five state tango

This is a travel blog, or was, and I don't seem to travel much anymore, but here's a little tidbit for you anyway!

Two months ago, almost three now, I moved down to Texas. Don't ask me why because I really don't know still. I needed a change. I had to get out of where I was. There are jobs here. Anyway.

I packed up almost everything I owned into my (very small) car and drove down through five states in about five or six days. I used the trip as an excuse to visit my friends that I hadn't seen since I came back from China. That was two years ago.

First stop was Los Angeles. I crashed at my friend's house for the night. We spent it watching A Very Potter Musical and then the next morning we made crepes with nutella and strawberries! It was delicious and reminded me of my senior year of college when I would make crepes all the time with my friend Nicole. Which was perfect timing given that the next night was spent in Phoenix with Nicole.

It's nice coming back to familiar places. I always thought that I would hate Phoenix for the rest of my life after going to high school there. But there's something nice about knowing where you're going, how to get places, which roads lead to what. It was pleasant to be back in Phoenix, even if I was in Glendale, an area I'm not terribly familiar with.

We hung out in the pool and then went to see the Hunger Games (my third time, Nicole's first). The next morning, I packed up and headed out, straight to...

Albuquerque to visit my friend Caty and her husband Adam. I still find it weird that so many of my friends are getting married. We mostly just hung out and I broke out the colossal Europe photo album (It is twice the size of China's despite the fact that I was in China for a longer amount of time). I also introduced her to Starkid and the genius that is Holy Musical B@man.

But alas the fun couldn't last and it was off to Texas for me.

So here I am three months later. I have a new pet! It's a rabbit, an American Fuzzy Lop which I mentioned a few entries ago. I bet you guys didn't think I'd actually get one, did you? I actually have 3, but only one is here with me in my apartment.

And I've been here 3 months and I'm already bored. I'm thinking about my next move... which I'm fairly sure has to do with writing. If I can double my monthly freelancing income, I could make it my full time job. I suppose that is my goal for the end of the year. Until then, I will go to work every day and figure out a way to make it happen. Until the next trip!

Munchin' in Munchen (Munich)

Continuing the late-posting of trips: Munich

For our little trip, we decided to go places none of us had been (although Mad had been to Munich before), but we thought, Germany? Awesome! And Munich? Even more awesome. Beer, pretzels, Bavaria. Could it get better?

We flew there since it was the same price as a train and would take about six hours less. Our first night, we saw the glockenspiel which is apparently the 2nd worst tourist attraction in Europe after the Astronomical Clock in Prague. It's the little dancing people around a clock that goes off three times a day - 11AM, 12PM, and 5PM. I don't know why five o'clock.

And where could we go on our first night in Germany but a beer hall?

There was delicious pretzels, sauerkraut (although I'm still not a big fan), potato dumplings (omg, I must learn how to make these), and crackle! We spent most of the three days we were there drinking different beers, eating pretzels, and wandering around downtown Munich. We also took a little jaunt out to the Olympic Park and saw the swimming pool which was pretty cool.

Munich is also well-known as the place that started it all - Hitler's ascent to power. He started in a beer hall which no longer exists, and ran his headquarters from Munich for a long time. All over Munich, there are subtle little reminders of the Nazis, erased but not totally erased. Like the little golden path down one side street that marks a form of Nazi resistance by the citizens.

A little outside the city lies Dachau, Germany's first and most important concentration camp. Walking in is surreal as it's surrounded by trees and twittering birds and you think to yourself, "this doesn't seem so bad," but then the guide points out that none of this was here back in the 30s and it was all desolate landscape. 

work sets you free

I suppose if you really want ambiance, go to Dachau on a rainy, dreary day. It was obnoxiously sunny and hot when we went. We drank away the sadness that night at Englisher Garten, a very large beer garden in a huge park.

Munich is also the birthplace of the Lesbian Jacket, which I don't feel the need to explain as it's sort of an inside joke and doesn't really make sense at all unless you were there. 

Munich was super cool and people drink at 9:30 in the morning. They're even worse than in France ;]

dancing the Viennese waltz

I've been so bad at updating since I got back to the states but I'm finally going to post about one of my trips: Vienna!

Vienna was in the middle of the whole trip so we'll skip the beginning and end for now and just pretend we dropped right into Vienna.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from Vienna, and there were several times where we thought that perhaps we should have done a touch more research before fumbling our way down there, but we were there and there was no excuse to do stuff.

