Dolphins on the loose

I guess I would be pretty scared if a dolphin tried to kill me, but I'm having a hard time focusing on the "oh no" aspect of this article, on account of I'm laughing too hard. Thanks for the link, Morgan.

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London

I'm in London now. The Chunnel was pretty cool, but not overly eventful. The best part is how fast the Eurostar trains go -- we were right next to a freeway at one point and the cars looked like they were crawling. Then they make a little announcement, it gets dark for about twenty minutes, and voila! You're in England, and it's an hour ago.

Today is the last day of my journey. I've had a great time, learned about some things, learned about myself, and managed to relax. Except that I have a cold now, so that kind of blows. But at least it happened in London. I've been here twice before and don't feel that I need to run around doing all sorts of touristy things.

I did make it to the Tate Modern for the Frida Kahlo exhibit today. I enjoyed it, but I'm not completely taken with her paintings. She does so many self-portraits, it's kind of creepy (although once you realize that she was in a wheelchair and later had her leg amputated and read the quote about her being alone so much and knowing herself better than anyone, it makes more sense). Some of her paintings, nonetheless, are incredibly moving. It's interesting to me that in all of her portraits, nobody has any expressions on their faces. It's as if she was afraid of emotion.

I wandered around the permanent collection, too, but it was so similar to what I just saw in Paris at the Georges Pompidou museum that I mostly sort of breezed through.

When I was younger and went to museums, I would look at paintings and try so hard to get why they were on a museum wall. They must be terrific if someone who knows what they're talking about puts them up in a museum for everyone to see. Right? I used to think that the problem was me. I also sort of liked the implicit elitism when I felt that I understood a piece of complicated art that other people didn't. But that, as they say on this side of the pond, is bollocks. My attitude has changed. I can see merit in some of the art that I don't aesthetically like, but I find it a bit cheeky to put an entirely blue canvas on a wall. That's a blue canvas, jackass, not a masterpiece. But there they are, in modern art museums everywhere. Blue, gray, white... It's like they're not even trying.

So my new approach, which probably worked especially well today because of this head cold and was not in the mood for nonsense, is that I don't spend time on art that doesn't grab me. I think that's a better approach to museums because there's so much there, and it would take me absolutely forever if I tried to "get" all the pieces that really have nothing to say to me. From now on, I'm just going to breeze through the rooms, glancing at things, and if I find something beautiful or funny or interesting in some way, I'll go read the little card and spend some time contemplating why I like it, and what the artist tried to achieve. But the four white neon lights can be skipped along with the blue canvases. They obviously say something to the museum curator, and you can intellectually masturbate about it until the cows come home, about how it's an important turn in modern art, and what the shift in medium actually means, but I still don't find it worth my while.

Wow, I had no intention of getting so carried away about art museums. Or of sounding like such a hater, when really I've been thinking a lot about how nice it would be to pick up a paint brush and create something -- I intend to do this when I get home. But if all I succeed in doing is turning the canvas black, I don't think I'll put it up on the wall.

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QWERTY, I love you

I actually found an internet cafe (with exorbitant rates) that has a QWERTY keyboard. I wasn't actually planning to need a computer again today, but I needed to look something up on Ye Olde Internet. One thing about traveling is you can really start to miss that constant internet connection. As I've remarked before, I'm so stupid without the internet.

Since I've got a bit of extra time, I figured I'd tell you about my first night in Paris. It was great. I met up with a girl named Agnes at the hostel. She's from Germany and is 19 -- she's taking a short break before she starts school in October. Agnes wants to go into air and space engineering. Smart girl. She thought I was in my early twenties, so I immediately decided that we would be friends. As she was also traveling alone, we decided to have dinner together: a baguette, some cheese, and a bottle of wine on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower while the sun went down. It was gorgeous. I especially enjoyed watching all the other people getting their pictures taken. I thought a bit about taking a whole series of photos of other people getting their pictures taken, but my enthusiasm for taking photos has waned a bit these days.

Anyhow, we then wandered down the Champs Elysees, as Agnes wanted to do that on her last night in Paris. From the end of the street, looking back toward the Arc de Triomph at night, well, let's just say it's a pretty neat sight. Paris really lays it on thick. Later that night, we sat on the balcony of our hostel and read, while occasionally glancing over at the Sacre Coeur, which was all lit up and beautiful on the hill.

