Hellenica Day 3

My third full day - tomorrow I leave, but not till late, and tomorrow my friend finally has a day off work to spend together.

We drive 75km there and back to drop my friend at work - a necessity so he can work at one of the more lucrative tourist spots whilst affording a house.

I'm shown the port of Piraeus and the coast road in the light - it was dark walking it last night, only the huge ferries were obvious.  4000 people a day to Crete.  The only other feature I previously was introduced to, also at night, was the cruising spot in the ferry park at 2am - Turkish truck drivers stay on one side, Greek ones on the other.   Alas it was dead - no fish market on Saturday night means no trade to drive the 'trade'

We take the long coast road to Glyfada, passing endless tourist restaurants opposite multiple harbours of sailboats and yachts.  Nothing too huge; nothing too outlandish, that remains firmly the demesne of the ferry and container ports, at least while there's no big cruise ship in town - its nearly the end of the season here.

I'm dropped at the Flea Market and pointed towards Constitution Square.  Never ending 'unique' craft outlets and tourist tat that would no doubt have my aunts haggling like the seasoned pros their heritage entitles them to.  I take in the National Park and actually go into the Zappeion this time - a Russian cultural programme is being held - a photo exhibit and later a series of music performances which I return for.  I'm much more a fan of the Russian music tradition than Greek and the weather and setting of the Zappeion lend themselves well to outdoor performances with a wandering audience.

A circuitous route down to the Metro station adds to the km walked again today - my shoes become marked even whiter from my travels.   Back at Piraeus I manage to navigate enough Grenglish to order myself some souvlaki for another late lunch/dinner before starting the 5km uphill walk to my friend's house - no one parks with their wheels towards the curb; this seems almost sacreligious.  As I pass the Greek Orthodox churches (increasing in density as I travel away from the tourist port area) they are calling people to Sunday evening prayers - 1900, a little later than the British tradition, but not perhaps surprisingly given the warmer climate and longer sunlight hours.  Flashes of gold glitter at me from inside the churches and the spiritual side of me wishes to go in, observe, and join the service - to experience and feed on the spirituality of others which thereby renews my own.  But I've not had a confident day; I realise I know nothing of the Greek Orthodox tradition; I'm in an almost exclusively local area by now; and I'm wearing my bleachers which are hardly appropriate; I do not wish to offend or intrude upon the importance of the ritual of attendance and service for those who's place this is, so I move on.  I'll obtain my spiritual fulfillment another day.

Exhausted at home, I sleep for 2h before needing to go pick up my friend from work.  I drag myself up and get changed again before heading out - the 30km over the last 48h is making itself known.  As are insect bites from a rest in the National Park earlier.  A memory surfaces.  Exhausted whilst on holiday and yet going out - both me and my ex always tired from our various trials each day - both always forcing a way to drag ourselves up and out.  To see each other in the brief time we had, to see others when we had the rare chances, to rescue those who always seem to need it from boys barely holding on themselves.

I think I'll lie in tomorrow.

Hellenic Observations Day 2

A random collection of observations from day 2.

My shoes are covered in dust - dry sandy soils mean it can't be helped.  Walking over monuments and ancient fields makes it even worse.  My shoes become stained a dry white from walking.  I like walking on holidays.  I like hiking in the heat.  15-20km throughout the day as I encircle and recross the entire Acropolis hill 4 times over.  It's a good hike, something I don't get in the UK - the weather isn't good and I'm allergic to half the countryside there and just not enthused by the remainder.  The last time I hiked this well it was Labor Day and I walked 20 miles through the Marin County headlands north of the Golden Gate and back down through the Presidio along the cliff line.  I miss such days.

Coffee is popular here.  Good coffee.  I saw but a single Starbucks in 15 miles of walking (also meaning the availability of free power to scam is limited).  Coffee is cheap (1€) and available 24h everywhere whether in the centre or suburbs - is the 24h culture a product of the warmer climate, or is London just truly very very shit at 24h amenities? (An ever constant gripe of mine).  (As a side note, coffee is also awkwardly political, as its basically Turkish style coffee, but that's a dirty word, so here you have to say Greek coffee.  Because politics)

No McDonalds either.  A lot of fast food pita places though.  Not complaining.  Souvlaki has been my staple every meal except one.

