Super Powers

It's one of those questions that comes up time and again: "If you had a super power..."
As a kid I was never entirely sure what my answer was, I think I was always worried about the consequences. I wouldn't want to be able to hear people's thoughts because I was afraid it would be constant and I wouldn't want to be overwhelmed by crowds and cities (the hum of which I, in my non-super state, find rather comforting) or hear something off-putting about someone I otherwise liked. Invisibility would be cool for a while, you could sneak into private events, see movies for free, but eventually I think I'd tire of not being able to share the experiences with other people... Flying would also have its perks, but it's not really for me. I'm kind of a spazz and would probably hit a building or get shot by a confused hunter or just take off in the presence of someone who didn't understand and then I'd get tried for being a witch or something equally scary and anachronistic. I don't think I ever had an answer without a list of questions about the degree of control I'd have over my power, who else would have powers, and what the potential safety concerns were... I was just that kind of kid. I never learned to cartwheel because I couldn't understand why I should want to dive head-first at the ground with only my arms to protect me. The degree of fun achieved didn't seem to balance out the potential risk involved...
But I digress.

I came across an experiment on BBC that sought to test whether a person can spot the difference between a fake smile and a real smile, apparently this is quite a difficult task as the fake smile has developed to look quite similar to a real smile on most people so they are better able to mask true emotions so as to more easily get along with others. As someone who has always prided herself on being a decent judge of people (my calculated risk-taking mentality never stopped me from talking to strangers, people are, after all, my species) the cited low scores freaked me out... But I figured I'd dive into it, no scientific method, just following instinct. 20 smiles later, I had achieved a perfect score...

Apparently I've had a super power all along.
Kate Polsky: People Whisperer!!

Whether you're a people whisperer or not, it's worth checking out the Smile Experiment

It has its moments...

I've been back in the US for nearly three weeks and it's been...something.
I'm in Spanish class 20 hours a week, doing assignments for at least another 8, and then add to that the supplemental things to try to make the language stick. (Seriously, another romance language? What was I thinking? Bienvenido, benvenudo, and bienvenue to the swirl of Latin-languages living in my brain.) I've been reading news in Spanish  talking to myself in Spanish  and I've even taken up watching game shows in Spanish ..It's almost like immersion...Only not... Sidebar: Telemundo dating shows? I don't get it. And I don't  think it's entirely a language barrier issue. Have you ever seen 12 Corazones? It's friggin' bizarre. It pretends to have something to do with the zodiac? Maybe?

WHY ARE ALL THE MEN DRESSED LIKE TARZAN?!?

Maybe I shouldn't have admitted to watching this show... No matter, soon I'll be watching telenovelas like a pro. Or at least knowing for sure that it's a terrible terrible idea and giving up the dream to pursue something completely different and probably equally disappointing... German comedy perhaps?

Moving right along. The point of all of this is that between everything Spanish-related and all that basic sleeping/eating/bathing stuff that I'm still catching up on from my time on the road (don't judge, hooligans) "Summer" has been on hiatus.
Not the actual season. That, my intercontinental friends, is in full swing in this neck of the woods (Read: GAH! It's been hot and humid and I can't quite handle it, my skin, it burrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnssssssss and I thank my lucky, though rarely present in the sky this close to NYC, stars for air conditioning) But more like the devil-may-care, got no worries, throw caution to the wind notion of summer that my school years have taught me to appreciate while I have it because it doesn't last forever. Hell, if I'm being completely honest, this may be the last one I get (I have no plans for grad school, or becoming a teacher, or moving to France...Which I think are the only methods of attaining "summer vacation" to the degree to which I have become accustomed) and while I'm actually enjoying this whole language learning thing, I sometimes like to be reminded of what summer is all about.

Tonight was one of those nights.
In case you are somehow just now tuning in to...well...my existence... Food is a huge part of my life and therefore it shouldn't surprise anyone to find out that it's a focal point of many of my friendships as well.
Picture the scene: The gang's all here (in this case "the gang" refers to a group of girls with whom I've been friends since elementary school...That's a long-ass time) it's 10 PM, we've finally all got an evening free from other responsibilities, and the nighttime temperature has dropped below 85 (Fahrenheit) for the first time in weeks after a much needed rain storm. What's a group of vivacious 20-somethings to do?

If your answer was an emphatic: "OMG ROADTRIP!!!!!!!!" then I'm happy to say that your pop-culture knowledge of 20-something year old girls has started you down the path to a correct answer...Award yourself 3 points...

If your answer included the magic word "Milkshake" then BRAVO, BRAVA! You know us too well. Award yourself 10 points AND partial custody of all the boys in the yard. Yes, I just turned this into a Kelis reference. No, I'm not ashamed.

Couldn't resist...

There's just something to be said for the hours spent in a car, highway speeds, windows down, music blaring, muggy post-storm night, on a quest for elusive and far away milkshakes for no other reason than "Because there's a full tank of gas and hours 'til sunrise"

The milkshakes were alright, but the night? It was summer.

Humble pie

I am not a particularly cocky individual by nature, but when push comes to shove, I am 100% aware that I'm pretty awesome. I've been to interesting places, met interesting people, and done interesting things--and sometimes I've even blogged about them. There are some things I do pretty well, some things I'm comically bad at--some of which I do anyway. I feel like most people are this way.
And then there are times when you just need to take a deep breath, a step back, and a slice of humble pie and say "Wow. I am honored to know you. You are something special."
There are a lot of very talented people in the world, and it's days like today that make me realize how fortunate I am to know so many of them.
Today, I sat in an off-Broadway theater space in Manhattan, watching a girl I've known for 9 years win the hearts of a sold-out crowd in a musical production written by a friend of the guy sitting next to me (himself, also a talented actor and friend of mine)
It's a small, beautiful world.

In which I pretend to be interesting...

Here in blogosphereland, I like to keep it honest. It does me no good to lie to you and it does you no good to think I'm any more/less interesting than I actually am. If Abe Lincoln can be honest (and a vampire hunter...Yes, I saw that movie. Yes, it was incredible. No, I don't want to hear your sass about how you thought it took itself too seriously or wasn't historically accurate enough. The civil war is better with vampires.) so can I.
So why did I actually come home when I did, rather than just getting increasingly broke and eventually pretending I was qualified to teach English in order to avoid the cost of a transatlantic flight...Or getting deported...
Did I miss my cats?

This is Pi, she's a little special

No...I'm pretty sure that wasn't it...
The real reason was infinitely less fluffy. I had to enroll in summer classes. Woo! I hear you out there in bloggosphereland saying, "But wait! I saw you in one of those universally unflattering graduation hats and re-purposed judge robes! You somehow managed not to trip when you walked across a stage and shook hands with various old people! They handed you a diploma folder! Everything is a lie!"
Well, it turns out I was a few credits shy of being an *actual* graduate, so I did what any normal pseudo-grad would do: I said "Fie!" to spending a summer session at my matriculated institution of higher learning, used the money I wasn't spending on summer session tuition/housing to finance my eurotrip, and signed myself up for transferable credits at my friendly neighborhood community college.
Spanish, to be exact.
Why Spanish? Well, the savvy "I'll soon be looking for employment" answer is: "In the USA especially, a fundamental grasp on the Spanish language is a tool that everyone could benefit from having in their utility belt". The "off the cuff" answer is: "Well, I already speak French and some Italian. Spanish is the next logical romance language for me to tackle (sorry, Portuguese and Romanian)". And the "bizarre, accurate" answer is: "I really want to understand telenovelas, guys."
Seriously.
Anyway, I'm now a week into this class, and all I've really learned is that TV is lying to me. Community college Spanish is nothing like this:

But every day I find myself one step closer to making sense of the game shows on telemundo...And that's an accomplishment.

There's no place like...

I guess I'm home now. It's strange and weird and I don't know how I feel about any of it.
Since I've been gone, my room in my parent's house has been emptied, painted beige, and the furniture has been rearranged, it's a little like one of those dreams where you're talking to your french professor in their office, only in dream world your professor looks just like Heidi Klum...in a tutu...and their office is a giant plastic orb full of grass on top of London's tower bridge. And you know that it's business as usual and you know exactly where you are and exactly who you're talking to but something feels a little out of joint, but you can't put your finger on it until you wake up and are trying to explain the dream to your friend over breakfast and they're like, "What's so weird about you talking to the professor in his office, was it something he said?" and you tell them "Well, no, but he was Heidi Klum...and wearing a tutu!" And they laugh, and you laugh, but somewhere inside you wonder how dream-you didn't catch on that everything was different...
It's kind of like that.
But it's nice to see my family, and it's nice to see all these home-friends, and it's REALLY nice to be back in the land of proper bagels. People *think* they have a "good bagel place" near them, but they're wrong. Some are decent substitutes and, in a moment of bagel-deprived weakness, they'll do, but nothing compares to a New York bagel. I won't waste my breath fighting you on pizza, or hot dogs, or clam chowder, but our bagels will always win. Hands down. No contest.
Now, just because I'm home doesn't mean that this is goodbye. Millions of people lead perfectly interesting lives in the United States, why shouldn't I be one of them? And why shouldn't I continue to write about it?

What to expect:
-Fewer pub crawls
-Fewer references to people solely by nationality
-Fewer places I can't spell
-Fewer complaints about my WiFi enabled device
-More pictures
-More milkshakes
-More driving
-More AMERICA...YEAH!

The truth is...I don't know what to expect from this moving forward. But it will move forward. And that's what matters...I think...

Iceland wants to be your friend...