Today, I got my Eurostar ticket to take the Chunnel to London. I bought a round trip ticket, as somehow staying over a Saturday night made the round trip ticket less than half of the one way ticket. I may forget to use the second half (as I'll be in Portland when my return ticket is valid). For the rest of the day, I'm still puttering around. I keep wanting to buy gifts for people, but I've noticed that I also hate shopping in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, and Paris. It's not just at home that I hate shopping. I do like shopping with friends after a lot of champagne, but my friends aren't here, and I hate drinking alone before 5:00.

Okay, off for more puttering and/or more decaf coffee at outside cafe tables. I think I'm going to splurge and have a pain au chocolat (this is very bad as both sugar and caffeine tend to make my system go a little crazy and my heart go thumpitty thump, but I've been so good up until now; I think I deserve a treat).

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Paris

So, I'm currently sitting in what is perhaps the jankiest internet cafe in the universe. The computer I'm using is set for Chinese characters (which means the phpMyAdmin pages are also in Chinese -- thank goodness for icons). I can sort of see the screen, though there's a film on the monitor that I refuse to wipe off. I've already got enough foulness on my hands from this sticky-ass keyboard. The smoke smell is inviting, as wel. I could just walk out, of course, but then I wouldn't have as many exciting things to report.

Incidentally, the keyboard is also mapped differently than I'm used to (not surprising). It's really odd to type this slowly, though. I don't like it. The Spanish keyboards are also mapped differently, but the letters are mostly in the right place. See; if I zere to type %regulqrly% on this keyboqrd; you zouldnųt hqve such qn eqsy ti,e of reqding it:

Okay, less complaining, more reporting. I went to Versailles yesterday, and it was excellent. I mean, the place is crazy, and I can't imagine living in a place where everything is so gilded. The relief on the walls was gilded (gilt?), the picture frames (where the royal family is often depicted as Roman gods), the tapestries were woven with gold and silver... The gardens are amazing. The major disappointment was that the Hall of Mirrors is being renovated, so I didn't really get to see it.

Today, I'm just puttering around and taking it easy. I've got a bit of a soer throat, and it's raining, so it seems like a good day to sit around and be lazy: something I thought I'd have done more of by now.

Tomorrow, I head to London via the Chunnel. I'm there for three nights before returning to New Jersey to spend some time with my dad and company. Then home on the 30th. I'm really beginning to miss my bed, not to mention all my friends.

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From 'Hola' to 'Bonjour'

Aaugh! I just typed way too long of an update for it to be eaten! And yet it did. It was all about how much I'm enjoying Paris, even though the keyboards over here are lame. D'oh.

Well, I'm not going to retype it now... maybe when I get to London in a few days and back to QWERTY keyboards (instead of AZERTY keyboards).

In the meantime, go check out Ransom's new blog. He's even updating it!

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El Escorial

A woman walks in with an enormous backpack strapped to her back. This isnīt unusal. Itīs the train station in Madrid. Itīs just that usually these people walk by; only sometimes do they wander in to see about renting a car. The woman extricates herself from the bag and puts it down with a grunt and a thump. She smiles, tentatively, then finds the words sheīs looking for. "Uh... tengo una reserva para alquiler un coche." But itīs almost more like a question.

The woman at the counter looks at her for a moment while she attempts to decode that horrific accent, and finally figures out that the woman has reserved a car. She asks for her name. "Campbell," pronounced with an American accent doesnīt make any sense. The traveler knows this and has held out her driverīs license. The woman does not take it.

"ŋCabel?" she asks. Itīs as close as she can get.

There is some staring, and finally, through gestures, the woman at the counter is convinced to take the driverīs license. Her countenance changes, showing that she gets it now, and she looks something up on her computer. She asks for a driverīs license and credit card. As she already has the driverīs license, the other woman hands her a credit card.

She stares at the driverīs license for awhile, turns it over, examines the back, holds it up. She stares at the traveler in front of her and points at the issue date. Itīs March of this year. "You have to be driving for one year," she says.

"Iīve been driving for 14 years," is the reply. There is more staring. The traveler tries to figure out a way to explain, to make this still work out. She has been nervous about driving in Madrid, even just far enough to get out of the city, and has been mentally preparing herself for it for the last three hours on the train from Valencia. Despite her nervousness, she was really looking forward to hitting the open road after so much time spent on trains and in stuffy hostel rooms with two or three or four strangers. She wants to sing in the car, loudly and with abandon. She attempts to explain that she had to renew her driverīs license in March.