The state of the economy is obvious.  Everyone talks about it to an effectively rich tourist like me.  Every street has multiple abandoned storefronts and homes.  Huge industrial complexes lie mothballed, the cost of recovering the equipment proving even too exorbitant.  Everyone here smokes - what is it about the seeming connotation between smoking (or drugs in general, be they socially acceptable or not) and low quality of life, despite the necessity for regular excess expenditure it creates?  There is graffiti everywhere.  I mean even on the abandoned shops next to the state palace (now parliament building) and on the fountain in front of the Zappeion.  There is no money to pay to employ people to clean it up.  Most of the shops I wander through outside of the tourist areas are run down light industrial and commercial - a fruit warehouse, car mechanics, spare parts for boiler repairs, phone and tech pawn shops.  I don't have a comparative point of reference, this is my first visit.  The middle class complains most to me - money they have but can't access, frustrated at having seen their quality of living drop so suddenly and dramatically despite their relative wealth.  But its a Saturday night, the streets are packed in my tourist free suburb of Keratsini, the youth of Athens and Piraeus out on the streets in their little groups and those around my age and older filling out every table in every restaurant.  If there's a shortage of money and rife unemployment you couldn't see it in the nightlife.  It's the harsh light of day that shows the stark reality of how many restaurants are surrounded by failed, vandalized once+competitors.

When not in Rome

Since I know this will be popular with certain friends (and to be fair I usually post such things)

First impressions of Greece as follows:
- Police here are hot
- Friend immediately took me to get food without asking.  This is a common feature of friends when they pick me up.  This is why we're friends ^.^
- Next highlights on his tour were the American Cemetery, Amusement Park, Jail, Cruising Ground, and Beach.  The guy knows me, clearly.
- The friend of his I'm hanging out with is apparently likely to also point out to me various cruising spots and other items of cultural interest
- This is my first time in Greece, so as someone who studied classics, I'm obliged to do the tourist thing at some point.
- As a linguist, I'm fairly ashamed I don't know any Greek at all
- It's also my first proper experience outside of academia of being confronted with, and trying to understand, non-Roman script on a daily basis, further complicating matters.  The emphasis of little prepared I am for this trip, linguistically speaking, is immediate.
- I suspect I may come away not having my bearings much or a good sense of how to navigate the city - my friend has a car and is transporting me around mostly.

I know you I walked with you once upon a dream

Sitting in the nice lounge waiting for my flight at Terminal 2.

Airports are no longer bittersweet places for me.  Or rather, they are, but with less of the melancholy aftertaste.  Airports, the imminence of travel, getting away, has managed to maintain its sense of lightness it brings to me.  The freedom of self and nerdy love of watching the constant ballet of movement even at 3am.

I'm here at that most previous of times, dusk, when the lights of the airport start to glimmer identifying myriads of different points along the field.

I know what each of those lights means. I understand the entire layout, the significance, the warnings and clearances.  And I am so glad I do.

I miss flying.  Somewhere in the multitude of imaginary universes (i use imaginary in the H6D sense) I am doing so.  I didn't fail my medical, I didn't have dreams I poured years of my heart and head and self into crushed, I didn't have to find a new dream - something I'm still working on daily.

But it no longer hurts.  10 years later, I love flying again.  I just wish I could afford to once more.

#TheWorldIsQuietHere

Geography is important. Different places evoke feelings and memories. The way people respond varies from person to person, place to place.

I occasionally use the hashtag #TheWorldIsQuietHere. As in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events it signifies a place of comfort and security. A place where all my worries and burdens fall away. A place where I find myself completely at peace, content, and able to sit and watch the world pass me by, happy to just be aware of that singular moment. More so than the safety of my home, or the quietness of a good mental health day, this is a feeling tied to a few very specific places (and times) in the world, that I find utterly beautiful.

Bethesda Fountain in the sun, listening to the singers under the bridge.

The Spanish Steps, 4am in the morning, when strangers talk to each other, share food and stories.

The Marin County Headlands, overlooking Golden Gate Bridge

A bare handful of spaces, but here, and only here, does everything in my head stop. Not just for a second, but for as long as I can spare to be here.

I lay awake last night full of abject terror. I can still remember that feeling, I can still remember all the things that prompted it. But here, where the world is quiet, I can think about and remember them and it simply doesn't touch me. I don't know what it is about these specific places more than any other. It's not a sensation I can replicate; it doesn't matter when I visit them; it doesn't how bad or good things are going for me, everything about the world just stops. Waiting for me when I'm ready. Patient, not insistent. The world can wait.

The world is quiet here.

A to B

This is the San Francisco public transit map.

Actually, this is the zoomed in version; the proper version is even more hideous and boggling.  San Francisco is the best connected city in the US I've been to, but it is the worst possible one to navigate.  I travel a lot, I've visited a lot of places.  I've become adept at working out public transit in places that don't have a lot of it, and deciphering maps in countries where I don't even speak the language.  And it took me 4 years to finally crack this map.

San Francisco runs a lot of  public transit, but it only intersects at a few key points, there are many different public transportation systems, and a lot of them have names that are all too easy for an unfamiliar tourist to confuse.  There's the buses, the various cable car routes, the old F trolley, the trams,  the MUNI trains, the CalTrain, Amtrak, the AC Transit, the SamTrans  if you go far enough and the Transbay Terminal which incoprorates some, but not all, of the above.  Not all of them run the same ticketing system (improved in recent years by the Clipper Card), and not all of them run the same fares - the BART for example operates on a distance fare method, so 'season tickets' in the standard way don't really exist, but it does accept clipper, which does run a season ticket, but the BART clipper season ticket is only valid within the SF area, not its full route - confusing huh?

