When Sign Men Go Bad

Obamarama and norwegian peaks.

At first I was wildly disappointed to be out of the country for the presidential election, but I think its been perfect. I was totally insulated from any Republican disappointment and got to feed off of and add to the joy that erupted afterwards. It gave me a chance to have some serious solidarity with my one American friend here, watch a truly American triumph through the lens of al Jazeera and Norwegian public television. I got to smoke a Cuban cigar (legally) and swell with a historical moment. And I felt special. I now feel like a proud ambassador and less like a rationalization machine. SO the election was fantastic and at 7am when it was called, I felt like I watched the moon landing without having to watch it with a group of disappointed Russians.

Other exciting happenings. I had an exam two weeks ago, which here entails 4 days at home to write a ten page paper whose question is posted at the beginning of the week. What does Alix do on the second day of the exam? Stress and read, and mash and edit? No! 24 hour road trip time! Terje and I drove to central Norway, which was fantastic, until the sun went down, we ascended 3,000 feet in elevation, and ended up stranded on a mountain pass with no lights in sight and -10 celsius outside. Once we established that we wouldn't die, but at worst could lose a few toes and perhaps fail an exam, we relaxed, turned the car lights off and realized we were atop a massive mountain under a perfectly clear night sky! Stepping out onto the road I could look up and see the Milky Way...it was amazing. And soon after crashing (or lightly tapping a hill of plowed snow) a semi truck trudged by and we got a working phone and a tow truck an hour later. He towed us almost to town and we snoozed in the cold car in warm sleeping bags. And when the sun rose we were in this idyllic mountain town covered with the first real snow of winter. I snapped some photos of a church erected in 1100, we drove to Lillehammer and then realized that the tires we were driving on were summer tires and this first snow had resulted in a traffic jam outside of Oslo. And when I say traffic JAM I mean JAM. Cars sliding all over hitting ditches and other cars so we stopped, lucked out, and got an appointment to get new tires put on.

And then cruised into town in time to finish my exam...We'll see how I do.

Day light savings saves my life

October has come and passed and the days have gotten so short that when the sun starts to set in the early afternoon i laugh to myself and say in a southern accent, in my head of course, i worked hard from sun up to sun down. whaha. that's only like seven hours! the sun was starting to set a little bit before five when the hour increment came out of the bureaucratic brilliance of some calendar nerd's silly head. it used to be exciting because, i don't know it meant that you felt like you got an extra hour of sleep. maybe you could trick yourself into going to bed a little earlier. here its like a greenwich angel come to save your sanity from the grips of a dark lunch.

but its been a crazy month. i've made some new pals, got in on a film festival, toured the nobel peace center (twice), watched all the leaves turn yellow and then all the trees strip down, felt the weather go from nippy at night to cold in the afternoon, got to watch the debates with the democrats abroad in norway, got offered speed at the train station...in norwegian!...went to a guzzillion thrift stores in one day, missed the last train home, walked across town because i missed the last train home, got my insurance coverage (what, what? take that hmo's), but the best thing, and the hardest to explain -- all of the sudden one morning i woke up and i felt like i was at home. taking the bus into town seeing little blond boys and arab women and hipsters and old men on bicycles and junkies wedged up between three hundred year old walls, two hundred year old cobblestone and fifty year old trash cans. street vendors selling bright colored fruit that you know had to be shipped in from somewhere oceans away from here. last names that mean wolf man in old norsk. slicked back hair that somehow floats in place, perfect, crazily arian. crazy sunsets on aker brygge with views of the castle and islands off shore. near misses with the trikk plowing along the tracks in streets so narrow you can tell they were never meant for cars, until cars showed up.

i really like it here, and i'm not so surprised when i turn every corner. i can predict things now and laugh at things that i didn't realize were ironic before. i'm starting to get these norwegians i think. and i like them. i'm not sure if i can hang with the weather changes, but it hasn't started to snow yet and when it does, i'm sure it will be so stunning that i won't be stressing about the cold.