During my whole two week sejour, the weather was beautifully sunny and at times, far too hot. This made Vienna an interesting place to be. I'd say there are about a hundred gardens in Vienna, and we spent a lot of time lazing around in them. There are also thousands of museums, but seeing as I'm not a big museum fan, it wasn't a big draw for me.

The city of Vienna is an interesting place. The city is rather large and spread out when you get down to it, but the center part is compact and mostly old palaces now converted in museums. The Hapsburgs were apparently a pretty big deal. It seems most of my history classes failed to mention them, though. Although, Marie-Antoinette was from Vienna (French connection! They're everywhere).

Vienna is also home to Austria's favorite composer(s): Strauss and Mozart, although Mozart is really from Salzburg, a story for another day. This basically means that there are statues of them around every corner. Strauss even has two while the original is under construction.

Vienna is also famous for coffee so we had to have a sit down in several cafes to try some. It also happened to be erdbeer season (aka strawberries) so I had this mountain of deliciousness:

Normally, I hate admitting that I'm a tourist, although I've gotten over this slightly in recent years (it's impossible to blend in in China, so you just have to give up), but I still like to draw the line somewhere. That line is usually those bus tours that you seem to find in every overly-touristy city. However, since I was not alone and we really had no idea what was in Vienna, I got talked into going. It was quite fun!

Notice our little foto-bomber driver in the background.

We saw all the major sights including a giant church in the middle of town, the Danube river which is blue but not as blue as the song leads you to believe, and lots of horse-drawn tourist carriages.

Highlights of Vienna:

1. The hot dog with cheese baked into the middle. Yummm.

2. European coca cola. So much better than others. Maybe because it comes in a glass bottle.

3. The crazy guy with a trumpet

4. Waiting five minutes for a segway tour to actually move so we could watch

5. Trying schnitzel finally and deciding it's totally not worth it

In conclusion! Vienna is cool but I think I prefer Munich. Perhaps I'll blog that next.

crazy trumpet guy.

closely watched trains

I was nine years old the first time I rode on a train. Granted, it was a mystery, dinner-theater train in which I had way too many Shirley Temples and me and my best friend at the time were bouncing off the walls, but it was my first train.

My first actual train would be nine years later in France. It was a TGV from Paris to Avignon and I remember almost nothing of the ride. Since then, I've taken many trains, mostly in France and China, and I've got to say I much prefer them to busses.

Of course, there have been some not-so-good trains.

Last year, my friend and I decided we absolutely must have Starbucks and pizza, which were only accessible after a four hour train ride to the biggest town in the province. We figured (since we'd been living in China for six months by then) that we were perfectly capable of just popping down to the train station on a Friday night and getting a ticket. You should note that not a single shop-keeper/train station worker/cashier in the entire town spoke a word of English beyond 'hello', pronounced 'hallow!" So we packed up a bag and hopped on the bus and rode downtown.

We got our tickets with our meager Chinese: "women yao chu Wuhan jintian." (we want to go to Wuhan today) From what the woman said (of which we understood none of the words), we got that there were no seats left and we'd be standing. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Only four hours. Not so bad, eh?

Wrong.

It was four hours of stinky, sweaty, cigarette smoke-drenched people stuffed like sardines in a can with the added bonus of the fruit cart ladies pushing their way through the inches of space left to breathe shouting, "Shui guo! pingwa! putao! xiang jiao!" Worst four hours of my life. But the Starbucks at the end was almost enough to make up for it. I have no pictures of this occasion but I honestly don't ever want to relive it.

Today, today was not that bad. The train ride was longer but not the longest I've ever had (which was 20 hours from Shanghai to Xiangfan last year. Don't recommend it. Take the high speed train if you can get it!). The stress of this ride came as we crossed the border from Slovenia to Hungary. Apparently in Eastern Europe, it's common for the train workers to change at each border which consequently means you'll have your ticket checked and stamped multiple times.

The train stopped several times for over twenty minutes at certain stops, and since they stopped announcing the stops after I left Slovenia, this didn't help. Now, when I bought my ticket from Ljubjiana yesterday, I asked the woman, "this is a direct train?" and she said yes. Well, at the second twenty minute stop, instead of continuing forward, we went backwards.

I don't know about you, but going backwards instead of forwards is slightly disconcerting and I began to worry that maybe I was supposed to have changed trains somewhere despite what the woman had said. It's happened to me before - when I went to Bruges on what was supposed to be a direct train, we had to change at some station in Belgium.

Time went by, though, and the train worker didn't come by so I couldn't ask. And just when I'd decided I was just going to let the train take me wherever it wanted, we started going back in another direction. At this point, I gave up. I have this habit of stressing over things I can't control and I just stopped. This train would take me wherever the hell it wanted and I would deal with it when I got there.