So, I know I talked a lot about midnight sun in a few of these (namely Copenhagen and Stockholm) but I was lying. I mean, not that it wasn't cool then and there, but seriously: Iceland. The sun actually didn't set. Not even for a minute. It was like a creepy-surreal-nightmare-dream...on mars...But not real mars...more like marvin the martian loony-toons mars...But with vikings...
I feel like this blog graphs out my brain function pretty nicely. As sleep decreases, ranting increases...It's been a long 6 weeks...
Anyway: I landed in Reykjavik at midnight and got on a bus into the city. This was no ordinary bus. Apparently, by day, it runs as a tour bus with automated robot-voice facts about everything you pass, so when it's masquerading as a lowly airport transfer bus in the wee hours the commentary still runs! We drove through the volcanic ash mound hill things that had names I could neither pronounce nor write made primarily of minerals I can't spell. I swear it was all very educational.
The bus stopped at a depot and we were all wrangled off, with our luggage, and told to stand in a line. At this moment, I was seriously awaiting Bjork Von Martian with her Skyr-powered laser gun that emitted high frequency beams of Sigur Rós...And she'd be wearing one of those sweaters... Volcanos...Brennivín...er...where was I?
Oh: So then instead of Marvin the Martian Icelandic Stereotype coming to kill us, two old men pulled up in white vans and started calling names like they were picking teams for kickball in grade school...I was called last (for real, it was a little terrifying) and joined my teammates in the creepy white van. After a couple of stops, the van pulled up outside my hostel and let me out (no death or actual kickball required)
At this point it was increda-late, not that you could tell by looking, so I buzzed into the hostel and walked up 2 flights of stairs to reception, which was a glorious, antique wonderland slash bar. And I swear all of Reykjavik was there.
Ordinarily, this would mean that I was going to throw my backpack into the luggage storage room (an old freight elevator. Even the luggage room was cool. Be still, my hostel-loving heart) and head to the bustling bar to make friends, but I didn't have a kronur to my name and was, after a night flight, hygenically in no place to be scamming drinks from kindly strangers, if you know what I mean... So I did what any sane person would do, checked in to my room, had a half-hour discussion with the woman at the desk about the earrings I was wearing and Icelandic art and design, and walked upstairs, past the diorama of a vintage barbershop and innumerable pieces of defunct arcade games, to my room, found the appropriately numbered bunk and climbed into bed...With a strange man... That's right, kiddos, hide your kids, hide your wife, there was a bed intruder... (yeah, I couldn't resist that one) I stifled a *serious* eep-sound, sprung out of bed, hitting my head on the top bunk and somehow still managing not to wake the massive Norse bed thief, tiptoed (read: tripped over every duffel, wire, and dust-bunny imaginable but didn't crash to the floor, meaning I was totally stealth) through the room until, examining much more carefully this time, I found the only vacant bed, claimed it as my own, and passed out.
Five hours later I awoke. bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, scheduled my airport bus, and set out into the city for a solid 5 hours of meandering before my flight. Apparently it's strange for anyone to be out and about before 9 unless they're a beard-faced, sweater-clad, octogenarian, so I got some sideways glances as I ordered breakfast and made myself at home in a cafe with my cup of tea, hafragrautur--oatmeal--and skyr (it seemed to be the breakfast of choice for that crowd, only with coffee instead of tea. If it's good enough for Icelandic grandpas, it's good enough for me)
After breakfast I followed the path set out for me by the woman at reception, past government buildings, museums, churches, and statues, and, after stopping by the post office, I curled up along the water at Solfar, the Sun Voyager monument, with my trusty purple marker and wrote my final round of postcards.
I walked back along the water to the hostel, collected my luggage, and went outside to meet the bus (which tried to leave without me, and I chased it down the street, which would be its own story, but frankly, my hand is getting tired and at this point, that kind of madness should be expected of me. You can fill in the tale yourself, I trust you.)

Sitting in the airport, I realize this adventure has come to an end...

Or maybe it's just evolving...

Making friends

The Germans seem to have a word for everything-- I'm sure this is because they just cram all the descriptors into one spaceless string of letters, but that doesn't make it any less cool to me. My personal favorite is one that means "a face badly in need of a fist"
This leads me to wonder if they have words for faces badly in need of other things...stories, for example.
My whole life I've found that apparently my face constantly says: tell me about your life. It happens on trains, planes, busses, streets, and restaurants. It happens when the storyteller has had a great day, an awful day, or just your run of the mill average day. It happens with kids and old people, suits and homeless folks, men and women, introverts and extroverts, all sorts of people from all walks of life.
I've always thought of it as a super power of sorts. And I love it, really I do, but still it catches me off guard time and again.
Today, for example, I was in line at the airport coffee shop for a cup of tea to keep me company while I waited for my flight to Iceland. The line was long, but moving quickly, efficient if a little cold...and then I showed up... I ordered my tea, she asked for my name and where I was headed.
"Kate, and I'm going to reykjavik"
"and then?" she asked, glancing at my backpack with a smile.
"home...er...New York-ish?
She told me about the time her friends went to New York and how jealous she was that they got to see the big apple and asked why I left. When I told her about Franklin, she told me about her time studying in England and how she wished she had stayed longer and about her flat and her roommate and his cat. Fifteen minutes later, I knew large parts of her life story and it was a good thing there was another register open... I got my tea and she went back to manning the register with nothing but a courteous smile for the next in line.
People are strange and wonderful creatures.

Just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norse men

Greetings from Sweden: where the furniture folds to a much smaller size.
I landed at the airport at nearly 11 pm after another truly bizarre flight.
It was the night Italy took on Germany in the Eurocup and my plane was full of Italians anxious to land so they could find out the score. About halfway through the flight, the intercom came on, "good evening, this is your captain speaking" never a good sign on a ryanair flight, especially not a night flight where everyone is asleep and the captain is waking you up for announcements "we are now flying over Germany. Speaking of Germany, the score of the match is currently 2-0, have a pleasant rest of your flight."
At that moment, a near riot broke out. I've never heard more che cazzo-ing in all my time in Switaly.
The intercom comes back: "this is your captain again...ITALY, it's 2-0 ITALY, ITALIA is winning 2 goals to nil." the cussing turns to raucous cheering, "who wants a drink? Beer and wine, half price. If you don't drink, Germany wins."
Needless to say, the cabin crew ran out of beer and wine and the rest of the flight consisted of a lot of cheering and singing and general merriment.
Sports make people do silly things.
Anyway, flight landed, bought my ticket to central terminal, and spent the next hour and a half on a bus reveling in the seemingly eternal sunset/dusk/dawn looming on the horizon well into the wee hours. This northern summer light all day thing is really mind blowing.
I walked to hostel number 1, used the super secret pin code to open the door (seriously, it seems like Stockholm residents don't use keys, they all just have keypad code locks and memorize a lot of numbers) grabbed my envelope off the reception desk, got the code to my room (always a friggin code) got hit on by the drunk man sitting in the lounge, pretended not to speak English, found my room, crawled into bed, and passed out.
The next morning I checked out and walked the 4 blocks to hostel number 2. (why 2 hostels? Well number 2 looked cooler--practically the only cool looking hostel in Stockholm...at least at a reasonable price--but had limited availability...do what you gotta do...oh! And hostel 2 has a no shoes rule...which is perfect for my life, who needs shoes?)
I checked in, dropped my backpack in the luggage room, and set out in hopes of adventure...and food.
I wandered for a good long while, got more than my fair share of lost, saw a bunch of cool buildings that I later found out were old town/historical in some way, kicked a few pigeons, and still was incapable of finding affordable food. Note to self: when everyone everywhere warns you about how expensive Stockholm is, don't scoff and say "something something expensive? Something something 4 years in Switzerland something something" because they are right, Stockholm will actually eat your wallet AND find some way to tax you on it for services rendered.
I gave up and went to the grocery store, bought rice, a can of beans, and an onion, and made pauper beans and rice...and even that set me back nearly $15
Over the course of dinner I met 2 Arizonian (is that the right word for that? Autocorrect doesn't seem to hate it...but it also keeps trying to make "Scandinavian" into "scandalnavia"... Which isn't even a word...or an accurate descriptor of my time in the region...but it would be a good name for a bad preteen romance novel or something) brothers, a Finnophile Aussie metalhead, and their Californian hostel-roommate and we decided to hit the town, it was Friday after all. We were joined by an Aussie girl and made our way to a place called lion bar that was promised to have comparatively affordable drinks, unfortunately, they were "full" which is bouncer code for "we don't want you idiot tourists in our bar, go away"
Jerks.
We made our way up the street and into a dive-y place called Anchor...it was a little loud/angry/dark for my liking, but they let us in...so that was something.
We stayed for a drink or two and then called it quits...a biker bar was not really the way I wanted to go broke anyway...
We walked outside and it became abundantly clear how Swedes spent a night out without going broke buying 60 kronor beers in bars...they have a serious cruising culture. They pile into these epic old cars (or in one case, a monster truck with couches in the back) and drive up and down the street, harassing pedestrians and blasting music (and in one case, running bare-assed out onto the sidewalk and kissing a beggar woman...yeah...that happened)
We returned to the hostel and called for a mulligan the next day...starting with a pilgrimage to the world's largest Ikea. Best idea. Especially since we had in our midst an Ikea virgin! What better place to remedy this than Sweden?
We left at noon and train/bus/walked our way to Ikea. We headed straight for the restaurant and gorged ourselves on meatballs and potatoes and lingonberry everything (the most affordable meal of this leg of the trip, and delicious to boot!)
We spent three hours sprawling on couches, hopping on beds, playing with plush rats, and spinning in desk chairs...and I got stuck on a children's slide...
Pictures were taken, fun was had, and plushie rats were purchased...Ikea success.
We got back to the hostel and napped. Ikea can be exhausting.
In the evening, we set out to wander old town and explore the more eclectic southern part of Stockholm (recommended as a hip cool party place)
After deciding the bars recommended to us were not our scene, we found a place with nifty decor, strange music, and 35 kronor pints...we settled in for a few drinks, a chat about healthcare/music/food, and watched it pour rain outside for a solid 30 minutes. When it stopped, we tried to go to this funky club under a bridge that has too many accents in it for me to type it on my wifi enabled device, but there was an hour wait (at least), a 120 kronor cover charge, and according to the Swedes in front of us, drinks inside were club-prices (meaning all the money)
Going with the "well, we tried" theory, we had another beer elsewhere, got gyros (that were GIANT and magical and full of meaty french fry-y goodness) and walked home into the sunrise/set...yeah, I still don't know where one stops and the other begins...but the nonstop orange/blue glow is pretty amazing.
Real morning came and brought July with it, and with July comes my departure from Sweden and Europe and the beginning of my trip home...this was getting me down...until schadenfreude stepped in and I met Lee, a SoCal kid who likes Russian literature and dislikes the sun (and resents that the english language calls warmth and blue skies "nice weather")
He is stuck indefinitely in Sweden without luggage or a working credit card but fortunately, WITH a good sense of humor about it all...at least my future includes bagels...
Anyway, he and I chatted about the soviet union, eurocup, the word "quaint" among others, beautiful people, bad canadian pop music, and we sang Whitney Houston loudly in the common room with a Swiss/Frenchman. It was a good end to this leg of the journey.
Now it's off to a long layover in Reykjavik and then...JFK :-/
I'm thrilled, really.

