Back in the USS...A?

Pirate and I are leaving tonight for the Land of W (soon to be the Land of O). I don't know when I'll be back, because I have to get my spousal visa while I'm there, and the British Consulate give absolutely no indication of how long that takes. It might take 2 days, in which case I'll be coming home with Pirate on January 3rd, or it might take 6 weeks, in which case I'll be missing my own 30th Birthday/Innauguration joint party. I have no idea.

It's going to be an absolutely manic holiday, what with travelling to Wisconsin to visit my brother, fighting the snow on the roads and airports, PIRATE'S parents flying over from England to spend a week with my family, Bridesmaid Vi, husband Wally, son Smally Wally and Big Wally's parents all visiting from Massachusetts during the same week the Pirates-in-law will around, and my visa excitement thrown in on top of that. Blogging may or may not occur. Most likely I'll lurk and read your blogs when I get a few quiet minutes to myself, but I don't know that I'll have the ambition to write much.

Unless I'm in desperate need of catharsis, which is always a possibility.

And at FN's request, here is a photo for your enjoyment:



Merry Christmas, y'all!

The Point At Which I Thew Up. The First Time.

Thursday was Traf Night on the base. Yes, I know that Tuesday was actually the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, but they didn't celebrate until Thursday. It was a personnel-only night, so I couldn't go and join in the reindeer games. Instead I had a neighbor 'round for tea. (How very English of me.)

Pirate came back at quarter past one in the morning and announced that we were spending the weekend on a yacht with a bloke from work, his bird, and some other people he'd not met.

I have never been on a yacht. My most recent memory of being on a boat that was powered by something other people was a fishing trip my parents took me on when I was 10 out on to Lake Michigan. My dad and I spent the whole time trowing up, and we didn't catch a single fish.

I agreed to go on the grounds that I'd never done it before, and as a rule I like to try new things. I was apprehensive, however, as this seemed to me the kind of activity that was highly dependent upon 2 things:

The quality of the company, and
The quality of the weather.

If the company was lively and the weather calm, it was sure to be a good time.
If the company was dull and the weather lively, it had disaster written all over it.

It started out well enough. The dawn broke radiantly over Rame Penninsula.

Red sky in the morning; Sailor, take warning!

(That was the actual view out our bedroom window on the morning of the excursion.)

We tootled in to Plymouth where we met the crew at the marina and went aboard.

All aboard the HMS Upchuck!

Our skipper had recently passed his Master Yachtsman qualifications, so we were in good hands. All seemed to be going well, and I started to get excited. (Not that way, you filthy sots.)

We got through the lock and out of the marina with no trouble, and set a course to take us around Plymouth breakwater on the west side, then head east for Shag Rock and up the River Yealm, where we moor in the harbor, have dinner in a charming pub in the charming village of Newton Ferrers, sleep on the boat, and return home Sunday morning. It seemed like a good plan. Essentially camping, but on the water. This sounded good to me.

Initially, it was all going very well.

Pirate, relaxing.

Then it all started to go horribly, horribly wrong.

As soon as we got past the breakwater the water got really, really rough, and so did the rest of us. Pirate, despite being an experienced sea-farer, has no sea legs. He was the first to go green. He went below deck to lie down, but that was a mistake. As soon as he got down the steps he lost his stomach, but managed (rather heroically) to hold it in his mouth until he could get back up to the cockpit and spit it over the side.

(Is this all getting a bit too disgusting? Deal. Reading this isn't a fraction as bad as living it, and I survived. You will, too.)

For a while I was doing OK. I stayed up in the cockpit, keeping in the fresh air and my eyes on the horizon. It worked, too, for about 20 minutes. And then I committed a fatal error. Getting bored with looking at nothing but an empty horizon, I just happened to glance down at the water at the side of the boat. The waves were swelling and undulating seductively beneath me. I instantly threw up.

I had no warning. One second I was fine, and the next I was spewing that morning's sausage and spetzle into the wind, spraying the two women who were sitting aft of me.

