular, scenes showing hares, deer, and partridges transfixed with astonishment as they stared at the ground covered with newly fallen snow, and Vera said that every time we reached the page which described the snow falling through the branches of the trees, soon to shroud the entire forest floor, I would look up at her and ask: But if it’s all white, how do the squirrels know where they’ve buried their hoard? Ale když všechno zakryje snih, jak veverky najdou to místo, kde si schovaly zásoby?
Isn’t that great? The final line reflects his memories, the nuts representing memories, and the snow representing what covered them. At least that’s how I read it when a sleepless fever gripped me during my overnight flight. I won’t be taking that flight again. After arriving in NY (actually Newark, NJ) with about an hour’s sleep, my mother drove us back to Brooklyn, where I fell asleep for another six hours. Since I destroyed most of the Saturday, it makes sense to take the Saturday morning flight, which would get me in to NY in the evening, rested (or as rested as I could ever be after a flight) with a full night’s sleep.
After waking from my nap, I took a walk with my mother to Sheepshead Bay, which is the namesake of my neighborhood. The area around the bay is barely recognizable, with new houses and stores on every corner. I forgot my camera, so I can’t share the incredibly ethnic neighborhoods that have sprung up around the bay. After the walk, I napped for another hour, and then went with my mother, uncle, and his girlfriend to KPD, an old haunt. KPD, or Kings Plaza Diner, is the “Best Diner in Brooklyn,” according to a 1995 Daily News article. Now, putting aside that the Daily News almost died a few years ago (it was resurrected by nostalgic New Yorkers), KPD is a decent diner, as far as diners go. But with the wars my stomach has been fighting against greasy foods, I wasn’t able to partake in its more interesting fare.
My brain is still not working properly. I’m hoping tomorrow will be a better day for thoughts. Eileen and her (very cute) monsters are visiting, and I’ll check in to my hotel tomorrow night. I should have more time to write over the next three days, as I sleep through my CLE classes, and visit the many coffee houses (okay, the many Starbuckses) throughout Manhattan.
I arrived in Taiwan (you can stop worrying, Moms). The flight was delayed, a bit long, and wholly uneventful. We arrived to a warm and misty Taipei evening. After a thirty-minute taxi ride, we find Julie unpacking, and me relaxing and writing my first in what will hopefully be a series of vacation-related travel entries.
Laziness is a funny trait. Through it, you save yourself much work in the short term, but create much anxiety and work in the longer term, work that you don’t take into account during the laziness calculus.
Case in point: For the past year, I neglected to renew my passport. Every time I had the opportunity, I put it off, thinking that the effort involved would be much more than the result of not renewing. Of course, I understood that I would eventually have to renew it (it expires in August 2006), but the time value of time, as I see it, made it not worth it, i.e., now-time is more valuable than later-time, just like now-money is more valuable than later-money (this is a financial truth—regardless of whether it works when I stretch it to time).
My passport is days within that magical six-month territory. I had heard rumors that bad things happen when within that periods. For example, someone told me that the US border guards would not let you back into the country—or it might have been leave the country—when within this period. During my last trip overseas, I asked the US border guards if this was true, and they assured me it was not.
Regrettably, while the US border guards do not have a problem with the six-month expiration, almost all other countries do. In countries that share reciprocal visa-free entry (i.e., if you let our citizens in with their passports without a visa for six-months, we’ll return the favor), something changes within that magical six-month period before passport expiration. During that period, what would be a visa-free entry turns into a visa-required entry. I learned that when I checked into my flight at LAX. After arriving in Taiwan, I had to buy an entrance visa (4,400 Taiwanese Dollars, or around US $100).
I imagine these countries have good reasons for this rule. The reasoning must go something like this: the length of a visa-free entry is six months. If your passport expires in less than six months, then there’s a possibility that you will stay the length of visa-free period, and be unable to return to your home country because you no longer have a valid passport. To obtain the visiting visa, you have to present evidence that you plan to leave the country before your passport expires.
Suffice to say, had I not been so lazy with renewing my passport, I would not have needed a visiting visa to enter the country. I will also need a visiting visa to reenter the country when I travel to Korea. Speaking of Korea, Chuck, please check that I will be able to obtain a visiting visa when I enter Korea. I know you checked already, but this new wrinkle may change things. This is just more in a long line of laziness-induced problems, something that I had hoped NEQID would improve (which it has, just not fully yet).
My brain is still muddled from the trip. We slept a bit, but not really, and we’re now trying to decide whether to sleep (it’s after 11pm in Taiwan), or obey our internal West Coast clocks and go out. It seems Julie has decided for the both of us, and we’re heading to the 24-hour Hong Kong place down the street.
The day is coming to a late close. Julie spent the day working, and I tagged along, carrying bags and trying not to make too much of a nuisance of myself. We’re in a photo studio after finishing Julie’s music recording appointment for “The Dr. Julie Show” this afternoon. The best I can hope for is a short sleep as it will be another late night. We’re not supposed to leave the studio until 2:30am, and my flight to Korea leaves at 6:30am, assuming they let me on, that is. I’m still concerned about the visa issue. I won’t know any more until I ask at the ticket counter, and then again, when I arrive.
The photo studio is a converted apartment, with rubberized floors and a too-cool art décor. Cinderblocks and glass mix with metal sculptures and colorful cartoon knickknacks. Lights hang on chains, and scribbles and pocket photographs bunch in groups along the walls. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke and the low din of street sounds drifting through the two open windows in the kitchen area. This place brings to mind the origins of the name ‘studio apartment’: except for the dressing room and a small offstage area, there is only open space with little in the way of walls.