The SF transit map suffers from a problem of trying to display everything at once - this is partly necessary given how little area the Trolleys, MUNI trams & BART trains actually cover outside of the downtown area, huge swathes of San Francisco would simply fail to exist on a map that only included these routes - for example the Golden Gate Bridge is only accessible on public transit by one bus route within the city, and that bus doesn't go from the major tourist centers.  But this means its virtually impossible to pick out a route.  Added to this, many routes which run along the same roads are conflated together, so the route number  might only be given once, and its not obvious where they run to or from.  And depending on time of day or whether it's the weekend or not, your route may not run at all.  It might get replaced by another similar route, or you might have to get there a different way altogether

If you know where you want to get to, where that is in relation to SF as a whole, and what major routes might be nearby to give you a starting point, then you're fine.  The map is actually fantastic as it shows EVERYTHING, and you can see every possible connection and work out any number of crosstown routes.  The top level monthly Clipper pass is $80, compared to ~$200 for the cost of a monthly Z1/2 travelcard in London.  The efficiency of London bus stops showing you everywhere *that* stop goes to only, makes for easier immediate navigation, but means if you don't already know your connection, you have to guess where to pick it up; that's not necessarily in SF and the city runs an extensive night service along a lot of routes so no complaints there.

Also the bus route called the same thing regardless of whether it's headed inbound or outbound, which can mean you easily get on the wrong bus.  One of the major upsides is the fact that so much of the bus routes are zero emissions by means of overhead wires which are installed throughout the ENTIRE city, which must of been a massive public works undertaking.  The downside of that of course is buses can't really stray from their routes, and if one line down market street snafu's, they all do, and no-one's going anywhere till that problem is fixed.

It took me 4 years to learn the neighbourhoods, roads, and major routes of SF well enough to be able to properly utilize this map.  As a tourist, you're probably stuck with the F line trolley or a cab,  trying to get to Golden Gate Park, Golden Gate Bridge, Berkeley, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Presidio, Fort Point, Haight/Ashbury, Treasure Island, etc is just a nightmare.  Mission Dolores is just a short walk from the Castro, which is doable, but beyond that, good luck!


On a side note - the problem with Uber compared to established (and heavily regulated) taxicabs is very apparent here.  In London, to my experience, they have always been Addison Lee-esque.  The cars are relatively top end, and new, the drivers are usually dressed smartly, it's much closer to a private limousine style cab rather than just a generic minicab service that whilst prebooked, is often just any suitable car and a driver.  Here the Uber vehicles are basically any car for a driver registered with Uber, dressed how they like, and with a black Uber 'U' sticker in the front windshield.  It doesn't feel very high class.  And it certainly feels unregulated, which as a brit/european automatically makes me feel unsafe, whereas I'm sure plenty of Americans would happily extol the virtues of unregulated, 'free' industry.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery

I'm in New York again.
Finally.  

I'd forgotten what an onslaught New York is.
It's a big city in the way only Americans could do a big city.  It's loud, and it's grimy, and the drains don't quite take the smell of sewage away.  There's dirt everywhere and the heat from the subway rises up through great grills in the street and washes over the panting pedestrians.  Oil and bitumen assails you from roadworks and construction projections.  The traffic is constant and everywhere and they all honk their horns and no one moves.  People stand around, hordes of them, outside buildings and on corners and places that don't seem important.  Seven here, twenty there, a dozen waiting on the next street.  They don't move.
It's oppressive.  God it's intimidating and terrifying and so beautiful.

The buildings rise up and up, they tower over the chaos of the streets and hem everything in, keeping it tight, pressing it closer together.  It narrows your view and focuses and channels even the daylight in a way architects and designers dream of.  
Rocketing, rattling tin can Metro cars with their 70s era shades of desperately happy and comfortable orange, so perfectly like their city; grimy and noisy and fast.  Chrome reflecting off everywhere, dazzling, like the city.

The constant traffic blocks up roads alongside sidewalks that are wider than the entire Strand.  The overbearing towering blocks are gleaming and golden and gilt in beautiful, indulgent art deco styles.  It screams decadence and tragedy and desire and something that refuses to die and you don't want it to..  Golden and Silver Age Hollywood.  Rapture.

The women, my god I never get over the women here.  Runway fashions.  The kind even supermodels only wear for that one catwalk because you can't actually buy them, and no one would ever wear them, you cant even walk in them.  Celebrities on the red carpet don't have them.  New York women are wearing them all.  The Carries and the Samathas and Mirandas and Charlottes who hate that that's how everyone only ever thinks about them anymore but love that everywhere does a Cobb Salad and lets you talk about sex openly nowadays (and why shouldn't they?!).  Dear god the women here are stunning and powerful and determined.