And then I did it again. And again. And again.

I spent the next 10 minutes heaving over the side of the boat in rapid succession. It was too winding for much of it to actually reach the water. Mostly it just blew all over the place.

I didn't know it at the time, but one of the other guys was on the opposite side of the boat, doing the same thing. The remaining few were standing in the cockpit between us, desperately trying to dodge flying chunks.

Having offered the entire contents of my stomach to the fish, I got a bucket and doused down the deck, then settled in to endure the rest of journey. As we reached the mouth of the River Yealm I saw the calm water on the leeward side of the land and began counting down the seconds until we reached it.

We finally got ourselves bouyed in what might well be the prettiest little harbor village in the British Isles.


I'd really like to go back and spend some more time in the village. It was a really lovely place to be. But next time, I'll take a FUCKING BUS.

After we were securely moored they let me play around in the dinghy, and that was the best part of the whole trip. I really like that bit.

Conclusion: the only boats worth being in are the ones you power yourself.

After a long walk along the coast and dinner in the Pub, Pirate and I couldn't face going back to Plymouth the same way we'd come, so we phoned a cab and went home by car. Last night we got a peaceful night's sleep in our own beds. Today the weather is shit. I can't imagine what the rest of the crew are going through to get home.

And people do this for fun????


Update: The skipper and his gf came by today to drop off our bags. Apparently it was a rough night on the boat, with lots of wind blowing it about the harbor, and people got little, if any, sleep. We totally made the right call. Boo-yeah.

Fringe Bingo

After last year's storming success, Pirate and I decided to go back to the Fringe this year. It's not a cheap 3 days, but is seriously good fun. There is loads to see, but inevitably there are dead spots during the evening when you are between shows, have already eaten dinner, and need to kill an hour when the museums and galleries are closed. This is where the real Fringe entertainment happens.

The Edinburgh Fringe is, no doubt, one of the best places for people-watching on the planet outside of NYC. There is some serious variety, and some proper weirdos.

But Pirate and I, being competitive by nature, found a way to make people-watching a contest. Enter Fringe Bingo, stage left. Plonk yourselves outside a pub or cafe' on the Royal Mile, pull out your FB cards, and go to town. I have provided a sample card below. (Obviously if you are going to play you need to print out 2 copies, but cut one up and rearrange the squares to make the second copy.)


From the Fringe veterans I would love to hear your suggestions for adding to the card for next year.

Oh sweet Jesus. Whatever we do, we must not, under any circumstances, elect John McCain. He has supported every one of Bush's proposals, and will carry out any legislative or governmental changes enacted by Bush, including this new catastrophe. We cannot allow this to happen.


On a more cheerful note, I am leaving today to visit Pirate and the in-laws for a week, then Pirate and I are going up to the Fringe for a few days. I will still be available on Blogger and email, so I will be in touch with Edinburgh bloggers. Whee! (I don't have time for a vacation, but holy fuck do I need one.)

Blogger Hook-up in the Burgh of Edin

Pirate and I are going to spend a few days in Edinburgh at the Fringe this month. We'll be arriving in Edinburgh on Sunday 17th and staying for 3 nights, leaving on Wednesay 20th.

If anyone fancies a get-together for a meal or coffee or whatever, do let me know. (GSE??? Hendrix-cat?) Pirate and I would love to see you.

My Awesome 80-mile* bike ride

I thought my little diversions about burning piers and silly memes would keep you distracted while I put this pots together, but apparently not. It seems some of you are paying attention.

And no, you can't have a lollipop. Because I said so.

After cleaning and re-oiling the gears on my bike, tightening and re-balancing the brakes, I set off yesterday morning at 10:40. It was a beautiful day, and already hot. I followed National Cycle Route 4 from Bristol to Bath, and then on to Devizes via Bradford-on-Avon along the Kennet and Avon Canal. I kept to the minimum allowable clothing, a sports bra and bike shorts. (Sorry, not photo of that.) Here is a series of pictures I took to document my journey.