Luckily for me, all those switch-backs worked out the way they were supposed to and I arrived in Budapest on time and only mildly worse for the wear. Not the worst train ride I've ever been on but not the best either.

if you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious

I have an issue. I like to travel. I like seeing new places and learning new things. I like meeting new people I'll never see again and for one brief period of time sharing something with them. The time period is meant to be brief, though. 

I'm writing this entry not from a cafe or a cool little river-side bench or any of those picturesque locations that just evoke Europe in your mind and make you wish you were there, but I'm writing this entry from inside a hostel as two Spanish-speaking girls pack up their bags and probably prepare to leave tomorrow. I'm sitting on my little bed with its red sheets and dark blue lockers next to it, listening to the song I want playing when I die (or at the end of a particularly tragic movie), and wishing I was back in France.

i want something that i want

I really need to do the post about Dunkerque but honestly, all it would say is, "We went to the beach. It was ridiculously windy, and we spent six hours in a beach-side cafe drinking cocktails."

Yesterday was my last day at work and for the most part, I let kids ask questions. I mean, we did do some work but hey, who cares about work? Besides, questions are way more fun and let me practice my French.

Kid: How are you getting home?
Other Kid: a plane, duh!

Kid: Does America have the same money as us?

Kid: How long does it take to get from Southern California to Washington D.C?
That one I could actually answer seeing as I've driven it at least 6 times in my life. It takes 5 days if you stop at night, 3 days if you never stop.

Kid: How did you learn French?
Me: In school.
Kid: Oh! Like we learn English!

Kid: Where did you live this year?
Other kid: In America?
Teacher: No, of course not. That would be tiring to fly back every day.
Me: And expensive...

Kid: Do you have The Simpsons in America?
Me: ... Yeah, they're American.

Ah. And so my year in France comes to an end, too early for what I would have liked. Today I get to pack my suitcase and prepare for Monday when I leave for Germany. Germany! I'm so excited to finally get there. We're going to Munich so a trip to Dachau concentration camp will be had. I'm excited for that too. WWII is my favorite war to study (I'm a bit of a history nerd in case you hadn't gathered that over the course of this year). After Munich, we're heading to Salzburg (home to the Sound of Music tour and movie location and everything), then Vienna with hopefully sidetrips to Bratislava (in Slovakia) and Budapest (in Hungary). I'm going with two friends and this is where we'll part ways. They go back to France and I'm taking a little trip down to the former Yugoslavia. I'm definitely hitting up Croatia and Slovenia. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the Dalmatian coast in Croatia.

So there we have it. In less than a month I'll be back at home. In fact, I get in late on a Saturday, and you know what? The next day, Sunday, I'll be able to go to the store! And eat at restaurants! And shop! And do everything. All on a Sunday. AHHH. It will be glorious.

Finding Hogwarts

This past weekend, I set off to find Hogwarts. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am one of the biggest Harry Potter dorks ever. Just for future reference.

This past weekend, I hopped on a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland, the very place where Harry was born, nurtured, and where I’ve grown up with him all these years. I finally got to see the place I’ve only seen in my imagination for the past twelve years.

Oh. My imagination did not do it justice.

not with a fizzle, but with a bang

My life at work:

Me: *sits at computer*
Random person: Excusez-moi, est-ce que vous savez...
Me: Non.

The end is nigh! As you may have guessed from my outburst the other day, the CAF has finally come through and I have some money in the bank. My dad advised me to buy my plane ticket home ASAP as the gas prices are apparently about to shoot through the roof. So.

May 7th. That's the day I'll be back in the US. It seems so soon when you look at it. Less than two months away already. Oh boy. Where did the time go?

Before I go home, I would like to travel some, of course. I'll have about three weeks to travel before heading home. The only definite stop at the moment is Iceland. I'm flying out of Reykjavik (well, Paris to Reykjavik then home) but because of the flight times, if I flew straight from Paris, I'd only have one hour to go through security and all that junk in Iceland. So instead, I'm flying to Iceland a few days early, have a little time to see it, and then I'll be going home. 

I really don't know where I want to go. There are still so many places I haven't been. Too many options!

