ReadyRachel's Travel Blog

Not So Ready Anymore

2009-05-25T09:05:00.001+01:00

I chose the name ReadyRachel because I was ready. I was ready to go on my trip. I was ready to see the world. Once I was in a hostel in Germany and a boy came in with a knife and a bucket of warm water. “what are you doing?” I asked. “I have an ingrown toenail” he said, “and I need to cut it out”

“Well here, I have some nail scissors and antiseptic if you want” I said, considering he has just lukewarm water and a Swiss army knife. “yeah, that would be great” he said. So I brought him antiseptic and nail scissors and a Band-Aid. “you have a whole medical kit in there!” he exclaimed. Like a Boy Scout, I was prepared.

Throughout my trip I gave out aspirin and directions and moral support. Backpackers create a strange community. I’m not friends with all of them, I couldn’t be, but we are there for each other. Every person you meet becomes the person you need to meet at that time. When my tummy was getting butterflies from thinking about boys too much the next girl I met was my best friend who I had known forever and could give me advice. When I didn’t know where I was going next someone would have just been somewhere great, we all have stories. If I showed up in a Chiang Mai and didn’t know anyone I could meet Sara who I stayed with for a week, I could take a cooking course because she was taking one, I could go to Cambodia because she was there. We were roommates for 5 days but looking back it feels like we traveled forever. She’s not the only one. Time flows strange sometimes.

The more I was ready for, the more happened. I was ready for ingrown toes in Europe, I was ready for cold and rain, I was ready to sleep in a hostel or a train. I was ready to rock climb in Asia, I was ready to eat all animals, I was ready to sleep on a bus, or a bus platform, to pay $9 for a ride that could be 8 hour or could be 18. I was ready to talk with anyone, I was ready to take scary boats with unclear destinations and I was ready to befriend almost anyone.

I don’t think that one can stay ready forever though. I don’t think that one should. A few weeks ago I was hanging out with some friends when one of them got a bloody finger. “does anyone have a band-aid?” he asked. I looked in my purse, but I did not. For 9 months I had always had a band-aid. I was no longer ready.

So what’s the point? I don’t know where this blog is going. But until I figure it out, I’ve started a new photo based blog, a blatant rip-off of a girl I went to school with who has a wonderful blog of life and domesticity, which is what I am ready for now. So check out RetinalRachel which may keep up to date on what I am doing, or at least seeing. And I hope next time I get a cut on my finger there will be a ReadyPerson there with a band aid, because I don’t think it’s me anymore.

The Hemp Temp part II

2009-05-21T05:10:00.003+01:00

On Monday I told my boss that I was accepted to a summer study program in Wales (not exactly true, but for $450 I could attend the program) and am therefore moving to Wales - next week. She got very excited. "I'm from Wales!" she said, "well my family is!"

Then she proceeded to tell me about Wales. And this is what she said:

Welsh is a great language, it is related to aboriginal languages spoken in Australia and some native American languages as well. It uses many clicks and hisses and is tonal. In the north of Wales there is a town called Rhyl, which is the only beach in all of Wales. There is a carnival there, and it is the only carnival in all of England & Wales. There is a town called Folkstown in England which is Latin for "the town of the people" and it is where democracy was invented in 1066.

"wow!" I said "let me get my notebook so I can write some of this down!" because I didn't want to forget a thing. In case you are wondering, nothing there is correct, except there is a town called Rhyl in Wales.

Otherwise working for her has been surreal beyond belief. Every day she tells me the same stories, about her boyfriend who was a liar and a fraud, the accountant who tried to steal her business, that she has ADD and ADHD and PTSD, about how she is famous and people steal her mail and listen in on her phone lines and send spies into her house.

Yesterday she lost the keys to her rental car. Today she still hadn't found them, so she had me drive her to the dog groomer to take in her dog, then drove her back later to pick up the dog.

I am working on her filing. She has files for bills. I file the bills. Then I find other things - I found a newspaper article she had printed. "Where do you want this?" I asked, "under N for Newspaper" she said. I create a new file for everything, if I find a pizza coupon sometimes I file it under C for coupon and sometimes P for Pizza. Taxes go under T for Taxes and the letter from Sears telling her that her fridge had been recalled went under R for Refrigerator.

Today she told me about one time when she hired someone to do her filing and they made organized files but when she opened them later it turned out that they had just put blank sheets of paper in a filing cabinet. We couldn't find two boxes of receipts so she told me her old book keeper probably stole them and is holding them ransom, "but it's okay" she said "Because I'm sort of dating his brother so we can get them back, I'll file with the police"

The only reason I feel comfortable working here is with the knowledge that I'll be far far FAR away should she ever decide I was actually a government agent or a thief or a thieving government agent or an alien that feeds on tax forms. It could happen - in her world.

Tioman Vacation

2009-05-18T03:23:00.005+01:00

My Friends Raj and Gayatri and I headed to Tioman Island in Malaysia over Easter. Tioman was fantastic and delicious. Here are pictures:

On the boat to Tioman Raj met some Germans named Anders and Greggors (or something). As we left the boat they said they would meet us at our hotel lobby for 9 for drinks. Instead we decided to get some fish and didn't return untill nearly 11. In the morning we found the following note left for us outside our door (by the hotel staff, not the Germans who did not know where we were staying)
gregor & andreas

We chose to eat fish again the next night rather than take them up on their generous offer. Nice try, boys.

Factually Correct, but Awkward none-the-less

2009-05-13T01:26:00.003+01:00

I got called for jury duty in DC. Unfortunately I will not be there, because I do not live there. I called to tell them this.

"You have to prove that you don't live in dc" said the county clerk phone operator

"But you can't prove a negative" I stated

There was silence. She asked if I wanted to defer. I said yes. In 90 days I might have a better answer.

the Hemp Temp.

2009-05-12T16:39:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was my first day on my first assignment with my first temp agency. My first assignment was a proper welcome back to California – I was working for the Narin Alliance for Nedical Narijuana [name has been changed to avoid googlesearch and/or breech of confidentiality]. I assumed it was some sort of lobbyist group. I assumed wrong

It was a marijuana dispensary.

The hours were 10am to 5pm. I arrived at 10 to a room with plants and bags and scales. “my name is Rachel and I’m the temp from Perfect Timing” I said. “huh?” said the guy behind the counter. A confusing few minutes later it became clear they did not know I was coming, the owner wasn’t in, and that usually temps go to the woman’s home, but they couldn’t reach her so they weren’t sure where to send me.

A few awkward minutes later I was sent to the owner’s house. My first task was organizing her desk. Her desk had papers at least a foot high, everywhere. I moved them out to the living room and sorted them into piles. Every pile that I sorted had a similar makeup: bill, bill, concert ticket, reggae poster, letter, bag of marijuana, picture of musician, catalogue from smoke shop. I made the following piles: Bills, notes (scraps of paper she had written on), contacts (business cards etc), marijuana.

The first project she tackled was bills. I gave her a stack of bills, she sat next to the computer and started to do bill pay. A few minutes later she got distracted, and when I came back she had taken my pile of ‘contacts’ and put it on top of the bills. She then handed me the whole pile and asked me to sort it.

This is how it went, for 6.5 hours. She has (so she told me) ADD and ADHD and PTSD and so she smokes all day, I noticed no marked difference. At one point she was trying to do QuickBooks and getting very agitated, I was watching her try to do QuickBooks and getting very agitated. Finally she left to get high, and I was able to extract data into a nice spreadsheet, and we both felt a lot better.

When my sister was 15 she had to do community service, she volunteered at PETA. They made her watch videos of animals being slaughtered until she decided to be a vegetarian. Working as a temp here is the anti-drug equivalent to that program.

Yo Quiero Taco Bell!

2009-05-10T22:50:00.007+01:00

In case you were curious, I did get my Taco Bell fix. My parents, being the best parents ever, came to pick me up at the airport. I breezed through security even though my arrival card had the following written in the 'visiting countries' section: "England, Spain, Laos, China, Cambodia, Hungary, and more." I did not even get my passport stamped, which made me sad because I thought I would get an America stamp. Zachary had an America stamp in his passport. he also gets searched fully every time he returns to the country. But he chooses to have dreadlocks and I choose to look like the kind of person one should want in their country so, well, that's how it works.

Anyways, the taco bell. I ordered my 2 bean burritos and a small soda, which now costs almost $3.50, and enjoyed them greatly. Things that I enjoyed about them include: room temperature mild sauce (2.5 packets per burrito), free refills on the soda, ice in my drink!

Adjusting home is not easy, and I'm still having moments of strangeness and moments of sheer excitement. For instance, I went to the store to buy dinner food and while there I stopped at the bagel display. "I missed you so much" I muttered at the fresh everything bagels. "what?" said the woman I didn't notice next to me. "nothing" i said. There is so much of everything in the store, so many different kinds of ketchup and a whole isle of pasta sauce. I spent 20 minutes looking at the cracker section just because there were so many different types of crackers! I read some food labels just because I could - everything is in English!

Yesterday I went to the library. I've decided I want to pretend to be a tourist in California so I checked out a Lonely Planet guide to my own state. Did you know there is a place called 'Cardiff by the Sea'? It is down by Solana Beach! Also, the real Cardiff is by the sea too, so maybe someone should look into that. But I'll be checking out Cardiff by the Sea on the 17th, and the other Cardiff also by the sea on the 27th, so I'll be able to properly compare and contrast then...

My Accidntel Deth*

2009-05-09T17:10:00.001+01:00

While home I decided to become better friends with Scout – my family’s dog. Scout and I have never really gotten along, for a number of reasons. I was always opposed to my family getting a dog, growing up I was much more of a cat person and my family always had 2 cats. When I was 15 I went on a year-long exchange program, and while I was gone my parents took the opportunity to get a dog. I could have dealt with the dog, and their decision to wait until i left and instantly replace me with a four footed friend, except for one thing. Before I left there was a hot tub outside. When I came back there was no not tub, just a fenced in area for the dog. This was unacceptable.

When I went away to college a year later my parents semi-adopted my pseudo-sister who lived with them for four years. And now that I’ve returned from my travels I’ve met Niko, the Finish Exchange student they took in less than a month after I left the country. I guess I’ve come to the realization that my parents collect strays, and I better learn how to get along with them. So I started with Scout.

Scout and I went for a walk on horse hill, a hill just up the street that is home to (surprise!) some horses. Scout likes horse hill because it has horse poop and Scout likes to roll in poop. I like horse hill because it reminds me of when I read lord of the rings and wanted to pretend to run away but never made it up the hill because hills are a lot of work. At any rate, I managed to get lost and climb through a barbed wire fence and ended up in back of a school for deranged children (not sure what the school is really for, but I went to the good kids school next door and we always thought it was for deranged children) before finding the street again. I took Scout back to the house, cleaned her, and we started our new friendship.

Our new friendship lasted about 20 minutes, until i touched my neck and found something unusual, which was some sort of bug attached to me. Behaving more like a fifteen year old than a twenty four year old, I called my parents and shrieked into the phone, then blamed the dog. After all, if I hadn’t walked scout I wouldn't have gone on Horse Hill and wouldn’t have gotten bit by a tick and now be dying of Lyme Disease or total grossness.

No one was home to examine the tick and let me know if it really was a tick – I’ve never actually seen a tick before – so I did what any normal person would do. I put it in a Tupperware, attached a note, and left it on the kitchen counter. It turns out it was a tick. as I yelled incoherently on the phone to my mom, “I traveled through Asia for 3 months and this is soooo much more disgusting than *anything* I encountered out there!!!” Next time I’m walking Scout at somewhere dead and full of concrete. Gross!

*Intentional spelling error.

No I Did Not Have A Flower In My Hair

2009-05-08T02:09:00.000+01:00

I decided to take a daytrip to San Francisco. I took the ferry to the city – the ferry leaves from Larkspur and apparently costs $8 each way, or $4 with a prepaid card, or free with your dad’s prepaid card. The ferry leaves from Larkspur, which is known for a few reasons:

The statue in the middle is Sir Francis Drake, a famous Spanish explorer who discovered California. Maybe. It's been a long time since fourth grade California history. The building on the right is San Quentin, which is home to such American celebrities as ‘the guy who killed Polly Klaas’ and ‘the guy who killed Bill Cosby’s Son’ and ‘Scott Peterson who killed Lacy Peterson and their unborn child’ and lots of other terrible people. As an aside, San Quentin does have a death row. The most common cause of death on Death Row is old age. More inmates on Death Row get married every year than die.

But Marin isn’t all about mass murderers and Conquistadors. One time there was a giant lady who fell asleep and turned into a mountain. Now it is Mount Tam:

OPEN UP THAT GOLDEN GATE… CALIFORNIA HERE I COME:

Another famous prison – Alcatraz:

Ferry Building. Also I forgot there are Palm Trees in San Francisco

The best part of San Francisco – food! I found a deli and got myself a deli sandwich with roasted turkey on fresh sourdough! Yum!

Back in the US of A.

2009-05-06T14:48:00.001+01:00

I’ve been back in America for 40 hours now. In that time I’ve managed to eat Taco Bell, Chevy’s (happy Cinco De Mayo!), Kraft Mac-n-Cheese, and about a half a pound of Recess Peanut Butter Cups. As I said after dinner yesterday, “okay, I’m ready to go back to the UK”

Coming home was strange. Of course, everything has been strange for a long time, but this was a different strange. Did you know how big the roads here are? They are giant! You could fit so many more cars on them! But there are already so many cars too!

I drove a car! For the first time in 9 months! I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was massive and orange.

Yesterday morning I woke up in a mild state of panic. The real world came and grabbed my brain while I slept… what am I doing, it’s the middle of a recession, I’ll never be able to find a job, why am I in California, how am I going to fill three weeks here, why am I not in DC, why do I want to spend my summer in the UK, how am I going to get work… etc.

At 6am I started sending my resume to different ads online. I decided maybe I would take a job and not tell them that I’m only in The States for three weeks, then just quit in three weeks when I move to the UK for the summer (that’s my plan, in case I haven’t shared). At 10am one of the places called me back. At 1pm I had an interview. at 1:30 she offered me a job.

Clock it, recession – in the country 23 hours and I have a job. $14/hr 30 hours a week reception with 1 week of vacation a year and medical/dental for which I pay half.

Clock it, America – I’m never leaving the non profit sector, that job sucks.

I went home and considered, if I started right away I could make about $1000 before I left. But I would also be taking advantage of some nice people, and in the end I called back and told them the truth about my time frame. They were less than pleased.

Today I have an interview with a temp agency. I would love to earn some money while I'm here (20 more days) but I'd love to do it not predicated on lies. Hopefully my honesty will give me some goodwill cred towards finding a job in the suffering UK job market. Until then I’ll fill my days running errands for my parents, cooking, reading, writing, and perhaps updating and organizing this here blog!

What Twisted Webs We Weave

2009-05-01T08:12:00.001+01:00

Eight months into this trip and lying has finally become near flawless for me. This sounds like a bad thing, but is actually a good development in terms of safety, awkwardness, and general ease of single female travel. The other day I ran into a group of 5 guys in the evening. “are you alone?” they asked. “No” I said, without missing a beat, “I’m on my way to capital to meet my boyfriend”

The fake boyfriend is a must-have travel accessory. A few months ago I was terrible at it, I remember explaining to someone about my boyfriend who lived in Glasgow but I met him in The States and we’ve been dating for 6 months but I’ve been traveling for four months and I’m going to China in two months and no, he’s not coming with me and…”

it was bad.

Now I’m always on my way to meet my boyfriend. He’s usually at Capitol. Why? because there is always a Capitol – a building or a restaurant or a hotel. No one questions.

I got caught lying about where I’m from the other day. I used to say "California” mostly for lack of a more applicable origin – I haven’t really lived there for 7 years. But when I say California I get the conversation about where in California, and how San Francisco is a great city, or compare the beaches in CA to SE Asia, or what’s the weather like. I never went to the city and barely ever went to the beach. Honestly, growing up in Marin, I think I spent most of my youth at the mall.

And of course there is the connotation of promiscuity as expressed by Mr. Scotland – “I thought all you Americans are loose as F***!” I can feel that sentiment at least half the time. I’m sick of elevator eyes and I can recognize the look in two seconds, the registry of an American followed by a glance at my breasts and a smirk. Every time.

So now, when asked where I am from by locals or sketchy foreigners who want to know if I’m “loose as F***”, I say Wales. Why Wales? Because no one knows anything about it and there are no connotations. Often it’s clear that whoever I tell has a moment of wishing they knew where Wales is so they could continue conversation, but they don’t and conversation abruptly ends. No talk of San Francisco, and no instant assumption that I am four seconds, or a beer, or a jocular yet casual shoulder touch away from jumping into sack.

The Wales lie is of course predicated on the person not identifying accents, I can modify my speech just enough to sound vaguely not-American but certainly cannot pull off any sort of accent. The other day an Australian asked me where I was from – “you sound vaguely Irish Canadian” he said. "Close,” I said, “I'm from California” I still sometimes tell that version of the truth.

Later I was purchasing a soda when I was asked by an older white male where I was from. Distracted with trying to decide between “happy fruit drink” or “good luck aloe drink” I said “Wales” without even thinking. “Oh,” he said, “I’m from Ireland!”

Luckily I played it cool. “um, I’m not from Wales. I’m from The States. I’m from California. but I don’t say that because then people will say ‘where’ and I will say San Francisco and then they will say something about San Francisco and I’ll have to say I’m from just north of San Francisco and I don’t know the city much and I’ve never been to Hollywood or LA and I don’t like southern California and everyone knows someone in California and I can’t remember what the weather is like.” then I realized I still had the door to the drinks fridge open “and you know what,” I continued, on a roll of pure insanity, “I've got to head out now because I want a soda but I always look at five or six stores before I deice, even though I’ll probably end up with a sprite, but this is just the first stop so I’ll be on my way. yes you have a good one!”

If I ever end up in court for anything I hope someone can submit that conversation for my insanity defense.

Island to Mainland (There and Back Again)

2009-04-29T11:16:00.000+01:00

There are no ATMs on the Perhentian islands, so I carefully pulled out enough money for my dive course and a random amount that I thought would suffice for 5 days on an island. In case you were wondering – the dive course was $270 and the random number was $130. After completing my course I decided to do another dive, and after completing another dive I decided to stay an additional week on the island. This presented a small fiscal problem for me, so I asked the manager of D’Lagoon how I could get some more money. “No problem!” he said “I’m going to the mainland tomorrow and you can come with”.

I took a few pictures from the boat as we arrived:

My first stop was the bank. I quickly realized that I was in a very Muslim part of Malaysia, as there were three banks to choose from: Bank of Islam, National Islamic Bank, and CIMB (?-Islam-?-Bank). I guess they could sense a heathen debit card because the first ATM rejected my card. The second bank had 2 ATMs but both were closed as they were being restocked. I stood in line with the headscarved women and their men for about 20 minutes. Finally a man with a shotgun arrived, which was disconcerting, but he went inside and stood behind one of the ATMs and allowed one person at a time to take out money. This was definitely the first time I have ever taken money out of an ATM while someone stood behind me with a shotgun, and I hope it’s the last as well.

We then went to the owner of D’Lagoon’s house, where he runs a silk printing shop. There were 10 women each working on different prints, a complicated process which I can’t even begin to explain. The cloths were beautiful but likely either religious or expensive or both so I did not inquire about purchasing any.

At around 5pm we returned the the boat, the owner had loaded the boat full of supplies and I sat on top of a case of beer and next to a cooler of fish for the return trip. As we left we saw this boat sinking into the sea. As always, I was glad to be on a not sinking boat.

Singapore Slide Show

2009-04-28T13:30:00.000+01:00

Singapore is clean and pretty and here are so pictures:

I don’t have to outrun the fish – I just have to outrun you

2009-04-27T13:31:00.000+01:00

One day I went on a United Nation’s snorkeling trip. My Friend Martin from Sweden had met a girl from Germany who had organized the trip, we went to Redang Island which is about an hour boat ride away from Perhentian and has some of the best snorkeling in the world. 9 of us went on the trip, represented in the group was France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Singapore, and the USA. The girl from Germany could speak fluent Spanish and French, the couple from France could speak French and some English, the Swedish couple spoke Swedish and English and some Spanish, I spoke English and Swedish and some Spanish, the Swiss guy spoke German and English, and the guy from Spain spoke Spanish and English. English became the general language of the boat, naturally, but conversations occurred in all languages which was pretty cool, and I could maintain in three languages, which was also pretty cool for me. Especially when Martin nicely told me “Du ar inte sa dumma som du ser ut!” (you are not as dumb as you look) to which I both quickly and nicely told him to shut up and shove it up his ashlen. In his own language, of course. We stopped for lunch at a fancy resort on Redang – Redang is mostly taken up with fancy resorts whereas the little Perhentian has cheap bungalows and backpackers. We had brought our lunches from Perhentian and ate on the white sandy beach before snorkeling more. Starting with the guy standing and moving clockwise we have: Fie (Singapore), Jose (Spain), Swiss Guy, Martin (Sweden), Hedde (Sweden), French Couple, and me.

We went for three snorkeling adventures, the last one being the most adventure-y. As I was swimming back to the boat I noticed a giant fish – over a foot long – with giant teeth. I continued swimming back to the boat and he started swimming straight towards me, with his giant teeth mouth looking ready to bite me. I turned to look and he darted at me again, and I became, well, more than nervous. I saw Hedde, the five food tall 100 pound Swedish girl, up ahead. without thinking I swam up next to her, screamed, and then shoved her into the fish. It was not my proudest moment.

I later learned that the fish was a Trigger fish, so named because they chase people and can bite with their giant fish teeth. Joke was on the trigger fish though, I ate his entire family that night. YUM!

Panorama Divers in Pulau Perhentian

2009-04-26T13:39:00.000+01:00

I came to the Perhentian’s for one reason – to get my PADI Open Water Diver’s Certification. I had never considered the possibility of Scuba Diving before – but nor had I conserved travel in SE Asia or eating dog, so it seemed a fitting thing to do. More fitting than eating dog. Long beach on Pulau Perhentian Kecil is composed entirely of ramshackle bungalows, identical food stalls, and dive shops. The PADI course is a four day course which certifies divers to dive without instruction up to 18 meters, I settled on the shop which had two things to my liking – free food and British people.