Strange feelings...

There's a certain strangeness in the untimely return to a home that you've made your peace with leaving.
A month ago, I *knew* I was seeing Lugano for the last time, at least for a long time. Maybe I'd return there in some distant future, a real person, with a job, with a life, with a new set of eyes. I'd look at the lake, stare up at the mountains, and think to myself: Ah. When I was young and wild and this was my home... And what a beautiful home it was.
Maybe it's just me...
Poetic musings aside, returning seemed natural. I boarded a flight to Malpensa, as I had done dozens of times before, and put myself on autopilot. I knew I would land by noon, waltz through customs (ha! who am I kidding? this is Italy, customs isn't a thing) and catch a 12:15 bus, getting me to Lugano by 1 and up at Franklin by 1:30, at the latest. No concerns about misplaced or incorrect directions, just sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.
And what an odd flight it was (seems to be a trend on this trip) the flight was completely full, not a single empty seat, and it seemed that half the passengers were carrying instruments. By my count, just in my direct line of sight, there were 2 banjos, 2 guitars, a saxophone, a trombone, a trumpet, a flute, and something that looked kind of bagpipe-ish. There was also a large man in a tuxedo...he isn't an instrument, but is certainly worth mentioning. And only a couple of them seemed to know eachother. I eavesdropped for nearly an hour in hopes of a clue, but there was nothing... It didn't help that they were speaking danish :-/
Flash forward one flight/busride and I'm in Lugano, like I never left, like I'm just getting home from a weekend trip all road-weary and full of stories...only I don't have keys...or a bed...or a clean change of clothes...and campus is a ghost town... It's very strange.
Novia meets me at the train station, we buy chicken legs from the supermarket, and walk up to Airone (one of the dorms being used for summer housing)
We curl up on her bed with Hercules the animated series loaded on YouTube and our chicken legs in hand and revel in our reunion.
When Alessandra gets out of class, we hitch a ride with her dad up to the Herman Hesse trail, a walking path in a neighborhood above Sorengo where, apparently, Herman Hesse did much of his musing, and did some musing of our own (and by musing, I mean wandering, goofing off, and taking pictures)
Then we explored the graveyard where he is buried, an extravagant array of stone sculptures and old photographs, some of the graves dating back as far as the 1600s. It's hard not to get lost in the vast maze if it all.
Cross it off the Franklin bucket list (you know, the one I never completed despite my proximity to everything on it...)
Later that evening, it was Eurocup time!! I know, you didn't know I was so in to football/soccer and now every post mentions the match in some way...I guess I just get caught up in the spirit of the continent... Anyway: Italy vs England! And, of course, being in Switaly, watching the game in an Italian household, eating pasta, we were rooting for the hometeam.
And I'm going to say it: most uneventful game ever. But Italy won after overtime and penalty kicks, England cried on the queen's shoulder, we cried with joy that the game was over and we could go to bed, and Switzerland cried because in the next match they would have to pick between Germany and Italy...like picking a favorite child...
So then it was bedtime, I slept forever, woke up, got a sandwich from Valf (a little deli/corner store near the Franklin campus whose sandwiches often haunt my dreams) and sat in the sunshine, devouring it with the joy of a thousand kids on Christmas. I'm pretty sure other things happened...but now I'm distracted by the memory of sandwiches and may be drooling slightly on my trusty wifi enabled device, which is making the screen all slobbery and hard to type on...
Whatever... The next day was my birthday! Woo! Older!
I had a brilliant plan to go to SwissMiniature, but upon realizing it was 20 CHF to get in, 10 to get there, and all my people were in class so I couldn't drag them with me, it lost some appeal. Instead, I read in the great outdoors and basked in the last warm country of my adventure (until the US...but we don't talk about that)
Evening came and I dragged my peeps out to dinner at Giardino (the restaurant under the dorm I lived in the last two years at Franklin) there was pizza and ice cream and good friends and a poorly prepared toast. It was like the classiest 6-year-old birthday party ever, and I was 100% happy with that.
Time flies...the next day was my last full day in Lugano. Novia and I walked downtown with the intention of kebabs, but upon deciding it was too hot for piles o' meat, got mango gelato instead...gelato is food, right?
That night we had a farewell/graduation/birthday dinner at the spaghetti store, a restaurant on the lake that is apparently a Lugano staple... Accidental bucket list addition and subtraction...with whoever was still around. Good food, good people, good conversation, a good final excursion in my Switalian home. We strolled along the lake with our gelato, talking about the strangeness of saying goodbye.
One flight to sweden later: greetings from Stockholm.

Copenhagen: Fire and Rain

Because nothing I do ever makes much sense, I woke up early my last day in Copenhagen and went on the free walking tour (I was determined to understand this city before I left...DETERMINED)
I walked the block to town hall from the hostel, grabbed myself a cup of tea from 7-11 (these are all over Copenhagen. Not a Starbucks in sight, but a million and a half 7-11s) and stood on the steps, watching weddings, waiting for the tour guide, and hoping for a warm sunny day...because I was left pantsless after a slight tearing incident left my only pair of jeans a little less decent for public wear...The weather gods did not oblige.
Danish weather is a strange beast. Over the course of a three hour walking tour (Yes, Gilligan, I said a three hour tour) we had freezing rain, umbrella slaughtering wind, blazingly warm sun, we lacked snow--much to my pantsless/closed-shoeless/sleeveless delight-- but otherwise, Denmark really covered all the weather bases
But I digress.
The walking tour was lead by a Norwegian girl named Aurora. She was super cool and really knew her ish, but what was the main lesson of the tour? Copenhagen is very flammable.
I know you come here for tales, not history (that's what Wikipedia's for, right?) but I'm going to drop some fun factoids on you anyway...Sorry for making you learn.
So, like many cities, Copenhagen had a great fire. It was started late one night when a kid knocked over a candle in the restaurant his parents owned, or so the story goes. Generally, even in days of yore when firemen had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get anywhere, a 1-candle fire in a relatively built up part of town right near the water doesn't do much, but this fire burned down more than half of the city...How could that happen?
Well, the city gate was between the fire and the canal and, as this fire happened at night, the gate was locked. In order to open the city gate, they people of the city needed the permission of the king who was, at this time, asleep at the palace. The firemen discussed and, I imagine, did a lot of "But *I* woke the king from his beauty sleep LAST time"ing before deciding that the king really shouldn't be disturbed and it could wait until morning. Well, morning came, the city was 50% destroyed, the king woke up, opened the gate, they smothered the remaining embers and that was that...
SERIOUSLY? They didn't think that the king would be more pissed off that his city was DESTROYED than that they woke him up? I like sleep as much as the next guy, but that's insane.
70 years later, the flammable folks of Denmark have ANOTHER GREAT FIRE, this one starts on a naval base almost exactly where the last fire stopped and spreads to destroy the OTHER half of the original medieval city. Copenhagen just can't catch a break
Flash forward to 1992, a good year for Denmark, they had just won the Eurocup and were feeling pretty good about themselves. They wanted to celebrate the strength of Denmark as a nation, and what better place to do that than at the one building that was spared from not one but TWO great fires! And how did they choose to celebrate? Fireworks...Fail...Copenhagen weather being what it is, the wind picked up and threw off the path of the fireworks, sending them straight into the palace and, you guessed it! Burning it to the ground.
Flash forward to the end of the tour when I ask Aurora what is going on in the city at night that I should check out. Apparently, it's Sankt Hans! A festival to celebrate midsummer in which they...light bonfires and burn witches (or these days, dolls of witches)...Haven't the Danes learned their lesson about lighting large fires in the city center?

Anyway, the tour ended, I bought the guide a beer over lunch, and went about my way.
Now, the one thing that anyone knows about Copenhagen is that there's a statue of the little mermaid there and anyone who's anyone knows that if you don't come back from Copenhagen with a picture of the mermaid, you probably haven't actually been to Copenhagen, with that in mind, I looked at a map to see how far she was from the endpoint of the tour...The answer: REALLY FAR...One thing you may not know about Copenhagen is that is is home to the second oldest amusement park in the world, Tivoli...so I located that on the map...Not really far...And then the downpour came...
I had a tough decision to make: I could either walk really far, in the freezing rain, to a statue of a mermaid, see it, and walk back, probably still in the rain...OR I could go to the theme park, ride roller coasters in the rain, get completely soaked through, grab dinner, and then walk three blocks to the hostel and pass out...
The choice was clear: Mermaids could suck it! I was going to Tivoli!!
I went on all the rides, wandered the park, watched kids use round tables as a log-rolling game, saw a pantomime show where people got fish-slapped, saw a big-band show on the mainstage, watched them burn witch dolls on the pond and got yelled at for my inappropriate footwear.
It was the right decision even though now I've apparently probably never actually been to Copenhagen....Oops...Worth it...
Next stop: Lugano (again? Yeah, I know, backtracking isn't usually my thing, but I couldn't resist spending my birthday with friends...)

