-Monte Carlo/Monaco can keep their Ferrarris, I want a Vespa from Santa
-Another unexpected delay in the transportation plans, but no a problem. It just meant I got 2 more days in Nice...I cant complain. I've learned not to get attached to travel plans.
-Originally I had planned to go to Geneva, Switzerland, but I need to visit another expensive European "economic center" like a hole in the head. I've opted instead to forgo Switzerland and go straight to Vienna via overnight couchette. I have great memories of Vienna from when I lived in Europe 9 years ago on a study abroad, but I'm noticing that the European Union does something to its member countries...most notibly, make them unbearingly expensive. Since the majority of my trip so far has been to the more developed Western European countries AND the dollar is so weak right now, I'm really feeling the squeeze in my wallet. I had a great conversation in the train with a member of the foreign legion who gave me several great points and suggestions for my journey. He pointed out that as I move in the route that I have planned the cost of living is going to go down considerably. I'm moving eastbound around the world so Europe will be the most expensive place I will be. I decided at that point to let it go. If this is the steepest it will get then I will enjoy where I am when I am there and be happy to cut corners where I can. I'm not going to undermine the quality of my travels for the sake of a few euros. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but it is a huge burden off of my shoulders and I'm glad I'm back in the moment.
- I've noticed a huge difference in the authenticity of touch here as well. In general, Europeans are much more unaware of their personal space (see the loss of "my last creature comfort" in previous entry). In the metro nothing is sacred, you are inundated with hands and smells, but it's never intrusive. As much as you are positive you are going to be trampled at any minute, they skim you without contact (mainly in Morocco) or gently bump you without so much as an "excuse me" (mainly Spain and France). For as much physical contact as experienced from strangers, you can see why transactions in the stores caught me off guard: hands never touch during purchases. When you are buying something, your money goes in the dish to pay for it, it is picked up by the teller, your change put back in the dish and you pick it up. I remember days at home when the only physical contact I got with another person was when I would go to buy something and our hands would touch...how sad is that. Here I kiss strangers on the cheeks when I say goodbye. I hold hands with people I've known a day...and it seems so natural.
-The Austrians are very nice and look to me like Americanized Germans. They are taller, have darker hair and Everyone has piercing and tattoos...I mean like they look like they fought a tackle-box and lost.
-I like the German influence on the schedules. Everything runs on time!! No problems with transportation and there seems to be a continuity to the system. I'm going to get used to it though. From what I hear Italian train are just about the worst and without different classes in the cars, there goes the ace up my sleeve.
-I've never seen the kind of humidity that I did today. It was even worse than Madrid's weather, but it held out until I was at dinner before it started pouring buckets of water from the sky. Weird thunder and lightening storm followed and I got to witness the "threads" of diagonal rain that Salzburg is so famous for.
-It doesn't smell like honey, jasmine, wood, playdoh and salt water the way that Corsica did, but the smell of pennies in the air indicating rain to break the humidity will be just fine with me:)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Leaving the "Crazy Woman" for $6 tea
Barcelona got me. In all her brilliance, in her fountains that endlessly spew water synced to Disney music, in her museums that have dizzying layouts...she got me. I've extended my stay here and will be staying at my friend Elsa's house. This is the same Elsa that I met in Bordeaux who moved out to Barcelona about 3 weeks ago. Things are going well and I'm feeling better though not 100% in the least. But I do feel well enough to go explore Barcelona the way it should be explored.
When speaking with a Romanian waitress the other day she and I were discussing the Spanish dichotomy: those who love Madrid tend to dislike Barcelona and vice versa. Admitting that I had found myself to belong to the party of the lovers of Barcelona she disclosed the same with a laugh. I shared with her how I had extended my stay and still didn't feel ready to leave. At this she said not to worry because Barcelona is "like a crazy woman". With a puzzled look on my face I'm sure, I ran over the words in my mind again to be sure I had the translation correct. At this she switched to English. "Barcelona is like a crazy woman" she said, "because although you may leave her...you always come back". I love that!! And I know it to be true with everything in me. The advantage to staying in hostels are being told the sites to avoid and short cuts through the system, but it also comes with the story of the individual sharing the pointers. I've met half a dozen people who either came to Barcelona to visit and never left or swore to some back after a visit and are on the return journey or were backpacking and have been in Barcelona since a date they can no longer recall. In the bar where the Romanian girl works there is a saying on the wall that reads "So close to the port you forget the date". I've fallen head over heels with Barcelona and I vow to come back to retrieve my heart.
Today is the day it happened...I'll never forget it. I prepared for a full day of travel (at times it looked as if it would be even more...) on the train from Barcelona to Nice on France's Independence day. The French train system is unreliable to begin with, but you put a holiday in there and all bets are off. I could only buy the train ticket to get from Barcelona to Montpellier, but would have to buy my ticket to get from Montpellier to Nice when I arrived in that station. While standing in line to purchase the ticket the attendant told me that the train was "full"...the trains here are always "full", but interestingly enough have MANY empty seats. The complicated part is to find the conductor in the 3 minutes the train is in the station and tell him (in broken French) the situation and that you MUST be on this train and have him agree to print you a reserved ticket before you board the train. If, God forbid, the fates should never meet and you take off in the train and are caught without a ticket, or a promise of one, you can be fined and kicked off the train. Nothing like a little crisis, sleep deprivation and a heavy pack on your back to heighten the language skills. I can now dance the European language samba! Today I've skipped between French, Spanish and English so much that I'm convinced that I could get my point across no matter the country.