Along the Avon Valley Antique Railway I spotted this gem of sarcastic graffiti:

As I was crossing over the River Avon (and stopping to eat some malt loaf), I saw this lovely red canal barge pass under the bridge. This is a bit of the Avon I know well, as it's part of the stretch of water where I scull. I've been under this bridge hundreds of times myself!

On the other side of Bath it was a bit quieter (just a bit, mind) but this wee faun didn't seem to mind all the families out enjoying the sunday sunshine:

An aquaduck! It's hard to tell from this photo (I couldn't get a higher vantage point), but this aquaduct on the K&A canal crosses over the River Avon, which is about 60 feet below. (That's my bright green bike in the foreground.)

A typical stretch of canal: peaceful and shady. Looooooooovely.

My dream home:

Thistles and lustrife in a cottage garden so charming Miss Marple herself would barf a rainbow at the sight.

*Proof! At this point I am 11 miles past Bath, which is 17 miles from Bristol, and I still have 10 to go. (I realize that doesn't quite add up to 40, but it's close. Work with me here.)

There's not much in this photo. I just liked the banding effect of the blue sky, ripe wheat, and green aquatic grass thingys.

An obliging heron:

Haystacks! Eat your heart out, Claude.

Yellow water lilies behind pink things. What do I look like, a botanist? Oh, yeah. *slinks away*

The Caen Hill Locks. This photo doesn't do them justice. This is one fucking spectacular piece of Victorian engineering. Absolutely astounding.

I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna really really really really wanna Zig-a-Zig ah! (and Himself.)
We had a delightful time. Ziggi and Himself came to pick me up at the Devizes sports center, which was an easy landmark, right off the canal, and I know it because Pirate has played cricket there on several occasions. They took me back to their house and Ziggi made a very yummy lunch with chicken and potato salad and rolls. I was offered copious quantities of happy-making beverages (and I must say that the strawberry wine was especially scrummy), we sat by the pond-fountain-waterfeaturewithfish thing and talked all afternoon about life, politics, what have you. There were creature comforts in the forms of Fern, Suze, the Fredster, the rabbits, and Dolce the cat (who left large quantities of fluffitude on my shirt). What a great day!


On the way back I snapped this photo of the Locks from the top looking down. You can't see the series of locks well from this angle, but the sky is pretty.

That's a little better. (And yes, I had to ride all the way up that hill on the path to the left to reach this point. This at the end of a near 40-mile journey! Going back down again was fucking great, I can tell you.)

My favorite photo of the day: the pub beside the Bradford-on-Avon marina, with a hot air balloon. (If you click the bigness you will see the balloon is doing a burn, too!)

Close-up of the balloon. Hang on, what the fuck's that on the side? It's the porn balloon!

Another aquaduck. Even though I had a fairly high vantage point for this, you still don't get the sense of the valley that bridge is spanning.

Ah, that's better. I took this photo standing in the middle of the above aquaduct, looking off to the left. See what I mean now?

How stunning is this light? It was raining when I took this at about 9:30 in the evening. I was still east of Bath, and had about 20 miles to go to get home. My legs were fine. For the time being.

Just before getting in to Bath I spotted this unconventional, hippie-occupied canal boat. The chap who lived in was very friendly (and very attractive if I'm being honest. In another life, I totally would have.)

He has cool, homemade sculpture on the front of his boat. It reminded me of the water creature in The Abyss.

A field of asters

Entering Bath. This photo really doesn't capture the twinkliness of the city in the twilight.

Bath Abby. No, I did not steal this photo from their website. I took this myself, last night, with my fully automated little digital camera. Not bad for a total amateur, huh? (except you can see the handles of my bike in the foreground. whoops.)

After that it was too dark for much photography. I got home at about 11. It took me 3 hours and 40 minutes on the way out, and 4 hours coming back. By the time I was 10 miles from Bristol my legs were starting to shake. Fortunately the last few miles are the easiest.