"Where does it say that on here?" the woman asks. "I donīt know if itīs different than what it says on here."

It doesnīt say it on there. It says, "Issue date: 03-22-2005." Thereīs another attempt to explain and more staring. The woman behind the counter is not sympathetic; she just stares and shrugs. She asks if the traveler has an international driverīs license. The traveler is too annoyed and impatient to sarcastically inform her that she would have used it if she had one. There is nothing to be done.

Now our traveler, she would like to pretend that she exited the scene gracefully, but she was pretty disappointed. She took back her credit card and license and left hurridly, feeling somewhat humiliated for unknown reasons. She was walking briskly, cursing the state of Oregon under her breath for not putting "Rebecca has had a valid Oregon driverīs license for the last ten years, and even one in California for four years before that" somewhere on the damn license. She forgot about the small step behind the door that made it so the door canīt open if you push it. She pushed, and the door slammed into the small step. It was very loud. She glanced back, thinking to apologize, but now two people at the counter were staring at her. She turned back around, yanked open the door and went off to find a train ticket.

-----------------

So thatīs how I spent my 10-year Portlandversary. Cursing Oregon for the way it handles dates on driverīs licenses. Well, part of the day anyhow.

But then I got on the train and calmed down and even felt a little relieved that I didnīt have to drive my way out of Madrid. Things got even better when I got to El Escorial. I spent some of the money I saved by not renting a car to catch a cab up to my hostel. This was a very wise investment, as itīs quite a hike to the hostel, and my bag isnīt light. There are lots of hills here.

I checked in with a woman who speaks no English and seemed to think me far more capable in Spanish than I am. Whenever I asked her to repeat something, she would say it again without slowing down or choosing different words or anything. Often, she talked to me while looking down at her desk -- no gestures or facial movements to help me gauge meaning. We finally got through the check-in process and I went off to find out what kind of room Iīd have, as I really had no idea up until this point.

I was so excited -- no, let me emphasize -- I was SO EXCITED to find out that I had my own room. My OWN ROOM! Pure bliss! Itīs not that I mind sharing, but thereīs just something completely wonderful about getting your own space after sharing with strangers for so long. My room also has its own bathroom with shower, so I donīt have to get dressed in a musty 2 foot X 3 foot cell while wearing flip flops and trying not to let my clothes touch the floor.

El Escorial is beautiful and not at all hot (very welcome after Valencia). Itīs turning fall here, and thereīs a crispness in the air. It even gets cold at night. The town itself is pretty touristy, but itīs small and nice and quiet. If I can find a supermarket to stock up on a few things, Iīll be in heaven.

Okay, this is probably too long of a post, especially since I decided for some unknown reason to write most of it in the third person. Tomorrow, Iīm going to catch the train into Madrid to do some shopping, but then come back here to sleep. I like this plan a lot. Iīm here until Tuesday, and then I go to Paris, though I may stop somewhere along the way for a night or two. Iīll figure that out tomorrow when Iīm in Madrid and can check train schedules.

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Valencia, still

I decided to stay a couple of extra nights in Valencia. Itīs nice here, but itīs also kind of run down in a lot of parts. Itīs a strange city. I made a friend, though. A Polish woman named Dominika -- weīve been hanging out the last couple of days, and went out drinking with an Irish girl named Linda last night. So thatīs been fun.

Iīve just rented a car to drive from Madrid to El Escorial tomorrow. I hope that doesnīt spell disaster, but the train station from where I rented the car is on the outskirts of Madrid, and then itīs hopefully just the highway to El Escorial. I think it will be fine. Of course, this is me telling myself it will be just fine. Iīll confess, itīs a little scary, given the way they drive in the cities here.

So thatīs mostly it. Iīm a little sad I didnīt make it to the Aquarium here, but I heard itīs kind of weird and sterile looking. So that makes me feel a little better, but itīs probably pretty cool nonetheless. Also, itīs impossible to see all the sights. Iīm looking forward to a few days of not walking all over the place (though Iīve been saying that for the last week and somehow my legs are still in working order).

Itīs funny, as I go through the day, I think of great ways to start a blog entry or an email, but then when I sit down at the computer, itīs just this kind of silliness. I wanted to write more of a story, but I guess this is all you get.