It seems difficult to put into words, but today I feel more fortunate than I have in a long time. I'm not quite sure why, but suffice to say that today I became a true international traveller. I began my day early, hunted a hostel directly in front of the train station to give myself as much time as possible to sleep the night before and by chance found myself in a train car with the most attractive man I've seen since I've been here. It's strange how life works with it's twisted humor utilizing hormones to aide in playing out it's dramas and we, as pawns, slaves to our emotions, pick up the play cues and dance the dance. We've all done it, but in this case it was done with eyes, in conversation and at the discovery of separate destinations, futile attempts were made to alter what had already been written: we had now and that was to be enjoyed. What greater a lesson, what sweeter a way in which to be reminded of it.
I just finished two books while sipping my cup of $6 tea...I don't know how much more of this I can afford. Anyway, the first book is "Paris to the Moon" and the second is "The Lost Stradivarius" by Faulkner. Both were good, but the quotes I share with you are from the former.
"Most Americans draw their identities from the things they buy, while the French draw theirs from the things they do. What we think of as French rudeness and what they think of as American arrogance arise from this difference...For us, an elevator operator is only a tourist's way of getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower. For the French, a tourist is only an elevator operator's way opportunity to practice his metier in a suitably impressive setting."
"Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance."
"The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York or Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go because they are your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute and in that moment in a December at four o'clock when you are walking from the bus stop to the Rue Saint Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river [...] you feel as if you have escaped your ghosts if only because, being you, they are transfixed too looking at the lights in the trees on the other bank which they haven't seen before either."
"Suis-moi je te fuis, fuis-moi je te suis." (Come to me I'll run away, runaway and I'll come to you)
When speaking with a Romanian waitress the other day she and I were discussing the Spanish dichotomy: those who love Madrid tend to dislike Barcelona and vice versa. Admitting that I had found myself to belong to the party of the lovers of Barcelona she disclosed the same with a laugh. I shared with her how I had extended my stay and still didn't feel ready to leave. At this she said not to worry because Barcelona is "like a crazy woman". With a puzzled look on my face I'm sure, I ran over the words in my mind again to be sure I had the translation correct. At this she switched to English. "Barcelona is like a crazy woman" she said, "because although you may leave her...you always come back". I love that!! And I know it to be true with everything in me. The advantage to staying in hostels are being told the sites to avoid and short cuts through the system, but it also comes with the story of the individual sharing the pointers. I've met half a dozen people who either came to Barcelona to visit and never left or swore to some back after a visit and are on the return journey or were backpacking and have been in Barcelona since a date they can no longer recall. In the bar where the Romanian girl works there is a saying on the wall that reads "So close to the port you forget the date". I've fallen head over heels with Barcelona and I vow to come back to retrieve my heart.
Today is the day it happened...I'll never forget it. I prepared for a full day of travel (at times it looked as if it would be even more...) on the train from Barcelona to Nice on France's Independence day. The French train system is unreliable to begin with, but you put a holiday in there and all bets are off. I could only buy the train ticket to get from Barcelona to Montpellier, but would have to buy my ticket to get from Montpellier to Nice when I arrived in that station. While standing in line to purchase the ticket the attendant told me that the train was "full"...the trains here are always "full", but interestingly enough have MANY empty seats. The complicated part is to find the conductor in the 3 minutes the train is in the station and tell him (in broken French) the situation and that you MUST be on this train and have him agree to print you a reserved ticket before you board the train. If, God forbid, the fates should never meet and you take off in the train and are caught without a ticket, or a promise of one, you can be fined and kicked off the train. Nothing like a little crisis, sleep deprivation and a heavy pack on your back to heighten the language skills. I can now dance the European language samba! Today I've skipped between French, Spanish and English so much that I'm convinced that I could get my point across no matter the country.
It seems difficult to put into words, but today I feel more fortunate than I have in a long time. I'm not quite sure why, but suffice to say that today I became a true international traveller. I began my day early, hunted a hostel directly in front of the train station to give myself as much time as possible to sleep the night before and by chance found myself in a train car with the most attractive man I've seen since I've been here. It's strange how life works with it's twisted humor utilizing hormones to aide in playing out it's dramas and we, as pawns, slaves to our emotions, pick up the play cues and dance the dance. We've all done it, but in this case it was done with eyes, in conversation and at the discovery of separate destinations, futile attempts were made to alter what had already been written: we had now and that was to be enjoyed. What greater a lesson, what sweeter a way in which to be reminded of it.
I just finished two books while sipping my cup of $6 tea...I don't know how much more of this I can afford. Anyway, the first book is "Paris to the Moon" and the second is "The Lost Stradivarius" by Faulkner. Both were good, but the quotes I share with you are from the former.
