Peng and Prague

In ten days of solo travel, I ended up spending one alone. It took me a beer and a half to make friends with an Irishman and a Swiss kid who’d been living in Bratislava and two more beers after that to meet two Kiwi girls. I hung out with them in Vienna (think lots of beer, opera and Christmas lights) and ended up meeting another Kiwi who was on his way to Poland. Talk about a surprising way to end up taking a trip to someplace very depressing. But, I’m glad I went. Despite being quite grey, and the sun setting at 3:30 in the afternoon, Krakow was quite pretty.
I met Hanying Peng on an overnight train from Krakow to Prague, but the knowledge of her existence came earlier. I’d met a girl from Sacramento while touring a 700 year-old salt mine, and during the only conversation I had with an American that lasted longer than 95 seconds, she informed me about Peng and her fear of night trains. I told her to have her look for me (red coat, green glasses, long hair) and then promptly forgot about it entirely. That is until Peng (and some Japanese girl wearing a surgical mask to “protect her throat”) ended up in the same sleeping car on my train, on her way to stay in the same hostel. This is how solo hostel travel seems to work. You meet someone that you get along with reasonably well, and then you end up paling around with them for a day or two. Sometimes, you end up going to Krakow instead of Budapest because “hey, they’re having a transportation strike there anyway.”
Peng and I arrived in the morning, so after dropping off our bags, we spent much of the day wandering around Christmas markets, reading the map upside down and drinking beer and eating sausages. We talked about our countries, our lives. She’s been studying in Sweden, one of only a few English-speaking studying programs that doesn’t require the TOEFL, an expensive test that certifies that you do in fact speak English. I explained why everything in the Jewish Quarter was closed because it was Saturday and she explained why no, she didn’t have any brothers and sisters and the idiocy of banning Wikipedia and then allowing people to travel outside the country.
Prague was simply beautiful, the more so with Peng and her picture taking. She was the harbinger of some pretty ridiculous situations. While waiting for her outside a once brothel/cabaret now hotel, I somehow ended up in a circle of Czech guys, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and stumbling about with their limited English. When Peng finally showed up, we left our rag-tag group of Czech university students and found ourselves in a 14th century cellar, sitting at wooden tables, listening to a jazz/blues band. Man, that girl could sing.
I spent my last day of travel back in Vienna, being disappointed by the Jewish museum, lamenting the cold weather, and wishing I could live there.

Krakow

Prague

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.

In Search of More Students

I have finally found another student. His name is José Luis, and at 70-something, he seems to be a man of many trades. Well dressed and with a calm walk, he is a retired French teacher, but life seems to have brought him in many directions, once living in Morocco for many years and now managing a couple apartment buildings he owns in the city center. We do our lessons in one where he has an office. The building is being renovated, but it’s breathtaking, with an Arab-style courtyard and gilded columns. The office itself has high ceilings and, as he informed me, the original marble from when the building was built in the 1860s. He’s one of those older men who feel the need to tell a young woman like myself how things are. He’s going to save me the trouble of making life’s little mistakes by alerting me to potential pitfalls. I manage to find older men like this everywhere, in cafés, on airplanes, in hotel lobbies.
His level is actually fairly good, yet I’ve been informed several times that it is my thicker-than-usual American accent that is presenting problems. I was unaware of my Southern California drawl. In all honesty, this man entertains me endlessly. During our second lesson, I showed him a picture of an actress as a way to introduce a listening comprehension that was about a movie. I asked if he recognized her or knew who she was.
“I don’t know. Women are all the same to me.”
There must have been some mistake because this could not possibly be what he meant to say. So, I had him explain what he intended to relate. Nope, no dice. He knew what he said. We’re all the same.
“José Luis, are you married?” Here was my mouth, off and running as usual, politic or not.
“Yes. No. I was, but we made the divorce. But, I have been with many women after that. But, they were all the same, jealous, posesivas? Is this the word?”
“The word is possessive. José Luis, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it is not all the women who are the same, but you that is the same with all of them?” This solicited a laugh.
“Yes, this one I have heard before. You are all the same.”
“Do you know this word? Misogynist? Have you heard it before?” Another laugh. Thank goodness because it meant I still had a job. Apparently, he had heard that word before. But, he’s well intentioned, and like all older men who are trying to save me the trouble, he reminded me of my Grandfather.