Scuba diving is more difficult than I originally expected. I spent a lot of time floating and try not to, then sinking and trying not to. Scuba diving is also fantastic and amazing, and I went on four dives throughout the course. I think I have a bit of a problem though, because after each dive I really REALLY wanted to eat some sushi.

My dive instructors were a couple from England, he was from Bristol and she was from Manchester, and I spent most of the time I was not diving hanging out in their shop, drinking as much free tea as I could, and chatting about the terrible case of anglophilia I’ve developed. After I earned my certificate I went on a Wreck dive where we swam in a giant sunken ship. We saw snakes and sharks and turtles. Sharks were less scary than I thought they would be. Snakes are far more scary when they can move in three directions rather than just two. Turtles are faster than I thought also.

Here is a picture of me and my crazy instructor from Bristol:

And here is a picture of stingray that I ate for dinner:

D’Lagoon on Pulau Perhentian Kecil

2009-04-24T13:18:00.008+01:00

I fly back to London in 6 days and back to America in 10. I’m spending my last week at D’Lagoon on Pulau Perhentian Kecil. D’Lagoon is a beach with one set of Bungalows and shared toilets for only $8 per night. This is D’Lagoon:

This is the view from my window:

And these are the hammocks that I spend most of the day in:

One night I went out to a bonfire with a group of Brits staying here. On the beach we saw this Turtle:

It was a 15 minute walk through the jungle to get to the bonfire

But the walktook longer because we were stopped by this boa sitting in our path:

At D’Lagoon there are two pets. One is this Monitor lizard. I do not know what it monitors but it is very large:

There is also a monkey. The monkey is very inquisitive. Here he is after he stole a cigarette. Unfortunately the cigarette was not lit, so it is just a picture of a monkey with a cigarette, not a monkey smoking a cigarette, which is about ten thousand times more funny:

Backpacker Budgeting in the Platonic Perhentians

2009-04-23T14:29:00.001+01:00

I took an overnight bus from Singapore to the Perhentian Islands. I boarded the bus at 7:15, it was not slated to leave until 7:30 but took off as soon as I boarded – and I was the only one. I thought I might be getting kidnapped, but having a whole bus to myself was kind of exciting. At Malaysia customs I turned in the passport and the passport officer stared at it, then at me, for longer than normal. “you are very beautiful” he said. “thanks” i said. “very pretty girl” he repeated, then stamped my passport. Getting hit on at passport control is something I still haven’t gotten used to in Asia, but considering the incredulous disinterest I will likely face in the UK I should probably appreciate the compliment.

At 5:30 in the morning the bus driver turned on the lights and yelled “out!” “Is this Kuala Besut? (the port town)” I asked “yes” he said, as he chucked my bag out the door. As I got out the driver drove off and two guys smoking cigarettes on the trunk of their car came over. “you want Perhentian?” the asked. “yes, is this Kuala Besut?” I asked? “no, is Jerteh. You want taxi? 30 Ringgit”. My book had said the taxi was 15, and I told the driver this. He informed me that because it was early in the morning, the price was double. ‘no problem, “ i said, still fuzzy from my bus sleeping, “I will go sit on the ground over there and wait for the sun, or for something to happen”. “okay,” he said, “15 ringgit”. I wasn’t even trying to haggle, I was just sleepy. I got in the unmarked car and was driven to the Jetty.

On the boat I met Martin (on the right, offering you a mango) who was traveling from Sweden. After we were dropped at the beach he asked if I wanted to split a room. "Sure” I said, still tired from the travels. Martin got a key and found a room, in which was only one double bed. “only one bed?” I asked. “yes that is all they have” he said, “is that okay?” “sure” I replied, trying not to sound hesitant.

Sharing a bed with a complete stranger was not as strange as I thought it would be, in fact I think it was no stranger than sharing a bed with a person I know, maybe less strange. Luckily I have been well trained in the art of bed sharing since my family tends to travel on the least amount of bed space possible, and I was still sharing a bed with my sister on family holidays when I was 22. Martin and I ended up being roomies for 5 nights.

This roommate situation illustrates one of my favorite facets of the SE Asia backpacker – backpacker money concerns. In Europe we save money by staying at cheap hostels, cooking dinner in hostel kitchens, and drinking wine from boxes while sitting in public parks or social rooms. The hostel rooms are still $20 a night, the box wine is still $4, even cooking dinner can cost $5. Here, our bungalow was 30 ringgit a night, or $8. By sharing a bed we were able to save $4 per night. I guess that makes up for 5 nights of box wine… but it’s still strange how quickly one adjusts their budget to reflect the insanely cheap travel that is SE Asia.

The Pash tour of the Posh and Conquered

2009-04-22T14:09:00.001+01:00

While I haven’t discussed it much on this blog, I have had a few nice times with a few nice boys on this trip. Before I left I was asked if there was anything I really wanted from this trip. “yes” I said, “an Australian”

I did kiss an Australian, in Italy, but it was nothing to write home about. So I didn’t. But I also kissed one boy from each kingdom of the United Kingdom, and it’s only in retrospect that I’ve realized how strangely cliché each one is.

I kissed an Irish boy. The Irish boy was a protestant, lived in Belfast and worked at the Guinness Factory, along with drinking Guinness almost exclusively.

I kissed a Scottish boy. His name was Scott, and he was studying Gaelic (the Scottish Celtic language, not the Irish one) and Scottish History.

I kissed a Welsh boy. He lived on a farm, spoke Welsh, and got very excited about sheep.

I kissed an English boy. He took his inheritance early to travel Europe, his family money comes from “property” and (I quote) his first love was the theatre.

I was once told “Beauty isn’t everything, but it forgives many things” This is how I feel about most British accents. While I have unbelievably high standards in general, somehow my standards lower to what is probably a normal range whenever I hear someone order baked beans on toast or ask for no “tomAHto.”

To sum - I don’t much care for the queen, but if you want god to save her then I probably want you.

My future is like Malaysia: so bright I have to wear shades

2009-04-17T09:39:00.002+01:00

Hey all! I'm in the Perhentian Islands right now. I'm staying here for most of the rest of my trip. So there might be a large gap between blog posts, because there might not be internet on the island. So I'm writing you this post before I set out, which means I am actually in Singapore as I write, but will be in the Perhentians once this is posted.

I plan on staying in the Perhentians for a week or two, learning how to skuba, writing a book, reading a book, and eating all the fish in the ocean. Then I'm off to Penang to eat some Malay food, then down to Melacca to see some reminants of colonialism, and then up to KL to take a picture of a really big tower and then catch a flight to London.

I fly back to San Francisco on May 4th and then I'm back in the states for some unknown amount of time depending on what I decide to do. The more exciting part of this, for me, is that while I was on this trip I applied to some graduate school programs in the UK and recieved my first response last week - acceptance to Cardiff University's MA in History program. Which means I might be living in Wales next year, studying Nationalist History (my new intellectual passion since Ireland in August 08) and spending the pound sterling which is 150% as painful as spending the dollar. On the other hand, I love indian food (which they have a lot of) and I like water (which they also have a lot of) and I like UK accents* (which they also have a lot of).

And Nationaism, I like Nationalim, collective self identity, and Benedict Anderson. And that's 2/3 of a thesis right there!

*except those from Northern England or East London or most of Scotland. Also sometimes I get annoyed when Irish people "tink" things instead of "think" things and especially if people "fink" things.

Little India: like big India, but smaller

2009-04-15T09:14:00.001+01:00

Singapore is a very cool city. Of course, by "very cool" I mean "very delicious" as I've started to judge all cities solely on their food. My first day in Singapore I decided to go for a walk to Little India, which is like big India in that there are a lot of Indian people and a lot of Indian Food. I happen to love Indian food, I have no sublimated my desire for Mexican food with a desire for Indian food. Unfortunately I arrived at Little India at about 11am, which is a bad time to look for food since no one else is eating and I hate being the only person in a restaurant.

So I decided to be a little cultural. I found a temple, and a religious ceremony that involved a guy with lots of temporary piercings, the likes of which I haven't seen since certain Straight To The Point ads (Straight to the Point is a piercing studio in Portland, OR). There was also music. The cool thing about being so incredibly white as I am is that I look totally out of place no matter what, so I decided to look totally out of place while taking pictures, which is what the other white people were doing.

At one point, a guy came over and motioned at me then pointed to my feet. I ran through a list of things I could be doing wrong - did I have my shoes on inside? Were my feet pointing towards someone? was I stepping on someone's gown? Was I in the boy section? I jumped backwards and then realized the man was pointing to my camera case, which had fallen on the ground. Whoops.

After the temple I found myself an Indian restaurant and ordered their $5 set lunch. Then I realized it was actually a Nepalese restaurant, not an Indian restaurant. I was sad to have missed an opportunity to eat Indian food, but I did learn two lessons. 1. Reading is FUNdamental. 2. Nepalese food is not as good as Indian food.

Man's best friend.

2009-04-13T08:49:00.003+01:00

Zachary came to Cambodia with the goal of eating lots of things he does not normally eat. His logic was the following - he knows he does not like sour cream, because he has tried sour cream, but he does not know if he likes crickets, because he has never tried crickets.

One night we were drinking $0.50 beer and trying to decide what to eat for dinner. The usual crowd of tuk tuk driver were chasing people up and down the street in a sort of hyper-capitolistic frenzy. The people did not seem to want a Tuk-Tuk. Zachary struck up a conversation with one of the Tuk Tuk drivers in between his "YOU WANT TUK TUK" verbal assualts on passing people.

The Tuk Tuk driver was actually pretty nice, his name was Vanny and he taght us some Khmer, so we could say important things like "check please" (som ket loi) and "no thank you" (te akun"). Zachary and I hadn't fully decided what to do the next day, so we decided to hire Vanny to take us around for the evening. Vanny took us to the palace, some grave sites, a temple and a memoria. He took us up to Angkor to buy our pass, then took us to one of the Temples to watch the sunset.

Vanny also knew about a special resturant we wanted to try. He took us down a dark alley that turned into an unpaved dark ally. He then turned left down a darker alley, stopped the tuk tuk, and jumped out. We were sure this was the place we would get robbed, but he jumped back in and made some sharp turns down bumpy roads before pulling into a long driveway.

At the end of the driveway there were four tables, one of which was occupied by 5 cambodian men all speaking khmer. The tables and chairs were plastic, there was a fan missing it's cover tied to a tree with a string of christmas lights above it.

The resturant only served one thing: dog.

We ordered one plate. We were served a combination of dog meat and dog intestine. We also got a bowl of lettue and onion, and a dipping sauce that I think was peanut. I tried a piece of the dog meat - it's strange to eat a meat I have never tried before and I can't quite describe the flavor. I think dog is red meat since it tasted more like cow than chicken, and it definately didn't taste game-y at all. It was also a bit fatty.

Zachary tried the intestine. Vanny said the intestines were very good, very clean. Zachary was not partial to instestine, but he did eat the entire plate of meat, and followed it with some traditional Cambodian rice wine, which he said was lumpy and somewhat gross.

We paid $4 and left, Vanny dropped us home, and the next night we decided to eat something a little more simple, so we had BBQ snake.

Thai Massages & prison girlfriends

2009-04-11T23:34:00.000+01:00

I had my first Thai Massage in Chiang Mai, at the Chiang Mai women's prison. I went back two days later for another massage - after all $5 is a good price for an hour of pampering. After the first hour I decided it was time for a foot massage, so for another $4 I had another hour of massage. The girl giving my massage was named Neung. She spoke some English and told me that she was 26 years old, had no boyfriend, and was getting out of prison in just 6 months. I thought this was some nice chatter, I told her I was 24 and had no boyfriend and had been traveling for 8 months.

Every now and then Neung would point to a part of my body and say "beautiful" though not parts that are often complimented as such. For instance, she pointed to my eyebrows, my nose, and my toes. I thanked her politely. At the end of the massage she gave me her card, which was actually a business card from the prison with her name written on the bottom.

After the foot massage (which was not Neung, but another girl) I said goodbye and gave Neung a hug, as she was my new friendly Thai person friend. I went out to pay for my massage, and after I paid Neung came to the door to say goodbye. She gave me another hug, and as I left she yelled after me, "GOODBYE I LOVE YOU YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL"

"thanks" i said, as I realized I probably just accidentally entered into some sort of transitional homosexual prison relationship. oops.

This isn't my first accidental relationship of the journey. I also have a Chinese boyfriend, or two. I'm not quite sure. I met the boys in Zhuhai with Liz and Dan. They didn't speak much English but their friend Dong Dong (that's her real name) spoke... engrish. Dong Dong worked as translator for the evening. As I was gorging myself on Chinese BBQ Dong Dong was deep in conversation with the Chinese boys. Eventually she tapped me on the shoulder. "He really likes you" she said. "xie xie!" (thank you) I said. 20 minutes of conversation and about 4 pieces of BBQ later, Dong Dong tapped me again. "His name is Metro!" she yelled with pride. "okay" i said.

This is how the conversation continued. Eventually I was asked if I have a boyfriend, followed immediately with the offer of one or more Chinese Boyfriends. Unfortunately they did not understand what I said (no), but Metro told me at least three times "I you Chinese boyfriend."

Maybe Asian boyfriends/girlfriends are like Pokemon, and I will collect them all. More likely, I should start to get my fake boyfriend story right. And I probably shouldn't hug prisoners either.

Singapore!

2009-04-09T03:24:00.003+01:00

Hey - I'm in Singapore! Before I left on this trip I received some strange advice from some strange people. The CPA from my job advised me not to go on this trip since leaving the country and quitting my job in the middle of a recession might have disastrous results for my fiscal future. He then advised me not to bring gum to Singapore. I took his advice on the latter.

But how did I get here? In September I went on a mini bus tour to Cornwall, where I met Raj

From England

who could be violent:

but invited me to come visit her in Singapore. "Sure," i said, knowing that Singapore was not on my itinerary, "If I'm in Singapore I'll definitely come stay with you!" Since we had known each other for almost two days it seemed like a good idea to make nebulous future couchsurfing plans.

The more time I spent in Europe. the more sure I was that I didn't want to travel in South East Asia. I wanted to see Liz and Dan and hide in their apartment since I cant understand Asian languages and I thought everything would be different and scary. They planned a trip to Thailand, and I figured I would stay with them for a month and then fly back to the states from Hong Kong in the beginning of March.

My incredibly generous and wonderful mother had offered to purchase me a ticket home with her incredibly generous and wonderful frequent flier miles, and when I called home in December ready to book my ticket she told me I should wait. I called home in January saying I was ready to book a ticket home, but she suggested I wait a little longer. Sometimes, my mom is smart.

In January I was talking to another backpacker who had been to SE Asia before and started telling me about it - about islands and beaches and hammocks and scuba diving and living on $20/day or less. Until then I hadn't met any backpackers who had been to SE Asia alone, I'd met couples and honeymooners and flashpackers (backpackers with more money), but no single travelers. "you should really stay for more than 6 weeks" he said. "okay" i said.

And that's how I ended up here. A girl from India who I met in Cornwall invited me to stay, a former backpackers who I met in Wales told me to go, and obedient (to anything but authority) I followed their advice. And the accountant will be happy to note that I did not bring any gum into the country.

Cambodian Children

2009-04-07T12:15:00.000+01:00

I admit, I’m not very good with kids. It’s not that I’m bad with kids, necessarily, but more that I don’t understand them and have a great deal of trouble relating to them. I used to be very good with kids, but terrible with people my own age. I think I’m moving in the right direction, but I sill freeze up around small children.

Case in point: at work there was a child. I had a toy at my desk. I said to the child “here, do you think you would enjoy playing with this object?” the child stared at me. My coworker came out and said “Look I have a basketball!” the child became very excited. I went back to work.

So when a hoard of children entered my room at the guesthouse in Siem Reap I did not know what to do. Luckily they went straight for my computer, then for my camera, and then for a bag of hot chili squid flavored chips. “do you think we should let them eat these"?” asked Zachary, responsibly. “Of course!” I said, and opened the chips.

They also wanted to watch television, so I let them do that as well. And this is when I realized other people’s children can be pretty cool, because you can spoil them and give them whatever they want and are not really accountable for it. When I had a baby sister we tried to teach her not to eat junk food all the time, but I don’t have responsibility for other people’s kids so CANDY HERE WE COME!

The girl on the left (below) wanted to use my camera. She was about 5 years old. I clipped the camera to her dress and let her take some pictures, with some adorably hilarious results:

Little Cambodian children are SOOOOOOOOO cute!

The Ponheary Ly Foundation

2009-04-06T10:25:00.002+01:00

One morning Zachary and I visited a primary school in Cambodia. This primary school was in Siem Reap and is apparently one of the best schools in the country. They have a rural integration program sponsored by the Ponheary Ly Foundation which brings very poor children, often orphans or kids with AIDS, to the school and provides them with uniforms. The kids receive uniforms twice a year, which means that on the day we visited the school, which was they day the kids received their second uniforms, most of the uniforms were a grayish-green color. Zachary and I both sat at the front of the assembly with three American volunteers. It was remarkably strange to be in an assembly again – as a high-school dropout it has been almost 10 years since I went to any sort of school assembly. I think they are as boring in Khmer as they were in English.

270 children received new uniforms that day. There was also a sort of school band that had about 150 kids playing various instruments I had never seen before. My favorite were the piano type things that were operated by blowing through a tube, though I also appreciate any primary school band that includes accordion and bongos. My former favorite performance for this trip was an acoustic rendition of Rihanna’s Umbrella, but that has been blown out of the water by the following rendition of Jingle Bells performed by Cambodian school children. If this type of music program is not worth a $10 donation* , I don’t know what is!

Here are a few pictures from the assembly:

Receiving the new uniforms:

Displaying the new uniforms

What is this instrument?

*sorry, apparently soliciting is in my blood

Krabi Rocks.

2009-04-05T13:50:00.000+01:00

I've just returned from Krabi, Thailand where I spent a week learning how to rock climb. Actually, I spent 5 days learning how to rock climb and one day laying around thinking about how badly every part of my body was hurting. Regardless, I can now do a bunch of technical rock climbing stuff and I've found myself a new expensive hobby for 6-10 years from now when I ever have disposable income again.

On one of the rock climbing days I did what is called "Deep Water Soloing" This involved taking a boat out to some rocks, then climbing up the rocks, then jumping into the water.

Step 1: Climbing the rock:

Step 2: Standing

Step 3: Jumping

The Planning Fail

2009-04-04T12:26:00.001+01:00

After rock climbing in Chiang Mai I decided I wanted to rock climb some more – and Thailand happens to have some of the world’s best and most beautiful climbs. The climbing schools are in the south of Thailand, so I decided I would take an overnight train – my favorite mode of transportation. When my flight from Phnom Penh landed in Bangkok I wondered whether I should have bought my train ticket already – I try not to book too far ahead because I change my mind all the time. “well, self, no sense worrying now,” I said to myself.

From the airport I caught a shuttle bus to the transport hub, where I was to catch a bus to the sky train to the metro to the train station. I could have taken a direct bus, but it would have cost 150 Baht ($4.50) and this way saved me $2. On the bus to the skytrain I met another traveler, a French Canadian (not from Québec, but an actual French person living in Canada) who was headed in the same direction but had no idea how to get there. I told him to follow me and I would take him to the train station.

At the train station I went to purchase my ticket when I was informed that the train was full – all the trains were full – for the next three days. The Frenchman and I had talked for the duration of our travels, and even though I find the French to be a prickly bunch I still maintained pleasant conversation. When I found out that my train was full I did what I often do when I’m out of ideas - I sat on the ground and waited for something to happen.

That something was the French man returning and asking me if I got a ticket. When he found out I hadn’t he asked where I was going to stay, he told me he had a nice hotel for 800 baht but I told him that was far out of my price range. “what is your price range?” he asked. “about 300 baht, at most” I responded. “okay,” he said “why don’t you come to my hotel and I will pay the difference for you.” I made some feigned but polite protests and then followed him to his hotel. I figured that hopefully he meant I could have my own room, but if not he looked to be about 70 years old and I could probably kick his septuagenarian tuchas.

As we walked into the hotel there were about 10 men in the lobby. They all stared at me and my French Friend as he checked in. They handed him his room key. “what about her key” he said. The check-in lady did not understand. She told him that he had said “two people.” he insisted he said “two rooms” and needed another. Finally she agreed to give me a room on the seventh floor, but looked wholly puzzled about the whole situation. nearby two men were giving me elevator eyes and snickering to themselves.

The bellhop took my French friend to his room first, and stared pointedly at me when I did not enter the room. The bellhop then took me up to my room. “So,” he said, in a thoughtful tone that indicated he had been working on this sentence for quite some time, “you have new daddy?”

“no” I responded, “I could not get a train ticket, and this man offered to do something nice for me, and sometimes people are just nice. Thai women always slut around with old white men and that culture is abhorrent to me. Western women are not all whores like Thai* women, and your entire sex industry is degrading and immoral. Nice people do nice things. You and your culture disgust me.”

He smiled at me, winked, and said “new daddy” again.

Sometimes, it’s a good thing that I talk so fast even Canadians don’t understand me.

*Not all Thai Women are whores, I am sorry if you are reading this and you are Thai and/or offended. Some western women are whores too. Especially Russians.

(ps - I realized that this didn't get posted when I thought it did, so it's up now but behind some other posts)

The Great Thing About Potato Chips

2009-04-02T15:48:00.000+01:00

Asia has some of the best and strangest potato chips I have ever seen. Normally I don’t buy chips, but Liz tempted me with some sushi flavored Chinese chips and it was all chip-tastic from there. One afternoon in Thailand we went to the store and bought the following collection:

Some of these are pretty standard, I chose sour cream and onion (strange because they don’t have sour cream here) and Dan picked out sweet basil. Liz chose the Spicy Squid (bottom right) which tasted more spicy than squid-y. The strangest chip was the double cheese pork burger chip, which did actually sort of taste like a hamburger, or at least like condiments. We definitely tasted cheese, and ketchup, and mustard, and a host of other strange flavors, with some spice thrown in for good measure.