"Most Americans draw their identities from the things they buy, while the French draw theirs from the things they do. What we think of as French rudeness and what they think of as American arrogance arise from this difference...For us, an elevator operator is only a tourist's way of getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower. For the French, a tourist is only an elevator operator's way opportunity to practice his metier in a suitably impressive setting."
"Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance."
"The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York or Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go because they are your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute and in that moment in a December at four o'clock when you are walking from the bus stop to the Rue Saint Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river [...] you feel as if you have escaped your ghosts if only because, being you, they are transfixed too looking at the lights in the trees on the other bank which they haven't seen before either."
"Suis-moi je te fuis, fuis-moi je te suis." (Come to me I'll run away, runaway and I'll come to you)
Monday, July 6, 2009
From Spain and skin to Morocco and sobriety...
From Malaga to Algaciris on an unforgettable train ride, then from Algeciris on a ferry to Tangier, Morocco. I'm traveling with 2 girls I met in Spain on holiday from Great Britain and we get along well. Got to Morocco last night late and spent the day walking around the city experiencing the culture. Women walk around covered from head to toe in sweltering, humid heat that has storekeepers seated in the shade. I was fortunate enough to have spoken to another girl at the last hostel who had just come from Morocco and I hadn't realized how close I was to cutting it out of my trip...worse, for really no reason at all other than I was buying into the preconceived ideas about what I though Morocco would be like. I had something along the lines of T.J. with a gypsy vibe and people looking to rip me off at any opportunity. She told me that, and I quote, "Casablanca [Morocco] changed my life." She went on about how kind the people were and how she had thought, before she had gone there, that everyone in Morocco was a thief and that her friends had cautioned her to be careful. I'm so glad I talked with her before I decided to kill of my trip here. Culturally speaking, I prepared accordingly (buying a small ring to wear as a wedding band and brought a balaclava with me to wear), but most important I believe is I chose to be aware, not make stupid choices that put me in compromising situations and above all to give
After discussions with people in the countries I've been to I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge in American behavior and the way in which we are perceived by the rest of the world. With sincerity and honest curiosity they've asked me why it is than whenever you talk to an American it's always "the worst time they've ever had" or "the best place they've ever been to"? False intensity and lack of authenticity is what we are known for. As I move from country to country I've noticed that what I once called my "personal space" (or rather the relinquishing of it as my last creature comfort), is not really caused by a lack of personal space at all. It's actually a lot of people living in a very small space. We have a cultural norm that is unspoken, but agreed upon in America of what I've coined as "timely chaos". We have a schedule that we adhere to and are very attached to its implementation despite what others may have on their agendas. We never intentionally move in a slow fashion to prevent others from accomplishing what they need to do...right? But when someone isn't moving at a rapid pace and it is directly affecting you, you are SURE that they are deliberately standing between you and where you need to be/what you need to get done/success. This is stressful and makes us tightly wound...and this, my friends, is why everyone else in the world smokes, drinks and parties until 6 a.m. and we as Americans still die first. Try being in a hurry in the countries I've been to...actually don't. It doesn't work. You get frustrated...until you're not anymore and you come back to reality and see that NOTHING was changed by your stress/anger/frustration. Eventually, you learn that you're eventually going to get where you need to be whenever that may be, but for now you are where you are, so have a beer/mojito/cappuccino and enjoy the moment because it is the best part of right now:)
I'm currently in Casablanca, considered to be the "economic center of Morocco"...funny. I only think they call it that because it's a little less chaotic than Marrakech and Tanger.
"Spinning is its own reward; there wouldn't be carousels if weren't so."
After discussions with people in the countries I've been to I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge in American behavior and the way in which we are perceived by the rest of the world. With sincerity and honest curiosity they've asked me why it is than whenever you talk to an American it's always "the worst time they've ever had" or "the best place they've ever been to"? False intensity and lack of authenticity is what we are known for. As I move from country to country I've noticed that what I once called my "personal space" (or rather the relinquishing of it as my last creature comfort), is not really caused by a lack of personal space at all. It's actually a lot of people living in a very small space. We have a cultural norm that is unspoken, but agreed upon in America of what I've coined as "timely chaos". We have a schedule that we adhere to and are very attached to its implementation despite what others may have on their agendas. We never intentionally move in a slow fashion to prevent others from accomplishing what they need to do...right? But when someone isn't moving at a rapid pace and it is directly affecting you, you are SURE that they are deliberately standing between you and where you need to be/what you need to get done/success. This is stressful and makes us tightly wound...and this, my friends, is why everyone else in the world smokes, drinks and parties until 6 a.m. and we as Americans still die first. Try being in a hurry in the countries I've been to...actually don't. It doesn't work. You get frustrated...until you're not anymore and you come back to reality and see that NOTHING was changed by your stress/anger/frustration. Eventually, you learn that you're eventually going to get where you need to be whenever that may be, but for now you are where you are, so have a beer/mojito/cappuccino and enjoy the moment because it is the best part of right now:)
I'm currently in Casablanca, considered to be the "economic center of Morocco"...funny. I only think they call it that because it's a little less chaotic than Marrakech and Tanger.
"Spinning is its own reward; there wouldn't be carousels if weren't so."
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