Métro Acrobatic

There are several ways to avoid paying for the Paris Metro. Leaving the airport, you can usually walk through the open portion of the gate into the RER. During rush hour, if the Controllers are watching, you can crawl under the turnstile while your friend holds the second door open with her foot. The problem with this one is that when you need to get out of the Metro upon arriving at your destination, you need to ask a stranger to do this illegal door holding for you. When no one’s around, you can go over the turnstile. This one usual results badly for me as I usually underestimate the protrusion of my butt and loudly hit the turnstile with it. And, my personal favorite, squeezing in directly behind someone else. This is always best achieved if that someone else is a small Asian woman you don’t know.
Paris was wonderful. I drank too much wine and ate snails during my “research” for my mother’s 60th birthday. (As a side note, snails, for those of you who have never eaten them, are actually quite good and no where near as strange as you may think. They are basically a glorified excuse to invent more utensils and eat garlic and butter). I confused the word “come” for the word “cum” in a very public setting. I ate more cheese and more croissants than I could ever imagine embarking on again in one sitting. I wandered around the Marais, which translates to swamp and is Paris’s West Hollywood. It’s the historical Jewish quarter now boasting a healthy combo of Orthodox Jews and flaming homosexuals. Best of all, I got to spend some time with two girls who I met at the very end of school, the kind where you meet them in April and say, “where have you been for the last three years?” I stayed with my friend Liz. We walked and talked until we fairly couldn’t move our feet or mouths anymore. My friend Alex showed me I was out of my depth during an afternoon of window-shopping. Alex is the recipient of a certain modern phenomenon that I am quite jealous of, a healthy dose of two cultures. Half-French, half-American she glides seamlessly between continents and languages. She can marvel at each one from within and without because her teen years were spent in the US, France and Asia.
My last day in Paris, I went with my friend Lucy to her weekly group, the Hash House Harriers. HHH was started just after WWII in Kuala Lumpur by a group of British ex-pats who decided to combine their run with some beer. The group is now all over the world. Usually comprised of a mix of locals and ex-pats from all over, it is known as a drinking club with a running problem. I accompanied one of the Paris chapters as they ran (I walked, having no sneakers and no desire to run) through the woods around Versailles and stopped at various appointed places for a beverage break. Most of us were drunk and freezing by three in the afternoon.
Now, I’m off again. Having been home for almost a week, I figured it’s time for another trip. Off to Vienna, for ten solo days of beer, sausage, and snow.

Sounds Good If You’re into That Whole Shoving Pieces of Metal into Your Face Thing

Spanish style includes quite a few things that I would consider fashion faux-pas in the US. While generally I enjoy much of the fashion here (God knows I can’t live without an awesome pair of boots) among my favorite less enjoyable trends, I would include wearing the same clothes three or four days in a row, the rattail and the Euro-mullet. A Euro-mullet is business in the front, Bob Marley in the back. If you don’t like white people with dreads, trust me, Spaniards sporting rastas behind a crew cut is far more unpleasant.
There is one more trend that gives me the heebie-jeebies: the micro-dermal piercing. Spaniards pierce everything, eyebrows, lips, chins, septum, nostrils, bellies (not belly button, this one just goes across the bottom), any piece of flesh you can gather up and hang an ornament on. The micro-dermal piercing is just a stud. It goes in but doesn’t come out the other side. Why not eh? Although, it’s not quite the same as your run of the mill cartilage piercing. When you want it out, the occasion calls for a scalpel. But, when in Rome...
My friend Vanessa wanted one, and she wanted me to watch so that I could describe the process to her later. The short version is: they put a hole in your face, or between your eyes or your breasts or wherever you want it, and then hook this little puppy in. Your skin heals around it. José Antonio, our beloved piercer by night, pain physician by day, dropped and re-sterilized that sucker several times, but he eventual shoved it in there. Perhaps he was having trouble seeing because of the cataracts in one eye. I’m shocked to say that insofar as it is a mysterious piece of metal in one’s face, it actually looks pretty good on V. Don't worry Dad, I'm not getting one. Honestly, I’m even more shocked I didn’t pass out while she was having it done.


From the Costa del Sol and my spot in front of my roommate's space heater, that's all for now.

Thanksgiving in Malaga

(Me, Kate and Rafa)

I’ve been desperately errant in my blogging. Kate was here for a week, so thankfully I was not entirely without family for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday; everyone’s nice to each other, the food is good, my Dad stops working for an entire afternoon, and in my experience, if it’s not nice, it’s at least not boring.
Kate and I ran around like mad. The day after she got here, we went to Sevilla, which for some reason was hosting several marching bands and a comic book convention in the same weekend. The “hard” Spaniards (read: Spaniards with Euro-jeans and mullets of ranging varieties) shouted at the kids from the convention in the streets, calling them “freakies.” These boys with the feathers in their hair are the pride and joy of their families.

After Sevilla came two days of teaching and windy touring in Málaga. Kate and I nearly got blown off the top of the Castillo de Gibralfaro as 40 mph winds knocked at the walls and swung the cypress trees of the old Moorish castle. Wednesday, we were off again to Granada. I love this city, the Alhambra, the wide streets. But, Kate, who was now working on her third illness since arriving in Spain, could probably have done without the cold. She managed in true little trooper fashion, but I gave in and bought a coat. Thanksgiving dinner, as we had just arrived back from Granada, consisted of a bowl of cereal and half a box of See’s Candies. But, Friday brought a trip to the Baños Arabes, an overpriced indulgence that reminded me of my mother, Joanie, as I affectionately call her and that she, thanks to years of training as a psychologist, affectionately tolerates. The Baños consisted of three marble rooms, respectively 40, 35 and 30 degrees Celsius, where you sit and sweat with your friends and neighbors while using plastic, yellow bowls to pour water over your nearly naked body.
Saturday, Kate left. After much negotiation and discussion of what it meant to be “rude” or “brought up well,” I walked down the three flights of stairs at 5 in the morning to see Kate off in the rain. Now, I’m back to my old tricks for a while, reading, studying various languages, sleeping, teaching and watching tv illegally online. Thursday, I’m off to Paris. Joanie needs research done, and I’m happy to oblige.