By Far the best chip I have ever tasted is the Garlic Soft Shelled Crab chip. I don’t know WHY Lays does not make this chip in the states, as it is absolutely the most delicious flavor ever. Here are photos of Liz and are artistically and dramatically displaying our passion for Garlic Soft Shelled Crab Chips. Actually, I think Liz emotes a passion for the chips whereas I emote a goat-like urge to eat the wrapper.

Ko Maak Photopost

2009-03-29T00:59:00.000Z

Leaving Ko Chang:

View from my bungalow (water is just beyond the trees)

Tree swing on the beach (I spent a lot of time climbing on, swinging from, and jumping off this tree)

How I spent the majority of my 7 days on the Island:

Blue blue ocean every morning:

Beautiful sunset every night:

Ko Maak is exactly what I hoped Thailand would be.

Let's go to the Mall!

2009-03-28T04:44:00.003Z

Today I am spending the day at the mall! This was not intentional - I intended to be in Krabi by now, maybe even Railay, maybe signing up for a Rock Climbing course or just sitting near the ocean. But lack of foresight means that I am at the Bangkok South Bus Termina. I'm taking an overnight bus tonight but I wanted to book the ticket this morning, and a one hour public bus ride later I am at the bus station at 10am, finding out my bus does not leave until 7:30pm. I could go back to the city, but as it turns out I hate cities. So instead, I am hanging out in the mall.

The mall is somewhat surreal. It's got a KFC, two Seven Elevens, and a Dunkin' Donuts. It also has a Mr. Donut, a Super Donut, a Dried Squid Shack, and about 7 shoe stores. I found some video games and absolutely massacred a Thai kid at Burnout3.

I think I love this mall. It is air conditioned. It has an internet cafe with internet for $1/hr. There are at least six stands selling bread coated in brightly colored sugar, and two places selling deep fried hot dogs. And best of all, the toilets are free! And western! I can sit!

It's been about 2 hours already and I've only explored the second floor. There are two more floors! Maybe in an hour or two I will see if there is a movie theater here. I haven't seen a movie since I was in Wales. And later later I will get some lunch, and maybe even a donut. I haven't had a donut since I left Federation.

And then I can try on some shoes, and maybe a skirt, and buy some lipstick, and think about boys I have crushes on, and then my dad will pick me up and I'll have a sleepover with my best friend. Or maybe I'll realize in about an hour that my ability to spend a full day at the mall ended when my dad stopped picking me up and my best friend went to a different high school and I stopped pretending to wear lipstick.

Either way there will be a donut.

Edit: I went upstairs. There are two more Seven Elevens there, and one more Dunkin' Donuts. There are also 15 makeup stands, a giant food court (food courts look the same in every country) and some empty stalls that look like they will soon house makeup stands. I took a nap on the floor and then decided to go to KFC for lunch since I really really wanted some of those fried potatoes and I haven't been to KFC for 10 years or so, but KFC only had fried rice. Fail Fry. My Donut from Mr. Donut was pretty good though.

Free Wireless in Third World Airports Makes My Heart Flutter

2009-03-27T11:08:00.001Z

So I’m chillin’ at the Phnom Penh airport in Cambodia. It’s a surprisingly nice airport that has air conditioning and semi-functional free internet. There is even a plug here! There is also a $25 departure tax, which I forgot about until I was reminded by security. Unfortunately I only have $23 left, but fortunately the departure tax people take credit card. Since January 17th (when I arrived in Asia) I have used my credit card three times, once for booking airplane tickets, once for the Cambodia departure tax, and once for an Ice Cream at Burger King in Hong Kong. I do like working with cash, but cash does not give me frequent flier miles and without frequent flier miles I do not get free flights and without free flights I can not travel the world, so I think I prefer using (and paying off immediately!) credit card.

My brother Zachary traveled with me through Cambodia for 8 days. Zachary had the goal of eating weird things. I had the goal of not getting sick. Zachary accomplished his goal. I did not.

At a bus stop Z found a person selling crickets, and bought $0.50 worth of crickets. I ate one cricket. He at the entire bag. I think the cricket would have been better with either salt or BBQ sauce. I think they were roasted and I thought they were a bit plain. I splurged and spent $1 on pineapple, only due to a mistake in haggling on my part. I should never have paid so much – pineapple should cost about $0.50. One of the many nice things about traveling with Zachary is that he compensated for my inability to judge how hungry I am – apparently I can not eat a whole pineapple. Luckily Z can eat a bag of crickets and half a pineapple, so I didn’t have to feel bad about not finishing my food. After all, there are starving children in Africa. And Cambodia.

Zachary pointed out, as many others have, that this blog is very food-centric. There are a few reasons for this. One reason is that about a month into my Europe trip I stopped eating fun and culturally-relevant foods and started eating cheap and cheaper foods, culminating in the Italy portion of my trip wherein I ate basically nothing for 9 days (the Coliseum cost the same as 2 days food budget!) and then was surprised when I fell ill in Switzerland.

A second reason for this food fixation is the inordinate amount of time I spend being sick. Since arriving in Asia the longest I have gone between bouts of food exiting my system very quickly (and often painfully) is 12 days. So I spend about 8 days eating everything in sight, and then I spend two days eating nothing but rice and sprite. Now some might argue that my penchant for eating strange foreign foods causes my digestive discomfort, but I would argue that it’s not often one gets the opportunity to boil and eat their own food on a street corner in Hong Kong. And the minute I get home I’m going to Taco Bell (I checked and there is one just 6 miles from San Francisco Intl Airport) which is probably just as deadly as street-cooked Cambodian squid.

Return to Thailand

2009-03-26T00:45:00.005Z

Upon re-entering Thailand from Laos I went straight for an Island which a Greek guy in a bar in China had recommended. The Island was Ko Chang, and I flipped through my Lonely Planet Guidebook until I found a beach that looked inviting. The beach was Lonely Beach, and lonely was what I was looking for, so it seemed like a good idea.

Upon arrival I discovered that Lonely Beach was not so lonely after all. Lonely beach was rustic, I had to walk across a makeshift bridge in order to get to my bungalow, but I also had to pay 500 baht a night for a cockroach room with cold shower and toilet classic (toilet classic involved dumping a bucket of water in the toilet in order to simulate flushing. Even the Romans had a better system).

Although Lonely Beach had a lot of people, I was a bit out of my element. After spending months traveling through Europe I had gotten quite good at making friends in Hostels. Unfortunately they don’t do hostels in SE Asia, and while a bungalow is rustic and cute, it’s a bit isolating. I hadn’t talked to anyone for three days in Laos, and I couldn’t figure out how to make friends on this beach either. One morning I walked out of my bungalow and said “boker tov!” to the Israelis next door, “förlåt” as I bumped into a Swedish couple, and the standard “Sa-wat-dee Kah” greeting to the Thai woman who sold me my breakfast. And then I didn’t talk to anyone else all day.

I’ve been asked about a million times on this trip “don’t you get lonely traveling by yourself?” and the answer is almost always “no”. This was the first time in the last seven months of travel that I did feel lonely. I did meet a few people, eventually, but Lonely Beach was not my beach. I swam in the ocean in the morning and had it all to myself because most of the other beach dwellers were hungover until the mid afternoon. There were 10 tattoo parlors on the main road, and there were *always* people getting tattoos at all hours of the night. Lonely Beach was not for beach, Lonely Beach was for party. “Aww man it’s great, every bar has another party every night!” a drunk twenty-something America’s Hatter told me, “I’ve been here for two weeks and I remember less than three nights!” he proudly proclaimed. Most of the people at Lonely beach were 18 to 21, and never had I felt a 3-6 year age gap so strongly.

The Greek Man had recommended another island – Ko Maak – and I called and made a reservation. A $12 boat ride later I was happily situated in a $5 bungalowow on a beautiful island. The resort was full of nice people from all over the world, and I never ate a meal alone for the entire week. I went shopping with my Canadian friends, went for schnitzel with the Germans, Snorkeling with the Dutch, and BBQ with the Slovenian. Apparently I still know how to make friends, I’m just getting picky.

Cambodia I

2009-03-24T15:26:00.002Z

My Day In Laos

2009-03-22T02:11:00.000Z

One day in Laos I decided to rent a bicycle and ride around the city. Vientiane supposedly had some nice sights and I had already been there for three days without seeing anything but the inside of my hotel and the inside my Cipro bottle. Since the weather hit 95 every day by 11am I rented my bicycle at 8am - it was $2.50 which was slightly more expensive than it should be but it was pink which was definitely worth an extra $1.50.

One difficult part of biking in Vientiane was that everyone was on every side of the road - and the motorbikes drive like crazy people. Add some insane Tuk-Tuk drivers and the random foreigner driving a car and you have a recipe for a Rachel pancake. Luckily I am a complete wuss when riding a bike and ended up walking across most intersections like I was crossing the street for elementary school. On the other hand, I am not a pancake.

I think this was some sort of school

This is the famous monument which is on all Lao money (maybe).

Wat u talkin' about Willis (hahaha I probably should have saved that for later):

I look happy. It is about 10am and over 90 degrees already. The black shirt is good because you cannot tell I am actually melting:

US-Lao relations are a bit weird, what with the secret bombings and the Communism. One time the US gave Lao lots of concrete to build a new airport. Instead they built this:

After my bike ride I found a juice shop and had myself an Iced Coffee and a breakfast baguette. Laos had delicious baguettes left over from delicious french imperialism. This was good for me because I like bread. But more to the point, this is how my life often looks in SE Asia - Iced Coffee, bottled 'ready to drink' government water, and my Lonely Planet Guidebook

All that junk inside yo’ trunk!

2009-03-19T02:44:00.000Z

Every wonder what a girl carries around in that purse? Wonder no more!

230,000 Laotian Kip, 800 Baht, Journal, Lonely Planet Guidebook, Bug Spray, Vientiane Map, Science Fiction Novel (Iain Banks: Look To Windward), notebook, Aloe, Sanitizing Wipes, copy of passport, 10 single US $1 bills, Passport photos, fake Chinese ipod, three crisp $5 bills and two crisp $10 bills, wallet with student ID and guitar pick from favorite band.

Pretty standard, really.

Maps and Plans - SE Asia

2009-03-17T01:00:00.000Z

So I made you a googlemap to show where I have been and where I plan to go, though on this map there is no separation between the two. I flew into Hong Kong, Spent a lot of time in Zhuhai, went to Southern Thailand with Liz and Dan, and the crazy in and out of Bangkok lines are my own doing. Today I am flying to Cambodia and on Thursday my brother is flying to Cambodia to travel with me for eight days (yay!!!!). We are going to Phnom Penh and Ankor Wat.

After that I plan to go south to Krabi to do a rock climbing camp, then to Bangkok for a few days before heading to Singapore to hang out with a girl I met in Cornwall, and together we will do a mini Malaysia Roadtrip. After that I might head Penang, Langkawi, the Perhentian Islands (to learn how to Scuba!), over to Melaka, and then up to Kuala Lumpur

I have a flight booked from Kuala Lumpur to London on April 30th. And sometime soon I will book my flight back to San Francisco. Tentatively I will be in Marin in the beginning of May, and DC towards the middle or end of May. There might be a cross-country roadtrip in June, and I might even accomplish my multi-year goal of visiting The Creation Museum (and visiting Kentucky!).

And that's as far as I've gotten.

Check out this map!

View Larger Map

Countries I've visited:

visited 24 states (10.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World or vertaling nederlands duits?

States I've visited:

visited 48 states (96%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Best time to visit Schoneberg

Monkey Line!

2009-03-16T01:19:00.005Z

This weekend I went zip lining through the Jungle, which was fantastic and amazing. Check out these videos (better with sound) and then understand my true desire to be a monkey.

In my process of breaking down the things I like into their basic components, I have now added "hanging". Things I like: bending, hanging, and climbing. As such, I went rock climbing, caving, and zip lining this weekend. I also tried Yoga, but I still do no like yoga. Not enough bending too much breathing. Breathing is not on my list of likes.

Zip line!

Zip Line 2!

Zip Line 3

Chiang Mai Day Trek

2009-03-15T10:17:00.001Z

I debated whether to sign up for this Trek or not - it was 700 baht which seemed very expensive. On the other hand, it involved elephants, waterfalls, lunch, and bamboo boats. After changing my mind about 20 times I realized that 700 baht was $20, and if I told someone in the states that I didn't go on a Thai Jungle Trek because it was $20 they would probably hit me, and rightfully so.

Our first stop was the elephant camp, where we rode elephants through the jungle. There was an elephant saddle-type thing on the back of the elephant for sitting, but I asked if I could ride up front. I did not fall down and everyone was very impressed with my elephant riding abilities - myself included. They're like really slow fat horses. Slow fat horses that occasionally eat trees which swing thisclose to your head.

This elephant had a baby elephant. You can see the "saddle" on the top

I rode with Liya, a backpacker from China:

After the trek we could feed the elephants:

I couldn't figure out what to do so i stuck the banana in its nose

Feeding elephants is kind of gross

After the elephants we walked to a waterfall. I tried to swim to the waterfall but it is hard to swim in waterfall water because it moves very quickly. Also it was very cold.

Walking through a rice field

Hill Tribe people. they probably had a culture but now they try to sell things to tourists.

We took these bamboo rafts down a river. Thai people would splash water on us when we saw them, so we would splash water back. I steered the back of the boat for a little while and also fell down twice while trying to stand. It was very fun and we were all very wet by the end:

Chiang Mai Cooking Class

2009-03-14T09:59:00.001Z

While in Chiang Mai I took a Thai cooking class. Now I can make curry paste from scratch, I just need a mortar and pestle and the ingredients. Or I can go to Trader Joe's and save myself two hours. The cooking class was out on a farm about 45 minutes from Chiang Mai. Sara told me about the class, and there was also a French girl named Marie there. We each chose 5 dishes to cook, I made Yellow Curry Paste/Yellow Curry, Papaya Salad, Tom Yam soup, Pad Thai, and Bananas in Coconut. First we were taken to the market, where we bought the ingredients, then we cooked everything at the farm. Check out the sideshow!

Later that night Sara and I went out for fruit shakes. Sara took this picture, which I think sums up my experiance in Thailand:

I bought that shirt for $2 at a market, it is completely ridiculous, I would never normally wear anything that says "love forever" nor consider wearing/purchasing such an item, yet I was in such a good mood when I returned to Thailand that I thought it was a good idea. Then there is the banana shake - my favorite favorite food-snack. They even put a bright flower on it, and the straw is shaped like a heart. We are sitting outside the restaurant, but there is no wall separating inside from outside. The inside is a bright yellow, outside is lit with lights, and everything is full of happy color. It's 10pm and still 80 degrees. This picture is Happy Rachel in Happy Thailand

Chiang Mai

2009-03-13T09:39:00.003Z

I love Chiang Mai. I know I said I love Ko Maak, but I also love Chiang Mai. I've been here four days now, on my first day I went for a walk around the city and saw some of the phenomenal Wats they have here, along with a visit to the Chiang Mai History Museum. The second day I spent at a Thai Cooking Class and the third day I went for a one day Trek-adventure (I don't like the word "trek" because I that's just a fancy backpacker word for walking) where I rode an elephant, walked to a waterfall, visited a hill-tribe village, and took a bamboo raft down a river. Tomorrow I set off for a two day rock climbing/caving trip with an overnight in some remote village.

Today I decided to take it easy. I woke up, had my standard breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt, and muesli, then played on the internet for a while. The hotel I'm staying at has wireless and haven't yet set any limits on bandwidth usage so I have been uploading and downloading like there's no tomorrow. At about 2pm I decided I should stop being so lazy.

So I went for a massage. At the local women’s prison. You can make your jokes here if you want, I don't need to. The prison has a program where inmates learn a trade and earn money for when they are released. A tiny Thai girl gave my massage, I tried to imagine what she could be in prison for but it's hard to imagine tiny Thai women committing crimes of any sort. Especially when they are wearing pink masseuse outfits and have giant pink bows in their hair.

The woman giving my massage spoke some English, and would every now and then say "relax" as she pushed her heel into my knee and pushed my foot in some direction I didn't think it should go. Sometimes I couldn’t tell what she was doing at all, I would look up and realize that what I thought was her hand was actually her foot, and what I thought was a foot was actually an elbow. It was a bit strange, to say the least.

I will try to describe one contortion, which will probably make no sense, but here goes. I sat down cross-legged and she sat behind me with her knees towards her chest and her shins against my back. Then she had me clasp my hands together behind my head, where she proceeded to put her arms through mine and then pull back in such a way that I flipped over her knees in a sort of feigned arch position. The arch part was fine, it was the tiny Thai girl that I thought I would crush that was less fine. "can you relax?" she said, as she pushed her knees further into my spine and pulled the back of my head towards her stomach.

The massage was actually excellent, cost $5 for an hour, and I'm going to try and go back on Monday (my last day in Chiang Mai). This evening I'm going to the night market to get my new favorite dish - papaya salad - and then I'm taking a yoga class. Contort-a-licious.

Liz/Dan/Rachel Thailand Wrap-up

2009-03-12T16:27:00.000Z

I know I'm bouncing around my dates like it's my job (ha - I haven't had one of those since August!) but here's the wrap-up for Liz and Dan and my trip to Thailand in the begining of February.

We stayed on the Island of Ko Lanta where we booked ourselves a four Island Snorkeling tour. I saw many fishes. That's right - fishes. I pluralize J.C. style with the loaves and the fishes, yo.

Near Krabi is Phanom Bencha National Park. We went there to do an organized jungle trek but intead Dan led us through the jungle and to safety. He also has a nice camera, so here are a lot of nice pictures:

And, of course...

Things We Ate In Thailand:

A Few More Things About China

2009-03-11T13:35:00.002Z

Chinese fashion is absolutely ridiculous. I saw these girls walking down the street and had to take a picture. Dan was equally amused and managed to take a picture of the girls from the front. Covertly taking pictures of young girls could likely get one arrested in the states, so I hope you appreciate the absurdity (and my inability to be in a photo without making a stupid face):

No China post would be complete without a discussion of things I ate. So for my last night we went out to Hot Pot, which was a $2 taxi ride away and worth every penny. Liz, Dan, and their friend Luke ordered even though the menu was all in Chinese. I listened and could tell if they had (yo) or did not have (me yo) things I wanted to eat. They did not have shrimp, but they did have shrimp balls. They also ordered what the waitress recommended, which turned out to be some sort of honey baked ham dish.

After we ordered the tablecloth was removed in order to reveal a large hole in the middle of the table. We were then brought a boiling pot of soup, one side spicy and the other mild. Chinese spice is unlike any other spice I’ve had, rather than an instant burning the spice builds until you realize you can’t feel your lips.

We were then brought a table extender to accommodate the amount of food we ordered. I have no idea what all we ordered, nor what kind of animal, but chicken feet were not brought out so I was happy. The dinner was not the most hygienic ever, and might account for my later Laos sickness, but I would definitely eat it again. First we used our chopsticks to put the raw meat into the broth. then we sanitized the chop sticks by sticking them into the broth before getting the cooked meat out. Of course the “cooked” meat was a matter of guesswork, since none of us had brought, or considered bringing, a meat thermometer.

After dinner we decided to go to a bar. There was a bar next to the restaurant, but by now I was so accustomed to China and Chinese food that I requested the one bar I knew which had an American style toilet. I know some people travel because they want to “find themselves” but if these digestive discoveries are the pinnacle of heightened self awareness then I would probably prefer to keep the knowledge lost.

Burma

2009-03-10T10:28:00.003Z

Also, I am now traveling with a girl I met in Mai Sai - her name is Sara and she blogged about our Burma adventure HERE!

Happy Daniversary!

2009-03-09T02:55:00.000Z

Shortly after we returned (to China) from Thailand it was Dan New Year. Dan New Year was celebrated with the ritual slaughter of a young lamb. Actually, it wasn’t ritual as much as delicious. We reserved a private room at the happy lamb restaurant, which is not really the name but all the pictures of lambs look surprisingly happy to be eaten so I named it thusly.

The lamb was presented in a manner fit for any Daniversary:

Dan was then instructed to cut the lamb, which frightened us a bit and frightened Dan more.

Luckily after just two cuts the lamb was taken away, and later returned as delicious lamb portions. Here are Liz and Dan after we ate most of the lamb, and the many plates which many parts of lamb once sat:

Some of the cuts were rolled into pancakes and eaten with vegetables, some were dipped in various sauces. There were fifteen people there and between us all we were able to finish the entire lamb.

As my happy Dan New Year present, I took pictures of him looking creepy while eating food and then posted them on the internet right now. The second picture is of his desert noodle bowl, which contained one very long noodle symbolizing a very long life.

Happy Daniversary – you’re closer to 50 than birth!

Two Quick Notes:

2009-03-08T13:06:00.002Z

1. I've changed commenting so that anyone can comment - I didn't realize that only registered users could comment before. So now Dansbooks will not necessarily have a monopoly on comments - you are free to correct my spelling and punctuation as well!

2. I learned that if you use RSS to read the blog my posts get put to RSS the first time I post. Often I check and double check posts later (especially when uploading from livewriter to blogger) so you might not get the most current post through RSS. If you know of a way to update RSS please let me know!

Visas and Transit: Ko Maak to Mae Sai

2009-03-06T11:28:00.000Z

The problem with leaving Laos as I did was/is visa related. If I cross over the border by land I get a 15 day visa, by air I get 30 days. So I flew in and was stamped through till the 20th of March, but instead left the next day into Laos. When I left Laos they re-stamped my passport with my new 15 day visa, which expires on the 10th. My flight to Cambodia leaves on the 17th.

There are a few Visa options. One is to cross the border, I was fairly close to Cambodia but they charge $25 for a visa plus I would have to pay for transit. There is also a border to Laos, but I am NOT going to pay that country another $35. There is a border to Malaysia, but I'm going to Malaysia next month so I didn't want to hop the border there. I could also go to a consulate and get an extension, but that will cost about $60 which is unjust because I already had a visa to the 20th before I decided to go to Laos. So the most obvious option is to go to Burma.