One thing Erin mentioned in the comments, and I forgot to tell you about is all the mullets. There are a ton of mullets here; it seems to be teh hip new hairdo. Also, hippies. Lots and lots of hippies.

Oh, and on the train on the way here, I saw a man walking down a dusty road with some dusty houses nearby with his flock of sheep wandering after him. They stopped to eat some grass, but the dog who was in charge of keeping them in line got them back in line. It was great to watch.

Okay, thatīs enough rambling for now. More later, to be sure.

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Valencia

I will start by saying that this internet connection is too expensive (but itīs convenient as itīs in my hostel). So if I click submit without finishing a sentence or correcting spelling, that would be why.

Iīm in Valencia now. I was going to go to El Escorial, but the train to Madrid where I would have transfered was full, so I came to Valencia instead. Itīs quite a change from Barcelona. Everything seems much more open here, even though the streets are only about 1 1/2 or 2 times as wide as those in Barcelona -- and thatīs not saying much! Meaning, of course, that theyīre still very narrow.

Travel-wise, Iīm getting a bit tired, as itīs difficult to share a room with new strangers all the time and yesterday I had to once again move my monstrous backpack. Iīm thinking of ditching several things here in Valencia to lighten the load. Iīll either send them home or just leave them and put it down to the cost of travel.

On the other hand, I just went to the raddest market ever. Itīs the largest in Spain, I think. There are over 1,000 stalls with fruits, vegetables, nuts, meat, etc. If itīs food, they probably have some. I also love walking around in the plaįas and seeing orange and olive trees. Itīs all so very Mediteranean.

Okay, timeīs about up. I bought a bunch of food at the market, so Iīm going to wander a bit, but mostly sit around and eat all day. Iīve been missing fresh vegetables.

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Barcelona

Whilst wandering around, completely caught up in the nightlife of Barcelona, Erin and I were admittedly a bit lost. We couldnīt find this club that was in both of our guidebooks called Dot. "ŋDonde está Dot?" we kept asking, but nobody knew. A few people had heard of it, but now Iīm thinking the club itself is an urban legend and that the writers of the guide books just sort of put some stuff in theyīd heard about without actually going there themselves. It couldnīt possibly have had anything to do with the bottle of wine we had at dinner.

We asked these two guys at the edge of a plaįa if they knew of the club. One of them was English, the other French. They were about to ask us for directions before we spoke, so that didnīt work out to well. During the few minutes we talked, the French guy told me that he could understand the English accent, but that Americans sound like "waa waa waa" (or, as he was French, "ouaa ouaa ouaa"). This made me laugh as Iīd once heard that the Chinese think we sound like ducks, which wasnīt too far off from how this guy was describing it.

We ended up going to a club called Moog and agreed that the DJ was very good. My favorite part was that when he increased the intensity of the music, everybody on the dance floor cheered. On the way back to the pensión, Erin and I tried to teach ourselves to whistle with our fingers, but mostly ended up bathing Las Ramblas in a lot of spit. We were pleased that even at 30, we managed to stay out until 4:00am at least once -- and the streets were still incredibly croweded with merry makers when we finally called it quits.

As an interesting aside, if you log into the phpMyAdmin MySql interface from Spain, everything automatically shows up in Spanish.

Yesterday, we went up to Montserrat, a monestary in what looks to be a very unlikely place to build a monestary. Itīs really pretty up there, though thereīs not a ton of things to do. We glanced at the Black Madonna from downstairs, not wanting to wait in line to see it up close, and then went for a short hike. The hike actually involved a ton of stairs; we climbed up to Sant Salvador. Because this was the day after we climbed the 340 stairs to the top of La Sagrada Familia, my legs are extremely tired today. La Sagrada Familia, by the way, is really excellent. Itīs the kind of building you think they just donīt make enough of anymore, but then there it is, all huge and unfinished and cathedral-like, but in the modernisme style Gaudí is so famous for. Incidentally, there was some really cool modern sculpture up at Montserrat that I now wish I had photographed.

Erin left me today to spend some time with friends in London before she heads back. Itīs a little weird to think of myself as being alone in Spain, but itīs not altogether different from being alone anywhere else in the world. Still, Iīll miss Erin. We had a lot of fun together. Luckily, the 19-year-old Belgians we were sharing a room with left today, also. Iīm just kicking it in Barcelona for one more night and then I may go to Toledo, although the guide book makes it sound kind of lame. Thereīs a place nearby called El Escorial where thereīs a big monestary. That sounds like a nice, relaxing place to go after the chaos of the big city. After that, Iīm still thinking Iīll head down toward Sevilla, but nothing is set in stone.