Today I am fine. The only evidence of my journey, besides the photos, are
--> the blister on my ass
--> my incredibly tight right hamstring
--> the layers and layers of dust and filth caked on to my bike, which was sparkling clean at the outset.

It was a brilliant trip, and I will definitely take more pedal-powered roadtrips in the future.

I promised you hot hot penguin luuuuurve...

...and here it is!

(UPDATED)



(Ok, I admit it's fairly short. By the time we got the camera out they were nearly

done. Still, it's cute, no?)


This is a dassie. It's a wee elephant with sticky feet. I took this photo -- we were that close! This is on top of Table Mountain. We took a cable car to get up there. In the fog. It were wicked cool.


(Sorry about the lack of vid. Youtube for some reason won't upload the damn thing. Shame. Anyway, you'll have to make due with the photo.)



Here is the fog:



And here's me!!!

Dark Lord of the Sith (Efrica)

Okay, here we go. Sorry I haven't gotten around to telling you about my trip yet. I've been catching up on work/rowing/etc.

Speaking of work, I'm at the office, so I can't upload any photos with this post, but I will do that soon. I'll also put up the videos of me being baptized into Pirate's cricket club and the hot hot penguin horniness ass soon as I get them off Pirate's computer.

We had a good time. There were some great moments and not so great moments, but on balance it was a good laugh.

The cricket went well. Mostly. We won 2 out of 7, lost 4, and tied one. Only one of the matches that we could really could/should have been won. The others were essentially carnage. The match that tied was incredibly exciting, and converted me into a proper cricket nutter.

We played at some beautiful fields in and around Capetown, including Stellenbosch, Groot Drakenstein (it sounds scary but tranlates to Greater Ducksberg, which is not scary), and Constantia, the prettiest of them all. Wherever we played we were surrounded by trees, mountains, and vineyards, and the sun shined every day.

Except the day we went up Table Mountain. And that was ok with me. Everyone else was bummed about the fog/cloud cover because they couldn't see the grand views, but I liked it. The mountain has all kinds of wierd plantlife and rock formations, and the fog shroud made it feel like I was walking on an alien planet.

The wildlife was great. I bought a bird guide the first day there and spent a good chunk of the tour twitching. I saw
African Sacred Ibises,
hedada Ibises, cattle egrets,
red-winged starlings (much more spectacular when seen in flight),
egyptian geese (and geeselings!), all manner of sea birds,
cape white-eyes,
cape batises,
a ground woodpecker (i don't understand either),
spur-winged geese,
a juvenal black-crowned night heron (that one was a bitch to indentify),
speckled pigeons,
laughing doves (well, heard more than saw; that was the first ever species i was able to positively identify by call alone),
pied kingfishers,
LOADS of guineafowl (look at that animal and try to claim it has any other reason for living than being food for other things. I mean, it's all meat and NO BRAIN to speak of!),
a flock of cape canaries,
several nesting pairs of greater striped swallows (who LOVE to nest under the eaves of cricket clubhouses, which are ideally situated next to cricket pitches, which are ideal for catching lunch of the 6-legged flying variety),
barn swallows (if there are barn swallows, are there barn spits as well?),
a sunbird that i can't find a picture of,
african darters (which are fun because they swim with their bodies below water with only their necks sticking up, so they look like little Loch Ness Monsters),
ostriches (though i saw these more on restaurant menus than anywhere else, and they are delishous!)
and most importantly, PENGUINS!!!

The birding kept me well occupied, and i spent most of the trip with my binos around my neck. even so, i had probably a dozen sightings of things that i was unable to identify. maddening.

i'll put up some of my own photos of the penguins next week. more to come!

Leavin' on a jet plane

Pirate and I are off to Sith Efrica! Pirate, being the international cricket star that he is, is going on a 2 1/2 week tour of South Africa to play cricket, and I'm going with him! I was up until 3 a.m. this morning packing so that I'd be ready to go right after work today. (All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...)