Montebello

I think I'm finally starting to really settle in in Oslo. The sun is setting earlier and earlier, which has stopped evoking morbid fears of depressing darkness and is instead has brought with it the great feelings of fall. The leaves are changing into great splotches of yellow and orange, and the hills surrounding the city are exploding. Last night I had what could have been a miserable mass transit mishap - heading home from a party I got on the wrong line that headed out of the city ring instead of into it. I ended up in the pouring rain at Montebello station on the outskirts of Oslo. I was thankful that there was one more train headed back into the city, but I waited for twenty five minutes. Standing in the rain can be a fun and self-important time and luckily that's what this experience was. I had one of those, this wouldn't be bad if I were a character in a movie, so I guess I'll be a character in a movie. I had headphones for a soundtrack and waited in the cold in a trenchcoat for the train to come. Which it did. I got back to the subway stop thats a km from my apartment, but the buses had stopped running so I walked home in the rain. It was actually really nice.
This week I went on a road trip to central Norway with a friend who wanted to go look at a schoolhouse built in the 1850's. He was considering buying it and developing an artist collective out in the hills. It was foggy and humid but the hill outside of Oslo deliver everything majestic that you think about Norway. And this time of year, before the real cold, and naked trees, the views are perfect. We drove through Lillehammer, which still boasts of being the host of the 94 winter olympics. The drive was perfect, as I've been itching to get out of the city.
And a few nights ago I got to see a Yemeni scholar speak about internet censorship in the Arab world. He set up a site that aggregates all of the news stories about Yemen and puts them in one place. After a year of operation, the government, who owns the only internet service provider in Yemen, blocked his site and he has since been crusading with technological skills to get around internet censorship. After the meeting I met up with a couchsurfer from South Africa, a friend of hers from Norway, and a smattering of kids from all over the world for drinks. I stayed out way past my bed time and barely made it to the last bus. It's my first time having to crawl out of bed and intravenously inject caffeine into my system to get to class. I was almost late, almost sick, almost an idiot, and hope that I formed full sentences when talking to my classmates (something makes me doubt that).
Which catches me up to last night. I went to this posh apartment in the Vigeland park neighborhood (google it. its amazing) to a couchsurfing party and mingled with a pack of really great kids, made some friends, got some phone numbers, and will hopefully be seeing some of them again. And then I got on the wrong subway. And came home drenched and cold, but having made peace with the impending winter.

Gausdal

dfw

today, i went downtown to walk around in one of the few remaining, warm days of the fall. i was on the hunt for a book that i never did find, but i found a book by david foster wallace that i haven't had the pleasure of reading. for those of you who are unawares, david foster wallace killed himself last week. for those of you who don't know who he is, revel in the fact that wikipedia exists and google him.

i walked all around tanum books which is right down the street from the royal castle. i wandered around, read clips, and stumbled across consider the lobster.
after reading a few pages i bought it, headed home and read for about an hour and quickly sent an email to my friend who is viscerally pained by the passing of who he adoringly refers to as dfw.

"i started it. and i got this weird feeling. have you ever noticed the way you feel when you read the work of a young (or merely a living) writer -- it feels as though you are tapped into a reservoir that is somehow hanging above your head. gravity helps the flow of content just pour out in front of you and you lap it up in sort of a bacchanal celebration of things like the internet and water. but when you read something of tolstoy or dostoevsky that you have never read (or saved for later) you are slowly eating morsels of brilliance. maybe cookies your grandmother made last night, before she died this morning. and you savor them because you know that what was once a reservoir of immeasurable (and why would you ever even think of measuring it, even if they could?) contents is now limited, dry, and archived. thats how i feel while reading consider the lobster."

hotdogs and cold weather

It's getting cold in Oslo and I'm not sure that I'm emotionally prepared. My homepage has temperature readings from Singapore and Bay St. Louis and pretty soon I will most likely look at them with spite. Or maybe just fear. Okay, so its not that cold yet. But I can smell fall slash winter.

I wish I were joking, but today while headed to the subway two guys standing in front of a massive stack of boxes were passing out bags of...hot dogs. It was an advertising gimmick, in which the latest brand of hotdogs apparently lowers cholesterol. Norwegians love their hotdogs. At every gas station and convenience store hotdogs are pictured everywhere. Juicy pork dogs often times wrapped in bacon. It's pretty gross but also consistently hilarious. Watching a Norwegian with perfectly gelled blond hair an armani suit and louis vitton suitcase chowing down on a bacon wrapped hotdog while waiting for the tram in the city center is a sight to behold. And it's incredibly common.

Nice job on averting Gustav guys.