I was planning on heading to Krabi to do some rock climbing. on the boat from Ko Maak I was convincing myself that a 7 hour train and 3 hour bus and overnight in a terrible town on the border and then 5 hour bus to krabi was worthwhile... actually it was slightly more complicated and might have involved an overnight in Bangkok or a train 5 hours out of my way only to double back on a bus... but I was trying to convince myself all of this was a good idea.

Then I see some of Bangkok - although I've flown in and out of there twice and taken trains in and out of there once I haven't really seen the city. I took a public bus, no air conditioning but it was only 7 baht, and the city is actually gorgeous with lots of beautiful Wats and buildings and parks. And I decided that I should take a break from hedonistic over-consumption (China) or Hedonistic Ennui (Thai Islands) or even Hedonistic Hotels (Laos). I decided I wanted a bit of culture.

So I got on a train to Chaing Mai, in Northern China just 14 hours from Bangkok. Once in Chaing Mai I took a 5 hour bus to Mae Sai, where I am now writing this from the "Love Net" - a room of plush red chairs with children playing video games online. I'm sad to say that I recognise the boy next to me is playing Wolfenstein. he looks to be about 8 years old - I was not allowed to play Wolfenstein when I was 8 because there was too much violence so my mom took the hard disks away. There other kids playing some sort of video game DDR and/or other confusingly colorful games. At least computer-geeking seems to be equal oppertunity these days, since it's a 50/50 gender split here. I'm also twice the age (at least) of everyone here, and likely older than the person running the place.

I have myself a room for $5, and tomorrow morning I will walk across the border, have Burma stamp my passport, walk back, have Thailand stamp my passport, and then I will go to Chaing Mai - the cultural epicenter of Thailand (outside of Bangkok) - where I will learn how to rock climb or meditate or cook Thai food!

Or I will just get lots of cheap Thai massages and eat a lot of food.

Bus-ting across Thailand

2009-03-03T14:30:00.000Z

After a week in Phuket and Krabi, Liz, Dan, and I decided to head East. There were 6 people on the bus when we boarded, but 20 minutes into the ride the bus stopped in front of a travel agency, where hoards girls with blonde hair and unnaturally brown skin and guys with board shorts and ray ban aviators all hopped on. The bus was headed to Ko Phangang. The island was a standard backpacker destination, most famous for its Full Moon Parties -nights of bacchanalian debauchery found only island in Thailand or the streets of Brazil or 3203 SE Woodstock. We were headed to the other side of the island where “remote” and “lonely” were two adjectives used to describe some of the beaches. Perfect.

About half an hour into the ride I started to regret the two liters of water I drank before leaving. About an hour into the ride I really regreted it. I fidgeted uncontrollably, I unbuttoned my pants, kneeled on my seat… I looked pregnant and was all sorts of uncomfortable and unattractive. The bus didn’t have very good suspension, and the roads were very uneven. It was torture.

As I tend to do after traveling so long, I start to have a conversation with myself. It went something like this:
”are you going to pee yourself? what about now? what about now? Do you want them to stop the bus? It’s been a minute, do you want to go now? what about now? do you want them to stop the bus?” This conversation lasted for nearly 45 minutes. I had no idea how long the bus was supposed to take, somewhere between two and four hours. It had been 2 hours and 15 minutes when I ran to the front of the bus.

”TOILET” I said, with a look of sheer pain and panic etched in my face.

The driver pulled over to pick up a passenger (sometimes Thai people just sit on the side of the road and jump on these busses, I’m not sure how that works) and motioned for me to get off. I leapt off the bus and ran toward the nearest building, which turned out to be a convince store of sorts. The woman running the store took one look at my hunched awkward running and look of distress, then ran into the house to point me to the toilet.

It was a raised squatty potty, with the cleanest floor I have seen in forever. It was like a tiny porcelain hole sent from heaven. I have never been so happy to see exposed piping in my life.

A second later I heard buzzing. I looked up and saw that the source of the noise was (what I thought was) the wall, but which was actually composed of… honeycomb. The bathroom did not have a bee problem, the bee room a toilet problem. I jumped out of the room and looked into the next room, which I thought might be a second bathroom. Of course it was not, and the shop owner gave me a peculiar look. I entered the room again.

Careful not to look up I dropped trou and went for it. Unfortunately with the bees there I was standing a bit too far back from the wall/squatter, and I’m a bit ashamed to say, but for the sake of narration… I missed.

And then a bee landed on my… on me. And within seconds I was pants up sprinting back across the lawn, jumping back onto the bus, and hoping the driver would drive drive drive before the Thai woman boarded the bus with a mop and a justifiable sense of disgust and indignation. Luckily she was too busy selling squid flavored chips to other tourists, so my secret was safe with me. And now the internet. Whoops.

Okay Karaoke

2009-03-01T14:33:00.002Z

No stay in China would be complete without a bit of Karaoke. Karaoke and I have a bit of a sordid past, I don’t sing and I am not musically inclined in any way, but I may or may not have been asked to leave a bar one time as the result of a particularly poor song choice and some rather unbecoming gesticulations. Luckily I did not run this risk in China – Karaoke in China is a more private, and hypothetically subdued, affair.

Liz, Dan, their friend Luke, and I met up with a few Chinese friend to sing some karaoke. We arrived at the empty Karaoke hall at around 9pm, it was immaculately clean, incredibly bright, and filled with neon signs and posters. We were led down a hall filled with doors by a well dressed young Chinese man. When we arrived our destination I wasn’t sure what to expect; the ambiance, decor, and overabundance of doors indicated something much more sinister (and perhaps even licentious) than an innocent night of Karaoke.

On the other side of the door were three couches, two tables, and a small television. The Chinese friends were already singing when we arrived, and Liz and I quickly took control of the song selection. There were some good choices – Hotel California, Coca Cabana, and My Way being some of her better ones. There were some bad choices - Complicated, Kryptonite, and Rumors were some of my worse ones. There were some bizarre choices – Happy Birthday, Ba-ba Black Sheep, and The Star Spangled Banner being the stranger ones that no one chose.

One thing you might not know about me is how very G I am. Liz and I did an absolutely stellar rendition of “The Real Slim Shady” In Case you were wondering, when we asked for The Real Slim Shady to Please Stand Up, We Both stood up. For Realz.

Bungal-oh-no

2009-02-27T12:14:00.003Z

One of the problems with my writing style, besides my lack of any coherent tense or ability to spell, has always been my inability to write about nice things. I can write pages and pages on things that I dislike, and when it comes to what I like everything is either "good" or "quite good". So before I tell this story, I will say that I am in Thailand on the Island of Ko Chang and it is beautiful and this morning I went swimming in the ocean and this afternoon I went swimming in the ocean and yesterday I saw a monkey and above is a picture of the beach I am staying at that I did not take.

I am staying in a bungalow which is a tiny hut with a mattress and a bathroom which is basically a room on the outside with a hole in the floor and a hose attached to the top which sprays cold water. There is a toilet and a bucket, the bucket is used to get water from the hose to pour into the toilet in some sort of manual flushing motion. Surprisingly, this is not what disturbs me about the bathroom. What disturbs me about the bathroom is that the shower water goes through a pipe to the outside, where there is a patch of fertile grass and flowers, but the toilet water has no visible pipe leading it anywhere, outside or even a hole in the wall, meaning that it must be going under the hut, and if I learned anything from Arrested Development it's that plumbing is always preferable to having your house sink into the muck.

So last night I got home at about 9pm. When I unlocked and opened the door I heard a skuttling noise, and when I turned on the light I noticed something was moving in my laundry bag, which meant that either my laundry had come alive or there was some sort of bug. It was a the latter, and as I watched a cockroach scuttle along my skivvies I heard another noise, looked up, and saw another cockroach on the wall. The one in the laundry bag had burrowed into my shorts, so I was leaving that for a moment to watch the one on the wall, which quickly scurried down the wall and behind the bed. Which is when I noticed the third, and largest, cockroach, chilling on the wall behind the bed.

Thinking quickly I used my water bottle to toss my laundry bag outside (and in the morning took it to the $1 laundry place), then put the mosquito net around the center of the bed with me in the center of the center, something akin to a fetal position alien autopsy. The bed is King sized and I am Rachel sized so there was a lot of extra room. Then I cowered for about half an hour before doing the avoidance thing and rummaging in my bag for an OTC Thai sleeping pill and then sleeping soundly through the night.

When I was a kid and I would get scared of bugs (I'm still afraid of bugs*) people would often tell me that the bug was more afraid of me than I was of it. I've decided this is complete bull, since the cockroach did not seem startled to see me, it did not run away (as I would have done were it not my bed) and it certainly didn't call it's mom in the morning and tell her the terrible story of me.

*and bats and fish and French people and the dark and spiders and snakes and mayonnaise

Leaving Laos

2009-02-26T02:45:00.004Z

It was 95 degrees outside with 90% humidity. I had been in Laos for three days, and was going to take the patch that everyone there does - take a bus to Vang Vien, go tubing down a river filled with make-shift bars, go to Luang Prabang, look at pretty things, then take a 2 day boat up to the border of Thailand, visit Chaing Mai, and then go south to beaches or something. I made myself a calendar and a schedule.

Then I decided I really wanted to go swimming. It was so hot and I felt like all I was doing was avoiding the heat in stupid western themed cafes with Internet and drinking smoothies in Laotian cafes with shade. I checked my Lonely Planet guide and it said there was a hotel which had a pool one could use for $3, so I got my swim gear ready and walked to the hotel.

The pool was closed.

So I got my backpack and took a bus to the Lao border (30 minutes) and walked across (30 minutes) and caught a bus to Udan Thani (2 hours) and to a train to Bangkok (12 hours) and a bus to Laem Ngop (5 hours) and a boat the island of Ko Chang (30 minutes) and a tuk-tuk to Lonely Beach (1 hour) where I found myself a bungalow on the beach.

I feel a lot better now, too. I think being in locked countries makes me claustrophobic. In fact, I only visited two land locked countries in Europe - Switzerland and Budapest - and those were the countries I was the most sick in, so therefore land locked countries make me physically ill. So the upshot is that I am now fit as a fiddle (how fit is a fiddle?) and ready to conquer Thailand. And by "conquer Thailand" I mean sit on a beach and read a book and eat some fruit salad. Thanks for all your well wished my dear readers, I'm glad I have well wishers *and* readers :-)

I do want to go back to Laos sometime, January is supposed to be a good month, and it's very cheap there. Also, in January it is just 80 degrees not 95.

Another post about hair

2009-02-25T14:31:00.000Z

After my last horrific hair-cutting experience in London I had started cutting my own hair. It looked good for a while, but by the time I arrived in China it had taken on a serious slant such that when I tilted my head and smiled for photos, my hair fell evenly.

Liz had not had a haircut since arriving in China, so we decided (I nagged her) to embark on this frightening yet $5 journey together. As Liz and I entered the haircutting salon 10 Chinese men jumped up, ran towards us, started touching our hair, and then fought bitterly as to who would cut each of our hair. The Chinese especially love Liz's hair - not only is it blonde, but it is curly and long. Liz and I took our places in the chairs, as three Chinese men stood behind each of us working on our haircuts.

Explaining what you want in a cut is difficult in the best of circumstances. Explaining what you want in Chinese when you don’t speak any is even worse. I had brought a picture with me, my stylist looked at it and said “okay” then got to work.

As hair fell to the ground, various people working in the salon would pick up the pieces and run their fingers through it, looking at the strands. My haircutter seemed to be chopping large sections out of my hair. This was disconcerting since I didn’t think I had much hair to chop out. Liz was having the reverse problem, her stylist (and observers) loved her long blonde curls so much they wouldn’t cut them. She kept indicating shoulder length, they wouldn’t cut more than an inch.

When they finished the haircut my styleist made a motion that looked like “time out” which confused me greatly. I stared at him, he stared at me, and made the signal again. I took a step towards him, he did not respond. I sat down, and he gestured again. Finally I followed him to the bathroom, where I got confused whether he led me there or whether he thought I wanted to go there, so I jumped in the air, giggled-squealed, and ran back to Liz.

He came back and did the time out sign to me again. Finally he somehow conveyed to me that I was to move chairs. After I moved another stylist started cutting my hair, again. I watched in horror as he picked up layers of my hair, then thrust the scissors towards my scalp as pieces fell to the floor. Lots of pieces. Also, I have never felt the tip of scissors hit the back of my neck before - he cut hair with the same forceful precision that one might cut open fish.

Unfortunately my face tends to convey every emotion, and it made for an uncomfortable moment as 5 Chinese men stood around, poking my hair with scissors, saying “peo leong, peo leong” (which means “beautiful”) while my face turned red and my eyes opened wide in a look that could either be extreme fear or extreme constipation. I was in China so the latter was impossible. In retrospect this might have motivated them to continue cutting my hair, I think they were fascinated by exactly how red my face could (and did) become.

I was brought back to Liz, who had finally managed to get a cut ending a few inches below shoulder length. I’m pretty sure one of the cutting interns had pocketed a piece of her hair. A chorus of Chinese men yelled “peo leung, peo leung” at us as we paid our tab. Each cut, which included a head and body massage, cost $5.

All in all I am very happy with my haircut. Here is a Chinese kitten helping me model my new style, which looks exactly like my old style, but shinier:

Liz’s haircut also turned out well. it was shorter than her old cut, and curlier:

With our pretty new haircuts we were ready to conquer another fantastic Chinese pastime – KARAOKE!!!

The exciting and climactic story pt 2

2009-02-23T14:59:00.002Z

THE EXCITING AND CLIMACTIC STORY PT 1 CAN BE FOUND HERE

Haggling is usually a skill of mine, but not now. I paid $2 for a ride that should have cost $0.50 or less and was taken to a hotel which was full. Like in most times of stress I decided to sit and wait for something to happen. That something was an Aussie (of course). I jumped on his Tuk-Tuk and told the driver we were together, then told the Aussie a slightly fever induced life story which may or may not resemble my actual life. We were dropped off at a hotel where we were told they only had one room, I sat on the floor and told the Aussie he should take it, but fearing that he might be somehow connected with my possibly immanent demise he insisted I take it. I paid $10 for a room with two beds (all they had) and air conditioning.

I slept for 6 hours straight. Unfortunately I had no American dollars left after the visa and Tuk-Tuk, no Thai Baht left after paying for the room, and no idea where I was. I did finally get to use the thermometer I had been carrying around for 5 months and determined that I had a fever, which explained why I had started to panic because I had lost Liz and Dan and I didn’t know where they were and why I was in Thailand or accidentally in America.

When I woke up for the second or third time I decided to start reading the “health” section of my Lonely planet guide, and narrowed decided my symptoms indicated that I had either Travelers Diarrhea (not just gross, apparently a real disease) or Dengue fever. Either way I had picked up 3 doses of antibiotics before I left The States and decided it was high time to start taking one. The antibiotic of choice for travelers is Cipro, which in addition to only needing 3 days worth of pills also cures anthrax. I am ready for both terrorism and Chinese food.

There is a point of pride about this hotel stay, even though I was playing for two beds I am happy to report that I managed to use both of them, one for my 8 hours of sleep pre-shower and one for the 8 hours post-shower. This is a nice arrangement and I highly recommend two beds as a lifestyle choice.

So the upshot of this long story is that I ended up stuck in Vientiane for much longer than intended. The town is normally just a one day stopover, at the time of writing I’ve been here for three days. I wanted to make sure I was completely healthy before heading further into laos so I decided to finish my antibiotics in Vientiane. I also needed to start taking Anti-Malaria pills before moving into Laos, and didn’t want to be taking both drugs at the same time for fear of turning into a human pharmacy. The good thing is that after both drugs are through my system I wont have any biotics or malaria left – and then I can eat some more delicious street food and maybe find some sun-dried squid! (just kidding, i like my squid fried in ball form… mmm squid balls)

The exciting and climactic story pt 1

2009-02-22T14:55:00.000Z

Some people visit 4 countries (or less) in their lifetime. I visited 4 countries in 27 hours.

At 8am I left China and walked across the border between Zhuhai and Macau. From Macau I boarded an Airplane to Thailand. I arrived in Bangkok and went directly to the train station, where I purchased a ticket up to Nong Khai, a town on the border with Laos. The train arrived in Nong Khai at 10am, where I caught a tuk-tuk to the border. I walked across the border, took a bus across the Mekong, waited for my visa, and was stamped into Laos at 11am.

It was quite a smooth journey, up until I fainted 10 feet away from the Laotian border.

Backtrack. When I left China I joked to Liz and Dan “you know, if I was this sick in America I would probably go to a doctor, but I know it’s just China. Let’s eat.” I had been in China for 7 days and was ill on three of them, in addition to other China-food symptoms you can probably guess. On Wednesday night we went out to dinner, which didn’t sit right… but nothing lately had. Thursday I flew to Bangkok, then boarded the train at 8pm. By the time we arrived in Laos I hadn’t eaten anything in at least 36 hours, but I didn’t think much of it.

I shuffled into a Tuk-Tuk with some Aussies I met on the train, we went to the border where i started to feel increasingly… bad. I sat down on the ground while in the line for the visa. About three people from the front I stood up, and my head started pounding, my ears started ringing, and I started looking for a place to be sick that was not in the line or on other tourists. I was called to the front and passed my passport over, my ears hurt from the ringing noise and I kept telling myself not to be sick on the visa guy. He slowly counted out my $35 and then motioned for me to move into the collection line.

I turned towards the collection line, and then I was on the ground trying to prop myself up against the wall. An Aussie yelled “OY” (he probably didn’t say OY but from now on all Aussie sentences will start with OY) “are you tripping?!” “I'm not on drugs” I said, as the good and useful Aussies from the train came over and asked if I was okay. “I need some water and somewhere to vomit” I said.

The Aussies sat me on a chair a few feet away from the border and told me there were doctors inside if I needed anything. There were both Thai and Laotian guards present and both stared at me with passive disinterest. After sitting in the shade and drinking some water I felt better and was able to stumble across the border and catch a bus into town.

(stay tuned for part II!)

Buh Byeee China!

2009-02-19T10:57:00.002Z

So I've left China now. If I break down the price of my visa and the amount of days I spent there then each day cost me about $7. If I went out to 2 meals a day and did not much else then each day in china cost me about $7. Interesting country.

But I have so much to tell you! I spent two weeks in Thailand, I highly recommend you go there now because it is amazing and beachy and 85 degrees. I started to feel comfortable in China, even though I couldn't read or understand anything being said. I made a concerted effort to learn some Chinese, which I then would use at every opportunity and even at some inopportune times. For instance, customs in Thailand. When I arrived in Thailand the customs agent saw I had just come from China, and he said to me "peo leung" which means "beautiful" (he was talking about me, not China). I turned red and said "xie xie" (thank you) and then ran through the list of Chinese words i know in one fell swoop, which went something like this: "Thank you one beer please mine what" eggplant" He stamped my passport anyways.

So Bangkok!

I am catching a 12 hour train to the Laos border tonight, leaving at 8pm. I decided to opt for the 2nd class air conditioned sleeper car, which cost $20. I could have gone for the first class sleeper, but that would have been $33. It wasn't untill after I bought the ticket that I found out the second class sleeper car is 40 beds in one car. Also, I have top bunk.

The other day in China I went shopping. I bought an Ipod, a new pair of sneakers, and a pair of teva sandals. Math time - the Ipod was twice the cost of the sneakers. The sandals were twice the cost of the ipod. I spent 450 baht total. Algebra is FUNdamental!

China is ALSO great because the food is all so delicious, even though I had food poisoning (or more likely, standard China plague) at least three times. Nothing cures a night of intestinal horror like going to a restaurant that serves raw meat which you boil in a pot of oil boiling at the center of the table. But the point is, I found a scale in Thailand. For $0.03 the scale told me I had gained 12 pounds since I left England. Granted, I found this scale after drinking two litres of water and eating a plate of Pad Thai and a plate of street chicken and a hot dog wrapped in a pastry, which explains a bit but not all. Today I found another $0.03 scale and it told me I gained only 5 pounds, which seems more logical. I'm probably the only person who looses 5 pounds in Italy but gains 5 in China.

Thailand 1: a while lotta kata

2009-02-17T14:32:00.009Z

Our first destination in Thailand was Phuket, famous for Tsunamis and a name that doesn’t rhyme with “fire truck it”. Looking through our Lonely Planet Guidedbook we decided to stay our first night in the town of Kata, which was advertised as smaller than its neighbor town of Karon, and also a popular holiday destination of Swedish guests.

The book wasn’t lying, as soon as I arrived in Kata it seemed that all of Sweden was there. Swedish was spoken everywhere, Swedish signs lined the streets, and unnaturally tan Swedes were ever present, strolling the streets in uncomfortably minimalist swimwear. Lest you say something snarky about my bashing minimalist swimwear - these were not the Swedes of the Swedish Bikini Team. These were the Swedes of Sweden, where potatoes and heavy cream are dietary staples.

Looking for dinner one night I laughed at a sign for Charlie's Svenska Kockar - Charlie’s Swedish Kitchen and Playroom for Children. “Why would someone travel thousands of miles just to eat the same food they could have at home?” we asked. “That’s ridiculous!”

Then we found the Mexican restaurant.

That’s right, Mexican. The Mexican that has become my culinary obsession, I would sell my soul for fajitas. If I had El Machino I would be eating tortillas every 53 seconds flat. I wouldn’t save my taco for fourth-meal, I would eat it for every meal. South of the border? Grilled up so it’s good to go? I don’t care, refried bean me up Scottie!

We found happiness there, in Kata, among the Swedes. We found Enchiladas:

Swedish is one of the languages that I can still stumble through. I thought that I could only speak after a beer or two, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I can still confront Swedes in Swedish. As I waited in line at the 7-11 to buy my water a middle aged Swedish man cut in front of me and stood directly behind the second checker. without missing a beat I engaged him in the following conversation (in Swedish)

Me: HEY, I will go there!
Him: Then Go!
Me: I shall!
(nasty stare)

Dripping with the sweet taste of haughty sarcasm and success, I left the store triumphant. Nobody Phuk(et)s with the Rachel.

Chicken Feet, Oranisms, and Related Items

2009-02-10T16:19:00.000Z

Chicken Feet

I've seen them on menus, and in restaurants, and sticking out of a bowl of soup. But somehow it's even more foreign to see them sold in a supermarket. Next to the chicken wings. I could delight myself for hours taking pictures of supermarket food, but the stench of the meat section is something I have not gotten used to at all.