I am, however, going to Edinburgh in a few weeks! I decided to bite the bullet and spend the money. If I don't do it now, when will I? So I'm off in search of Hogwarts, and I have a friend who lives in Scotland that I might see if schedules permit. So, the end is coming, but I will leave with a bang. Only two months. Let's see how much trouble I can get into within that time.

gravity don't mean too much to me

My senior year of college, I had a dilemma. I was required, for my scholarship, to be a full-time student with twelve credit hours. The problem was that I only had one required class left to take and it was worth a whole one credit. This meant I had four classes to fill up, four classes I didn't need but would still have to pass in order to graduate. My sophomore year, I had taken Greek Mythology as a random class, so I thought I'd take something else along that line and ended up with History of Rome. I also took a gen-ed class called Eastern European Film in which we watched many movies and talked about communism and its affects on art.

This past week and a half, I relived my last semester of college.

let's ruin everything

Yesterday I found myself wondering if I really wanted to lug myself all the way down to Toulouse for a concert by a band I've seen twice already and met the guitarist too, but after hitting myself in the head for being an idiot (there was some confusion, all on my part, about the ticket), I am going. I don't know why I do this to myself.

Who am I going to see? My Chemical Romance. Some of you may scoff and roll your eyes, but you have clearly never heard Gerard Way talking. His voice, oh my God. If I could marry it, I would.

chungyeong university

Have I ever told you about the time I was lost in South Korea? No? Well, pull up a chair and grab some popcorn whilst I spin you a tale.

It was about this time one year ago - Spring Festival break had begun in China and I hopped on a plane - no, train - no, a train and then a plane... and then another plane and flew from middle-of-nowhere China to Soeul, South Korea.

Eet's clow-dee and cowld.

Biggest pet peeve for French people-learning-english: Putting Hs where they don't belong and taking them away when they're supposed to be there. No wonder the kids can't tell the difference between "ear" and "hair."

I was made fun of, or laughed at anyway, for reading Harry Potter by someone at work. I resent that. Harry Potter is a great book, and I was at least reading it in French, so that should somehow count in my favor?

Les soldes ont commencé. I bought a sweater at 50% off and I have plans to search for a bag once the prices dip even lower. I'm thinking when I go to Lille in a few weeks. I don't remember if I wrote this already, but I'm going to Cologne, Germany in a few weeks, just for the weekend. I have yet to convince anyone to come with me, but c'est pas grave - that's how my life goes. Tant pis.

On a parting note, today, a French person asked my why I bothered learning French. And people say the French are rude and highstrung. Obviously they've never been here.

don't ever let them fuck with your dreams

Remember that maybe possibility of Amsterdam after Prague and Rome in February? Well, that's been scrapped and replaced with Toulouse and a My Chemical Romance concert!

With the concert ticket, it's about the same price as going to Amsterdam would have been anyway. I was debating for a while since I have seen MCR twice already, the last time being in 2008 on their "small venues" tour when they stopped in Tucson and I got to meet Frankie after the show.  But I haven't seen them in France and they have a new album and on the plus side, I was thinking of going to Toulouse anyway, so this is just one more reason to do it.

So there. The fully-formed (and paid for except for hostels)itinerary is as follows:

February 22: train to Paris, plane from Paris to Prague
February 26: plane from Prague to Rome
March 2: plane from Rome to Paris, train from Paris to Toulouse
March 4: train from Toulouse to Paris, train from Paris home

I will probably hate myself once this is over, if last years big vacation wasn't enough to teach me that. I've given myself plenty of leeway between the trains and the planes (6 hours should be enough, right?) in case anything goes wrong. Last year my flight was two hours late due to ice. Ugh.

But! I am SO EXCITE and I'm sure it will be fun.

may all your Christmases be white

What I wouldn't give to be sitting in my parents' living room watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated 1960s version only) with a bowl of homemade chex mix right now. It's not that I'm homesick or missing home particularly, it's just that it's Christmas time and this is the second year I've gone without the comforts of home. I have all my favorite Christmas TV shows downloaded onto my computer (Mickey's Christmas Carol, the Grinch, the Santa Clause, etc) but it's not quite the same. Maybe next year I'll finally be able to start Christmas traditions over again.

On Friday, I headed off to Brugge (aka Bruges/Bruge) in Belgium for the ice sculpture festival. It was cold and they made us change trains? I just followed the other French people who were changing trains and nothing particularly bad or interesting happened.

Brugge is a quaint little town about 2 hours from where I live by train, probably extremely touristy in the spring and summertime. But this is winter so it's appeal was brought down a little by the grey, murky clouds and nipping chill at your fingertips. But it was cute and with a little editing, my pictures look very nice.

The actual Ice Scuplture festival was interesting. The theme was "Around the World" which basically means that the sculpture were all of landmarks, for instance America had the statue of Liberty, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. France had the Arc de Triumphe, etc. The sculptures themselves were really cool, but I wish it had been a different theme seeing as I've already seen a lot of those in real life - the arc, the great wall of china, xi'an terracotta warriors, Japanese temples, Big Ben, etc.