Thereīs more, of course, but I fear Iīm running on at the keyboard a bit too much as it is. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Oh, and for those of you I didnīt tell already, my cell phone isnīt actually working here, so my plan of posting a photo a day wonīt work at all. Too bad, I was kind of liking that plan. Iīm sure Iīll get over it somehow. For now, Iīm going to buy a watch. Erinīs not here to keep track of time for me anymore.

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A mi me gusta la playa

Today, we went to the beach at Sant Feliu de G. I canīt remember how to spell what the G. stands for, but thatīs how it shows up on all the maps. It was my first time seeing the Mediteranean, so that was exciting. I swam out to a floating platform a ways out (it felt much farther away when I was swimming there than it did when I looked at it from the beach). Unfortunately, I didnīt have my glasses on, so I didnīt get a good look at the big fish eating from the school of little fish that passed by; just basic shapes and some spots on the big fish. I did get a pretty good look at a beautiful purple jelly fish, though, because it swam up close to the platform. A boy who was out there too tried to get me to pick it up, the little jerk. Then I had to swim all the way back thinking that things were going to nibble on me and sting me, so I swam too fast and took a long time catching my breath. Next time, Iīm wearing contacts and getting a snorkle and mask.

Tomorrow, itīs off to Barcelona. In the mean time, sleep. Iīm still a bit jet lagged, and expect to be for the next day or so.

ĄHasta luego!

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You didnīt what??

"Before, I didnīt go the key." This is easily the best thing Iīve said all day. I was trying to convey the idea that there wasnīt a key before, when we checked in, so it made sense that there still wasnīt one. When I corrected myself to say, "There wasnīt a key," the man at the hostel switched to his very broken English, figuring, no doubt, that it canīt be worse than my butchering of the Spanish language. Oh well.

Erin and I safely landed in Spain today. Well, first we safely landed in London after taking separate redeye flights and landing at almost the same time. We then took two trains and one subway ride (so basically three trains if youīre going to get picky on me) to a different airport where we got on the plane to fly to Spain. We took RyanAir because of the cheap tickets. I still think that was the right choice, but the seats were pretty crammed together and Iīve never been in an airplane that landed with such a thump that a fellow passenger screamed before. Other than that notable exception, the rest of journey was decently uneventful.

But Iīve skipped almost the whole east coast portion of my trip. Before Spain, I got to meet the lovely Miss Lea Grace Davies-Kang, daughter of Cathy and Supriya. I also spent a few very fun days in New York and got to see some good friends from high school, and two from Portland. I stayed with John and Samantha in their lovely apartment in Brooklyn (with a deck to make any Portlander wish they lived there). Happily, I got to wish Morgan a happy birthday and meet his girlfriend, Alice, who I immediately liked. I wandered through Central Park and met a guy from New Orleans, who was intending to be in NYC for only three days, tops, and still hadnīt gone home. I got sweaty on the subway, got my photo taken in front of the Empire State Building, stocked up on film at B & H, and got lost twice.

And now Iīm in Spain. I just ate a yummy dinner and now I get to go lie down in a proper bed (well, a hostel bed) and stay there as long as I like. Woo hoo!

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Beautiful New Jersey

I sat on a plane for about six hours yesterday and wound up in New Jersey. For a travel day, and only having four hours' sleep, it was actually a really nice Saturday. I got to read a book (The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing), watch a movie (Monster-In-Law (terrible)), hang out with my dad, his wife, and my brother and sister, play fetch with some very happy dogs, eat yummy food, and go to bed early (well, early Pacific time anyhow). I even got a bit of a guitar lesson from my dad and got to play the three chords I know on various guitars ranging from a Rickenbaker 12-string to the guitar he had when I was a kid. I woke up and immediately began abusing parentheses. I love to abuse those parentheses.

So, it's been a fairly relaxed start to my month o' fun all in all. I head to Pennsauken, NJ today, and NYC tomorrow. My plan is to update my Flickr account with one photo from my camera phone each day (as long as I have service), so check the photos link on the sidebar. I'll update here when I get a chance and have something to say.

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