Banana Bread and Joshua Redman

The rest of my weekend was a somewhat mellower affair. Friday, I was home by 11 and Saturday, by 1. A few girls here run something called Pachange. It’s a language exchange group that meets every other Saturday night. They do their best to set you up with whatever language you’re looking for. They found me a Spaniard that had lived in France, so for an hour we spoke English and for an hour French. Unfortunately, by the end of the second hour, my patience for this guy was about done. He had brought along a friend with him who spoke neither English nor French. This meant translating much of any conversation we had back into Spanish, and after about an hour of sitting through my inability to hide how peeved I was, his friend finally left. The upside of it all is that I did get to speak French, and I ran into some of my students, one of whom I strong-armed into taking me around the plaza on his motorcycle.
I also met my roommate’s seven year old sister. Word of warning, if you are learning another language and have trouble understanding young children, do not be discouraged. This little girl talked a mile minute, said everything that popped into her head and wanted to touch everything. Honestly, she reminded me of me. We all made banana bread together (likely a mistake as Rafa and I finished the whole thing in under two days), and I let her play video games on my computer as a sort of respite. You’re never more protective of your computer than when it’s in the hands of a seven year old.
There’s a sort of a small jazz fest going on this week at the Teatro Cervantes. The theater is an old one, with three balconies, boxes, and rows or powder blue seats that finally end in the rafter section, which is just brown benches. It’s a beautiful theater with a fresco on the ceiling and fake gold garlands adorning each balcony, and, even without knowing how old it was, I spent part of the concert inventing grand stories of intrigue that had taken place there. I went to see Joshua Redman play, a saxophonist from New York. He was amazing, made me see why Julio Cortázar used to talk about jazz music and boxing together. Redman was frankly athletic, moving about, music trying to escape from him everywhere, not just his hands and his horn, but his feet too. His trio (sax, drums, bass) played for an hour and a half or more, and by the end I was exhausted even if they weren’t. The sight of live music, as seen from above. I always forget what a thrill it is to see people possessed by their art.
Anyway, hopefully pictures to come soon, as I have finally bought a camera.

A Typical Thursday Night?

Means Friday morning with a well-earned hangover. But, the night was worth the repeated thudding realizations that no, there’s no jackhammer between your ears and that if you stand up, there’s only a 50/50 chance you’ll actually throw up. Last night, after a new route home from work turned a 12-minute walk into a 40-minute one (turns out, most European cities, not arranged in grid patterns), I opted for dinner with my friends over the gym. While we have not yet acclimated to the schedule, I think my American friends and I are getting a knack for the Spanish style meal, the one in which two and a half hours evaporate into bread, wine bottles, and laughing at toothless, singing buskers.
Indecision and epically good mojitos brought us to a youth hostel close to Plaza de la Merced. Fabio is Brazilian, and if you give him six minutes, mint and a lot of sugar, the night is sure to evolve (devolve?) into a sweet, rummy blur. But, this isn’t what kept us there. In the hostel bar, a jam session was brewing, and the cast of characters I met is possibly my favorite part. The rotating band consisted of two guys playing guitars, a Frenchman, Jerome, who’d grown up in Algeria, and a German, Waldo, who assured me that he did know where he was and no, he didn’t own any striped clothing or wear glasses. Later, while discussing our new president elect, Waldo forgave me for being just one more person to exhaust that joke. Two Nordic guys kept switching off playing a jambeau, Petes, a Norwegian who explained why the rose tattoo on his neck had special significance and truly believed in the personal touch of the LOVE and HATE on his knuckles, and a Swede, who was my age but frankly looked like someone had stretched a 15-year-old and put a Peruvian shirt on him. Occasionally, Marisol from Colombia would overcome her shyness and play. And then there was me, singing, in a smoke filled room, in front of people that could actually hear me. Towards the end of the night, Waldo asked if I knew “Summertime,” and despite the clinking of glasses and the hum of talk in at least three different languages, I very nearly silenced the room for two and a half minutes. It was one of the greatest moments of my life, given to me by people from at least nine different countries. In all honesty, that’s what made it better, a group of happy, supportive strangers, from all over the world.
The strange hitch is that most of the lovely people I met in the travelers’ hostel actually live in Málaga. Perhaps they had stayed there when they arrived, but now it had become a home for hanging out, for finding odd friends, for playing guitar and staying up late.