But! There was an ice slide. The Great Wall of China was made into an ice slide that you could slide down, and of course I had to do it, whether or not I would look like an idiot doing it alone. But hey, such is the life of a lonesome traveler. I've learned to deal with it, and I still don't understand why some people just won't travel alone.

Christmas break is coming up in less than a week and I have absolutely no plans aside from eating too much chocolate. I guess what they say about New Year's is exactly right: where you start, you will end. Last year I spent New Years Eve watching Pride & Prejudice with Jesse and Lucy and trying to figure out Chinese monopoly. I remember eating McDonalds after unsatisfactory "Coffee Bar" food. If you ever go to China, do not eat at "coffee bars." Food is much better in the random, hole-in-the-wall places, cheaper too. Of course, that New Years was made up by the fact that I went to Beijing the next week. Maybe I'll go to Athens in January... There's a flight special! ;] I'm having far too much fun today planning out Christmas videos to show one of my classes. I'm thinking Pluto's Christmas Tree and Animals Singing Deck the Halls. :]

A Parisian Snow Day

Yesterday I ventured forth from the cozy (yet very cold) sanctity of my little town. I left Bill, my little snowbird I made a few days ago, perched on my windowsill and bundled up in entirely too many layers (did I say too many? I meant not enough), and headed off to Paris!

Bill says, "Tweet! It's cold."

Of course, I've been to Paris three times before so it's definitely not as special as it once was. But I was meeting a friend (who had never been) so I had the advantage, not to mention he can't speak a word of French.

We started at the Place de la Concorde and strolled up towards the Champs Elysee, through the Christmas market which is surprisingly similar to Arras' Christmas market. I'm starting to believe my referent that they're all the same. Halfway up, it started snowing. "Snow? In Paris?" you think, "that sounds awesome!" Well, not really. It immediately turns into slush as it hits the ground and at some point it turned from snow to snow/hail and took vicious pleasure in hitting you in the face.

Although, once we got to the Eiffel Tower (because somehow, you always end up there no matter what), it was back to thick flakes that made things seem a little bit more magical despite the freezing cold and the annoying African guys shaking their hangers full of crappy Eiffel Tower souvenirs.

We started out on the Palais Chaillot side and then wandered down over the bridge and underneath and over to the Ecole Militaire side where we proceeded to have an oddly-thrown snowball fight. Lastly, before escaping to warmth, we made a stop at Gerard Mulot, Paris' best pastry shop. I wish I could buy everything in it, however, I wish neither to be that poor nor that fat. I settled for my usual tart. Of course.

Paris in the snow is a beautiful idea but not a very practical reality. Perhaps, though, it's one of those things you must do since, after all, the Eiffel Tower is no longer the metal asparagus it once was, and Paris in the snow is beautiful too.

it appears to me the pen is overanalyzed again

I'm really not good at writing blog entries; I never know what spin to put on it. In that measure,

On Tuesday, I headed off to jolly old... Belgium, for a bit of chocolate, waffles, and beer. What I love most about Europe is that all it takes to go anywhere I want is to walk into a train station and buy a ticket. It's not like China, where my method involved carefully copied Chinese characters and train numbers on a paper slipped through the glass. It's also not like China in that in order to get to another country, it's only thirty minutes.

The entire trip can probably be summed up in this sentence: "Ow, my whole body hurts."

Of course, that's (almost) entirely in a good way. We did so much walking and climbing and staring and eating. We ate waffles topped with enough whipped cream and strawberries to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower. We were mistaken for English. We stared at paintings of slightly vulgar faces and men with bowler hats (thank you, Museum Magritte). We were asked directions and (hopefully) didn't get them lost, but who knows. The directions were in French.

We molested Jesus. Now, that's not as bad as it sounds. It's like in China when everyone touches the gold knobs on doors for good luck. Well, in the Grand'Place, there is a Jesus incarnation on a wall and he's rubbed gold where everyone has touched him, from head to toe. We thought it only fitting to follow the tradition.

We saw the Manneken Pis, which, let me tell you, is not quite what you expect. You walk around a corner to find this tiny little statue and you think, "that's it?" It's very small. I would like to think it's a sort of euphemism about men and the way they view themselves - you know, how they like to talk themselves up? But in the end, that's all it is.

Brussels is over and done, and it was enjoyed aside from the remnants of pain. I shall be updating my "travel places" tab from now on to reflect places I want to go/have already been.