New York scares me.  I can't even imagine what it must be like if it's your first big city.  Your first proper city.  But god its beautiful and stunning and intoxicating and addictive and just try to stop yourself from whirling around it.

The contents of my life.

It's surprisingly easy to pack the contents of your entire life into one bag when necessary.

Some jeans, some t shirts, a few jumpers, one good jacket, plenty of underwear, a white shirt, a black shirt, a pair of smart trousers, a pair of shorts, a suit jacket in case you have an interview to go to, some formal shoes, a tie, a towel, a toothbrush, some cologne, a razor,a blister pack of practically every basic medication you can imagine, a few items of jewellery  some special keepsakes, condoms, lube, a belt, a phone charger, a laptop, and a favourite book you don't mind reading again and again for the lonely parts of the nights.  If you have some extra space shove in a 4-way extension lead and a container of your favourite tea/coffee/whatever - these are always in short supply when you need them most.  Hell if you're the sort of person who can carry a stupidly sized rucksack or maybe just only owns 3 tee shirts and 1 jumper, stuff a pillow in there too.  Pillows are like gold dust for this kinda shit.

All of this fits in a 65 litre rucksack, with the exception of one of the jackets which you'll have to wear.  That's okay, it's a good place to put your keys, wallet and phone that wont involve them ending up at the bottom of a pile stuff.

And that's an entire person's life, in one bag.  Ready to go and movable at any point, to anywhere, via practically any method of transit.  Everything else is a luxury.

Oh don't get me wrong.  I'd rather have all my possessions, I'd rather have spare shirts, some other books to read, a tv and some dvds, my wok and my stockpot to cook in.  And we can all pack up our life for a week or two when we're going on vacation.  But sometimes you don't know where you're gonna end up, or when, or how, or what you'll be able to salvage when you get there.  So it's reassuring to know that when I have to, I can fit everything about me into one bag that I can carry on my back and meets practically every travel weight and size in existence.  Or it's kinda depressing if you think about it for too long.  Let's not dwell on the subject...

Something borrowed something blue something old something new york

Cash in wallet: $80
City blocks walked: Approx 150
Equivalent Mileage: 7-8
Money spent on rehydration: $30

New York is big. Much bigger than London. Being crammed into a tiny island, I kinda figured it'd be of a roughly comparable size, at least in terms of the tourist spots, but no, it's big. And of course I can't be arsed with metro trains, and buses and such. I walk everywwhere. As such, in the last 2 days I've walked about 150 city blocks. That's madness for anyone who knows america. No-one walks 10 blocks, let alone 150. This is why everyone in America has a car. To give you an idea, that's about 8 miles, and sure, 4 miles a day isn't that much, but add into that the heat, oh my god the heat, and the humidity; hydration is not possible here, its more a case of wetting your mouth with liquid and waiting the 10 seconds for it to evaporate. Isotones and Electrolytes do not begin to cover it. On the plus side, it means I'm drinking lots of good stuff, coconut water, fruit juices etc. Downside, it costs me a lot.

The neighbourhoods are a lot less distinct here, thoug I'll grant you I havent got to chinatown or little italy yet. But, certainly as a foreigner, it's hard to tell the difference walking between the different areas of the island, its not like the difference between camden, bond street, covent garden, and shoreditch, which is pretty damned obvious. and the area its spread out over is roughly comparable. Sure, as you go up by the side of central park, it gets more obvious that the people living in the Upper East Side on 5th Avenue clearly have money, but still...

Americans do know how to do their breakfasts, and no-one more so that New Yorkers, that's one of the few things I did have time to properly notice on my fleeting visit years ago. The hostel does breakfast. It does cereal and pancakes and waffles and fruit and toast and juice and.... There are 20 loaves of bread out at breakfast. Not to mention the wonderful deli's all over the city that offer one hell of a breakfast for $5-10. Breakfast is something I really love about America, and I really love it about New York. They go all out on them. Shockingly, despite being here for 3 days now, I have yet to eat any bacon. This will be rectified next week.

I went to the WTC site; it's interesting. You can't really see that much of it anymore, as its surrounded by construction fences and there's a big detour that sends you quite wide of the site, but its still obvious; a giant wound in the skyline of an area otherwise filled with towering skyscrapers. Only in Central Park do you get a similar amount of wide open sky above you. Nearly 10 years later, traffic marshalls still tightly control the flow of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic around the site; detours are still in place, and preset siren signals give warning of any demolitions work taking place. And it currently shows no signs of being finished anytime soon. That's a lot of devastation, and a lot of effort to keep business ongoing as usual around it. Interestingly, the buildings around the site, have all been seamlessly renewed, their marble, granite and glass fronts gleaming like any other skyscraper in the city.