Copenhagen: Failure and Friendship

1 sleep later: I woke up for a free walking tour (because this city confuses me and I needed help) but upon seeing the windy grey cold raininess that was the outside world, I gave myself another 2 hours of sleep.
I woke up happier, but no less confused by Copenhagen. I found a less confusing map and set out to wander, knowing that I couldn't get lost in a city this small. Wrong. I somehow managed to walk off the edge of the map, in the pouring rain, the map got soaked to the point of uselessness, and then POOF! Three turns later, I was somehow at the back gate of Christiansborg Palace...I swear this city has portals.
Insane.
I wandered the grounds, accidentally broke into the king's library, made friends with snails, offended grandmas who didn't realize I spoke English by "looking too happy" near the Jewish museum... Idiots.
Drenched and confused, I returned to the hostel, changed, and seeking order: found a pub crawl flyer and decided it was a better idea than exploring on my own anymore (plus: it was a VIKING PUB CRAWL!! There were supposed to be horned hats!! I can't say no to hats!!)
I walked to the meeting point, got told it had changed, walked to the new meeting point, got told it was at the old meeting point, waited 30 minutes and gave up. Vikings can get hammered without me. (lol...Vikings...hammered...lol)
Mildly defeated, I returned to the hostel, hoping to find adventure, or maybe just a beer and my bed... Whatever, if there weren't horned hats I wasn't going to be picky.
In the lobby, I ran into Sunny, who was chatting with a group of guys who had just checked into her room, and like that, the night took a positive turn (friendly faces will have that effect on you)
We chatted for a while about how disturbingly sweet cider is in Scandinavian countries, why Justin Bieber is interesting (but still worthy of some degree of musical disdain), and why I'm so friggin good at identifying accents--which, by the way, is a great party trick I've cultivated whilst overseas.
At some point, two of the guys went out for a smoke and never returned. Upon realizing this, a third guy rallied the troops (me, sunny, and the fourth guy) to go find them. We made it about a block before deciding that this likely wouldn't work and ducked into an incredibly lively little bar near the university (always a safe bet for reasonable night life options)
Once we wrestled our way into a table and got ourselves 4 of the house beer, we people watched and reveled in the eclectic mix of vintage music the dj was spinning--yes, on actual vinyl! I was pretty pumped.
We decided to wander out and...erm...lost(?) sunny and Aussie number 4, so number 3 and I continued on in the original quest of finding thing 1 and thing 2. We made it to the bar 3 thought they may have gone to, but when we realized they were charging a cover, we re-prioritized and headed to the hotdog stand.
Danes love hotdogs. It is pretty much their only street food and it's on every street corner... Oh, and they eat the bread/condiments on the side, which was interesting.
Overwhelmed and hungry, I asked the two Danish men behind me what I should order, this sparked a long discussion about the best kind and why I was lucky to have made it to this particular stand because it was the best in the city (the same guy had run it in the same location for 15 years or more) and how they often drove across the city just to go there. They decided on my order (a bacon-wrapped hotdog with ketchup, mustard, and onions...bread on the side) and placed it for me to insure that I got the right thing. By this point, number three was long gone... Oops...
The hotdog was an epic success, I thanked the men profusely for their input/assistance and asked if they had any other recommendations for my time in Copenhagen.
"Well, what are you doing now?"
I told them that I was just going to walk back to my hostel and maybe sleep.
They debated and discussed in Danish and then turned back to me and said, "No, that won't do...We're going to the moose."
Here goes nothing...
They ushered me off the main square and down a side street to a superbly crowded little place called The Moose, pushed their way up to the bar, greeted the bartender, and emerged with three beers telling me I was not allowed to pay them back for it because *they* were *real* adults with *real* paying jobs and, having once been in my shoes, they were just doing the right thing and that some day soon, when I find myself in their position, they are sure I'll do the same for another broke young traveler and they would consider that to be me paying them back.
Fair enough, sirs, fair enough.
We wandered into the back room, a graffiti-coated chamber of fooseball and couches, and talked about life, careers, youth, and idiot mistakes made at bachelor parties.
We departed The Moose and went our separate ways.
Upon realizing how bright the sky was, I took a moment to check the time (3:45) and then decided to sit and revel in the glory of the brightness of summer solstice when one is that far north... It's pretty cool.
I'm about to leave when a man sits down next to me, apologies, introduces himself, apologizes again, and then begins asking me deep philosophical questions about enlightenment and the significance of loneliness. He told me of his life in Pakistan as a doctor and how, living in Denmark, he couldn't be a doctor anymore and was working 18 hours a day at a kiosk just to make ends meet and help out his parents and siblings in Pakistan. He asked how I could travel alone, said he'd lived in Copenhagen for three years and hadn't seen any of the sights because he couldn't see the significance if he had to do it alone. He asked if I would go with him so he could see Copenhagen while he still had time before work, but I chose to sleep, telling him my insights on the zen of solo travel and encouraging him to give it a try as my parting words. It may not have been what he wanted, but it certainly didn't hurt.
I got home, climbed the 6 flights up to my room, and went to sleep, content with the evening's recovery and sincerely hoping that the doctor had taken my advice.
The ability to see the significance of expanding your own worldview and being alone with your thoughts is a skill worth cultivating.

Judging by covers, not just for books

I landed in Copenhagen at noon without having slept in over 24 hours (why not on the longer-than-most-European-flights flight, you ask? Two words: crying baby. If this thing was a big bad wolf, it could have easily blown all those piggy houses down, even the stone one, no huffing or puffing required. And it was thrashing about in the seat behind me...joy)
After ditching the enfant terrible, I hopped on the metro toward my hostel, confident that I had the directions and address in at least three locations, just in case. The directions were simple: leave the metro stop, walk straight, hostel is on the square with the fountain. First mistakenly judged cover. Directions: not simple. Directions: lies.
Straight out of the metro is the wrong street...and it ends in a square with a fountain...without the hostel. The correct street? Actually 4 down from the exit from the metro stop... So I made my way down the CORRECT street and, after a decent walk, ended at a square with a big fountain. I walked all around it looking for the hostel and it was nowhere to be found, so I kept looking down the street...nothing. I eventually find a map and locate the address on it and walk to the street. I look and see the hostel, only the "square" is a widened sidewalk with cafe seating and the "fountain" is a small dribbling statue. Hostel direction fail.
I walk into reception, a brightly colored and eclectically decorated bar with hats for lampshades, jackelope skulls mounted on the wall, and a giant padded platform for reading/napping. Awesome, hip, homey, I thought, a great place to meet people... Cover-judgement fail 2. Most of the people in the bar/lounge area are locals, stopping by for cheap beer rather than friend making. Also weird? The hostel has a completely separate entrance, meaning post-check in you have to leave the building to go to your room. An odd hostel indeed. Also apparently the beds flip on a central axis, so if you're too far on one side, it tilts and tosses you off. This greatly upset the Finnish footballers in my room...
Anyway, after waiting 2 hours for my bed to be ready for me, I battled with the idea of a shower/nap combo, but in the end, decided that exploring was more important...and by exploring, I mean food. So I looked at a map, got confused, ditched the map, saw a lot of pretty buildings that I was pretty sure were important in some way, followed my nose to Thai food, and somehow found my way back to the hostel. After convincing myself that I still shouldn't sleep, I went down to the bar to watch Portugal kick asses and take names, because my brain still thought it was in Lisbon.
Apparently my glazed over sleep depravation read as serious boredom, so I got whisked away to chat with a Norwegian/Texan/Brooklynite stage manager named Sunny.
At 1 AM, we agreed it was bed time and parted ways.

More Copenhagen adventures and misadventures are forthcoming. iPod typing is just more than my eyes can handle at this point.

Not dead yet...

First things first: Lisbon lasted longer than expected, three nights became five nights, I write you now from the airport on my way out.
I wish the reason for this was purely pleasure... :-/
When last we spoke, it was night two, I was watching Portugal beat Holland in a Eurocup match, and I had grand plans to leave to my next city, wherever that may be, in a day or so.
So what happened?
Portugal won, free beer for all--If Portugal wins, we all win--I ate a glorious hostel-family dinner (a proper 3-course meal, plus dessert and drink for just over the cost of a grocery store meal, this alone easily places my Lisbon hostel in my top five, a fierce competition indeed) met some lovely people, and, despite feeing out of sorts, went out on an adventure.
It was Sunday, and my new friends the CanadiAsians decided that shouldn't stop it from being party night, so we searched far and wide for the white whale, a club open on Sunday. A leap of faith, a 40 minute walk, and a sketchy bridge across train tracks/ wander behind a police station later, we found an Irish pub in which to watch the NBA game AND a club with agreeable music and no charge for ladies (a definite plus) we danced like mad people, we tired ourselves out, and we walked back to the hostel.
A good time was had by all, and I went to sleep with all reasonable intention of going on the walking tour in the morning, but this was not in the cards.
I did wake up in the morning...in full on flu-bug death mode. Fever, chills, pain, yeah, travel had caught up with me, and it was not pretty...it never is.
I tried to get myself out the door, but my body wouldn't allow it, it seemed my day was to be spent popping aspirin and sleeping. As much as I hate to do it, even the most dedicated traveler has got their off day, this was mine, and fortunately it paid off! After rescheduling my flight plans to accommodate illness and extending my stay in Lisbon for two more nights, my body recovered (yeah, it took a full 24+ hours of sleep and all the orange juice money could buy, but it was worth it to be back on my game by noon the next day) and all was well.
I decided to stop trying to make the walking tour and instead wandered my way up the winding roads, past the ruins of the roman theater (an unexpected bonus! They've uncovered about a third of it, it looks like a huge construction site in the middle of the street, but if you're nosey and creep through the gate, you realize that you can go in and walk around and read all kinds of informative tales of roman times) to the Castle of Sao Jorge. After deciding to spend the 8€ to get in, I made a full afternoon of it...got to get your money's worth, amIright? So I strolled around the grounds, stalked peacocks, napped in the sun on a particularly cozy portion of the castle wall, accidentally kicked my shoe off of said portion of the wall, ran down from my perch to fetch it (and succeeded, a good thing since I am only traveling with one pair of shoes and I'm not partial to hopping) got laughed at by a courtyard full of people, got photographed by the quintessential Asian tour group, watched a group of old Portugese men play poker, reveled in the simple science of periscopes in the Ulysses tower, listened to a fado performance, watched a feral cat slaughter a pigeon, and became the personal photographer for a French couple. After deciding that was enough adventure for one day, I made my way to the supermarket, bought nectarines, and made my way back to the shady elephant for a snack. I befriended a great dane puppy, gave a nectarine to a homeless man, got judged by a hip 4-year old, and, deciding I had earned a nap, returned to the hostel and passed out for 3 hours in the way that only a recovering sick traveller can (1 shoe still on, fully clothed, half vertical, probably drooling a little, completely unwakeable)
Fortunately: Lisbon does food late. I went downstairs and joined hostel family dinner, duck rice--like Portuguese pallella/jambalaya with chorizo, bacon, and duck...I will master this recipe and eat it regularly and be such a happy camper. Made new friends, caught up with old friends, and, feeling well rested from the nap and guilty for having slept a full 24 hours the day before, decided to join my hostel folks on the pub crawl. Bar one was good, bar two was too crowded, but not bad...UNTIL a bar fight broke out between the guys standing on either side of me (not people I knew) and one guy punched the other guy so many times that he passed out on the ground. Generally, this means you have won the fight, you let his friends help him up, maybe punch him once more for good measure, high five your friends and go about your life... Not in Lisbon... Apparently in Lisbon, this means it's time to CURB STOMP THE UNCONSCIOUS GUY. Seriously? How is that ok?? Security eventually pulled him off and I, still trapped in the middle, watched with bated breath as a bunch of people tried desperately to wake the guy who was down, eventually succeeding after a full 3 minutes (doesn't sound too long until you're me and think you've just witnessed a man get beaten to death/coma/whatever...then anything more than instantly is too much)
What's worse? The near-death guy is the one they kicked out even though he didn't throw a single punch. Deciding this was not an establishment I had any interest in supporting, I went outside to breathe, settle my nerves, and wait for the crawl to move along.
We walked to the next and last place, but no one really felt much like dancing, so half an hour later, we walked home.
I arrived home to an empty room (odd when there are six beds) and slept the restful slumber of someone who was so very glad she had not been curb stomped.
I woke up to a full house, planned my direction for the day, and peaced out for my last day of Portugese exploration: Belem Tower, not actually the golden gate bridge, Discovery Monument, Jeronimo Monastery, postcard buying/writing, and a nice long walk back along the river.
The actual sightseeing was quite successful, uneventful, and not really blog-fodder, but interesting and successful.
The story comes when I bought stamps. I asked for fourteen stamps and was buying 10 postcards, marked at .5€, I thought... In my mind, I approximated that this would cost about 19€ at the most...so when it came up to 30€, I was a little shocked, so I asked for a breakdown to which the woman said, "postcards 1€, stamps expensive. You want less stamps?" but I needed 14, so I just went with it. Upon arriving at the cafe to write them, I discovered the problem...I said fourteen...She heard forty...
That said: if I had your address, I tried to send some gloriously unconventional mail rather than buy more postcards...we'll see how far the Portuguese postal system will let me push it when/if things start arriving in a week or so.
Frustrated at my stamps, I decided a nice long walk was exactly what I needed... Only when I got outside it had dropped 20 degrees and a storm was blowing in... And I was just getting over being sick and without a jacket...I walked 2 blocks and then quit and took the tram home. I returned to the hostel, finished writing and addressing 40 pieces of mail, saw it was nearly shots o'clock, and decided to participate one last time...then shots turned into gooodbye beers, which turned into dancing, which became a great end to what started as a rocky evening.
Once all the darling hoodlums went out/to bed, I stayed up the rest of the night talking with Luis, who was working the night shift, about hostel life, it's ups and downs, about home, about travel, about people, and life experience--and even a little about music, Kanye, dubstep, and the internationality of club music.
As the rowdy drunk folk rolled back in, I knew it was time to pack my bags and say my goodbyes.
I kind of miss it all already :-/