The latest wedding disaster is that all the Save the Date cards that I put in a bundle and mailed to mom vial Royal Mail Air Sure (supposedly trackable all the way to it's final destination), have gone completely missing. Gone. All of them.

So now ALL the STD cards that were meant to go to the American guests (and the numerous other friends and family mom has decided need to be invited, despite the fact that I have never met some of them) have to be redone. But of course I'm leaving. So all the spare stationery has been put in the post to mom and all the files have been emailed to her in a million different formats so she's got no excuse. She'll have to deal with.

And she's fucking thrilled! Because now she gets to do something without any input from me AND she gets to be the hero who saved the day, thereby justifying all her meddling. Now all I'm going to hear for the next 7 months (hell, probably the next 70 years) is, "What on earth would you have done without me! You never could have carried this off if I hadn't been there for you! Aren't you glad now that I was so willing to help you??" So much for telling her to back off. Fart.

But I don't care. (Not at the moment, anyway. I'm sure when I get back in March I'll care very much.) But tomorrow is another day and all that jazz. For now, I'm going to think about arriving someplace warm and sunny with the Pirate at my side. (When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring...) There will be crickets, wickets, penguins, sandy beaches, birdwatching, hiking, and sweet sweet lurve. Oh God get me out of here.

I don't know how much internet access I'll have while I'm gone, and even if I do, frankly, I won't be using it. I need to unplug for a while.

So come back in March and I'll show you all some lovely photos and tell you about the penguins.

In the Burgh of Edin, day 1

It's time for the vacation update!!! [in Kermit the frog voice] YAAAAY!!! *waves arms in air*


We left the Preston area on Sunday August 5th and drove north. I would have liked to have gotten an earlier start, but Mrs. Pirate had made a huge sunday dinner/lunch thing with lamb and the works, so we couldn't skive off early.

The drive up was lovely: up the M6 for a couple hours, hang a right onto the A702, and voila! Edinburgh. I like driving the M6 on the norhtern stretch. It's always grey and rainy, and the moors and hills are bleak and lonely little whisps of mist and fog hang about here and there and never seem so go away completely. Pirate's been reading "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet, so to pass the time I read to him from the book while he drove. There was cricket on the radio, but the reception was shitty at the best of times, so we gave up on that.

Turning onto the A702 was a surprise. This is the major route to Edinburgh from the southward direction, and it was a 2-lane (one each way) undivided country road, twisting and winding through tiny villages and hamlet. It was grey and drippy and I was enchanted and was hypnotized by the windshield wipers and enchanted by the surroundings.

We found our B&B with little difficulty, and a pleasant French girl showed us to our room. I had been told beforehand that it was small. Small, in this case, meaning the double bed takes up fully HALF of the total sqare footage of the room. I've seen bigger prison cells.

The bathroom was down the hall, but we had it all to ourselves, and it had a FANTASTIC shower, which was a treat. (The shower in my room here is warm on a good day, and doesn't so much spray as pee.)

It was almost 6 pm by that point, and on a Sunday nothing is open at that hour, so it's a bit of a stupid time to arrive someplace, but we decided to wander in to town (about 1 1/2 miles) and see what there was to see. What there was to see, was this:

It's the Fringe, baby!

Neither of us had ANY idea we were arriving on the opening weekend of the famed Fringe Festival. It never factored in to our travel plans. I had only heard of the thing once, from a chinese student in my building telling me about it during a trip in the elevator. We selected the timing of our holiday based on when Pirate could get time off work, and I selected the location based on
a. I'd never been to Scotland
b. my brother said it was awesome and I should go
c. Sal made it look pretty cool in his blog
d. It was a convenient distance from our setting-off point
e. I know a few people there, notably Hendrix Cat and a good mate of mine from the boat club

As we walked along toward town, a man handed us a flyer. It said "One night only: Norman Lovatt reads the phone book!"
?
Normally I don't look at flyers but, being a Red Dwarf fan, the name Norman Lovatt caught the Pirate's eye. The man said he was giving away free tickets. We didn't have anything to do, so we took them. And that was how the whole thing started.