I went to see Red last night. I'd seen it in London, at the Donmar warehouse. I've blogged about it before, it's about the life/work of Mark Rothko. I saw it in a 250 thrust theatre, and it transferred over to Broadway in a 800 pros arch setting. I went as a techie geek, to see difference in staging. The sense of a 'studio' is much greater, by virtue of having 3 walls to play with; the actors can move around a bit more; but the intensity of the play was reduced. Maybe this was just because I was all the way up in the gallery for the cheap seat, but in the Donmar production, you were so close you felt you were part of the studio, you were there as the arguments over life and art happened, and the ferocity of the play's signature scene, the priming of a canvas, was so raw and powerful it swept over you like a tidal wave, dragging anything attempting to resist it along its path by the sheer brute force of the emotion portrayed. And that disappeared in this. Don't get me wrong, it was still a great scene, and an outstanding play, it's won 6 tony's: best play, supporting actor, director, sound, lighting, and set design. One of the audience as I was leaving said "the best play i've seen in new york in years". But it was definitely lacking compared to what I saw in London. And yet still worth every cent.

The girls here are amazing. Lots of them are wearing this brilliant fashion, hats and long flowy dresses and shoes not designed for walking in. This must be the only place in the world where the fashion women are wearing actually looks like what was on the catwalk 9 months ago. It's stunning, both as a gay and a straight man. It's hard to understand why everyone else isn't turning their head and watching them walk past, but then they must be so used to it. Sex and the City has clearly left its mark here, and for the better.

Speaking of sex and the city, I went to the NY Public Library the other day. I saw, and stood, exactly where Carrie Bradshaw was dressed with a bird in her head in Vivienne Westwood couture. This wasn't hard to do, having watched it on the plane on the way over, so I remembered pretty good. Unfortunately the front of the library is all covered in scaffolding; it appears to be public works restoration year, it was the same all over Amsterdam when I went there. The inside of the library however is spectacular. I don't think the UK has anything that comes close, or certainly London doesn't. SUre there's the British Library, but thats all specialist pay-for-entry exhibitions, or you have to apply for reader access and then can only take a pad and a pencil in and nothing else and its fairly restrictive as an actual 'library'. Here, I walked in, as a foreigner, and a tourist, and I could go into the reading rooms, and call up any book to read; I could use the computers for internet; I could get wireless access for my laptop. All without a readers card, having just walked in off the street from anywhere in the world, and I could do it all in an absolutely beautiful setting. We need more libraries like this. Open access, inspiring, the sort of place that actively encourages you to learn just by being there.

I'm travelling alone, which has both its up and its downsides. I can do anything I want, I can go anywhere I please, I can um and aah and change my mind and get there however I want when I want. But I don't have someone to share things with, I don't have someone to enjoy the experiences with, I don't have someone to take pictures where I wouldnt. I'm quite a hard person to travel with, because I'm so damned relaxed about it. I'm here for 6 weeks and until yesterday I had no idea what I was doing beyond tomorrow. Other people like to at least know they have somewhere to stay before going to a city, they like to know how long they have, they like to not have $20 a week to live off, they like to not spend money they don't have, they like to rest, and take coffee breaks, not walk around in the pouring rain and the sweltering heat for hours on end like I do. And someone who wasn't like me on a trip like this would drive me insane. It's too much stress to allay their worries and concerns all the time, to deal with their stress over where we're going to sleep the next night. I like travelling alone, and all the freedoms that entails, but sometimes it would be nice if there was someone equally as crazy as me to come with me.

New Orleans and Boston plans have largely been axed, due to a lack of money, which at least means I'm not visiting EVERYWHERE chris wants to go without him. Heading up north tomorrow; hopefully at House Of Blues in Boston tomorrow night if I'm lucky. Then the cape for 4th July. Down to DC to stay with my friend Sean, then I think I'm gonna head over to west coast for a few weeks in California, my home away from home. As for today, I gotta cram all my tourism into today as I thought I'd have tomorrow as well but no longer due to needing to head up North. This probably means I can't go to the anamanaguchi gig tonight :( But instead I shall go to the museums today. I haven't been to the statue of liberty as yet; I shall do that on my return trip in august.


Love and kisses, sorry for the long rather disjointed selection of things to write about, but at least it's keeping you up to date with that's going on with me

The flight path less travelled by

I'm here.  New York.  The City.  The Big Apple.  The Big Smoke Across The Pond.  When I landed I got that familiar feeling in my stomach that I always get when I travel - oh crap, I've done it, I'm a world away from all the people in my life and won't be returning for a while.  Doesn't matter how much and where I travel to, I still get this.  At least I don't have to overcome any language barriers here, good cause it makes me less nervous; bad because i dont practice, and it makes me less self reliant.