Galaxies far, far away.

Here's for yesterday, because actual yesterday got away from me...I guess it's for today too.
Yesterday, I checked out of my hostel in Sevilla and, with 5 hours until my bus, made my way to the now much talked about planet of Naboo.
5 hours to make it to Naboo, back to the hostel to grab my backpack, and make my bus? How far far away can this galaxy be?
Ok, I'll stop with the nerdy cryptic thing...
Yesterday I went to the Plaza de Espana. Google it. I'll wait...
A) it's friggin cool. Built for the 1929 Ibero-American exhibition, it is a semi-circular building with tiled alcoves depicting each of the provinces in Spain...and it has a moat that you can row-boat around.
B) does it look familiar to you? If not, look again...Anakin and Padme's entrance to Naboo in Episode 2 was filmed there, also, parts of Lawrence of Arabia...but seriously...Naboo...awesome.
I stayed there for an unbelievably long time, wandering the weapons exhibit, listening to a man play Spanish guitar in an alcove with amazing acoustics, and going from pushy vendor to pushy vendor telling them that if they could teach me to play the castanets, that then I'd buy a pair...I am still without castanets, but it was fun seeing how frustrated they were with me and each vendor just trying to out teach the others so I would buy from them.
Apparently I'm unteachable.
Anyway, then it was bus time. I picked up my handy dandy backpack and made my way to the bus station where began my 7-hour ride to Lisbon.
Buses and I have a love/hate relationship. I love taking the scenic route, the rolling landscapes, farm land, industrial wasteland, sprawling highway graffiti, slums, and suburbs that are otherwise hidden from the location-specific traveler. I hate the inability to roll down windows, the snorers, the phone-talkers, and the ever present stench of the on board toilet, even if the door is never opened.
But you take what you can get and you appreciate the experience for what it is: a 30€ adventure.
The highway to Lisbon is lined with sunflower fields, olive trees, horses, cows, and sheep. Bulls rest in the shade of low hanging trees, and I struggle not to name them Ferdinand and warn them about bees. A Portuguese woman tries to teach her Spanish friends useful phrases and they reply by singing Ai Se Eu Te Pego. The bus driver compulsively checks the Eurocup scores, and the bus almost tips when we pass a city on fire, swarmed with bucket-toting helicopters, emitting thick orange-brown smoke. The sun sets as we pull into Lisbon, and I begin my trip to the hostel mapless and in the dark.
The hostel directions are simple: take the green or blue subway line to the station where the intersect, exit, turn right, dead end, turn left and then...forget the rest of the directions, realize that you left the paper you wrote it on next to the hostel computer in Sevilla, that your wifi-enabled device is dead, and that no one, no matter how well known it is among travelers, can ever point you in the direction of a hostel. Ask the nearest hotel if you can use their lobby computer, get told it's .5€ for 15 minutes, agree out of desperation, get your information in 1 minute, flat, and profusely thank the woman at the desk, who hands you back your .5€ and says with a wink, "only 1 minute? We say internet was down."
<3 people.
I walked into the hostel just in time for "Shots O'clock" a Yes! hostel tradition of free shots at 11:30. I then sat down with the only two people who didn't speak English...at all..and spent an hour chatting in broken Spanglish and hand gestures, also in last night's cast of characters: a drunk Canadian who worshipped Biggie Smalls, an Oregonian who went to high school with a Franklin friend, a British stag party, and a VERY forward (though ultimately unsuccessful) Slavic man.
Upon realizing it was 5 am, it was bedtime.
Today I missed the 10 am walking tour, as was to be expected, and instead, followed cool graffiti up to a church, accidentally invaded a baptism, found a supermarket, and feasted on fresh-baked bread, ham, and cheese in the shadow of a statue of an elephant.
Now, back at the hostel, I'm watching the Portugal/Holland Eurocup match...the hostel bar has stopped serving the one Holland fan... I think I like this place.

All I do is eat...

And talk to people...and try not to sunburn... It's a good life.
As previously stated: yesterday was a designated food day (sometimes, when you're going broke, you have to plan these things)
After the sandwitch incident at lunch, the lemonade, and the blogging in the sun, I bought a giant bottle of water and curled up in the shade on the sun-warmed steps of the church on plaza del Salvador, watching small children playing soccer in the square.
At 8, I made my way over to plaza alfalfa for the start of my tapas and wine tour: 3 tapas bars, 3 local wines, all the tapas.
The first bar greeted us with "cherry wine", a white wine aged in cherry wood barrels, plank-smoked cod in a roasted red pepper sauce, sardines with brie and a fig sauce, and, my personal favorite, vinegar ceveche'd bocadillo on a bed of tomato purée, brushed with garlic/herb olive oil and drizzled with a balsamic reduction...I'm drooling a little...
The second bar gave us a summer wine, local red wine with fresh sparkling lemonade. We started with grilled pork on a bed of fries, topped with a carbonara-like white sauce, then came a cheese-stuffed roasted artichoke heart in a balsamic/olive tapenade, then breaded cod topped with cheese in a sweet tomato purée, and finally, a green tomato/eggplant/goat cheese terrine drizzled in olive oil, then Spain beat Ireland in their eurocup match, the streets erupted in cheers, then on to the third bar and the least interesting tapas (sangria, olive oil marinated tomatoes, papas bravas--potatoes in hot sauce, spinach and queso blanco crepes, and fried eggplant with tomato purée.
I spent a lot of time explaining myself as a solo traveller to a middle-aged Texan couple...
Anyway, on my way out, I met 2 Swedish girls who decided that I looked like fun and needed to join them on their night out and POW! I found myself on another pub crawl. We toasted the decision in Swedish and, for the 6th time in the last 2 years, I was applauded for my Swedish pronunciation...apparently I have a bright future as a Swede.
1 Aussie chef, 1 laid-back Kiwi engineer, 1 break-dancing Fin, and 1 Argentinian Google employee later, it was bedtime and I meandered back to the hostel.
Upon waking up, I realized that I leave Sevilla tomorrow and should probably print my boarding pass...but then I realized that I never booked a flight...oops... After searching flights to anywhere at all and not finding anything under 90€, I decided to search trains, nothing under 100€, I then switched to busses and, glory glory, found a 30€ trip to Lisbon!!
DONE!
But not really, first the site crashed any time I looked at international lines, then when I found a way around that it wouldn't accept my credit card...struggle city...
I took to the internet in search of the bus company's office...it was in Madrid, and the ticket office listed in Sevilla had apparently closed 2 years ago...but after much message board trolling I found the address of the NEW ticket office! And it was still open! For another hour!
I ran there without even getting lost and, after confusing the women in the ticket window with my exasperated fast-talking english, eventually ordered my ticket in broken Spanglish for the right day, time, and place and was even able to get her to apply the young person discount. Win for me.
Far from my hostel and needing to update my famiglia on my next destination, I went to the ultimate free wifi point and unofficial US embassy, Starbucks.
In my hour there, I met 5 other Americans (4 students and 1 traveller) all there for free wifi, comfy chairs, and air conditioning on what was likely the hottest of my days in Sevilla. After a nice chat about life, travel, people, sunburn, and blogging, we exchanged names (greetings, new friends--if you make it here!!) and parted ways.
After this lovely distraction, I walked over to Naboo, but it was closed :-( I guess that will be tomorrow's story. And no, I'm not explaining myself until that point.
Did I mention it was hot today? It was hot today. That in mind, I was reminded of my dad's tale of his time in Sevilla and a glorious ice cream shop near his hotel that he couldn't remember the name of. My mouth wanted it. It was time to do this the only way I knew how: walk to the hotel he stayed in and explore every street, stopping in every ice cream shop and having a small scoop of a different flavor in every place until I had gone to every possible heladeria within comfortable walking distance of the Hotel Cairo.
5 shops later, I've got 2 front-runners (both winners in my eyes...and by eyes, I mean mouth)
The first, Rayas, has some 35 different flavors of the richest, creamiest, most decadent ice cream you've ever tasted. It's very industrial looking, even your change is dispensed automatically, but it was amazing. It's no wonder some nights there's a line out the door. My flavor of choice? A custard base with almond and dark chocolate fudge swirls.
The other frontrunner, La Fiorentina, is a little more charming, window banquettes, tile counter, marble floors, and their lemon mint sorbet was glorious and refreshing, perfect for a toasty Sevilla day. They had more like 20 flavors and at least half of them were fruity.
It seems that people in this neighborhood have allegiances to one or the other, you see people walking past one and then walking back with cups from the other.
I don't know how they choose... I think my allegiances lie firmly with quality frosty treats, regardless of origin :-)