The Fringe Festival, for those of you who don't know, is a crazy cultural festival of performing arts that takes place every August in Edinburgh. It's manic. Every square inch of usable space in the city is turned into a performace venue. We saw shows in attics, in the Grand Masons' Lodge of Scotland, in a low stone-vaulted crevice under a road, in a giant upside-down purple cow (called The Udderbelly, not to be confused with The Underbelly -- that's something else entirely). We stumbled into the main Fringe info office on the Royal Mile (which Pirate referred to as "Fringe Central." Think about it for a second. There ya go.), elbowing our way through the crowds and stopping to watch a few of the myriad street performers and living statues along the way. At the Fringe info office we got a schedule of events and sat down in a pub to examine it. We were stunned.

Even Pirate had no idea the scale of the thing. The program of events is a magazine of over a hundred pages, and it's all scheduling. There are over 250 venues, with something going on in each of them from midmorning to well after midnight all day long for a month. Pirate took a pen out of my purse and we dove into the comedy section. Within minutes we had lined up a schedule for ourselves for the next three days. We then ran to the box office to get ourselves tickets.

The major advantage to going on the first weekend is the reduced ticket prices. Most shows are offering "preview" rates or 2-for-1 discounts to get butts in the seats early and spread the word. So we got tons of tickets. Hey, why not? We never did manage to see Edinburgh Castle, but that will still be there later. And I got meet Marcus Brigstocke!!! But that happened later. Right after I got locked in the portaloo with 7 other women by the giant, dead, purple cow.*

After hearing Norman Lovatt read the phone book (which was funny in one of those wierd, awkward ways were people laugh more out of nervousness than humor) and stuffing some chips in our faces we sprinted over to where some unknown guy was giving a standup called "Why All Daily Mail Writers Must DIE." We just couldn't resist the title. The show was hilarious, although it got a bit preachy toward the end. We were sitting in the front row and, being a Yank, i got riddiculed quite a bit (not for the last time that week, I might add). It was all in good fun, and by the end of the show my sides were actually aching (also, not for the last time that week).

We wandered back to the B&B and collapsed into bed.

The end of day 1.


*At the Fringe, exciting things happen even to boring, normal people like me. They just doo.

Planes, trains, and automobiles

owing to a large band of german ruffians smoking hash and partying til 5:30 this morning in the hall outside my room of the hostel (located tastefully in the heart of amsterdam's red light district), i got exactly 0 hours sleep last night. add to that a train to the airport, a flight to liverpool, a bus to lime st. station, a train to manchester, and a bus to chorlton, and i'm too knackered to even consider blogging. rest assured that when i have the energy (proably later this week when i'm safely back in the us of a being fed home made pie by my gourmet mom), i will convey all the gorey details of my 3 weeks in europe. neither as poignent (screw the spelling) nor as funny as my best friend's wedding, parts 1-3, it should be an entertaining read nonetheless. stay tuned.

things i´ve learned in my travels

1. the world is a very small place, and

2. though people are basically the same everywhere you go, cultural stereotypes have origins.

3. no amount of lying about on a mediterranean beach can erase an entire summer´s worth of lycra-lines in a weekend. crap.

4. gezpacho and beer is the best meal ever conceived by humankind.

Karma

bit of a funny story (well, the story´s funny enough, but my telling of it may suck, so don´t get your hopes up).

i´m walking down a mountain in italy. coming up the trail are a couple of tourists. i say "buon giorno" in a passable italian accent. the tourists reply "bon jerno." americans. i roll my eyes discreetly, and they proceed to pull out a phrase book and attempt to ask me all kinds of questions, like how far is the castle, how long will it take to get there, etc... i decide to have a bit of fun and play dumb. i tell them in italian that i don´t understand, and let them sweat it out for a few more moments, bumbling along in phrasebookese. i then proceed to make up a bunch of fake italian-sounding crap, smile, and continue down the trail, almost falling off a cliff from laughing so hard. really, they were like National Lampoon´s Eruopean Vacation incarnate; it was hilarious.