Give it a week or two and I'll be a different person.  I'll probably write differently.too.  Once I re-get over the British culture shock again, I'll start conversations with shop staff and talk to people who sit next to me on the tube.  Speaking of which, either I've come to new york during some yoga charity drive, or EVERY WOMAN and HALF THE MEN in the city do yoga in the evenings.  Wierdly, all at the same place/chain, which suggests its some form of brainwashing/eugenics/cult control mechanism.

I'd forgotten how run down america can look.  The effect of urban sprawl caused by 1 story buildings makes it worse; sure the US build their skyscrapers, but in the suburbs they have all the space, so they don't need to build things up, they just build them out, and the block system means everything is square and rectangluar, no buidlings are crammed in to fill the spaces like in the UK; business parks are made of the dame drab looking 1 story sized office buildings.   Imagine if housing estates did business parks.  The colour patterning of dull grey steel and faded beige ceramic tiles that pervades the rail system makes everything look dirty.  Then I remembered everything IS dirty when I looked at my hand.  Also, having only been to NYC once, in February, I had failed to appreciate before how hot the NY subway is.  Anyone who's stepped off the plane in Florida, or South Asia in the middle of the hot season; it's that as a base  level.  before anyone starts to crowd the platforms and add their own BTUs.  It's actually worse than London.

That said though, america still has its plus points.  When they say air conditioned, they mean air conditioned, as opposed to a light breeze of warm air.  Penn Station felt like New York, and began to ease the nervous self imposed abandonment feeling.  And my hostel, whilst on some dodgy backstreet you'd never show your parents, is quite nice on the inside.

For now hhowever I am tired, and need sleep, or at the very least, tea (i brought 2 bags of flowering green tea with me as a survival aid).  Will have a US cell phone tomrrow.

I would walk 500 miles.

So I'm off to the US on 22nd June for 6 weeks.  I'm visiting NYC, Cape Cod, Boston, California, and if I can afford them, New Orleans, Harry Potter World, Alabama, Chicago, and Seattle.  I didn't go to the US last summer and it hurt, more than i expected.  California has basically become my summer home on a level I hadn't appreciated, and so I'll be really glad to go back.  I get to go to Up Your Alley in San Francisco for the first time ever which will be awesome as I've always missed that and Folsom due to timing before, and NYC pride is the weekend I get there.  Being miserable and broke in the UK last summer, I figured I might as well be miserable and broke on Huntingdon Beach instead.

Chris isn't coming.  There are several reasons for this.  He can't afford it, and I'm much happier to spend money I don't have and worry about paying for it later than he is.  I'm planning on scrounging sofas, and paying some of my way by working whilst over there, and that's hard to do with someone else in tow.  I can't afford to take myself even though I'm going, let alone paying his way too.  But primarily, its because at the time I booked it, things were crazy.  Things were bad.  We'd skirted around the break up conversation several times.  I was depressed.  For a long time.  He didn't know how to deal with it.  It was taking its toll, on both of us.  A serious one.  And I cope less well with relationship issues than Chris.  I needed time apart.  More than just a 2 week jaunt round Europe.  So Chris agreed to let me go, cause he's an awesome boyfriend like that.

And then, 6 weeks or so ago, the switch flipped.  I stopped being depressed.  Just like that.   I still get upset, I still get pissed off, but my outlook on life is generally better.  It's generally positive.  You get this from the tone of my blog posts, at least I hope you do.  They stopped being self involved, and started being about my general musings on the world.  And yes, a holiday is nice, and yes, on some level, I probably do need time apart from Chris, so I don't panic too much when we move in together when I return.  But I don't need it so much anymore, I don't need it for so long anymore.  If I didn't have this trip, I'd still go places, but it'd be different.  I'd probably have disapppeared to Adelaide for 2 weeks on   25th May for example.  There were spare seats on Ryan's flight, my passport's always in my bag, it would have been so easy to pick up the standby.  I would go to Bristol, cause a friend needs someone.  I would go to Glastonbury, cause I need someone.  And maybe, just maybe, I'd even take Chris to Rome for a week.  But oh well, I can't cancel or change my flights without cost, so I might as well go, and have my time apart, and get my head sorted, and let it do the good that, whilst less needed now, is still helpful.

Oh I'm also broke.  As in flat broke.  As in I have £400 in my bank account and £600 worth of bills to pay, and haven't even found a place to stay in New York yet.  Oh fuck.  Still that always makes for the most interesting travel in my opinion.  It's gonna be a phone call to the Amex people tomorrow or monday i think...  PLEASE DON'T STOP MY CARD, I'LL PAY IT SOON I PROMISE!

Ce bel amor qui ne peut mourir...