Organism

I think it means recycle.

Prophylactics

They're everywhere. And they're not on the back shelves or in the pharmacy or buried next to the baby supplies. They're not hidden behind the counter so you have to ask the shop clerk like teen movies and you don't have to go to the school nurse like California high schools. They are at the front of every supermarket, every bodega, and even some street stands as well. Every third shop has a loud and brightly colored Durex display. Liz says it is because of the one child policy. With this prevalence one might think there is a no child policy. And either the Chinese are discreet or I am inattentive (or both) but I have yet to see anyone purchase any.

The Most Irritating Conversations, Volume 2

2009-02-08T13:09:00.000Z

Gun Control. British people seem the most interested in this issue. “yes,” I say, “I have fired a gun.” and watch their faces process this information. I can read their thought process, it’s trying to rectify the following: guns are for crazy people (clinging to religion?) and criminals, this girl has shot a gun, this girl did not seem crazy or criminal. I’m pretty sure it would be the same look, and the same mental processes, were I to tell them, “yes, I have thrown a puppy out of a moving car before.” A few drinks later the person will inevitably return and say to me, “but you have to admit, having guns is really stupid and if there weren’t any guns then there would be crime etc!”

I’ve decided it’s easy for the British to dislike America’s fascination with guns. The British don’t have guns, their police officers don’t carry guns. There are no guns in the UK (hypothetically) and if you commit a crime the officer will yell “STOP or I’ll say STOP again!” I’m not sure if the latter is true, but it was told to me as a kid and I’ll chose to believe it. In a completely unrelated note, the UK has recently faced a rash of knife crimes unparalleled in their randomness, brutality, and frequency.

While I was sitting around pondering Revolutionary America is I came to a realization. Brittan was not always a moderately insignificant island. One time they had an empire, and they had guns, and they used those guns to control the empire. They lost the empire and they lost the guns. America had guns then too, they used the guns to overthrow the British.

Beyond all the political rhetoric and John Lott vs. Michael Moore pissing contests, this simple history prevails:

In 1776, for the British, Guns=subjugation.
In 1776, for the Americans, Guns=freedom.

ByeBye Kata

2009-02-02T14:30:00.000Z

Kata was where we had our first taste of Thai public Busses. Thai Busses are really modified pickup trucks with benches. At first we thought this was nice and quaint. We took some pictures of each other and the nearly empty bus:

About 20 people and an inordinate amount of exposed flesh later the quaintness of the trip started to wear off. One of the exciting parts of the ride (for me) happened when someone asked if I spoke Swedish, then started questioning me about the location of different beaches. I have a much better grasp of Swedish than I do the geography of Phuket. Liz thought this exchange to be particularly funny because rather than displaying any surprise that a random non-Swede on the bus speaks Swedish, the Swedes were more curious as to where Liz could be from. She was with me, hence not Swedish, but she is also tall and blonde. This was a common theme in Thailand – people were more surprised by my knowledge of Swedish in Sweden than in Thailand.

Here’s a factlette about Swedish people and Thailand. What natural disaster killed the most Swedes in the last 200 years? The 2004 Tsunami – 3,000 Swedes died. Apparently 30,000 Swedes visit Thailand every year. It seemed that nearly all of them were in Kata. I did not often engage the Swedes, but rather spent most of my time eves-dropping, which seems like a good use for a year of my life spent in a cold dark fish-eating vodka-drinking Snowland.

Thailand Ahoy!

2009-01-30T22:14:00.003Z

Today I'm leaving for Thailand for two weeks, and I'm not sure how much internet access I will have nor wether I will have any desire to use internet from one of the most beautiful places in the world when I could otherwise be laying on a beach in 80 degree weather. So for the next week I will be catching up on Europe posts using the "scheduling" feature that real bloggers use. Don't worry, I haven't yet started using the "proper spelling" or "coherant thought process" tequniques that real bloggers use.

Oh, I was asked recently to make a map of my new travel plans. Unfortunately China has blocked GoogleMaps, So I cannot plan this new portion of my trip. But my rough plans include China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. Unfortunately without Googlemaps I am prone to making false statements such as "Because Cambodia is a land locked country..." This is an improvement over my former knowledge of the country - I thought it was in Africa. Also, spring is apparently not the best time to travel in South East Asia. I looked at the weather today - in April Laos is supposed to be "Scorchingly Hot" whereas Cambodia is described as "Hell". I'm not sure how to compare the two.

One Week Thoughts on Zhuhai

2009-01-29T13:47:00.000Z

I don't really know how to wrap my mind, or my blog, around China/Zhuhai. Most days are quite normal: wake up, eat breakfast, go to the store, go for a walk, take some pictures, watch a movie, go to a bar, go to bed. I am enjoying my time in China, not only because I get to spend time with my best friend and her fiancee, but because I like the city/country.

Firstly, China is so cheap! I can buy street snacks for $0.50. On my first night here I went out to dinner with 4 people, we split 5 dishes and 6 large beers, The total came to 150 yen, or $22. Some shops are open 24 hours a day to buy sodas and incidentals, there are so many diverse food options available everywhere! Also, they make Oreos with Peanut Butter. Yum-tastic.

My favorite basic but surprisingly different activity? Crossing the street. In China it is absolutely appropriate to walk in the middle of the road and stand between traffic, either in the divider between directions or between lanes. Cars have right of way and people seem to move freely around them.

But things are definitely different here. Today I saw a girl peeing on a tree on the side of a major road. She looked to be about six. Apparently that is completely acceptable. When you visit a restaurant you pour tea over your cup and bowl and chop sticks to "sanitize" them. Babies often do not have anything covering the area a diaper might in The States - grandparents hold their babies above the ground and let them do their thing. I saw a woman walking back from a market carrying a live chicken upside down by its feet. You can eat lots of things here. You can eat dog, donkey, horse, pig intestines, sheep's heart, things you don't even recognize. The parts of the animal we throw away are sometimes the parts of the animal the Chinese consider the best. Meat on bones is considered "fresher" than other meat. There are no boneless chicken wings, in fact there are more bones in chicken here than I thought chickens had.

The other day we went out to eat at a Lamb restaurant. One of the dishes was a lamb and veggie wrap type dish. The first two bites were good. The third time I bit down I heard a loud crunch. Was it a fluke? One more chew, one more crunch. Apparently, it was lamb meat with lamb cartilage. Some people like to eat cartilage. I am not one of those people.

And the toilets. You can stop here if this post is too gross for you, but most of the toilets are squatty potties. In Hong Kong I used a bathroom where I was glad to see there were western toilets, before I realized they all had foot prints on the seat - as if someone had stood (or squatted) on top of the toilet - which they had. Almost none have toilet tissue, and you are not allowed to flush tissue anyways. On my first day in China I had a discussion with someone I had just met over which way to face. It was a bonding experience... of sorts.

My favorite part of China? When it gets too stressful, I can get a 90 minute head massage & wash & dry for $2.15. Many problems can be resolved with glossy, well maintained hair.

My Favorite Product in China

2009-01-28T13:32:00.001Z

Sterilized Wet Handkerchief

Directions: Clean hands and skin, sterilize mucous, and kill sorts of germs, prevent germs from infection. It is the best product for travelling, driving, and skin cleaning after sports. It is also can be used for sterilization and cleaning before or after making love, menses, removing makeup and cleaning babies

Liz introduced me to these, they are just about the best product ever. Granted right now I use them mostly to clean my hands (before or after eating!) but from the directions it appears that they will be of great use for the rest of my life & the lives of everyone I know!

Gung Hay Fat Choy, Y'all!

2009-01-26T11:00:00.001Z

Today was Chinese New Year. For Chinese New Year many people go home to their families and spend quality time together, which means stores and tourist attractions are closed. Not only do people take the New Year off, but they apparently take about a week off before and after. We discovered this on Chinese New Year's Eve when we decided to venture out to Mr. Pizza, a western run pizza place about 45 minutes from downtown. After riding the bus all the way there we discovered that Mr. Pizza was closed for the New Year and would open again on February 2nd. Upon closer inspection, almost everything was closed. We found a Chinese restaurant and Liz was able to read enough Chinese to order a duck dish, a noodle dish, and a tofu dish. As Liz & Dan grumbled about the closure of Mr. Pizza, and the city in general, I noted that they were now enjoying a similar cultural experience to being a Jew on Christmas.

Chinese New Year's Eve was also Rachel New Year, which meant it was time for the traditional Rachel New Year meal: Fajitas. In the history of Rachel New Years, two have now been spent abroad. Additionally, the last four were all spent living in different parts of the world: Oregon, California, Washington DC, backpacker(?).* But no matter what the city or country, every Rachel New Year since 2000 has been accompanied by Fajitas. Unfortunately, Mexican food is hard to come by in China. Fortunately, I had thought ahead and brought the following western care-package with me:

as an aside - When I arrived for my flight to Israel I checked my bags and answered security questions and lined up to board. When I handed over my boarding pass the El Al security guard asked me if I had any food in my bag. "yes" I said, "like 10 chocolate bars, a jar of peanut butter, two packs of tortillas, five packs of spices, a can of beans, and a jar of fajita mix" "Who gave you this food?" asked the Guard. "I bought it because they don't have Mexican food in China and..." He cut me off there and boarded me onto the plane. Apparently it's slightly uncommon to carry 3 pounds of Mexican food to Israel.

At midnight, to mark the start of Chinese New Year (or the end of Rachel New Year), many people lit fireworks, and small children threw masses of poppers on the ground. The fireworks continued intermittently all though New Years Day and now it's the year of the Ox! To be honest, it would probably have been more exciting in San Francisco, but with everything being closed we rang in the new Chinese New Year watching pirated DVDs bought from a street stall for $0.50 each. That seems Chinese enough...

*wanderlust or fear of commitment: you decide.

A Food Post

2009-01-25T08:46:00.004Z

On the day I left the UK I went out for breakfast, knowing that it may well be the last time I will be able to order food and recognize all of the ingredients. Also, I had exactly £3.87 left in change and the breakfast was £3.99, and the woman at the cash register was nice enough to front me the extra £0.12. I've come to really like the Full English, even the baked beans. Actually, especially the baked beans:

When I arrived in Hong Kong, my first meal was at a resturant on the side of a street set up with plastic chairs and tables. On the table were bowls and chop sticks, Dan informed me that I should clean my bowl by pouring tea into it, splashing my cup and chopsticks in the tea, and then throwing the tea on the ground. Dinner was a large plate of raw seafood with a boiling pot of soup-type liquid over a flame lit in the middle of the table. Dan put the seafood in the pot, then into my bowl, and then I ate it, not usually knowing whether I was about to eat fish or shrimp or squid or sea otter. I did not eat sea otter.

Since this blog is subtitled "Old things and food things" I present to you the following slideshow of things I have eaten in the past week:

This is my favorite street food. It is bread is sold by a street vendor from a cart. I know how to ask for it without spice - in Chinese! Also, it is 3 yen, which is $0.50. Also it is delicious:

Welcome to Zhuhai

2009-01-24T21:53:00.000Z

Zhuhai is located in the south of china, right near Macau and Hong Kong. Also, it is pronounced "Jew-hi"

On my first night in Zhuhai Liz & Dan and I went to walking street. I am not sure why it is called walking street, since we spent most of the time sitting. Walking street is filled with little make-shift bar stalls that sell cheap beer. These girls worked at the stand we were at:

They spoke very little English but were very excited when I spoke Chinese. Unfortunately I do not speak Chinese, but I learned how to say beer, and then said it over and over. I also yelled "she-she" (thank you) at them when they gave me a beer, but since Chinese is a tonal language and none of the tones are "wide-mouth yelling" I was almost certainly saying it wrong.

One reason the street might be called walking street is because of the street walkers. I did not notice them at first but Liz pointed them out. Girls walking up and down the street wearing short skirts, tall boots, and push-up bras. The real giveaway was that these girls had no purses, only mobile phones and business cards. They would walk up and down the street accosting men and handing out their cards. Sometimes the police would drive by, and all the girls would dive behind the bars or run down the alleys.

In Zhuhai there are street vendors who sell anything from bread to waffle things to dried fish to sushi. The street sushi comes with a free side of trichinosis. The fish is often dried on a nearby bush or tree. This women sells "omelets", which are like crepes with an egg and some weird sauces I do not know and a hot dog in the middle:

Dan bought one of the omelets. It was served in a tiny plastic bag:

On my second day in China I went with Liz to pay her internet bill. She had to go to to some sort of Chinese government agency (of course). While standing in line a Chinese woman came up behind me and asked me a question in Chinese. When I turned around she walked away. Liz laughed because this never happens to her - she is the only six foot tall blonde in all of Zhuhai. Also, no matter where in the world you live, no one likes their cable company:

It's not Comcastic.

The Wet Market

2009-01-23T07:53:00.009Z

Zhuhai is in China. It is where Liz and Dan live.

This is Liz:

This is Dan:

This is a Wet Market:

The wet market has lots and lots of fish and sea animals for sale. Some of them might make good pets but most of them will make good lunches. Here are some turtles for eating:

Here are some frogs. In China, the character for frog is the character for Chicken with some other character next to it marking that it is not a chicken, but rather a frog. I do not know any Chinese symbols so I am at the mercy of Liz to not feed me frog. Yet.

Chicken legs are also a delicacy. Hungry yet?

One strange thing about China and exemplified by the Wet Market is how quickly one adjusts to new surroundings.
Example 1: The other day Liz and I were on a bus and next to us was a man with a live duck in a plastic bag. The duck's head was sticking out of the bag and it was trying to quack but failing for reasons that are probably incredibly inhumane. About 20 minutes later I had some noodles with BBQ duck. The duck was very tasty.

Example 2: The wet market was somewhat gross at points, but fascinating as well. I wrote the following e-mail about my first few days in China. This is how it read:
" ...the other day I was in a fish market and they were killing the
fish and chopping them right in front of me. It was pretty gross but
still fascinating, and as they chopped apart live fish and scooped out
their intestines..."
In retrospect that might sound like an unnecessarily detailed description, but it pales in comparison to the actual wet market. In case you still want a feel for the market, watch the video below to see a fish being gutted. I didn't film long enough, because after the head is chopped off it is put on the table and it continues to open and close its mouth for another 45 seconds. I would say it is taking its final breath, but I that likely happened before it was chopped in three:

Dan also has some pictures of the Wet Market on his Blog.

On the Australian Question

2009-01-17T22:54:00.000Z

After collecting five months worth of research on Australians I have decided to present the preliminary finding of my study.

Australians travel in pairs for increments of 1 to 3 years. Often they will live in London, then travel Europe. If this is not the case they may be traveling for only a series of months or even weeks. Australians generally leave their country between the ages of 20 and 28, and then, much like salmon, feel the instinctive need to return home to mate and/or have barbecues.

Australians have two main interests: Rugby (and why Australian rules are better than other rules) and beer (and why no one in Australia drinks fosters). Australians also suffer from minor culture shock when visiting the developed world, they must constantly be reminded that summer is between June and August, one travels south to escape the cold, and Neighbors is not a good television show.

The main source of stress for Australians is their dollar. The Australian dollar is used in Australia primarily to buy beer, but can be traded for Euros at a low low rate. This causes the Australian a great deal of stress, because the beer is now twice as expensive, and because they are Australian they must drink twice as much. Australians enjoy visiting foreign countries, but they enjoy getting wasted in foreign countries more.

Australians are easy to spot by looking for the following clues:

Feet: Australians have developed the ability to breathe through their feet, therefore they often do not wear shoes. When shoes are necessary they will wear flip-flops, which they term "Thongs".
Legs: Australians are one of the few species that have tan legs, this is due to the fact that Australians are cold blooded and regulate their temperature by laying in the sun, usually at the beach. Their legs are usually obvious as Australians will wear shorts year round.
Neck: Australians often wear "hippie necklaces" of different varieties. Common necklaces include: hemp string with shark tooth, hemp string with Mauri symbol, hemp string with wood carving.
Hair: Australian men have long hair which is a benefit against predators in the outback. Australian women have long hair as well, which is longer than the men's hair in order to differentiate between the men and women.
Build: While Australia boasts an equal obesity rate to the united states, not all Australians are obese

Disposition: Australians are generally active and inquisitive creatures. They can become aggressive when drunk or sober. Due to their history, many Australians are predisposed to petty theft, however this should not deter one from befriending an Australian. With some communication, a few drinks, and some photos, Australians can make very good friends and exceptional travel partners.

Much like Jane Goodall I was able to befriend this Australian, here she is in her natural habitat:

Respectfully Submitted with much love to Carly, Brett, Marissa, and Tam

Bye Bye Europe

2009-01-16T03:40:00.004Z

This will likely be misspelled, incoherent, and completely misconstrue whatever I'm setting out to do right now on this blog at 3:40 in the morning before I have to leave for my bus at 4:10am.

I'm leaving Europe. I've been here 5 months, I've been backpacking maybe three of those months, bumming around my Aunt's house in London for one of those months, and taking nice trips around the UK for another month. It's been amazing. It's been up and down, but it's been FAR more up than down. For instance, a down was when I thought I had bed bugs in Amsterdam because I was getting bitten every night. An up was when I walked through a park in Budapest while the sun set drinking warm spiced wine, talking to an Aussie backpacker, and watching the light reflect off trees of a type neither of us had seen before. There is no comparison.

But I wanted to do a simple post, because I was looking at this blog today and found this post. So in the vain of that post...

The re-packed ditty bag:

There are products in this bag from Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and The United States. I didn't bring a brush with me and didn't brush my hair for 3 months, it looked fine but it meant I was shedding everywhere which was not cool. So I added the brush you can see, which was probably made for a doll or a child but which will work for me. I've also started cutting my own hair, and I dyed it yesterday and got rid of the Rogue-esque streak that was added by the training studio a few months ago. Now my hair is purple and uneven, but I still like it better than the terrible haircut.

The Backpack, Layer 1:

The large pink bag has all of my clothes: 4 long sleeved shirts, 4 Short sleeved Shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 7 socks, 7 skivvies (I started with 10 pairs... hmm), 1 cardigan, 1 ~~jumper~~ zip up light sweater, 1 tank top. The bag on the right has my first journal/scrapbook which I already filled up, and my inclement weather gear such as a baseball cap and umprella. The bag on the left has all my medicines, malaria pills, health stuff, sewing kit, duct tape, etc.

The Backpack, Layer 2:

Addition of the travel towel (best towel ever, thanks Ruth!) the sleep sheet (should have gotten silk, much smaller), and the electronics bag.

Zipped and ready:

The pink locks do not actually lock anything, but both the zipper pulls are broken so the pink locks work like zipper pulls

The Books I Am Taking:

Currently reading Fear & Loathing, I'm going to make attempt number two on the Shadow of the Wind book next. Lonely Planet is my new bible.

Ready To Go:

In the backpack are my favorite crackers from Belgium. They are only my favorite because they are called "Rachel" crackers. The tiny computer is my new travel computer. It is the best travel toy ever. It fits in the purse on the right.

Goodbye Room:

4 minutes till I leave... let me tell you about my next few days:

4:10am Walk to bus station (FRIDAY MORNING)
4:30am Bus to airport
8:00am Flight to Israel
3:00pm Arrive in Israel
10:30pm Depart from Israel
11:15pm Arrive in Jordan
1:00am Depart from Jordan
7:00pm Arrive in Hong Kong (SATURDAY NIGHT)

being the clever monkey that I am, I decided to stay up until 4am packing, cleaning, and planning. I made a new 6 month plan at 3am, which is the best time to make 6 month plans. I called home at 2am. And when I stop typing this, turn out the lights, and walk to the bus station, I'm going to have a minute to contemplate. Leaving Europe is making me sad, and I haven't been sad since Portugal. Which is a pretty remarkably happy thought unto itself.

Many slightly socially uncomfortable hugs to England, Cwtshes to Wales, Slåinte to the Irish, and Scotland... well I don't like you as much so you just get a distracted goodbye.

I'm still here

2009-01-12T16:55:00.001Z

So I've fallen a bit behind. Actually, a lot behind. About a month behind.So let me run through what I did in the last month. Then I'll try to figure out how to post my exciting stories and adventures and pictures in some sort of coherent fashion while still maybe keeping more updated while I'm in China.

So here's the quick rundown. I spent the first week of December in Switzerland. I spent the second week of December in Budapest. I spent the third week of December following my favorite band around the UK. I spent the fourth week of December in London, reliving the childhood pain of why none of my friends can come out and play during Christmas and I'm bored. I spent the fifth week of December (I'm not looking at a calendar) in Scotland visiting Edinburgh and Glasgow. I spent New Years Eve and the first week of January in Cardiff. I spent the second week of January in Brussels (Belgium) and then to Bath (England). On Friday I'm flying to Hong Kong.

But here's an exciting tidbit, I'm writing this post on a bus. This is not as exciting as it sounds, since bus internet is about as reliable as bus service. As in, not very.

How about I get introspective for a moment. I’ve been backpacking for five months now. It doesn’t seem like 5 months, it seems both shorter and longer. I’ve lost or destroyed nearly half the things I originally owned. I lost part of my backpack in Budapest, the part that had my lock and eye mask and ear plugs and mini flashlight. I have somehow lost two shirts, many socks, some underwear, and two pairs of sandals. I’ve gotten very comfortable starting conversations with strangers in hostels, and comfortable enough to not start conversation as well. My wardrobe has become quintessentially backpacker; I own 4 long sleeved shirts in 4 bright colors, and 4 short sleeved shirts all in black which I wear over the long sleeved shirts, every day. I have one pair of jeans left because I ripped my other pair while climbing trees. The pair that I now own were given me by a backpacker in Barcelona.

Everything I own now has a value of either less than $10 or more than $300. Case in point, the clothing and toiletries etc fall in the former category. Then I have an ipod, a 10 megapixel digital camera, and, thanks to my wonderful family who bought me the most wonderful birthday present ever, a tiny travel computer that weighs less than two pounds and could hypothetically help me keep my blog updated more often.