Which i why i totally deserved exactly what i got from the french waiter.

on my last afternoon in arles i had time to kill, having been chucked out of my hostel at 10 am, but my train didn´t leave until 4. not wanting to spend the day walking around with 3 weeks worth of baggage on my back, around i went and found a pleasant cafe´overlooking the old roman arena (which seats 20K and is so well preserved it´s still in use for bullfights) and took a seat at a table outside in the shade. i flagged the waiter ("Garcon!"), and ordered a glass of red wine, all in gramatically correct but very poorly uttered french. there was a bit of confusion, because that particular cafe´ it seems doesn´t normally serve wine by the glass. the smallest unit on the menu was half a carafe, which was too much for me. after some more bad french and a lot of gesticulating, i got them to bring me a glass of wine. i spent an hour there, enjoying my bordeaux, writing in my journal, and admiring the scenery. an old man passing by stopped and smiled at me for several seconds and winked. when i had finished my drink, i asked my waiter for the bill, which he brought. when i had paid it he smiled at me and said in perfect english, "thank you madam. have a pleasant afternoon." Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Oh, well. I deserved it. And it was funny.

mustve been the wine

i just realized that i never explained the title of last blog entry, ¨romantic tongue.¨ i guess i had more wine than i realized. it´s french, it´s cheap, it´s good. what do you want from me anyway? (for those of you who remember my last fore´into french wine, let me assure you this was nowhere near that bad.) anyway, the title. while in firenze i met a nice guy from san diego named kirk. we met while admiring david, then had lunch, then spent the afternoon together, then had dinner. so basically, a nine-hour date. (how good is my life?) over dinner, we mused over our particular difficulties with italian. i quipped that by the end of my trip, having attempted to communicate in italian, french, and castillian spanish, i would have a very romantic tongue (those of you unfortunate enough to know me personally are not surpised by such pathetic double entrendre). kirk, being on his flirtatious toes, replies "that´s great. the question is, to what will you apply it?¨ i love a good flirt.

i´m rather wishing at this point that i had stayed in france longer. despite the obnoxious keyboards, it´s a beautiful country. i spent my second day at a bird sanctuary on a salt marsh near the rhone river delta, where i saw over 30 sps. of birds in 2 hours. the weather was perfect, the company was perfect (i was again on my own), and it was the most restful afternoon of my vactaion. no museums, no mopeds, no tacky tourist shops. just me and the birds. and the horse. i also spent a few hours on the back of a stunning white andalusian gelding. the best way to see a county, i´m convinced, is from the back of a horse. i´ve only been riding a few times, but he had the most relaxed gallop of any horse i´ve ridden, and the two of us just rode off into the sunset, fording shallow rivers and chasing flocks of flamingoes like a toddler scaring pigeons. god, it was great. words can´t describe.

so now i´m in barcelona. by sheer coincidence, i happened to arrive on the first day of a 4-day festival commemerating the end of summer. it´s the 2nd biggest festival of the year (the first being easter). there are market stalls and street performers everywhere, and all over the city there will be free concerts in the evening. i spent the morning wandering the old medieval quarter (yeah, there´s a surprise), and the afternoon at the beach reading a jane austen novel (see previous entry Damn you, Jane Austin) and soaking up the sun. i´ve been doing a lot of soaking lately. i seem to travel osmotially. my last afternoon in france consisted of sitting in the public garden where Van Gogh often painted, eating cheese and bread and the best grapes of my life, and reading the history of the cod fish. (yes, the cod fish. don´t laugh, it´s a good book.)