I miss you so much. It hurts. Like hell. Every single day. I know you're busy, and out of sight is out of mind, and neither of us have had time or money and your life requires the whole of you. And that's fine, but I still miss you. I still love you. I still want to be with you even though I can't. I miss the feel of you. I miss your smile. I miss the way how you melt into me when I hol you. I miss the wonder and amazement in your eyes, at every little thing in the world. I miss the way nothing is the same around you. I miss the need to try and kill you, because if I don't you'll actually kill me. I miss being the strong one for a change. I hate the fact you're so close and yet so far. I hate you live in the middle of nowhere. I hate that I have virtually no way of contacting you, ever. I'm scared that you hate me. I'm scared you don't actually like me that much anymore. I'm scared I'll never be included in your life. I'm scared you'll be gone before I get to see you one more time. I wonder why it takes us so long to admit we love each other every time we meet. I wonder why we eventually do admit it each time. I wonder when I'll next see, of if I'll even have that option.. I love you. I miss you. I need you. I want you. Please be mine.

Ce bel amor qui ne peut mourir...

I miss you so much. It hurts. Like hell. Every single day. I know you're hurting right now, and me, and us, and all that is probably exactly what you don't need to deal with at this moment. And that's fine, but I still miss you. I still love you. I still want to be with you even though I can't. I miss the feel of you. I miss your smile. I miss the way you'd hold me. I miss the way you look at me, like I'm the one in a higher league. I miss your cocky, arrogant bullshit. I miss fighting with you. I miss you beating me. I hate the fact you're 4500 miles away. I hate the fact I can't just jump on a bus, or a train and come and see you. I hate the fact that will never change. I hate that loving you is just something that will always be in our heads. I hate that too see you even once more, the entire universe would have to shift for me. I'm scared that you'll fall out of love with me. I'm scared you'll forget about me. I'm scared I'll always have to sit on the sidelines and watch. I wonder why you love me. I wonder why you told me you loved me. I wonder when, if ever, I'll next get a chance to see you again. I love you. I miss you. I need you. I want you. Please be mine.

There's a hole in my clogs...

Apologies for the delays in posting.  My laptop charger is borked, so updates have to be written at an actual PC which takes time.

I have returned from Amsterdam!
Times propositioned in the red light district: 20.  Times propositioned by anyone vaguely attractive: 1.  Culturally important landmarks ignored: At least 4. Euros departed UK with: €50.  Euros returned with €110.  Euros taken out at cash machines €50.  Euros spent: ~€250.  Smokes consumed: Lost count.  Narrow deaths avoided: 1  Pool games won: 3  Pool games won by anything other than default: 0

To anyone with Maths skills, you'll note I somehow came back with more euros than i started with, and spent more than i took out.  And oddly enough, I didn't actually do anything untoward to achieve this, I was just given €100 for being good drinking company.

Interesting questions you might like to ponder whilst wandering round the red light district are such things as: just what kind of restraints can i take back in my hand luggage before they'll stop me boarding the plane for safety reasons?  How big a dildo do I need to by to ensure a comical bag search scenario at the security check point?

Only I, could go to Amsterdam, completely ignore thigns like the Anne Frank Haus and Heineken Brewery, and let within 10 minutes of wandering round on my first night have found the city buddhist temple and chinese quarter, which of course, were fascinating.  I did however see the homomonument on my last day, as I was bored, had time to kill, and it was a little out of the way so seemed to work quite nicely.  I did however, ignore the exceedingly impressive gigantic church next to the homomonumnent.

My shoes broke.  I realised this whilst on the gatwick express on my way out, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.  They had massive massive holes in the back I hadn't noticed where I could poke my sock through, so definitely time to find new ones.  Which I did, however this then meant 2 days of walking round trying to break in new shoes (I am in fact, still trying to break them in).  This then resulted in blood blisters, and being forced to hobble along through the streets of amsterdam on my last day agonising and cursing myself for not just accepting wet feet until I got back to London.  Not even the numerous coffee shops could ease my cantankerous spirit on this particular matter.

FOllowing the inability to walk, I found myself thinking "you know what's nice about Amsterdam?  No fuoking birds".  For those who are unaware, I have a hatred of birds, as Jess will no doubt appreciate, and they have a habit of flying straight for my face.  Naturally, no more than 20 minutes after had I thought this, did I turn a corner to be confronted with a bird nose diving straight for me before making the ornothological equivalent of a handbrake turn in order to avoid hitting a window, and then flying haphazardly off towards the bells of some church.  Apparently though, the forces that be had decided I deserved further punishment for my earlier careless free thinking.  Whilst walking across Dam square, which was largely empty at some point during the day, some idiot childspawn of satan then decided to run into a flock of birds that were quietly minding their own business nearby and scatter them, very literally, to the winds.  And as birds do, they then all mysteriously made a beeline in their scattering from the otherside of the square towards me, flying at a mere 1m altitude, and I was forced to adopt some bizzare open air duck-and-cover manouvere in order to avoid re-enacting Hitchcock in the middle of the most prominent public square in the Netherlands.