And I’ve decided what I want to do with the next one or two years of my life, and I’ve decided that I don’t need to worry about “the rest of my life.” I’ve improved my Spanish and my knowledge of European History. I’ve started drinking tea and I now like Red Peppers, but I can no longer eat very much Dairy. I still love America, and I still don't think Faulty Towers is Funny.

Enough introspection. Stay tuned for a picture of me sitting on a giant statue of a breast.

An Update

2009-01-06T12:18:00.002Z

I decided not to go to Israel. Not just because it's risky, but because I think I am at my quota for risky decisions on this trip. I've waited in a dark alley of Naples for someone I met earlier that day to take me to dinner. I got in a car with a stranger in Portugal, Wales, and Wolverhampton. I fell asleep in a train station. I fell asleep on an overnight train and woke up being snuggled by the passenger next to me. I got lost in the red light district of Amsterdam. I fell out of a bus in Rome.

Certain interested parties were concerned about my itinerary as well. These interested parties would have been conserned about each even in the above paragraph as well, but luckily for them, and for me, they only find out about the above activities in retrospect. Concerned interested parties and I reached the conclusion that I would not go to Israel now.

So this afternoon I'm headed to Belgium. Then back to the UK for a little farewell tour, hitting some of the cities I have yet to see such as Bath and Oxford. A week from Friday I fly to China. It's 20 degrees in Belgium today. It's 70 degrees in China tomorow. I don't know if I remember what I look like without my winter jacket anymore!

Itenaries are boring. Look I am pretending to be British!

A Tale of the Scottish (1/2)

2009-01-02T23:25:00.000Z

On my first trip to Scotland I stayed a night on the Isle of Skye, which is beautiful and also inbred. I did not believe the second part, but after about an hour at the pub it became clear that there was something weird about these people - all of them. Whether it was the woman smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer while 5 months pregnant, or the guy who she said impregnated her being beat up by a guy who claimed to be her step-brother but also claimed to have impregnated her (did you follow that? I did not), the people were nutters. Absolute nutters.

But I can deal with nutters. I lived in Oregon. It was the point when one Scottish guy claimed to have been the first person to travel the Panama Canal naked that I realized there was something seriously wrong here. It was when he gave a thrusting demonstration of exactly HOW he traveled the Panama Canal naked that I realized I was out of my element. And it was when his drunken friend dropped trau and yelled "welcome to Scotland, ladies!" that I decided to leave. Actually that's when I should have left, but I didn't. I waited until the Scottish guy pants down tapped me on the shoulder and asked for a dance. Then I decided to leave. [as a side note, I was told that I over-reacted which goes to show how American's are uncomfortable with sex and not liberated like Australians. Maybe the whole incident is standard Island behavior so Aussies can relate]

But mayhaps this was a case of over consumption, island lifestyle, or mental problems that require understanding rather than judgment. Either way, I was more than happy to leave the island.

In Edinburgh I decided to go listen to some live music, which is a good way to pass the time and not look out of place in a pub. As I was looking at the band line up a Scottish guy started conversation. He asked if I wanted a beer (the answer is always yes, no matter how much trouble this policy had gotten me into) and invited me to come sit with him and his friends.

It was 5:30 pm. I soon learned he had been drinking since 3. After he bought me a beer he asked me for a kiss, which I kindly declined. After I declined the kiss he decided to note, loudly, "What the hell, I thought you Americans were all loose as F***!"

"strike!" I said, in a baseball reference no one would get, finished my beer and left. Actually, that's when I should have left. Instead I was subject to the following conversation:
"so are we going to have sex?"
"no"
"why are you on your period?"
"NO! that's a horrible question to ask!"
"fine then you owe me a beer."
That's when I left.

Many backpackers extol the virtues of meeting the locals. If these are the locals I'll stick to my history museums. No wonder the British tried to conquer these fools.

The Capital City Tour: London, Edinburgh, Cardiff

2009-01-01T09:03:00.000Z

Shortly after Christmas I received an invitation to a New Years Party in Wales, and an e-mail from a friend in Glasgow asking if I was still planning to visit. Three hours later I bought myself a train ticket to Edinburgh, a train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and a flight from Glasgow to Cardiff. My train left 36 hours from when I decided to go on this little jaunt around the UK.

The train journey to Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous. I had bought the cheapest ticket so my train left at 7am which meant that I watched the sun rise while riding through the British countryside. I had been to Edinburgh before - it was the first stop on the real backpacking part of my trip and the first time I ever stayed in a Hostel. The city was just as beautiful as I remembered it. Unfortunately it was much colder than I remembered. I took exactly one picture:

It was too cold for me to go out, or I was too much of a wuss to brave the cold. Either way, my days were spent moving between cafes, restaurants, and bars. I divvied up my time between people watching, reading, writing, and playing on the internet. I drank a lot of tea, because I could always justify my presence by asking for more hot water. I also sat in Starbucks, because Starbucks was warm and had clean toilets. I did, however, visit the National Museum of Scotland to see Dolly: the first cloned Sheep! She looks like all other sheep.

The train to Glasgow was much less scenic than the one to Edinburgh, but it was also 15% the cost. In Glasgow I met up with a friend from my first trip to Scotland (incidentally named Scott), and together with his 8 year old nephew we visited the Modern Art Museum, the Transit Museum, and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I had heard that Glasgow was an ugly city, and compared to Edinburgh it is, I thought it was a nice city and I am still glad I visited. The real problem with Glasgow is the Glaswegians - I can not understand them, and the children are even worse. I understood German children better that I understood Scott's nephew.

An American moment snapshot: in the Transit museum there was a large collection of trains. Off to one side was a small display of old rifles and a note explaining that sometimes there were bandits and these were the guns people used to avoid bandits. "But why would they need a gun?" asked Scott's nephew. "Well" I said "it's always better to have a gun and not need it then need a gun and not have it!" This statement received a disapproving head shake from Scott, who muttered to himself "Such and American answer".

My final stop was Wales, where I actually did take some pictures and see some sights. And, as usual, I have made a slideshow for you to enjoy!

ps - did you know that in the UK for New Years they do not have a giant ball slowly decent above a crowd, but instead everyone listens to the chimes of Big Ben? Big Ben has a long preamble chiming thing before it actually strikes midnight. I was not sure if the new year started with the first chime or the twelfth. Luckily, with the use of my new found cultural observance skills, I soon discovered it is the first gong. Also, logically, it had to be.

Christmas: Candy, Chamomile, and Clotted Cream

2008-12-25T13:46:00.000Z

On Christmas Eve I decided to go Ice Skating. I had been talking about Ice Skating since October, and had not yet gone. There were Ice Skating rinks set up in almost every city I visited. London had both the smallest and the most expensive, which was pretty standard for London in general. After doing some internet research I found a rink out in zone 3 of the Metro, which may or may not be in Essex. I had never been all the way to zone 3 before. After about 30 minutes of skating I started to notice something about the other free skaters - many of the women had full length skirts and long sleeved skirts and hair coverings. Many of the men had black jackets and Kippah. Apparently Christmas Eve is prime ice skating time for Jews.

Here is a pretty view from the skating rink at Alexander Palace:

On Christmas day everything was closed. The metro was closed and be buses were closed. Though I like the idea of not working on christmas, the idea of shutting down a capital city for an entire day seemed ludacris to me, and to the grumpy people who had to work that day and were forced to take Taxis around the city. Usually, Buckingham Palace Road near Victoria Station is filled with cars and busses and pedestrians. On Cristmas, it looked like this:

My Aunt had booked a reservation for Christmas Tea at the Athenaeum, which was open on Christmas, like most of the major hotels and resturants. Untill this year I did not enjoy tea, I'm not sure if it was lingering resentment over the high tarrifs of 1773 or because I don't like the flavor, but I had never been partial to tea. Maybe it's because I spent too much time in the UK, but around December I started drinking (and enjoying) tea. At the High Tea we were given a tea book from which I chose two different teas to try.

But High Tea is barely about the Tea. It's about the finger sandwiches (cucumber sandwiches! Salmon sandwiches! Weird turkey sandwiches!) and the scones and clotted cream. Delicious clotted cream, which explains in name what it does to ones arteries. After the tea, the sandwiches, and the scones, we were presented with a christmas dessert cart. I wanted to order one of each, but insteadwe settled for the following desert spread:

Full of chocolate and Christmas cheer we walked back home through a nearly deserted Hyde Park.

A tale of two free meals

2008-12-19T10:53:00.000Z

[Authors note: This post is being written from somewhere between London and Edinburgh on a train that has Internet. How cool is that?!]

Naples was surprisingly dirty and dangerous. I did not realize this before I arrived, but on the airplane my neighbor told me not to go near the Dante Metro at night. Two days later I found myself at the Dante metro after dark talking to a homeless guy waiting for my Italian guide to come back from a mission he had to run. "Do you mind if I leave you here for a minute?" he said. "Yes" I said. Dante metro area had homeless people everywhere. Luckily (for me) there was a police car in the middle of the square, so I figured I was probably safer there then following my newfound Italian guide to some unknown location for a possibly nefarious purpose.

In contrast to Naples, Florence was surprisingly clean and safe. I guess that's what happens with a church on every street corner and square and piatzza. I highly doubt Florence has enough people to fill all the churches. Luckily they make the city easy to navigate, as I was staying to the right of the blue church and if I got to the brick church I had gone too far. In Florence I did one of the more ingenious tourist tricks. One afternoon I was looking for some food (I do this most afternoons, its usually about a two hour process) when I saw a store that had the following:
1. a long line
2. people holding guide books
3. people speaking english.
Now many people would say that to get the most authentic food you should find a resturant that has locals. I tell these people to shut up. Do you know how many locals I find at McDonalds! McDonalds around the world are full of locals, and ever since Cardiff I can't even smell a McDonalds without feeling mildly queasy and/or gaining 2 pounds. But I digress. I decided to stand in line for this shop, which turned out to be a sandwich shop! Not only that, a 2 euro sandwich shop! Unheard of! This was what I ate for two days in Florence, a goat cheese or sheeps cheese and tomato sandwich.

On my last night in Florence I was very very hungry. [authors note: someone pointed out that I talk about food all the time on this blog. Check out my new title, "food things and old things"] The hostel I was staying at was very small and run by a 27 year old Italian guy. I decided that since it was my last night in Italy I wanted to go out to dinner. I asked the Italian guy whether he wanted to get dinner - "just as friends because I am not interested". Now normally that might be an akward thing to say, but Italian men are of a different breed. He asked if I wanted to watch a movie after dinner - "yes," I said "but I want to actually watch a movie, and nothing else, because sometimes boys think watching a movie means something else than watching a movie and I just want to watch a movie." "what else would it mean?" said the Italian guy. "don't be an idiot" I said.

Unfortunately we found out the resturant was closed and in a moment of murky logic I said "well you can make me dinner." Bad idea bears. Dinner happened, a delicious three course dinner with ravioli and even beef. As a backpacker I don't often get meat, and even less often is it cooked for me. I realized I was probably giving the wrong impression, but I also realized I was very very hungry. After dinner we went to watch a movie and I reiterated the fact that It's nice to have friends in Italy and that I'm not interested in him and that I am in love with someone else (In case you read my Cardiff post, I tend to make up stories about being in love with people, and it often gets me into trouble and/or hilarity ensues).

Italian guys are like the MRSA virus of romance. Very resiliant. Since I had made my platonic feelings clear I decided to go with verbal defense round II: A discussion of how I used to play rugby and I liked it because you can just beat people down and it's awesome. Verbal defense round III: a discussion of my penchant for target shooting and how much I miss my 22 semi-automatic.

Italian guys are like ceran wrap, completly transparent and clingy. 3/4 of the way through the movie Italian Guy made his move. Unfortunately for him there is no Verbal Defense round III. He puckered for a kiss, I kicked him in the shins.

"That's why I don't like rugby players" he said. So I hit him.

It was a good night, and I was able to watch the rest of the movie in peace.

Sometimes She Partied With Townies

2008-12-15T15:13:00.000Z

In mid-December my favorite band had a UK tour, and I was able to catch two of their shows, one in Birmingham and one in London. The concert was amazing, per usual, I had seen them three times before. The not amazing part was the end of the concert, when I reached down to grab my camera and realized it was no longer in my pocket. It was no longer in any pocket. It was no longer my camera.

I had recieved this new camera two weeks before as an early birthday slash Christmas present. An amazing new Nikon Coolpix camera which, at 200 Swiss francs, was 25% of the value of everything I had with in Europe . Outside the concert I decided to come to terms with the loss of my camera. Three security guards were subject to my ranting.

“F***er stole my camera.” I said, to no one in particular, “I hope they enjoy my pictures from Italy. I hope they enjoy my pictures from Budapest. I hope they enjoy the 3x optical zoom feature, and the 15 different scene presets.” I said.

“and then I F***ing hope they rot in hell” I concluded. The workers laughed awkwardly.

I had arranged a ride back to Birmingham with a couple I met at the concert, which although not the safest was still better than standing outside the venue or walking 17 km at 1am. I did not want them to see me in the state I was, which was the sad Rachel state, which is the state that makes most people highly uncomfortable, but which was basically unavoidable at this point. My thought process was the following: I own basically nothing. I carry everything on my back. I don’t have any income and the economy is tanking, and now I don’t have a camera.

On the plus side, I saw two of my favorite band members walk by! On the down side, two of my favorite band members saw me crying.

When I was done and ready to meet my ride I turned to the three security guards and asked them, “On a scale from 1 to ‘this chick is crazy’ how much do I look like I was just crying?” They said I was a 7. They also laughed. Oh well.

I debated about attending the London show but was offered a free ticket by a guy I met at the Birmingham show, and I decided go and to take nothing with me except my £9 phone and £4 oyster card. I had almost nothing to lose. After the show I ended up at a bar with the band (who I carefully ignored the entire night so I wouldn't look like a poser) and this time the lead singer started crying in the middle of the bar, which made me feel better for the previous night. Also I had nothing stolen, got a free ticket, free beer, and a free taxi ride home.

Happy Ending! I discovered that my travelers insurance, which I thought only covered health, actually covers theft as well! One police report and online form later I recieved a $160 refund from the company, and by then many cameras were on christmas sale so I now have an adorable pink Kodack Easyshare 10.3 mp camera with 4 gig memory card, and it only cost $147. I highly HIGHLY recomend worldnomads.com if you ever need travel insurance

The Great Workers Strike of 2008

2008-12-14T19:10:00.001Z

It was not that great of a strike. In fact, it is my least favorite strike ever. I found out about the strike by accident the day before I left Budapest. In Budapest the hostel had received a report that women were being raped, assaulted, and murdered in formerly “good” areas of Budapest. This did not cause much of a change to my behavior, as Budapest was an experiment in not doing very much, and included in this experiment was “not going out at night” and “sitting in the hostel talking to other people in the hostel” which are both very low risk endeavors. Curious about those incidents, I looked up “Budapest” in Google news, where i found no information on the assaults but did find a minor story indicating that the airport workers in Budapest were on strike.

I was flying on Wizz Air, which I had never heard of before but which offered $35 flights to London. Their website advised arriving at the airport at least two hours early but noted that 90% of the flights were still taking off. My flight left at 5:30, after a particularly frustrating trip on the Hungarian metro I arrived at the airport at 2:30. The airport was filled with people, people sleeping in the corners and sitting on the floor and making calls on their mobile phones. We were all staring at the two giant monitors looking for information. There were about 20 flights scheduled, 15 of them had departure gates. Wizz Air did not. Wizz Air had two flights that day, and the first one had been canceled. I stared at the board. After an hour the cards started to flip (it was not an electronic board, it was an antiquated flip board like they used in train stations 100 years ago) and the flight had a new departure time of 7:55. I found a spot on the floor and sat. Two hours later I checked the board again, we had a check-in gate! Unlike in The States, very cheap airlines do not have uniform check in gates so one must watch the screen until it tells you the gate – gate 36 in this case – then everyone runs to get their boarding card.

There were only two people doing check-in. At 6:30 I finally made it to the front of the line and got my boarding card. I was told to go to terminal B, gate 42, to check in my luggage. 5 minutes later I find the line to check in luggage, 10 minutes later the line hadn’t moved. I realized there were no people to check in luggage. They were on strike. An announcement was made that the luggage workers had gone on strike and would return in 15 minutes. 45 minutes later they returned. It was 7:15. I threw my bag towards the luggage handler and got in the security line. The security line went out the door of the airport.

Behind me in line was a british woman, and in front of me were two Aussies. The line was a social experament in nervious behavior. The British woman was twirling her hair, the Ausie girl was biting her nails, the Ausie boy couldn’t stop clicking a pen, and i made nervous jokes to the three of them followed by uncomfortably high pitched laughter. At 7:55 we were still in line. at 8:15 we were still in line. at 8:30 we finally made it to security, threw our bags, jackets, and shoes on the conveyer and made it to the other side. The Aussie boy made it first, checked the board, and yelled “FINAL BOARDING!”

I sprinted through the airport, carrying my bag and shoes and laptop and belt as my pants fell uncomfortably low and i skidded around a corner in my socks and rushed towards the gate. I threw my boarding pass at the counter, ran down the gangplank, and found a bus.

“huh,” i thought, “usually this is where the airplane stands” The bus was full of people from the flight. The British woman boarded after me and said that they were still missing 25 people from the flight. about 10 more people frantically bordered the bus, each with the same look of panic and hatred that I had worn just moments before. The bus drove to the airplane, where we walked up the steps, boarded, and took off a mere 3 hours late.

I spent most of the next three days ranting about the former soviet bloc and extolling the virtues of the free market. They were striking because they lost a day of vacation. They are just as bad as Government workers.

Budapest: Leaving the hostel day 3

2008-12-13T15:15:00.000Z

As Promised:

I have no idea what the reason for this statue is. There was no sign, but even if there were a sign I could not have read it. It was just there, all boob-like in the middle of an intersection.

On my final day in Budapest I went for a walk with an Aussie backpacker. This was nice because it meant I could stay out later because I had a guy with me. Normally I'm not one for gender stereotypes, but when I was in Budapest it wasn't the safest city for single female travelers after dark. We walked to Heroes Square. I hoped that it would be lots of statues of Batman and Spider Man and Superman. Instead it was this:

I do not think I showed the Heroes the reverence they deserve:

Old Budapest Castle-type buildings:

I was feeling very climb-y. I'm not sure what this statue is supposed to be. Death?

Look my camera has delay feature and a "twilight" setting, resulting in pictures of me and the Aussie taken by me or the Aussie:

Traveling in winter is sometimes unpleasant because it gets dark so early. Traveling in winter is pleasant because I get to see Santa Trains and there are nice lights everywhere:

And that was Budapest.

Budapest: Jews and Camera Settings

2008-12-12T14:06:00.000Z

On my second day of Leaving The Hostel in Budapest I decided to go continue exploring a theme which ties all of Europe together - places where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered. It was also the largest or second largest Synagogue in the world, depending on who you ask. If you ask me, I'll say second largest, because they guy who claimed it was the largest was a pretentious tour guide who was also wearing a Yankees cap - that's two strikes already.

Unfortunately sometimes I am no good with maps, and therefore ended up lost for about an hour walking through some college campus. I got very frustrated when I could not find my way out, and I looked very out of place amongst the Hungarian students. I finally saw a wall that looked just low enough that I could probably climb over, but there was a camera looking right at it. This caused me pause as I imagined two scenarios: 1. I climb up the wall and security guards start yelling in Hungarian, or 2. I try to climb up the wall and fall off and security guards start laughing at me in Hungarian. I decided to try my luck around the corner, where I realized that the wall had a door and the door was open and my poor depth perception had prevented me from seeing it before. Whoops.

I finally found the Synagogue. Inside I was able to take pictures with my new camera's no-flash museum setting. Pictures like this:

As a note to the Jews who read this blog, the Arc at this Synagogue opened vertically, like a garage door. It was controlled by the electronic boxes on the right:

I thought that was strange, but they make the goyem do it. They also have a choir and an organ. It was built by a man who had never seen a synagogue before and he put stars all over, not necessarily 6 pointed stars but 5 points and 8 points as well. Also it had the little spirally things that churches have on the right and left of where people sit. I do not approve.

Outside the Synagogue was an old cemetery:

And this Holocaust Memorial:

I thought the statue looked like a weeping willow and a fork, but I was apparently being too literal because it is an upside down menorah. Each one of the leaf things has a name on it which is someone who died in the holocaust. The leaf things also gave me the opportunity to use the "objects up close" setting on my camera:

All of this looking at misery made me hungry, so I went to the open market. Unfortunately nothing there appealed to me as it was all bread based and I had already bought bread. Also I found the meat section but most of the meat was still alive which is a bit too raw for me.

They put the fish market in the basement. If I had a fish market I would put it somewhere with ventilation. Instead of getting food I got nauseous.

On the way back to the hostel I passed this shop:

After spending so much time in the UK it was nice to see a gun shop with a friendly playful feel.

Budapest: Leaving the Hostel Day 1 (12/11)

2008-12-11T15:01:00.000Z

I arrived in Budapest on Monday. Between Monday and Wednesday I left the hostel twice, once to go to the Pharmacy and once to go to the store. At the store I decided to buy the foods I was allowed to eat when I was sick as a child: Toast, Bananas, Applesauce, and Rice. I couldn't find applesauce, and I didn't want to buy so much rice. I picked up a loaf of bread and two bananas, but I forgot that in some European countries you have to weigh fruit and and print a label yourself. When I arrived at the check out counter they refused me the bananas on the grounds that I had not labeled them. I left with my toast. I also bought green tea, because I read that tea is good for you, even though I don't drink tea. I've always thought drinking tea would make me a better human being, but I've never gotten over how it doesn't taste good and I prefer water.

But I digress. I now had bread. At the pharmacy they did not speak English so I made the universal sign for "coughing" and the universal sign for "sleeping" and then repeated these gestures until I was shown a strange looking liquid. I tried to read the ingredients but they were all in Hungarian, which is slightly less decipherable than the Alien language in Stargate. I did recognize one word: Homeopathic. "Is it homeopathic?" I asked. "Yes, homeopathic" said the pharmacist. I passed it back across the counter. "Can I have something that will actually work?" I asked. Eventually I left with some pills, some cough drops, and a tube of vitamin C.