obviously this is only a thumbnail of my travels. i wish i had time to describe the prehistorically uncivilized french public toilets (ironic, coming from a culture that claims to be the most civilized in the world), or relate the story of my japanese roommate who told me that i was a good daugher for honoring my father´s quest for mustard, but there´s a lot more barcelona out there waiting for me, and i´m not going to waste any more time in an internet cafe´surrounded by american backpackers and listening to billy joel. you may not have a life, but damnit i do. adios!

romantic tongue

disclaimer: please forgive the attrocious spelling and punctuation: french keyboards are even nuttier than the italian variety

pisa; in case you were wondering; is a one-horse town: if you ever go there; for the love of god dont go on a sunday: these people keep the sabbath; and after youve gone to the tower and gotten another tourist to take a photo of you in a stupid pose intended to give the impression that you are knocking the thing over; there is nothing and i mean nothing left to do: so you spend 6 glorious hours sitting in the sun on the lawn with the rest of the tourists scatching your butt and wondering what to do next because EVERYTHING is closed:

then you hop a train to arles in the south of france; and you marvel at the morning glories growing by the train tracks that are so blue you think you have the mediteranean on both sides of you: then you arrive in arles; spend a few minutes being slightly annoyed that its much more touristy than youd hoped; but then you get over it and stop caring because you are in one of the most beautiful places god ever created on earth; magically preserved by our good buddy vincent:

then you eat a fabulous french dinner; drink too much wine; and attempt to blog the experience on a keyboard where the a; q; w; m; and all forms of punctuation are in the wrong place:

ps; how do you pick an italian man out of a crowd? easy: good shoes; bad shirt; tight pants:

peronal to HBM: glad the dry spells over:

Two Wankers of Verona

Im blogging this from an internet café in Firenze (thats Florence for all you ingnorami), which is a marvelous union of incongruity. The computers are brand new with flat screen LCD monitors and all the trimmings, and the room dates from about the 14th century, complete with marlble columns, romanesque arched cielings, and slate floors. good stuff. (please forgive the random punctuation... the italian keyboards take some getting used to.)

i arrived here this afternoon from Rival del Garda, a charming (ie, fake) tourist town on the nothern tip of Lago del Garda, a gorgeous alpine lake in the Dolomites near the Austrian border. The water was milky green. I spent a lovely 2 days jogging along the lakeshore, hiking the hillsides outside of the town, window shopping for stunning italian leather items i will never be able to afford (though i think jacob might snag that black and oxblood purse for me and stash it somewhere til xmas. i hope.), and making nice to my brothers new fiancé. he popped the big one my second night there. well, it was inevitable. he told us he was going to do it, but we all saw it coming anyway. i dont hate her. he really could have done worse, but he could have done better too.

anyway, 2 days was about all i could have handled of riva del garda, so im glad to be gone. i arrived after having my luggage stolen by a bus driver in verona, where i didnt need to be in the first place becuase some other idiot gave me bad directions. ergo, it took me 22.5 hours to get from manchester to a resort in northern italy. i couldve rowed here faster, and had more fun in the process.

the train ride down to firenze was lovely. i was glad to get out of the mountains, which make me claustrophobic. we passed vineyards heavy with grapes, and olive trees just starting to ripen. all over tuscany there are odd little abandoned castles stuck into the hillside. not the big imposing castles of enland and wales. these are just one small tower and paltry curtain wall, looking out over the countryside with centuries-blind eyes. i love travelling alone; i love going where i want to go and when, but when the sights get good i always pine for a friend to share the experience.

im staying in a dingy hostel in a seedy area (dont tell my mom), but i love it. the guy who runs it has been hitting on me since i arrived (he looks about 30 and i could do a lot worse), and is doing everything in his power to make my stay comfy. i love being in a residential area. i love seeing the city as the florentines see it, sans tourists. rival del garda was created for tourists. its like walking around the set of a movie set in a quaint italian village. its too cute to be believable. firenze is the real deal. theres garbage in the streets, hookers on the corner (no wonder the italian blokes are hitting on me), and destitute art students everywhere. its gonna be hard to leave, i can tell already.