Sweaty, sticky, Sevilla

Yesterday, I woke up to the sounds of construction starting on the street outside my ground floor hostel room. In much of the world, this would mean that it was early in the morning and I would be grumpy and groggy and growl at construction workers when I walked past them to find tea and a quiet shady place to nap...but I'm in spain...so nothing starts before noon.
This either makes Spain a great country or a terrible alarm clock.
Upon realizing that it was the heat of the day (mid 90s F and humid with MAYBE enough breeze to nudge a paper boat on a good day) I decided that wandering aimlessly was out of the question so I set out in search of the cathedral. With the help of those nifty "walk this way-->" arrow signs I found my way there with only 2 wrong turns. Unfortunately for me, they are apparently closing early for something religiousy this whole week and I had just missed the last entry. Tragic.
I went across the way and bought a bottle of mind-numbingly cold water and decided to find a grocery store, make a salad, and sit on one of the hammocks on the roof of the hostel for a siesta, some brainstorming, and hopefully some people meeting.
I met two people, both of whom spent a solid 15 minutes ranting at eachother about how dumb it was to think you could make friends when you travel because people are just too different and no one can connect in a weekend or even a week and how our hostel was a gem because you could spend a month there and never have to speak to anyone. It actually made me so sad that I had to leave the room.
It was now late, and I was in need of friends, so I did the only failsafe option: pub crawl. 2 brothers from Wisconsin, 1 Australian rock band, 2 girls from Quebec, a Swiss bartender, and a "who's nerdier" argument with our Spanish guide (which I won. He thought having glasses counted for more points than my simple skill of being able to list the members of the justice league, which he couldn't do. My win was deserved.) later, I was much happier with life and people, walked back to the hostel and passed out.
Today is a food day. I accidentally ordered 6 sandwitches at lunch (it was all 5€, how was I to know??) they were smallish and delicious and I'm only mildly ashamed to admit that I ate them all. Nah, not even mildly, mostly just impressed.
When I was walking away, I saw a street stand selling liter bottles of fresh-squeezed lemonade. I couldn't resist.
Tonight's plan? A wine-tasting and tapas tour.
I should probably get out of the sun...I think I'm oozing sunscreen out of my pores.

Just a little something.

In case you all needed a reminder of how ridiculous my life can be:
I got to the airport earlier than I needed to (you´d think I would have learned that domestic flight on Ryanair means "get there as your flight is boarding, otherwise you´ll be bored and hungry"...I was bored...and hungry...)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
Waiting in the terminal for the flight, I realized that there was a tiny fussy baby on my flight, fear coursed through my veins, I prepared my ears for destruction (ear plugs and all)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
We boarded the flight, I sat in the middle over the wing and no one was sitting anyhwhere near me. The baby was asleep and in the back of the plane, all was well.
THEN: a group of young men, dressed all in bright green, boarded the flight and filled in all around me (not in my row, but literally in every row in my line of vision)
They started chanting and clapping and hitting on flight attendants, the flight attendants giggled and blushed and didn´t even try to quiet the rowdy bunch...Maybe it was their charm? They did make oragami flowers for the ladies...
But really...no one is that charming...So I wrote down any names I heard and anything I could make out from the words on their outfits and bags.
Upon arriving at the hostel (roughly half an hour ago after getting in late and getting a little lost) I did some research.
The young men surrounding me on my flight? None other than the players and coaches of Real Betis, one of the two professional soccer teams in Sevilla...
¿WTFISMYLIFE?
Yeah...Sevilla is off to a good start, I think.

We've passed the halfway point...

As of today, I am officially past the halfway point of my journey, and from here on forward, I go it alone.
This morning, Margaret shipped back to the US and this evening, I ship off to Seville in the south of Spain, where it is currently a gazillion degrees and sunny.
As I told my good friend Novia, I´m gonna be a charred and crispy mess if I don´t make friends who are willing to sunscreen my back early in this leg of the trip...Either that or I'll just pour a puddle (who am I kidding, probably a small lake) of sunscreen on the ground and roll around in it until I feel I am sufficiently coated... Or I'll rig the hostel showers to spray sunscreen instead of water...But probably the pig-like wallowing...it seems like a good plan...
What did you miss in the last couple of days while I've been lazily not updating like I should be?
Two of our new bunkmates almost got thrown out of the hostel for being rowdy and obnoxious (though even I must admit, their bromance was thoroughly charming), we gave in to our weak will and, after eating our weight in paella, returned to the Irish pub (especially amusing because this seems to be a trend in my life. When I was in Barcelona in November of 2008 we became regulars at Molly's Fair City, an Irish pub near the hostel we were staying in at the time, and now this Pubmance with the Michael Collins pub near the hostel we stayed in this time? I'm a SpanIrish pub fiend...) and we stayed out past metro-closing yesterday eating all the pizza and gelato Spain could provide and had to take a cab back to the hostel... So pretty much, we did nothing but eat...
Well, I guess we also failed to find some of the sights and instead, people watched and took a nap in the Parc de la Ciutadella...
I'd say Barcelona's been good to me...But now it's on to the next, being played off by a bespectacled hostel guest plucking a bluesy tune on the common room guitar.

Celine Dion ain't got nothing on this.

As promised, a retrospective of yesterday's events when I don't run the risk of launching into a rant about the kinship of travelers (if I got started, I would probably type until calluses formed on my fingers and my carpal tunnel had carpal tunnel. Want to hear my thoughts on that? Buy me a pint of Magners and we'll chat it over until the bar closes or the sun comes up--Whichever comes first--Then we'll continue the talk over pancakes at some 24-hour diner or something...See? I even ranted about not ranting...Moving right along)

Yesterday we were *supposed* to go to the beach...but we slept forever, so we put that off and decided to settle down somewhere off Las Ramblas, write postcards, and drink tea. We wandered for a bit before remembering that it was Friday and the Magic Fountain would be running starting at 9 in the PM.

We had heard of this "Magic Fountain" from (insert name of whoever told us to go here because hell if we remember) and it sounded a little like the fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas, a choreographed light and water show, set to music.

Now, when I was in Las Vegas...an experience in and of itself, we accidentally saw the Bellagio show when we were in search of air conditioning and still under 21. It was ridiculous and mostly set to My Heart Will Go On.

When we decided to go see this fountain in Barcelona, I told Margaret that I was going to be disappointed if it wasn't set to Celine Dion because *nothing* could be more fitting or gloriously tacky as a soundtrack to a fountain show than the theme from Titanic.

We eventually found a seat with only mildly obstructed views (there was a tree...but it was crowded and beggars can't be choosers) and settled in to watch the show. The fountain was built in 1929 as part of the Barcelona International Exposition and is one of a number of fountains in the Montjuïc area below the Palau Nacional...All of which were not running...at all...we were confused. About 10 minutes before 9, the fountains all down the Avenida Maria Cristina turned on and we knew the show was beginning.

It took a minute before the main fountain started spouting, but you knew something was churning about in there when all the pigeons flew off of it at exactly the same moment.

Suddenly: NAAAAAAAAAAAANTS ingonYAAAAAAAAAAAAAma bagithi Baba

Circle Of Life blasts over the speakers as the fountain begins flashing colors and jetting into the air. Then we realize ¡IT´S IN SPANISH!

Celine Dion doesn´t hold a candle to a MEDLY of Disney songs IN SPANISH...We may have been a little giddy...

Eventually we wandred home, tried to convince ourselves to go out, and decided to sleep instead, because let´s face it, being in bed before 7 AM is a great feeling :-]

Today we went to the beach, it was a little chilly/windy and we came home more browned by dust than by the sun, but a good time was had.

After showering off our color from the day, we decided we HAD to go out after last night´s early sleep and decided to check out an Irish pub that was a few blocks from the hostel, across from the Gaudi church. The place was packed with locals and Irish ex-pats alike and there was a man in the back corner jamming out on his acoustic guitar to an eclectic mix of pop hits, 90´s alt-rock, and real oldies...And there was cider on tap.

After the live music ended, we relinquished our stools at the bar, bid the bartenders farewell, and walked home. It will take a lot of willpower not to go back there tomorrow night...