Two Apple computers sit next to the sole Windows PC, which except for an instant messaging client over a messy desktop with a dark photograph of a U.S. rapper, is not used. Photoshop runs on both Apples, showing various stages of glamour photos, which the two studio assistants make more glamorous in Photoshop with clicks and presses. Small speakers pump tinny music with a heavy beat near the computers.
The photography area dominates the middle of the studio. It consists of a large white cement floor and a wall over which the studio hangs different colored backdrops depending, I’m assuming from Julie’s shoot, on the model’s outfit. Lights on long and short black arms and small fans surround the floor. Tripods of different heights line the walls like soldiers loafing after a parade.
A drum set and acoustic guitar anchor the waiting room off the photography area. A couch with a foam cylinder for back support covered by a bronze leopard print sits opposite one leather chair. A cinderblock glass table shows the months of newspapers and magazines stacked underneath. A chair hangs from yet another chain at the border of the waiting room. It is blue with yellow stripes and looks slightly pornographic. Outside the kitchen is the dressing area, with a large mirror surrounded by lights and a changing room behind the mirror. Julie spends most of her time there changing outfits, having her hair stylized or her makeup painted.
It is difficult to determine the age of the photographer. He has a young face but his eyes betray him. He wears two sets of glasses, one thick for reading, and the other tinted to protect his eyes from the flashing camera. He a small scraggily patch of hair growing from the bottom of his chin, which—and here I’m speculating—provides him with the authority necessary to tell beautiful girls how to look good for the camera. The hair fascinates me. It looks like well-groomed pubic hair.
There has to be a story in there somewhere….
My worries seem to be for naught. China airlines believe I do not need a visa to get into Korea with my six-month-challenged passport. Why do I dwell on such things? I know I should let go, worry about the more important things, but for reasons beyond my control, my mind spins on these thoughts, reliving fantasies that do nothing to appease the worries. After catching Chuck’s comment on sewcrates, I’m calmer now. How can both Chuck and China airlines be wrong?
Last night, I left Julie a few hours before the end of her photo shoot, catching a ride back to the apartment with Julie’s parents. I slept well, even after Julie returned home and woke me up. I’m sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight to Korea. I’m remarkably well rested and very excited to visit Chuck in Korea. We only have a couple of days, but I’m sure he’ll figure out how to squeeze in plenty of sightseeing and photo opportunities, and, it should go without saying, sake drinking. I think transplants such as Chuck are better tour guides than those born to a place. I need only think how useless I am for tour guiding in NYC. When you’re born somewhere, you tend to take your city for granted and know less about the touristy spots than the big red buses that clog the streets.
I’m babbling now. Perhaps I’m a bit more tired than I believed. I’ll nap on the plane and be ready to hit the streets running. I should have more to say tonight. These travel entries have been disappointingly short.
There was a time when I would write a diary entry for each travel day. These amazing musings would describe not only the day, but also my inner thoughts, revealing unexpected and sometimes disturbing truths about me. I don't know where those days went, but it's a good thing I went to visit a fellow wanna-be writer. Instead of actually writing anything about my time in Korea, I'll just link to Chuck, who has done all the hard work for me. Isn't the internets a great thing? I can link to someone else's hard work and reap most of its rewards. Why bother writing anymore? Thanks Chuck!
That's us flying to NYC for the wedding. I drew this before we left. I was not looking forward to another flight, especially since our NY flight was in coach. Except for the luggage aggravations, it turned out not to be a bad flight.
Ah, the day and a half between the Taiwan wedding flight and the NYC wedding flight. Surprisingly, I wasn't that tired. We somehow avoided jet lag on the way home, and relaxed during the break. I even caught up on some work mails.
The title was taken from the fact that people who fly in airplanes a lot gain microseconds on their life. This is a relativity thing: if you move fast, time for you slows compared to things moving slower. When you fly at 500mph, you are moving faster relative to the people on earth. It's not that you live longer since according to your watch, you live the same amount of time. It's more that your life appears longer to those who aren't moving as fast. It's confusing and funny and absolutely brilliant (not my doodle, but that it works that way).
I was exhausted when I drew this. Jet lag after the wedding found me, and I drew bubbles. Go figure.
We arrived in Taipei and I’m typing this in the hotel room. The flight was long but comfortable. Eva Air upgraded their airplanes since last we flew. The new seats leaned further back and felt roomier. Each seat had a foot light activated by a huge button next to the electric seat buttons. There’s a joke there about being able to see your feet, but I’m too tired to find it.
Work thoughts continued to assail me during the flight. This is supposed to be a vacation for me (Julie has work to do here). I tried to quiet the thoughts on the flight with a modicum of success. I have been better about recording my musings in my not-Moleskine notebook. There’s a lot of value in these thoughts. One day I hope to transcribe them and share my learning. In summary: David needs lots of improvement in social work interactions.
We had a tiring but successful weekend at our Naginata seminar and test. We passed our Sankyu test, on our way to becoming less horrible. With any luck, after our next test, we’ll just be terrible. Tanaka Sensei, Kurt and Karen Sensei’s teacher, visited for the seminar. She provided excellent pointers. When she wields the Naginata it looks to be part of her. Each strike is effortless and powerful. The last time she visited, we were rank beginners, barely a month or two into our practice. Not knowing anything we didn’t get much from her instructions. Now that we have another year of practice under our overly long belts, her instructions were incredibly useful. We had three days of practice before the test, and we improved dramatically just in that short if exhausting time.
Julie just finished her shower and it’s now my turn. We’re meeting Julie’s parents for breakfast downstairs when we’re ready. This is the first time we’re visiting Taiwan since getting married two years ago. Since we married, her parents allow us to stay in a hotel room (we used to bunk with them in their apartment). We chose a small boutique hotel across the way from their apartment. It’s one of those hotels without a name or sign on the outside. It turned out to be a good choice. It’s very New Yorkish in its size and amenities. The free internet certainly doesn’t hurt.