I have however, as I said, returned.  Feet fairly worse for wear, and my throat in a lot of pain from screaming at the top of my lungs for two hours at a concert for my favourite band (the whole reason I went to amsterdam in the first place), and spending the very significant part of my evenings in a 8'x6' sealed box room designated as the hostel smoking area.  I am avoiding looking at the bank account, though I have £1000 worth of expenses soon to collect from UCL for classics play costs, so it's not too bad.  I really really need to start working again soon though. 


Mood: lost in my head (see next post)

Music: http://open.spotify.com/user/jorgamond/playlist/4hnlL55Po91olMobjAQRN3

Named and Shamed

So once again, the english are crap.  I'm currently in Amsterdam, and EVERYONE here speaks fluent in english; it's basically bilingual.  Yet again the continent puts the UK to shame and shows them for the linguistically egotistical lazy cunts they are.

Dutch is not a language I know.  I can do french and german, I  can understand Italian well enough, and I'd even wager an attempt at Russian if I found myself there.  Dutch however, is something I have no idea whats going on with.  To start off with, it's one of the few languages (certainly in europe) that I have exceedingly little concept of pronunciation rules.  And secondly, for obvious reasons, my mind keeps getting mixed up with German.  Damn languages developing from the same route.  I must remember things end in '-straat' not '-strasse' and '-plein' not '-platz'.  As a linguist, I find it highly embarrasing and awkward to have to walk into places and launch into English, as I have no idea what 'hello, do you speak english' is, let alone how to say it.  For shame england, for shame.

In related news, I have now been here a total of 9 hours.  I have got lost about 7 times so far, had god knows how many smokes, been shagged once, and drunk nothing.  It's like a sordid version of BJD in the making - though the drinking is likely to stay the same, given I don't like beer, and Heineken being the big thing here obviously.  Tomorrow has a concert, some smart & coffeeshops for halluncinogenic trippy joys, and a visit to the red light district of course; all the things everyone comes to Amsterdam for at the end of the day (no-one cares about clogs, or windmills, except the Moulin Rouge, which is in France anyway).

I don't mind getting lost, in fact, I aim for it, I go where my feet and eyes lead me.  Taking the uptown flying pig hostel, instead of downtown, I was forced to acquaint myself with the public transit system early, and buy a 3 day ticket.  The constant tram tracks everywhere remind me of being in San Francisco with all the trolleys going everywhere, or crossing the road outside a Caltrain terminal.  Going slightly out of the way for the hostel however (which by accidental incidence is 2 mins away from the music venue tomorrow night), pays divdends quickly, as you're that much braver with getting round the city.  I have also always had a bizzare talent to get completely lost in really dodgy areas of foreign cities, and not had so much as a glance at me from anyone ubiquitious; it took me 3 years of living in london to suffer my first mugging, and even then the punch didn't hurt - i didn't even drop the eggs I was carrying!

There are of course, some very very beautiful, absolutely stunning buildings here.  I think Chris would actually enjoy here more than he thinks, purely on account of the architecture.  Unfortuantely, a massive public works programme is obviously underway, as all of the best buildings are 90%+ covered in Scaffolding - the Centraal station building, the rijksmuseum, the building on Dam Sq etc...   Clearly an excuse to come again.

Also, one of the tram stops was called kattenburgerplein.  ...  icanhascheezburger?


No doubt more posts for you to live vicariously will appear soon.  Being in a city like amsterdam does rather give me some things to be truthful about: i''m being pre-emptive at the moment, but my mother probably doesn't possess the sense to *not* ask how my trip was.



Mood is gonna be too out of it to care, and will be for the forseeable future I imagine.

Music is whatever the flying pig barman keeps putting on the CD player

The Theory....

I've had this theory for a long time. That nobody's world is ever bigger than 5 people. 6 degrees of separation probably works off a similar idea. Your 5 people change throughout your life obviously, and sometimes even on a day to day basis, but these are the people closest to you, the ones you tell all your secrets, the ones who if they ever got together, would probably know everything there is to know about you, the ones who support you and keep you going.

When you're a child, your parents are two of them, as you grow up, it becomes friends from school, later your boss, or a partner of some sort might feature. Some of them will be there for a day, and then disappear off again for a few months, some are more or less permenant fixtures.

Currently my world consists of the boyfriend - Chris, a friend named Joel, one of his boys called Seany, another friend called Lisa, and my best and oldest friend called Jamie, who has his birthday sometime around now.

Think of a friend you know really well, you can apply it to them, it might not be the people they talk to or see most, hell I haven't seen Jme in ages, but there's usually not more than 5 of them. Even where couples are concerned, its usually the case that someone is closer with one than the other, because they knew them first, or because they have more in common.

As my 5 people change throughout the year, I'll try and let you know, you might find it interesting.


Music http://open.spotify.com/user/jorgamond/playlist/1MR6CjRCd1bceiiKCQWh5i
Mood: much the same as before, with a bit of depression mixed in.