F. Scott is rolling in his grave

After Wednesday night's adventure, I was unsure if I wanted another all night rager (Read: being out all night, post-metro late, far from my bed) but apparently Barcelona is the *real* city that never sleeps...
Margaret was feeling slightly better, so we decided to go out with the hostel group at 11. At 10:30, we went up to our room to reorganize and instead got caught up in meeting our six new bunkmates and realizing that the last girl who got checked in, coincidentally also a Kate, got a wrongly configured key card that apparently screwed up all of our cards and enabled us to open eachother's lockers (oh yeah, the lockers here are key card operated...it's pretty spiffy...until it's not)
After much Benny Hill-esque ridiculousness, we got the card situation all figured out. It was 11. Margaret, KiwiKate, and I ran downstairs to catch the group, fully expecting them to still be in the common room, and found that they had already left (so much for Spanish time, eh?)
Apparently we were not the only people in this boat...Also joining us in failure? Two girls from Toronto...One of whom is *also* named Kate...
KanadaKate (purposely misspelled for the sake of alliteration...Whatever guys, artistic licence) decided that missing the group was a sign from the party gods that she should stay in, but KiwiKate, Margaret, and, to a lesser degree, myself were still pretty set on making it *somewhere*. Upon hearing this, the Canadians got really excited and handed us a flyer for a "Great Gatsby Party" at one of the top Barcelona beach clubs. They had put their names on the guest list the night before which entitled them to entry sans cover until 1:30 and they didn't want it to go to waste.
A top club hosting a speakeasy 20's party that "we" were on the guestlist for? SOLD! So we hopped in a cab and headed toward the beach. We flashed our guestlist flyer and after some mild lying about how upset we are that they only wrote "Kate" down once when CLEARLY there were two of us...Oh, and pretending Margaret's name was Robyn... We descended the stairs with promise of flappers, gangsters, gin, and jazz and were greeted with...A house music remix of the jazz age greats FloRida and Sia and their smooth jazzy hit WildOnes...Yeah...
We wondered how this was in any way Gatsby themed...Then the dancers came out... A stripper chick in nothing but a line of fringe and stilettos and two men in skinny ties and fedoras... They swayed back and forth for a while in a sexual manner (I didn't know it was possible either...) and then, well, I don't even know because we gave up and left... it was not even worth the price of admission.
Once outside, we made our way to the beach and curled up in the sand. Once happily sandy, new friend-making ensued. First we were joined by a Brit, then his two American friends got jealous that we accidentally stole him and they joined us.
The cops then came by to kick us off the beach so the sand-zamboni things could come through without killing us. At this point, the American boys decided to head back to their hostel to watch the Celtics game, Margaret went home, and in two shags shakes of a sheeps tail (lol kiwi joke) we lost KiwiKate to a posse of aussies. The britboy and I, realizing we'd been left, bought ourselves some contraband beer and took to the beach.
We talked film, befriended Iranian girls, talked life philsophy, went swimming, talked music, meandered the beach, and when we realized it was already 5 in the morning, made the executive decision to stick it out until sunrise (and, for me, until the metro opened)
One glorious beach sunrise later and still 30 minutes until the metro opened, we walked towards Las Ramblas, ate ice cream, and parted ways, he to his hostel and I to the metro stop, still encrusted in sand.
It's things like this that really stick with you when you travel. It's not every church and monument (let's face it, half the monuments you remember as "guy on horse" or "maytag man looking dude") it's the people you share the adventure with, the ones you keep in touch with and the ones you'll never see again, they're what you remember.

Ok, shit just got deep... I blame equal parts not sleeping and impending nostalgia.
I'll tell you about today tomorrow...Tomorrow we're going to the beach during proper daylight hours...

Tragedy strikes!

And I'm not talking about Ray Bradbury, though that's super sad too. I'm talking about the fact that my travel companion, Margaret, has fallen ill with an angry cold of some sort. Alas, alack. This leaves me to adventure on my own, at least in the evening hours when she's in sleep mode.
Don't get me wrong, I've got no problem adventuring alone, I'm actually pretty fond of it, but it's different to be a solo traveler than it is to know that you have a friend who is missing out :-/
Anywho, when last we spoke, I was in search of tapas...And oh what glorious tapas I found!
Margaret went on a food tour while she was in Venice (while I was in Berlin) that was lead by a local foodie who, as luck would have it, had lived in Spain for a number of years. When she heard that Margaret's itinerary included a stop in Barcelona, she gave her a few food recommendations. We decided to check one out, a tiny, though apparently very well known and happenin' even on a Wednesday, tapas bar near the Picasso museum.
A glass of wine later, we were able to snatch up a table near the back. We asked the waiter to bring us a selection (best sellers, his favorites, whatever he thought we'd like) and a glass of wine that he thought went best with them universally.
He poured us each a glass of the house white and filled the table with small plates of sausages, cured meat, smoked fish, hot peppers, and potato omelets. When we had devoured everything, he brought out little puff pastry custard cakes, biscotti, and desert wine.
No complaints from the peanut gallery.
Full and happy, we returned to the hostel and readied ourselves for the night's festivities.
"We leave at 11, sharp" does not mean the same thing in Spain as it does in Switzerland, so at 11:45, the group headed out, leaving a very tired Margaret behind, and made our way through 3 metro lines to a beach bar where a group of us gave up on the bar part and ventured into the water.
Apparently, it's a big thing on the beaches of Barcelona for people to approach you selling 1€ beers. It's a pretty sweet deal.
From there we moved on to "one of the most exclusive clubs in the city"...they let me in in my t-shirt and Birkenstocks..exclusive my ass.
The whole place was decorated with Moroccan flare, and above the bar, something was written in a language you were supposed to think was Arabic...I would put money on it being LOTR elvish...
After a couple hours of dancing, my people and I took the party back out to the beach where we built a sand turtle/mountain/cave/volcano. When we decided it was time to go, we walked back to the hostel...with little idea of direction...and by the grace of graceful things, and after an interesting stroll down the highway, we eventually found our way back. Small victory!
A cup of tea, a peach, and a de-sanding shower later, it was sunrise bedtime.
Today we pretended to be cultured and visited the Sagrada Familia church. It was churchy and strange and under construction...yeah...
I think I get less interesting at the end of every post...

Planes, trains, and automobiles.

Ok, so...
After infinitely too much transportation (Tram->Train->Bus->Plane->Bus->Metro) and 3 countries over the course of 12 hours (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain) I am, at long last, writing you from Barcelona!
(and using a real ¿SPANISH? keyboard, no less)
This keyboard confuses the bejesus out of me and the computer thinks everything I type is wrong because it´s not in Spanish, so let´s make this quick...
Left Amsterdam, took the train to Brussels, ate waffels, hopped on a flight to Barcelona, raced the closing metro (¿seriously? ¿it closes at 23:00? ¿WTF?) and checked into the hostel...where they took us on a tour of the space...in SPANISH...and warned us about the Canadians, of which there are apparently many.
In the choose your own adventure game of life, we picked the lame option and decided that, while we could make friends and hit the town, we would rather make friends after we didn´t smell like 3 countries in less than 12 hours...So we hunted down a pizza place that was still serving, ate in the park, showered and slept like the lardass lamefaces we are.
Tonight, the hostel is leading something called "Ultimate Party Wednesday"
Friends will be made, adventures will be had, and I´ll try to make this keyboard work for me enough that I can keep this show on the road...
Now how about finding some tapas...

Good for a laugh...

Picture this: old broken-down van, shaggy-haired blond, embarrasssedly whisteled along to Sk8ter Boi type, Dutch surfer boy in the drivers seat, rolling up into Amsterdam playing Everybody Must Get Stoned.
That´s exactly how Margaret and I returned to the city.
We walked back to the hostel, up the steeper-than-we-remembered staircase, checked in, dropped off our ish, met our bunkmates (2 NJ natives, a German, and an Irishman--Sounds like a bad joke...) and went off in search of food...But nothing is ever that easy.
Two road-weary travelers hit the streets of Amsterdam in search of a cheeseburger. What they find? A comedy troupe from Chicago and a show called Can´t Dutch This. We got the "America, Fuck Yeah" discount and sat next to an extremely talkative Canadian who didn´t understand why we, as Americans, didn´t have guns, and was convinced he didn´t sound Canadian. He was wrong...
We returned to the hostel to write some last-minute Netherlands postcards and befriended the hostile hostel cat. Ok, so she was only hostile toward Margaret, but she did decide that my attention belonged to her rather than to my postcards which she showed by curling up on the stamps and purring at me...What can I say? Sometimes I make friends...

Let me be candid for a moment

So sometimes, when you're a longterm traveller, you pack as minimally as possible: 1 pair of jeans, 5 shirts, 1 bra, 2 dresses... But unfortunately, what this means is that on laundry day, you will find yourself distinctly bra-less... Which can be alright if you can sit at home and read or whatnot, but when you're checked out of the hostel and it's super friggin cold outside, you've just got to put on your jacket and say, "alright, world, let's do this!"
What you don't think of, though, is that awkward moment when you go inside and people expect you to remove your jacket...and the nice old Dutch/Chinese man keeps offering to turn the heater up so you can "be comfortable and take your coat off"
How do you say "I'm not cold, I'm just not wearing a bra." in Dutch?
Muzzy doesn't teach you this shit...

Clean clothes, happy clothes.

We checked out of the hostel this morning and trekked to the (fortunately now very much open) laundromat. It cost us 10 euro, but now our clothing is clean and dry and not just coated in grime and febreeze.
It may still be grey and rainy, but for us, the world is BEAUTIFUL!!

Amsterdam tonight, Brussels in the morning, sunny Barcelona by nightfall.
Autobots: Roll Out!!

Spoke too soon...

Sun: gone.
Laundromat: closed.
Murphy's law did throw us one bone amidst the gloomy damp stankness that is our life right now: 2 ridiculous Brazilian men named Daniel and Marco.
We had seen these two men the night before, Marco was trippin balls something fierce and kept staring intently in our direction across the bar. It was certainly a little odd, but we're at a beach hostel just outside Amsterdam, odd is kind if expected... Need I remind you of the man in the bunny suit?
Anyway, let's get to the part where Margaret and I return from the grocery store with spaghetti and all kinds of delightful vegetables (seriously, if we hadn't gotten vegetables when we did, we would probably both have scurvy) and infiltrate the kitchen.
Before we make it to the kitchen, we get flagged down by the Brazilians who introduce themselves and then apologize. Apparently they weren't staring, it's simply that there were monster women eating my brains and Marco wanted to make them go away, but he forgot how language worked. They apologized again and then let us go.
We laughed and went about boiling water and chopping veggies.
As soon as onions and garlic hit the hot pan, Marco reappeared (universal truth number 2, the smell of cooking onions/garlic will always summon people to the kitchen) attempted to "teach us to cook", told us our food was too much work, and then wandered away.
When food was cooked, he reappeared, served himself, and began freaking out that our pasta wasn't pasta and that we were clearly misinformed in the art of pasta making. "visit me in Dublin" he said "and I'll teach you to cook" (HA! Teach me to cook?!?)
We tried to figure out what made our pasta not pasta, it turns out that pasta is apparently only pasta if it has tomato sauce...which is false... So we took a survey of the hostel bar which turned into everyone in the bar naming their favorite non-tomato-based pasta sauce. Once he was secure in our food knowledge, he served himself another portion and joined us once more at our table.
Madness ensued.
Eventually, my food baby started kicking, so we went upstairs to drink a beer from our stash and coax the fussy food fetus into submission...then the dubstep pulsing through the floorboards from the bar below lulled us into a glorious slumber where we remained until morning...afternoon...whatever, it's all the same.

A strange place...