Apparently because the storm fizzled a bit and media coverage didn't last much longer than in took for news anchors rain jackets to dry out nonprofits that responded to the storm are going in debt to pay for the help they sent: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090501624_2.html?hpid=topnews

summertime photos (courtesy of prima luke)

this is not an optical illusion where the dog looks like a horse because she's in the foreground. nay, this dog is the size of a horse. this is out back at bark of the bay and this is queen, prima's aptly named great dane.
after successfully parking the party barge under the bay bridge, and catching a fish, i caught up to the bonfire crowd by wading through what was supposed to be shallow water. oops.
best damn mother-daughter film crew pair...in history.
Me and Jan-imal crabbing on the fourth of july.

prepare to immigrate.

i may have already emigrated, but now the serious business begins: its time to immigrate. i will head to the main police station (politistajion) hand over my passport and a few other items which were for some reason difficult for me to come by and my soul (plus a passport photo) and then voila. consider me norwegian. and for those of you who say "how can you be norwegian if you don't speak the language and are in fact american?" i say, fine naysayer, i misspoke. i will be an official emigre. accent noted. seriously though. its kind of exciting, this moment that i have been haphazardly prepping for since june and a moment that at times i was afraid wouldn't arrive. but it has. and soon, very soon in fact, i will have a shiny new sticker in my passport that says, "yeah, she's cool. she can stay for like a year. after that we'll talk..."

and...drumroll...i have decided on my thesis topic and am emailing it as we speak. or as i type. or after i type this.

norwegian for, like, dummies.

some quick lessons i have learned:

1. course and kiss are the same word. or atleast to non-native speakers sound that way. so i've already propositioned a professor. sweet.

2. ø = ur
3. å = or
4. y = eu (say it with me. just like if you were wedging a pencil between your upper lip and nose, which i know i do pretty much all the time...eu)
5. æ = a (as in cat. you'd think that would mean it was a superfluous vowel, but noooo)

6. did you know that english is the only language where policy and politics are two different words? ha.

stay tuned...

cell phones, succulents, and consonance.

i got a norwegian plant yesterday. its rather ugly, but makes my apartment feel better.

just posting my new mobile number: 0047 46 25 53 62

if you call it, its free for me and like a gillion dollars for you. so i wouldn't. unless there's something urgent or if you have any questions that only i can answer, e.g. my favorite color or things of that nature. (and mom and susan that does not include a question of how to copy and paste something on the computer)

i'm fully contactable...

okay, so my new address:

Me
Bjølsen Studentby
Moldegata 17, H0104
0445 Oslo, Norway

I'm also skypable now. And I have internet! Which is like a crack addict walking into a plush vault lined with - you guessed it! - crack rock.

pomp and mildly awkward circumstances

My first big organized social event, took place this morning. I was jammed into a square filled with a wild mix of Norwegian and international students. Coded by color and number, I was funneled into a group of “kids” though two were for sure over the age of 35. We stood in an awkward circle while waiting for the last few kids to show up. And we waited in silence. I’m not talking a few whispers or smiles or eye contact. I’m talking silence. And then our designated “buddies” let us know 1. That the kids in this group were all media studies students, and 2. We all could speak English.

In our oblong circle, we went around and said our names and any word that began with the same letter. But before we could say that we had to say all the previous names and the associated word. Fortunately for me I was the fourth one to go (in a group of 15) but I was also the first of the non-Norwegians so I had to admit that I couldn’t pronounce two of the first three names. Oops. So I was Alix – Apple. Next to me was Mischa – Miami. And next to him Siegmund – Swimming. In the bunch there were four Norwegians, a kid from Ethiopia who is pretty much my new best friend, a guy from Latvia, a girl from Poland, a guy from Germany, and this annoying dude from Wisconsin who continued to compare Oslo to Duluth pretty much the whole day. After the name game we were rounded up and instructed to line up in rows of five so we could proceed into the square.

Here is where the pomp comes in: we proceeded into the square that’s like five hundred years old, to the sounds of the Norwegian orchestra playing something ridiculously dramatic. My pack was fortunate enough to be lined up right on the front row. For the next half hour or so I listened to several speeches in Norwegian, a few apologies in English for the fact that they were speaking in Norwegian, and a warm welcome in Norwegian.

And then it began. You know that song that is played to denote any climactic or ominous moment in movies involving cathoicism or satan? Well the orchestra played that song and a pack of singers sang the creepy Latin verses. Only they were in Norwegian. So I couldn’t understand them. As the song hit its crescendo I got to thinking. I’ve been duped. This orchestra is either announcing my descent into hell with Virgil as my guide, or the arrival of the Weegie monster, a reptilian creature first discovered in the North Sea by Leif Erikson. The creature is rumored to be in the care of each success royal family and it eats people. SO this orchestra is thanking me for my sacrficie and warning me…Oh my god the Weegie swoops in and takes out hundreds of students with its tail, breathing fire into the pack and snatching up Romanian, Cameroonian, and Norwegian students alike. Run for your lives!!!!!