On Thursday I finally left the hostel and went for a walk. I decided to walk towards the nearest hill. At the bottom of the hill I found a funicular:

Walking that distance would have taken at least 10 minutes. There was a Swedish couple in the same car as me, and I was able to play my favorite game of starting conversations in English with Swedes and then throwing in Swedish words and seeing if they notice. Conversations go like this:
Me: how long har du varit in Budapest?
Swede: just three days
Me: and var i sweden are du from?
Swede: oh stockholm, where are you from
Me: jag come from San Francisco. can you please take a kort* for me?" [*photo]
Swede: sure
Me: Tack sa Mycket!

Here is the Kort they took of me:

Budapest from the top of the hill:

I think this gate was used in the movie Beetlejuice

This awesome looking building is their Parliament... maybe

This river divides the Buda side from the Pest side of Budapest. I can never remember which side is which but I think this is a photo of the Pest side from the Buda side.

In Budapest the statues suddenly got so much more... soviet.

In Zurich I got a new camera which could take all sorts of really cool pre-set pictures with neat depth and color settings. Like these two pictures:

By the time I walked down the hill it was after 3pm so the sun was setting.

It is kind of hard to tell, but the photo below is taken from the bottom of the tiny elevator shaft which went up 4 floors to the hostel where I was staying. The elevator could only fit three people and had two doors which one had to close manually. You could watch the rope moving above and the elevator thunked uncomfortably at every floor. Also, I'm pretty sure at least 40% of the elevator was made of metal grating and plywood.

The reason I mention this is that when I got back to the hostel and got in the elevator I realized that the light bulb had burned out. This was a problem because even with the doors open I could not see the buttons. I did not have a flashlight. I tried to feel the buttons, I knew I needed the 4th floor, and that the building had 5 floors, but I felt 8 buttons which was disconcerting. Being clever, I took out my camera and took a picture of the buttons with the flash on

I have no idea what those buttons on the upper left do, but I was able to press 4 and took a creaky, bumpy, dark, and slow ride up to the hostel. The hostel is the unmarked brown door on the upper left side:

another cool thing about the building is that there were exposed wires everywhere. Everyone who lived there seemed to own a dog, and I sometimes wondered whether they owned the dogs for the same reason miners owned canaries. For the most part the wires did not seem to have any current, but a dog would surely be the first to notice if the wire was live. Either way, I tended to not step on or grab on the exposed wiring on the floor or the ceiling, unlike the children in the building who treated most of it like a fun playground toy or jump rope.

Budapest: Flights, SARS, and Plague

2008-12-09T15:46:00.000Z

I hadn't planned to go back to London between Spain and

Switzerland

, but making and breaking plans is now a hobby of mine so this was almost expectedly unexpected. Unfortunately I had booked myself a non-refundable flight to London from Switzerland. Realizing my travels through Italy and Switzerland were only going to take two weeks, and that I didn't want to spend so long in the UK, I decided to add another country to my ever expanding list of destinations. I checked out some travel sites and bought the cheapest ticket from Gatwick on the day I was to arrive. It turned out to be a flight to Budapest. I flew from Switzerland to London, waited 4 hours, and then flew from London to Budapest.

I did receive some extensive questioning at customs; apparently this is not a common route (check on a map, it doesn’t make much sense). I think the customs agent did not believe that anyone could be daft enough to fly so many miles out of their way, but then he flipped to the back of my passport and saw that it was a replacement for a lost passport. "How did you lose your passport?" he asked. "I left it in a copier at work" I replied. I think that convinced him I actually was daft enough to fly from Zurich through London to Budapest.

I arrived in Budapest around 7pm with no money and little idea of how to get to my hostel. The flight was bumpy, people were coughing and sneezing, and by the time we landed I couldn't hear anything and my Italy SARS was in full force. To put it gently, I felt like crap. At customs I lined up with the Brits as the Hungarians all shoved their way in front. I ended up one of the last people in line, but saw a scraggly hippie behind me try to cut in front. "NOT SO FAST!" I did not say, contemplating the conundrum of a hippie in a hurry. I looked down and saw the familiar dark blue of an American passport. "What part of The States are you from?" I asked.

An outdated Seinfeld reference: yadda yadda yadda. He offered to show me back to my hostel, so I followed him onto a bus, then a metro, then another metro. I didn’t have any change or money so I also used his bus tickets as well as navigation skills. The Hippie was a math major, and one of my pet peeves is people who don't understand the importance of Prime numbers, so we get along smashingly, a possible first for me and a Hippie. The Hippie showed me to my hostel, which was strange in its own right and will be discussed later, and I bought him a 600 Forint kebab in return. I think that's about $3. As I bit into my kebab I realized that my throat wasn't just sore, it was remarkably near-unbearably painful and I was probably sicker than I thought. I went back to my hostel where I coughed myself to sleep, shook all night, and woke up 10 hours later wishing that someone would do me the favor of cutting out my tonsils and/or throat.

Italy SARS was mostly fever and faintness; this was different so I diagnosed myself with Budapest Plague.

Before I left I had booked myself a flight on an airline that sold round trip tickets for only $40 to some town in Romania I had never heard of for a two day trip. Instead of going to Romania I passed out for three days on strange 1600 Forint cold and cough medicine, dreaming of cherry flavored NyQuil and pondering whether someone can die from their tonsils swelling up and blocking their windpipe, and whether that would be covered under my traveler's life insurance policy or not.

And that was how I spent my first three days in Budapest.

Things I miss about the USA

2008-12-08T22:44:00.000Z

I was asked over dinner one night what I missed most from home. "Burritos!" I said, "Definitely burritos, and Mexican food, and beans. What about you?" I asked.

"Friends and family" said the other American.

While I do miss burritos, and friends and family, what I really miss is American customer service. Where you get the food you ordered, where you get the check when you're done with your meal, where they bring you water and give you a clean plate. Yes, it might be their cultural norm to sit and chat after dinner, but at some point their cultural norm is my cultural irritation, and I'm not going to feel bad for missing what is comfortable to me.

Spain had the worst customer service I have yet to encounter, which I think is illustrated nicely by this picture:

To add context, there are about 50 people waiting for their numbers to be called. There were somewhere between 8 and 10 people present at the counter, and somewhere between 5 and 6 counters open for customers. Rather than helping customers, the ticket sellers are chatting to each other. No one presses the button to call the next number forward, but you surely can't step foreword without a number. We are all in line, numbers in hand, waiting. Every now and then a number is called, usually one at a time, and never two in a row by the same person. Between every customer the service member chats with the person next to them, across from them, or often would just get up and leave.

They wouldn't last a day at Starbucks.

Switzerland (finally!)

2008-12-07T19:55:00.000Z

You said you wanted more updates, so that's what you're going to get. poorly written and incorrectly punctuated posts with myriad spelling errors. That's right, Myriad spelling errors. Enjoy!

About a month ago I went to Zurich with my Mom and my Aunt. I took the 7 hour train from Florence to Zurich and arrived on Wednesday night. My Mom and Aunt arrived on Thursday morning. Zurich is a bit sterile, but still very pretty. I spent five days in Switzerland but managed to spent two of them recovering from Italy Virus. We took a few day trips to nearby castles and to Luzern.

In Zurich I ate delicious breakfasts of bread and Swiss cheese. Then I ate fondue. Then I ate chestnuts roasted on an open fire. I don't like chestnuts, but I like food that makes me think in songs. I also spent a lot of time looking at Christmas markets and thinking about how easy it is not to buy things when you have no place for things to go.

Surprise of surprise, I have made you a slide show. I know it is larger than it should be for this blog and throws off the formatting, but deal with it because there are some pictures that have some 'splaining to do

On Backpackers & Hotels

2008-12-05T21:45:00.000Z

A farewell to Italy

2008-12-04T11:22:00.000Z

Since I left Italy on the fourth of December I may be a bit behind on my blogging. So to bid Italy a proper farewell, I have made the following slide show for you of the things I saw in Florence that were not edible or kick-able

Florence

2008-12-03T23:04:00.000Z

Ponte Vecchio is an old and famous bridge in Florence. It has tons of jewelery shops on it which sell very expensive jewelery that I cannot afford

Speaking of affording things, in Italy I did not sit down at all. They charge you a fee for sitting and eating and I did not have enough money to eat let alone to sit. I ate pizza while standing, I drank my morning espresso (they drink their shots Ristretto - not just for Starbucks snobs anymore!) while standing, I even stood on the bus and the metro.

So as a treat, on my last day in Florence I decided to sit AND eat. I decided to have a picnic in a park on a hill overlooking the city. On the way to the park I bought myself a foccicia and some cream cheese. I know I could be eating more culturally relevant food, but I've been having trouble with food as of late. Basically, I never stop deciding things. I have to decide where to stay and what to do and what to buy and what to see and when it comes time to decide what to eat... I just can't. So I've made it simple, if it's the morning I want coffee, if I'm stressed I want cream cheese, and if I'm tired I want chocolate. If I'm none of the above then I probably have enough energy to make a real decision and eat real food. So I started walking up the hill, but soon realized I did not have a knife or a fork or any sort of spread spreading device. I stopped in a convenience store but they only sold packs of 50 knives for 2 euro and I preferred to pay no euro. Being the sensible shopper that I am, I followed my nose to some sort of pastry shop. Inside I asked the sales lady what was best, she pointed to a cake and I bought it. It was only 4 euro and came with a plastic knife!

From the top of the hill I could see the most beautiful views:

But the more exciting view for me was my cake. Delicious! I sat on some steps overlooking the city and tucked in. It was a cheesecake. Soon this little bird tried to eat my cheesecake:

"NO BIRD" I said "That is MY cheesecake!" But he would not leave me alone, so I decided to feed him the foccicia which I had lost interest in since the purchase of the cheesecake. I threw him some crumbs, then some more crumbs, and then some more birds started showing up. More crumbs, more birds. I've never feed birds before in any sort of orchestrated fashion, but I started to see the appeal. How quaint it was, sitting on a hill overlooking Florence as germy birds scrambled for my leftovers.

When there were about 20 birds around me a busload of Japanese tourists approached the steps behind me. They seemed fascinated by the birds, and by me, and one tourist sat down next to me and smiled as her boyfriend took a picture of her and me and the birds. Weird. Soon enough the whole busload of tourists were trying to take pictures with me and the birds, and I offered them some bread to toss, which they were very excited about.

I asked one of the girls if they had pigeons in Japan. This may seem like a stupid question, but their response to my pigeon feeding seemed pretty silly to me. Apparently they do have pigeons in Japan.

After the birds ate all my bread and the Japanese people finished taking pictures with me I took a walk around the square. The park is called Michelangelo park. Here is a hint as to why:

Day Trip to Pisa

2008-12-02T22:46:00.002Z

I left Rome by train at 9am on Sunday morning. The three hour train took me to Pisa, where I had a 3 hour stopover before continuing on to Florence. When I boarded the train I realized I was sitting in a cabin rather than a normal seat. This meant that me and five of my new friends were all in the same small compartment. There were a few problems with this arrangement:

1. I had gone out the night before and was feeling in less than tip-top shape.
2. My seat faced backwards, which usually doesn't bother me but was particularly bothersome at this point in time (see #1).
3. The person sitting next to me was about 1.5 times the size of a normal person.
4. Everyone in the cabin engaged in loud animated conversation for the entire three hours.

At one point I asked the woman across from me whether this group was traveling together. She said they had just met, which I found odd since they had talked nonstop for three hours and shared food and drink with each other in a makeshift picnic. An old lady sitting diagonally from me took this opportunity to tell me that I have a beautiful smile. "Thank you," I said, as I usually do, "It was very expensive." She then told me I have beautiful eyes. "Thank you," I said, "They are genetically recessive." She smiled and nodded. I don't think she spoke English. Then she took pictures of me with her phone, which was strange, but no stranger than anything else in that train.

I made you a slide show to narrate the rest!

Here are some pictures from Rome

2008-12-01T20:27:00.003Z

This is a cool arch with historical importance. I can not remember which arch it is, nor the importance. 200 Classics Major points for the first person to identify it. I walked by it many times because it was not only of historical importance, it is important today because the metro was right on the other side! It was also right outside the Coliseum.

I found this government building on my nighttime stroll through Rome. Apparently there is a big controversy about it, but as far as I can tell Roman people generally like to make controversy so I didn’t pay attention. It has some really clever and funny nicknames like “Mussolini’s piano” because the fascist soldiers used to march on it. It was also on the way to a bar that I went to twice

Hey Rome, that’s a nice lookin’ Coliseum you’ve got there!
This is me at the Trevi Fountain. At the Trevi fountain you throw in coins to look like a tourist. If you throw in one coin you will return to Rome. If you throw in two coins you will return to Rome in the next year. If you throw in three coins you will return to Rome and fall in love. If you do not forward this message to ten people right now you will have bad luck for the rest of your life.

Here I am at the Forum, in a picture that looks like me standing in front of a picture of the Forum. I will use this picture to illustrate how best to look like a tourist. Always have a very loud and brightly colored umbrella. Always wear an audio guide around your neck, even if you are in a grocery store or at a bar. Try to stand at an unnatural 45 degree angle from anyone you are speaking with. It is best if you can wear some sort of culturally relevant hat that you actually purchased at The Gap. Eddie Bower scarf is a must for all Americans. Wear new balance shoes and ask if the movie Gladiator was filmed here - especially important if you are actually in Greece.

Hey look this is inside the Vatican Museum. The small shadowy figure on the left is the tour guide. He went to Yale, and more importantly he OBVIOUSLY went to Yale. More importantly, he was actually a pretty good tour guide.

Italy day 4: Rome*

2008-11-30T19:49:00.000Z

It is hard for me to write about Rome because it was probably one of the most intellectually, historically, culturally, and hedonistically important cities I have visited on this trip. Yes, its true that in my year long course of Humanities: Greece and Rome I paid much less attention to the Rome half (it was second semester freshman year - I had discovered beer and boys then!), but when there is a Coliseum right in front of the metro it is hard to feel too much regret over not finishing Tacitus.

On my first day in Rome I spent a few hours trying to figure out what to do, which is the worst way to spend hours when you only have a limited number of them. There were entrance fees to everything, and by the time I arrived from Naples (around 2) the Coliseum had a long line and I wasn’t sure how long I would need to visit the Forum. Instead I walked the city for a while. When the sun set the city became even more beautiful, especially because it was not raining, and because the lights are all some soft shade of yellow. It is almost romantic unless you are a cynic like myself and spend your time envisioning the myriad gruesome Roman deaths which occurred right where you are standing.

I then saw the Trevi Fountain, which was surrounded by a flock of tourists and an equally large flock of men trying to sell things to the tourists. Every now and then someone would try to sell me a rose, but as a single female traveler they mostly left me alone. As I was walking around the fountain I saw a man trying to take a picture of himself with his camera phone. As a solo traveler I always feel a bit of sympathy for these people, so I offered to take a picture for him and we started talking. Conversation was interrupted quickly as hoards of rose, blanket, scarf, food, and annoyance sales men descended upon us. When the first wave came at us I turned and said "go away, I don’t even know this guy!” He, being much nicer than me, said "no thank you, unfortunately this beautiful girl is not my girlfriend".

Having batted away hoards of merchants I decided to head back to my hostel and get an early start on the Forum and Coliseum tomorrow. I hopped on a random bus which I hoped would take me to a metro. Even though all the streets and maps in Italy and Rome are poorly designed, the bus and metro system is surprisingly easy to navigate. The bus took me back to the Coliseum, and as I went to hop on the metro home I was offered the once-in-a-day opportunity to go on a pub crawl. Normally I avoid these kind of activities, I find them to be full of people who travel thousands of miles from home to get wasted in bars just like the ones they would get wasted in at home, and with people they could get wasted with at home as well. That's right Australia, I'm talking about you.

"Unfortunately I do not have any money" I said to the guy. "That’s okay" he said "it might be free tonight. Have a beer". Free beer on the top of the metro overlooking the Coliseum? How could I resist! The free beer was complimented nicely by meeting some people that I could have met at home but that I don’t often meet while traveling, having a conversation I've already had but miss terribly (the differences between Nihilism and Existentialism), and getting email addresses of people I will probably never see or speak to again. Maybe I'm changing my mind on this pub crawl thing.

*Other possible titles included: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum or When In Rome, but both made me wretch from cliche-ness. Then I was going to title it Get Me To The Vomitorium, but that seemed too crude, even for me)

Speaking of plans

2008-11-29T20:12:00.000Z

I admit, I haven't been updating my map. To be honest, I forgot it was here. But apparently you haven't, as it had over 400 views. If you have been following this blog you will probably have realized how far I have strayed from my original plan. I re-made my map today with my actual route, which you can see below:

Planned Route:

View Larger Map

Actual Route:

View Larger Map

Reader Questions Part Deux!

2008-11-28T01:09:00.000Z

Is it easy to make friends in hostels?
It’s usually easy. Originally I was a bit more akward and hesitant, but now I have no qualms about checking into a room, walking up to a stranger and introducing myself. If there's no one in the hostel I can always go to the common room or kitchen to find people. Conversation can be started with a question about the city (have you been to the ___ building?) a question about backpacking (That looks like a great pack - is it comfortable?) or a question about the person (have you been traveling long?). Names and locations become a cliché conversation but I still partake, either because I'm too tired to think of actual conversation or, occasionally, when I have no real interest in the person I'm talking to.

Sometimes, do you wake up and not remember what country you're in?
In Portugal I woke up and thought I was in Spain and started speaking Spanish. For the most part I have been spending a while in each country (I was in Spain for almost a month!) so it's been hard to lose track.

Does your back get sore from wearing a backpack so much, or are you used to it?
Yes and no. When I first started it hurt much more. Now my pack has become lighter (I've tossed things I don't need) and my back has become stronger. I doubt any doctor would suggest backpacking as a way to cure post car-accident back pain, but it has not been too bad. The key to the pack is the hip strap - without it my shoulders will start hurting. I also don't spend a lot of time wearing it, just when I move between cities. I'm not the kind of backpacker who camps in the woods and carries their life around constantly; my back would certainly break two days into that trip.

Do you think you're getting better at approaching, befriending, and/or interacting with strangers?
About a month ago I would say yes, but now I'm not so sure. In college I finally figured out how to play nice - in high school and middle school I really had no interest in the people I met which hindered proper conversation. When I got my first job and started to make friends at work I decided I had finally perfected the ability to interact with anyone. As it turns out, I just liked my coworkers. I don't think I have trouble approaching, befriending, and/or interaction with strangers, I just often lack the desire too. Just because we are in this hostel doesn't mean we have anything in common. The real problem, for me, is that for the most part backpackers aren't intelligent, they aren't thinkers, and sometimes they seem to be visiting foreign countries to get drunk in hostels rather than experience any of the culture. So my long winded answer is: probably not. I'm likely getting worse now that I remember how completely vapid and daft people can be and, as a corollary, how pretentious and judgmental I can be. [Authors note: This was written before I went to Wales, which changed my outlook and made my next few countries – Italy & Switzerland to present – much better. To sum my new attitude - People can be awesome!]

How much are your geography skills improving?
Geography has never been my best subject (in high school, on the first day of class, we had a world geography test where we had to identify 50 countries in the world. I scored 8% - 4 countries), but I'm improving a great deal. Basically I spend a lot of time with a rail map in front of me, which is both good and bad. Good because I learn basic geography and bad because I end up thinking each country has only five or six cities. And yes Tia, you should be embarrassed that you don’t know the cities in Spain that I wrote about

Pompeii: The Movie Event of The Next Three Minutes of Your LIFE (11/27)

2008-11-27T13:58:00.000Z

Italy: Day 3

2008-11-26T20:49:00.000Z

Wednesday was my administration in Naples day - having learned my lesson in Portugal and Spain I booked all my hostels for Italy before I arrived, but still needed to book my train tickets. Unfortunately the international train station attendant did not speak any English so our transaction consisted of passing slips of paper back and forth through the window until the right ticket and time was found. The distance of the ticket seemed to have no bearing on the price - from Naples to Rome (4 hours) was $25, from Rome to Pisa (3 hours) was $35, from Pisa to Florence (1 hour) was $7, and from Florence to Zurich (7 hours) was $50. I have a feeling that when I get on the Zurich train they will strap me to the roof and ask me to hold every one's luggage.

After purchasing my tickets I went to visit the archaeological museum, which, like most of Italy, is poorly organized and full of fascinating historical objects that I could remember studying but not remember the significance. I like to identify everything as the Dipylon Amphora because I once wrote a paper on it, and I was pretty sure the objects were not the Parthenon Frieze, my other art history paper. The audio guide was helpful, if expensive, and at a certain point one is just looking at lots of statues of dead white men. Historically important dead white men.

One downside to visiting museums in the middle of the afternoon on a week day are the hoards of schoolchildren. I know making fun of middle school aged kids should be below me, but it is not. The girls had apparently used all they eyeliner in Italy, and the guys had used all the smelly body spray and hair gel. I swear the pheromones were fighting other pheromones for pheromonial domination. Or, to put it plainly, Italian school children spend more time making out with each other in public places than normal school children or normal people of any sort.

In the afternoon I decided to go on a catacomb tour. I had an hour to kill before the tour and was recommended a place that sells pizza for 1 euro. That pizza was amazing, it was like oil bread with sweet tomato sauce and a tiny amount of cheese. Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten anything substantial since Monday, but I could have eaten 6 of them. The tour was interesting and catacomby, as you can see from the picture on the right. The girl was on the tour with me and the guy in the background was the guide. After the tour the guide asked me if I was doing anything later on and offered to buy me a beer. I do not say no to free food, and beer is liquid bread, so of course I accepted.

If you know me you might enjoy the story to follow, if you don't you might think I'm a terrible tease. The short and short of it is Alex (Alessandro the passionate romantic Italian) took me to his favorite bar, then a walk around the city, back to the bar, looked at some beautiful fountains at night, went and ate some delicious Italian pizza in a park, then walked to a castle and sat on the steps with a bottle of wine, talking about life and castles, then walked back to my hostel, where I gave him a hug.

"not even a kiss?" he said?
"no, but you can tell all your friends you slept with me" I said.
The End.