Last night can easily be described using one character: a drunk 20-something British man...in a bunny suit.
I guess since this town is so empty, everyone just flocks to the hostel bar, plays pool (poorly) and gets weird...sounds kind of like the Midwest :-)
Today we discovered that travel plans needed to change, so we extended in Noordwijk for another night...
On the bright side: the sun is shining and we have found a laundromat!!

The end is in sight...

Alright folks, ticket home is officially booked. Departure is set for July 1st from Stockholm (to JFK with a long layover in reykjavik, because why not?)
That leaves me with one more month of glorious adventure before home sweet home no longer equals hostel sweet hostel...
Bittersweet...

Beachy keen, jellybean!

After checking out of our Amsterdam hostel and a glorious morning of tea and pastries, we piled (read: the back seats were already full so Margaret and I shoved our luggage under the seats and got crammed into the front seat with yours truly straddling the stick shift...lol stick shift...but seriously...) into a shuttle for a very cozy ride to the sleepy off-season beach town/ ex-fishing village of Noordwijk.
We checked in to the hostel and walked around the vastly closed city, pranced around the cold ocean water on the beach with dogs and surfers, found a place that was willing to make us food, and hunted down the lighthouse that wikipedia swore was worth seeing...it existed..
This will be an interesting couple of nights...

...The old man is snoring

Yessiree, it's raining it's pouring...today we attempted to make it to the museumplein, made it as far as vondelpark and were so drenched that we needed to stop for a soup break. After the rain died down, we trudged back to the hostel for rain coats and dry clothes...
After all of this, museums seemed less enticing, so we grabbed our books and headed for a cafe near the university for MASSIVE mugs of cocoa, people watching, and reading... After all: people watching has always been my favorite form of sightseeing. We also ran into half of the pub-crawl elsewhere in the city. So that was pretty nifty.
Turning in early was in the cards so after failing at inviting our reclusive Canadian bunkmates out for a beer, we passed out (until our Bosnian other bunkmate's snoring got too out of control...)
Checking out in the AM and off to the beach town of Noordwijk.

Politically incorrect...

Today was a day of culture of all sorts. We got a late start (seriously, never underestimate the power of a hot shower and sleeping in a bed after 3 nights on the ground in a tent) and walked down prinsengracht to the Anne Frank house.
After getting trapped behind the requisite Asian tour group, we journeyed through the museum, a vastly empty loftspace- to symbolize lives lost- and got a glimpse of what life was like for the eight people for whom the darkened annex was home.
All deep and prolific thoughts aside: have you ever heard something in a different context and suddenly the meaning was changed? Well, on the way out I walked past the restroom and two girls walked in and exclaimed with much distress: "Aw shit! Everything's occupied!" having just walked through the Anne Frank house, it took every last fiber of my political correctness to not reply "that's what she/Anne Frank/Jews said!"
Yup...I'm terrible...or maybe just observant...
After Anne Frank, we strolled further down the canal to a cafe where we sat outside with cups of tea, writing postcards, people watching, and listening to a (presumably) drunk busker play Wonderwall (it is a universal fact that if you hand a drunk person a guitar they WILL play Wonderwall. It's like monkeys writing Shakespeare)
After this was all said and done: it was pub-crawl time! Highlights include: making friends from 4 different continents, being dubbed "party-girl pub-crawl queen" by a Swiss-German who was impressed with my awesome and constant dancing, instigating a large group of Brits to sass eachother in French, and, after we lost the pub-crawl entirely, finding out that EVERYONE ELSE had lost them too and going on an epic quest to find them...and failing...but the quest was great!
Ah well, on to the next!

Where to begin...

After a weekend of sun-screened, dirt-encrusted, sweat-sticky, knee-bruised, foot-swollen, musical madness at PinkPop, I have returned to wifi enabled civilization (and thus, the bloggernetosphere)
Highlights of PinkPop include:
-Robert Smith being as superbly creepy as I had dreamed/feared (and gawking at an equally terrifying doppelgänger who was wandering about scaring the children)
-Expanding my knowledge of Dutch musicians (who all seem to sing in English)
-Having my mind blown by the quality of Linkin Park's performance... Seriously, they had so much energy and presence, it was insane. Even non-fans got sucked in and developed an appreciation for their live show.
-The floor-shaking shoulder-to-shoulder classic/alt-rock dance party in the cafe tent after the Linkin Park set that lasted until security infiltrated and ushered us all out.
-The post-dance party dance party with the awesome DJ at the campground (at which the aforementioned compliment fail occurred)
-Fresh-squeezed orange juice
-The men of Mumford and their adorable adoration of the East Street Band (especially when they were invited on stage to jam during Hungry Heart and they kept bowing down to the band and grinning and dancing like goofballs)
-Being surrounded by incomprehensible Bruce Springsteen love (the Dutch LOVE them some Bruce. Even those with shaky English can sing Born To Run absolutely flawlessly. It's incredible.) with an unobstructed view of the stage. A Jersey girl can't ask for more.

Now I'm back in Amsterdam, eating pancakes and living life. It'll be nice to have a bed tonight :-)

The Kate Polsky guide to receiving complements:

Hello, and welcome to the PinkPop edition of the patented Kate Polsky guide to receiving complements.
Receiving complements in a manner that is both gracious and sincere is a skill that has always seemed to escape me, especially in a flirting context. This is not to say I don't appreciate complements, I just tend to... Fail.
Some examples from previous editions of the guide include:
The return- "I like your shoes" "I like YOUR shoes/shirt/pants/face" Even if it's true, it comes off sounding forced. If the other party is also a returner, this could also lead to an endless loop.
The confusion- "you have very pretty eyes" "haha...wait, seriously? They're brown..." This one kind of speaks for itself... :-/
The silent attempt at gratitude- "wow! That thing you did was awesome" "...:-)" **crickets** A picture may be worth 1000 words, but when words escape you, sometimes a visual cue can be worth 1000 dubloons, redeemable at thatwasawkward.com/yeahyou
Which brings me to tonight's installment :
The "did I just say that?"-
Your campsite at the weekend music festival you're attending, in a country in which you don't speak the language, has a dj'd dancehall. You decide to go. It is hot as satan's balls in there, but the dj is great, so you begin dancing up a storm. You're a literal hot mess, but at this point you're pulling a Billy Idol and dancing with yourself so you are certain it doesn't matter. At this moment, an attractive Dutchman approaches you and puts his arm around you. He introduces himself in Dutch, which you don't speak, and you introduce yourself in english, which he *does* speak. He turns you toward him and says "You are beautiful. You shine like the sun." and you respond, very matter-of-factly, "Shine? That's probably just from the sweat..." The man is amused, but you are so dumbfounded by what just came out of your mouth that you just dance away, blog about it, and hope you don't cross paths tomorrow...Whatever, you can't pronounce his name anyway...

A sign of good things to come

This morning I awoke at 5 to the ass of a naked man in my face. As this is a *historic* sign of luck and prosperity on the horizon (ok, maybe not, but it is definitely a sign of something) I take this to mean only good things ahead.

Off to Pinkpop! (posting from the train... There's free wifi ON the train!)
May there be many a proverbial naked man ass in your future.

A note on friendship:

When trying to meet up with old friends in foreign lands, do not fall asleep in odd places and expect them to find you...unless said friend is a homing pigeon.

Blog attempt 5692: once more with feeling

I'm the worst. I always say I'll write and I never do... I'm like your second grade pen pal (unless you're me...then your second grade pen pal died in a flood...seriously, can't make this shit up) but I digress...
Well I'm back (or at least trying to be) and better (read: probably worse due to lack of real keyboard and pictures) than ever!
Doesn't that sound super appealing?!?
Let's get this ball rolling: why am I starting this up again? Why no pictures? Where have I been? Where am I? Why do you care?
This whole blog started as a way of making sense of the strange and glorious nature of my life and travels as a student in Switzerland but unfortunately, between actual studenty things taking up most of my time and my hardcore Luddite nature when I travel (one less thing to pull out in the security line, AmIRight?!?) the blog suffered the fate of many of my technological pursuits (try following @KateHasMoxie on twitter I swear it updates...sometimes...) but as of 4 months ago, I found myself in possession of a wifi enabled device, as of 5 days ago, I can no longer claim "student" as my occupation, as of 3 days ago, I've been on an adventure, and as of today, I've added a blog program onto my mp3 device (thus no pictures and no real keyboard, for those keeping track)
Upon connecting the facts that my handwriting is dreadful and chicken-scratchy at best (killing all potential for a beautiful leathery travel journal) and the that wifi is magically abundant (airports, cafes, park benches, seriously, it's everywhere) I decided blog was a good forum for thought-sharing... Plus "self employed volunteer travel blogger" sounds mildly less pathetic than "unemployed 20-something vagrant with an iPod"
So: where have I been? Since last we spoke, Estonia, Finland, Turkey, Budapest, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Germany... Ask me about it sometime. I'll gladly talk/type your ear/eyes off when my keyboard isn't too petit and auto-correcty for my pudgy fingerbits.
And now? After missing (see: electing to sleep through) a 6 AM flight to Maastricht, I found my way to Milan hobbled from centrale toward the duomo on my stiletto heel punctured gnarly bruised foot... Needless to say, like a champ, I didn't make it chose to eat all the food instead...such is life. One night spent sleeping in a bathtub later, I left for Berlin. My gnarly foot and I did a boat tour, found our way to the Brandenburg gate, and then gave up on proper culture in lieu of a long night of food, drink, sparklers, music trivia, and bingo at White Trash. I did take advantage of the glory of spargalzeit and eat all the spargels (asparagus for ye non deutschers) so that kind of counts as culture... Next day was dedicated to Berlin wall hunting and pretending to be David Hasselhoff while balance beaming down the brick line where the wall once stood. This morning was a 7 AM flight to Amsterdam, landing, feeling cocky about my ability to get around, then realizing that autocorrect had destroyed the street names I had written, hopped the tram to leidseplein and wandered until I was fortunate enough to actually find the hostel. Success.
I then climbed the STEEP friggin stairs to my room on the top floor, flung open the windows, befriended my Chicagoan bunk mate, a 30 year old Slav with dreams of environmental activism and actualities of waitressing, and started to blog... Which is where we are now...

So, why should you care? Eh, you shouldn't really... But it could be fun to track my monthventure through Europe and know that I'm not dead, right?

This entry has become too long..my typing finger is sore. I vow the rest will be more reasonable (for your sake and mine)
See you next time for Amsterdam: nighttime edition.