Italy Day 2

2008-11-25T21:00:00.000Z

The hostel I was staying at in Naples had room for 150 people. When I arrived there were 25 people staying there. I had booked a 12 person room, when I arrived there was only one other person sleeping there. On Tuesday I went out to see Pompeii, which will hopefully be explained better with the many pictures and videos I took. Originally I took video of the city, but after it rained for almost two hours straight my videos devolved into videos of my own feet and the fact that water had gone all the way up my pants to my knees.

I did not hire one of the many guides, mainly because I still felt like everyone in Italy was trying to rip me off and I was going to have none of it. In order to make up for the stupid stupid 37 euro ticket I had received the day before i vowed not to buy food until Rome, this was day one of that vow. The hostel had free breakfast (yay toast!) and I had snuck some bread into my bag to make a sandwich (yay peanut butter!).

But back to the guides - for some amount of money people had hired them to talk, but for 6 euros I had hired an audio guide, and a few years ago I watched the Discovery Chanel Special POMPEII - THE LAST DAY, so I was basically an expert. The only thing I remember for the special was the presence of pyroclastic flow. I must have used that work 20 times that day (much like the Discovery Channel special did in their two hours) but unlike the discovery channel special I did not have an audience so spent most of the day muttering to myself or my camera.

One nice thing about cities completely devastated by natural disaster is that you can go in the houses! I ate my lunch in the corner of someones house.... someone who died a horrible tragic death so we could learn about their life and so I could eat a peanut butter sandwich in their laundry room. The laundry room had a roof. Score.

I spent about 4 hours at Pompeii, until everything I owned was wet and my guidebook was illegible. As I was walking back along the outskirts of the city I came to a path next to a hill, the path had at least 4 inches of water everywhere. Matrix style I ran up the side of the hill to avoid the puddle. Rachel style I fell down the side of the hill and into the puddle. It was time to go home.

Back at the train station, picking mud off my pants and shirt, I met some Americans. I was finishing the last bit of my sandwich when a man turned around and said "oh my god is that a peanut butter sandwich!!!" and then extolled the virtues of peanut butter and how much he missed it. He had been gone from the states for 7 days. In an act of bonding I extolled the things I miss from home, like sleeping alone in my room and showers with warm water. The man was traveling with his wife and their friends on a cruise, this conversation did not bond at all. Sometimes I forget how most people probably can not or do not or will not relate to some of the things I do out here.

For example, on one of the nights of "no paying for food in Naples" my dinner consisted of a pair of scissors (sanatized with hand spray) stuck in a jar of peanut butter, then rolled in a box of bran flakes then eaten like a crunchy peanut butter treat. I think that was a new low.

Italy, day 1

2008-11-24T22:21:00.000Z

When I arrived in Italy it was dark - that was my first mistake. I managed to latch on to some Brits who were also trying to find the train station, the bus to the train station came and we all bought our 3euro tickets... my guide said 1.5 euro, but it was raining and I wanted on that bus.

I stuck my ticket in the validating machine and was surprised when it did not make any mark, but figured it might be a more advanced system like Lisbon or Madrid. At the train station I caught my metro, then transferred to the other metro. While walking up the stairs I saw three men standing in the corner of the hallway, but there were other people around so I decided to continue... if I wanted to get to my hostel I would have to pass the men.

As I walk past one of them yells something which I identify as "ticket" so I hand over my ticket. These men only spoke Italian, but from the next few sentences I gleaned that my ticket was not stamped, therefore it was not valid, that the guy saying "document" did not actually want the Declaration of Independence (if you haven't seen National Treasure I recommend you do so now) but instead wanted my passport. Then one flashed a badge and said "police".

Like heck was I giving anyone my passport. I took out my drivers license and passed it over as they wrote up a ticket. I protested on the grounds that I had validated my ticket, I had put it in the machine on the bus, that I did not have 37 euros to pay for a fine, and that I did validate it! After all I had clearly just arrived (I had my pack and everything) and I had a ticket, so if I planned to scam them why would I even buy a ticket? They protested my protests on the ground that they did not speak English.

I realized I had no idea if they were actually police, but i also realized that it was somewhat immaterial whether they were police or not, they were demanding 37 euro from me and I was in no shape to refuse. If I wanted to get to the hostel I was going to have to take the metro, if I wanted to take the Metro I was going to have to pay.

As I opened my wallet one of the men leaned over and looked inside, then said (in Italian) to the other "she has money". Of course I had money, I had the money I had just gotten at the airport so I could pay for my hostel! I realize now that if I hadn't had money then maybe they would have charged me less, but again, I was in no place to protest.

37 euros less and I get to my hostel, angry and cold. The hostel is the only place that I don't think is trying to rip me off, I'm near positive everyone in Italy is. And since I'm short 37 euros now, which was my food budget for three days, I'm not going to buy food until I get to Rome. Stores don't put prices on the food, someone tried to charge me 2 euros for a yogurt, and I'm just tired of it. The hostel has free breakfast, I have a container of fiber flakes and a jar of peanut butter, and if i secretly make myself a sandwich every morning I can parcel it up over the course of the day. And hey, to look on the bright side of all this - I found a scale the other day and I now weigh what it says on my drivers license, which was a lie even when I got the drivers license!

Cardiff Slide Show

2008-11-23T13:39:00.000Z

I just returned from a fun three days in Cardiff, rather than the picture posts of Spain I have created for you a slide show. Enjoy!

Full Steam Ahead!

2008-11-22T15:21:00.000Z

Two of my favorite albums are as follows:
Death Cab For Cutie: Plans
The Dismemberment Plan: Change

Plans Change (but they are still great albums!)

I've added Budapest, possibly Romania, Wales, and now I'm headed to Israel on the 5th of January rather than the 23rd of December. So my world traveling friends, any recommendations on where I should spend a few days or a week or a weekend in the UK?

And if you don't have recomendations - look, it's the Tower Bridge:

Look it's the HMS Belfast:

Look at what happens when you confuse the Tower Brige for the London Bridge:

That's also what happens when you pose like a tacky tourist

What happens in Wales... Stays Introspective

2008-11-20T22:39:00.003Z

On Wednesday I visited was Castle Coch. I was the only person there at 9am when they opened and it was a little creepy to walk around by myself. I did not go into the top part of the castle because I am pretty sure that ghosts are lighter than air and likely less dense too so they would rise and congregate around the top of the building. I am not sure what the comparative densities of hot air and ghosts are, but the castle was very cold so I did not see this to be a problem.

The second castle I visited was Carphilly Castle, which was in the center of Carphilly, large, medieval, and 4 euros to enter. It was this time that my not-very-much sleep started to catch up with me. I did a short tour of the grounds, then a short tour of the city cafes, where I ordered myself a Tomayto and Baysil sandwich. “ WHAT?” Said the cashier. I repeated myself. “OH”, he said “A Tomahto and Bahsil sandwich!”

Returning to Cardiff I got lost. Luckily All Day Bus Passes are specifically designed for people who get lost. I finally found my hostel, took an afternoon nap, drank some coffee, ate some crackers, and headed back to the bar. Someone had taken my seat so I perched in the corner like some sort of eyeliner adorned bird of prey until they left, right before the music started. Drink in hand, back in my chair, listening to music; and all because I decided I hate people.

The previous night an Emo boy had gotten up to sing during the open mic and had asked the crowd, “Do you want me to sing a Bright Eyes song or a song I wrote myself?” The crowd yelled “your song” and, like a jerk, I yelled “Bright Eyes!” After his set I apologized and told him that his song was great, but that I really like Bright Eyes. This night, the Emo boy took the stage and sang the Bright Eyes song, which did not alleviate my jerk-feeling-ness. After the show the Irish Singer gave me a copy of his CD and wished me well on my travels. One of the great things about the CD was that I finally could remember his name – Colum – and start referring to him as that instead of The Irish Singer. I also mentioned to him that whatever the Crazy Drunk Lady said the night before was probably my fault since I gave her a made up biography, including name. Colum seemed entertained by the humor of it rather than put off by the insanity.

On Thursday I visited the Cardiff castle, which is one of the best castles I’ve seen. It’s right in the center of town and part of it was remodeled during the Victorian period and I *love* the Victorian period – extravagant dress, stunning decor, and sexual repression: OH MY!

It was also on Thursday that I did something for which I am truly ashamed. I degraded myself and I am embarrassed, but I can not carry the weight of my sin any longer. I ate a Big Mac. It was not my fault; I had eaten nothing but coffee and crackers for two days. On the back of my bus ticket was a coupon for a Big Mac and fries for only 2 pounds. The Big Mac was delicious. It was (exactly) like a tiny hamburger and another tiny hamburger merged together to create a giant hamburger. Unfortunately the tiny hamburgers are always a bad idea, this giant one was worse. I stumbled back to my hostel and took a gut wrenching (literally, not the standard figuratively) nap before heading to the bar again.

This time I was not able to get my seat, which I decided was my seat because I sat there twice, so I instead sat towards the corner. Colum introduced me to the band - two of the band members were real Welsh people who spoke the Welsh language. At one point the band dedicated a song to me, since I had come “All the way from California!” and at the end of the set I had a lively conversation with one of the band members about American colloquialisms, the definition of “making-out,” and the various definitions of running the bases, including baseball jokes funny only to me because these people play dumb sports like cricket. On my way back to London I realized that I had gone to Cardiff to practice my new “F*** people” mantra and then met more nice people than I had during the last month of my trip. More importantly, my Positive Mental Attitude was renewed and I decided people can be pretty cool after all.

Wales pt. 1

2008-11-18T17:57:00.000Z

People keep telling me, and backpackers keep telling each other, that it’s not about the places you go but the people you meet. Sometimes this is a defense of the previous city (“Yea I spent the whole time drunk but I made some awesome friends!”) or an insult to the city itself (“Yea there’s not much to do in (random German city) but there’s a great brewery!”) People can make or break cities, nearly everyone that I’ve met LOVED Barcelona, but I did not like Barcelona solely because of the high concentration of people I can’t stand: Mill Valley High School Grad, Save the Environment Girl, Building A Better Me And Helping The Lives Of Children (but it was court ordered) girl, and my personal favorite: Your Country Murders Innocent Women And Children For No Reason Guy - same guy who informed me that all Americans are crass because British people do not “do it” - they “make love”.

Back in London, after my slightly insane spontaneous flight from Portugal, I was tired of people. After realizing I was in London for 2.5 weeks, I decided it might be prudent to take a short trip, and since Wales was the only Kingdom in the United Kingdom I had yet to visit, I decided to go there. In my research, I discovered that Cardiff had a castle and I like castles. Cardiff also had a history museum and an art museum. I booked my bus ticket to arrive on Tuesday at 1pm and leave Thursday at 6pm, and my new “F*** all other travelers” mentality was in full force. After I arrived, I checked into the hostel and then walked the city, which had a very cute shopping area with no cars. I drank some coffee and watched some street performers. I listened to my ipod and walked around the castle walls. Enjoyable.

Back at the hostel I met some fellow hostellers and asked if any of them wanted to go out that night (So, I’m not as good at ignoring people as I pretend to be) but they all had work tomorrow. “It’s okay,” I thought to myself, “I’m not here to meet people, I’m here to see castles and sights and not be dependant on the whims of other random hostellers for my own entertainment”. One of the hostellers had heard there would be some live music at an Irish pub. Over-caffeinated and feigning independence I left the hostel and walked towards the bar. I had only gone to a bar alone a few times in my life – as a rule I don’t eat at restaurants alone and I don’t drink alone but a beer at a bar seems to negate both rules, at least temporarily.

I sat down awkwardly near the front at a table that could be used for two but was now used for one. I had a direct line of sight to the stage and most patrons were behind me so that we would not have to have any of those “are you looking at me?” “I don’t know; are you looking at me?” mental conversations. The music started and the singer was performing covers and hosting an open mic. When his set was over some guy behind me turned and said “Hey, do you want a beer?” to which I said yes - I never say no to free beer. As he left to get my beer, the Singer came over and a bit of chit-chat later it turns out the Singer is from Ireland and has also done some extensive backpacking. He also plays on Wednesday and cool, I’ll totally come I say. Guy Who Had Bought Me A Drink had now bought me another drink, but I was very not interested in Guy Who Had Bought Me A Drink as exemplified by the fact that I looked only at Irish Singer and answered all questions with one word or less (sometimes just a nod).

Towards the end of the set a Crazy Drunk Lady stumbled into the bar and sat right across from me. She asked me where I was from which led to conversation, but I was somewhat board of normal conversation which was what Guy Who Had Bought Me A Drink was foisting on me. “Why did you come to Cardiff” asked Crazy Drunk Lady. “I came to follow the singer, isn’t he fantastic!” I said “You came all the way from California for him? Is he your boyfriend” “well I hope so, because I am in love with him, only we haven’t met.” Was my response. “What is his name” Crazy Drunk Lady asked. This posed a problem, since he had introduced himself and I had already forgotten his name “Cormak McColin” I made up on the spot. “He applied for X factor (British American Idol) and had gotten on but then had to leave due to a family emergency, so we are hoping he will get on this season.” “Wow,” said the Crazy Drunk Lady “that’s amazing!”

“Do you want another beer” asked Guy Who Had Bought Me A Drink. “No,” I said, “I think I should let you know that I only came to Wales because I am in love with the Irish Singer. Thanks for everything”. Guy Who Had Bought Me A Drink left and Crazy Drunk Lady left, only a moment later I realized Crazy Drunk Lady was up yelling at the singer “…and Simon Cowell would totally pass you! Simon would pass you! He would pass you. SIMON WOULD PASS YOU!”

I decided my work there was done and left.

The Most Irritating Conversations, Episode 1

2008-11-17T22:50:00.001Z

It becomes common in hostels to introduce yourself by where you are from. Usually one begins to remember where people are from with more ease than actual names. I decided early on to only remember biblical names, that way I have fewer names to remember. If your name is David or John or Daniel then I may remember you, if it's Karlan or Tamika I probably won't. But one of the more irritating facets of this introduction is the response to "I'm from California"

Most people are nice, most people compliment San Francisco or Los Angles or tell me how they've always wanted to go to The States, or just continue talking like normal people do. But every now and then, more often than just a fluke, I'll get one of the following responses:

1. I don't want to go to the states
Sometimes I'll ask people if they have ever been to the states - many people have. I've been to many countries, and the states takes up a large part of one continent. Some people reply with "No, I haven't been and I've just never wanted to go either." Well thank you. I don't particularly want to go to Austria, but if I meet an Austrian I'll probably be kind by telling them how cool I think Vienna is. It's not a matter of liking or not liking the USA or its foreign policy, it's a matter of not being an A**hole.

2. Bush is evil
Yes, we all know that. Do you know what his approval rating is? Very Very bad. And guess what - It's not my fault, and I can still like my country anyways, and I can still think you're a jerk for judging me based on the actions of my government. Which brings me to annoyance 2a, "McCain or Obama?" was asked within the first five minutes of most conversations. Is this really a discussion? You're foreign, so I can say Obama and you'll think I'm good or I can say McCain and you'll assume I love Bush. I guess on that aspect it's just like California. Which brings me to annoyance 2b, post-election. I thought that once Obama won I would get a break from people instantly telling me what they thought of my government. I was wrong. The first person I met the next day, a Brazilian man, said "Obama isn't going to be president, you are going to kill him like you killed JFK and MLK." Firstly, I didn't kill MLK or JFK. In fact, I wasn't alive for MLK or JFK. Secondly, did you know that Brazil was a military dictatorship until 1985? So maybe you could spend more time shutting up about my 200 year old democratic process and get back to the naked beaches and Carnivals you are so proud of.

3. Health-care (sub socialism)
In Spain I was on the receiving end of a scathing critique of "my" health care system, Capitalism, and why we spend so much money on war and not on schools and in our own country. Well Spanish man, you had a fascist dictator until 1981, so why don't you try to sustain yourself as a democracy for, oh, 30 years and then you can start critiquing democracies seven times your age. Or, you can try closing your pie hole for a few minutes and pretending to be a decent person. Either way.

4. The War in Iraq
If you really think my government kills innocent women and children for no reason at all then I really hope you're on the receiving end of it soon.

One Fine Day in the City of London (11/15)

2008-11-15T14:56:00.000Z

One day in London I decided to take myself out for a nice walk. First I walked to Covet Garden, where I stopped to see a street performer. The street performer was not very good and I kept thinking he was just warming up for something good and for the crowd to show but then suddenly the performance was over and he was asking for money. All he did was walk on his hands. While I love street preformers with awesome skills, I do not like street performers who do things my brother can do. Unfortunately for street performers, my brother and his friends do stunt gymnastics for fun. Unfortunately for me, the show ended and there were still only about 10 people there, meaning I felt obligated to give some money, and had only a one and two pound coin. This is where two pence coppers become usefull, if I had thrown in three of those it would rattle like real money but cost me basically nothing. So I surrended my pound ($1.50!) and went to find a better performance.

The better performance was this guy:

While I bet my brother can do that, I havent seen him do it, and he doesn't own a cow outfit. Of course I still felt cosmically swindled by the first performer, so at the end of the good show I left quickly - there were about 100 people there and I only had a 2 pound coin left, and now those performers can feel cosmically swindled.

While walking back I saw some neat parts of London at night, it's all dressed up for winter with lights, and these lights are especially necessary because it gets dark at 4pm.

This giant snowman is one of my favorite giant blow up things:

I also took a walk to Harrods. Harrods is a ridicoulously fancy store with ridicoulously expensive things. Harrods has a four room dog and cat luxury item section. It was cute for a few seconds and sickening in retrospect, doggies do not need two rooms of doggie clothes. Doggies don't need one room, or one closet, or really one item of doggy clothes. Unless it's a dog dressed as another animal, THAT is a necessary doggie clothing item. So I walked around feeling out of my element for a while, and then decided to assume my fake life where i *always* shop at Harrods. I went to the cheese counter and asked, in my most pretentious American accent, "excuse me, but do you have any sheeps milk cheese from scandinavia?" the answer was an apologetic no. "What about goats milk cheese from Iceland or Denmark?" I asked. Again a no. That's it, I cannot shop under these conditions! I left and bought myself some Tesco brand cheddar.

London

2008-11-13T22:33:00.000Z

I've been on the road three months now, and if I have any advice for people silly enough to embark on long term travel in Europe I would recommend that you get relatives in London. Until two years ago I had no family in Europe, and I wasn't sure I whether my Aunt would still be in London by the time I arrived in for this trip. Luckily she is still here, which makes London a fantastic city for me - a free place to stay, a bed, a room, a shower, and food! Not only that, a clean kitchen, and an appreciative taste tester of my myriad food creations.

My aunt lives in one of the most beautiful areas of London, right near Victoria station. Buckingham palace is not far away, nor is Westminster or Parliament. The tube is within three blocks, and the coach station only two blocks away.

In case you don't believe me, this is a picture from the park outside her apartment. In the back is her building:

Before this trip I was not a fan of London. I thought it was crowded and expensive, and I pseudo-consciously (it's a step above subconsciously) thought all British people think they're smarter than me because they speak with a British accent. But now that I've come to visit on my own I've started to like the city more and more. True, it's crowded. But there's so much happening! From museums to tours to roman walls to modern art, it's mostly within walking distance and all on the Tube!

I have to be careful not to idealize this city though, I can't move somewhere 3000 miles away just because it has great museums, a convenient metro, expensive housing, and boys wearing tight jeans and sweatervests. I already did that once.

The Tate Modern: The Most Modern Tate Of Them All

2008-11-12T21:40:00.001Z

Today I visited the Tate Modern. The Tate Modern is a gallery of Modern Art. Modern Art is funny. The Tate Modern visit would have been better if I had someone else to go with, because making fun of people and art in my head got boring after a while. It is partly my fault that I did not appreciate the art. Judging from other people, in order to appreciate contemporary art one must wear some combination of the following:
*Floor length skirt made from thick fabric
*Thick rimmed glasses
*Ironic vests
*Plaid printed something
*Oversized Jacket
*Brightly colored headware including but not limited to: fashion scarves, bows, headbands, bowler hats

One must also tilt their head at a 35-45 degree angle, carry a sketch pad, and place index finger and thumb on chin for greater effect.

In order to appreciate contemporary art one must constantly consider the following:
*The relation between Subject and Object
*The relation between Form and Function
*The relation between Modality and Narrative

While looking at different art pieces I thought of many meaningless yet sesquipedalian ways to describe them, in my new imaginary life where I describe Contemporary Art. For instance:
"This slit cut in a piece of fabric represents the destruction of modern modalities and narratives appropriated in form but not function towards defining the subjective without the objective." (Concetto Spaziale 'Attesa': Right)

I did have a fairly menial epiphany though, art is a reflection of History (that's not the epiphany) in that (in a very basic sense) Surrealism was an artistic understanding of WWI, Existentialism as a response to WWII, Post-Modernism reflecting the social changes of the 60s/70s, and now the overarching "contemporary art" which reflects the social consciousness of the "Me" generation - limitless narcissism. If you're not selling your "art" to the Tate Modern you're creating less abstract forms of that same narcissism - Facebook, Myspace, and Blogging to name a few. Modern art is as self indulgent as a blog but sold to and displayed in a museum. I'll sell this blog right now. It's modern art, it's self reflexive narcissism, you should want it because I made it - right? That's what I learned at the Tate Modern.

Oh, and while I'm sounding like a uncultured dullard, stabbing yourself and filming it is not art. Genitals are not art. Self mutilation is not art, defecation is not art, artistic representations of defecation might be art, but they probably shouldn't be (Lightening with Stag in its Glare: Right).

The biggest mistake was misreading the Gallery Room for "Paul McCarthy" as "Paul McCartney" and expecting some sort of happy Beatles type exhibit but instead it was a dark room with four videos projected simultaneously, one of a naked man beating his own head with a boxing glove, one was a naked woman in some sort of distasteful and compromising position, another was a naked man walking around, and I can't remember what the fourth was because there was already too much yucky. But the yuckiest art of all was from Austria. If I was to use my new understanding of modern art to describe Viennese Actionism I would say it is super icky bordering on hella gross.

Unfortunately I only had time for one floor today so I'll have to go back to see the rest of the museum. It has a great audio guide!