Okay. So the orchestra wound up, another guy gave a speech, and I had the pleasure of watching a sign language interpreter stand by like Buster Keaton mocking the crap out of who I can only assume to be the president of the university.

The same sign language chick signed the national anthem, which has to be the most dramatic and folklore infused anthem. Ever. Tears were shed, pretty sure a Weegie was slain. And then we ate lunch, toured the campus, I think I’m the only kid who talked to everyone in the group which is good, because no one noticed the repetition of my north pole joke.

The media studies building is new and pretty and I can almost pronounce the name of it.

hei and ha det.

well, my space is small but cozy and has these sweet multifunction windows that open like doors or just crack open at the top hinge. the school is a twenty minute commute by foot/subway combo and its a really nice one. i can see the oslofjord on my walk back home and have a nice view of the water. there are two roundabouts between my apartment and the subway; and though i'm accustomed to driving through them from small colorado town training walking them is quite a different story. can i go now? no...no...now! no...no...now! to the point where a sixty-year old norwegian in a saab had to force me across the street with a sternly pointed hand. there is a nice marsh kind of thing running between my apartment building and the next and a veritable walmart a mere 100 yards a way. it's half underground so not as annoying. its also way more expensive, pays its employees between 5 and 6 times as much, and its stock items are of good quality...so maybe its not like walmart at all? but it does have everything from batteries, to pans, to flowers, to cheese, to beer, to magazines, to printer paper. you frickin name it and odds are good that if its in norway its in prisa.

transaction language is getting easier. i can almost go through a whole conversation with a cashier as long as it doesn't stray from the business at hand without letting on that i'm a silly english speaker. takk ha det rolled of the tongue to day for the first time. (it means, thanks good bye.) when i hear other people, you know norwegian people, say these things, they sound like their about to go into a melody monologue and sing about fjords, nazi-occupation, and maybe their grandmama's new volvo. the rhythm is so up and down and happy but few people have a look beyond stoicism on their faces. its an odd contradiction. one of many i'm sure i'll be seeing.

back to the norge

after a seven hour layover in atlanta, a nine hour flight to stockholm, a seven hour train ride to oslo, and a hunt for a hotel room at 9 pm, i am getting up from a great night's sleep. despite the late flight, missed train, money jam up, hotel bonanza (some convention is in town), and long day, i'm great. i head to get my apartment keys, and my bags (i stashed them at the first hostel that was full) and then start unpacking and settling in...

back in the bay

i arrived in bsl for the fourth in time for the bay idol competition where karaoke contestants regaled the crowd with everything from violent femmes to whitney houston. instead of voting, the crowd put money down to support a singer and all the proceeds went to a pack of americorps kids project in waveland. then it was off to a beach bonfire at the foot of de montluzin where i met up with some buddies (all over the age of 40 mind you) and ended up crabbing with lantern, net, and friend. the next day some friends and i hit up the newly rebuilt dunbar pier and fished for a while until we couldn't take the crabs eating our bait anymore and quit to go to gabbie's downtown for some mint juleps. i had dinner with at a beach bar with a friend and his parents and then sluggishly bar crawled before crashing and burning. a lazy sunday with a few sweaty visits to the beach crabfest to hear some live music and watch people buy silly things with expensive tokens. tomorrow my mom lands in new orleans so i'll get some quality time with the city and my grandmother before picking up the continental wonder at louis armstrong airport.

texas? okay.

just arrived in texas for my step-sister's wedding this weekend. no dress, no shoes, no toiletries? no problem.

wacky world wide web part deux.

so, after flying from oslo to stockholm and then getting bumped from a delta flight out of there, i'm on a train from stockholm to malmo which is just across the river from copenhagen. i'm on this train that goes like 120 mph. no kidding. and its got wireless internet. sometimes i wonder...what's taking america so long? but anyways beautiful country side, last minute change of plans can be frustrating but it keeps you on your travel toes...so a couchsurfing host is going to meet up with me at the train station in copenahagen and then its off for another round of standby! wish me luck, all you who want me back in the home of the free. or i may be stuck here forever. whahahaha.

trip cut shor...

the perils of le stand by travel have reared they're hydra heads once again. and my friend who planned to meet me in oslo is still sitting in her apartment in san francisco. boo hiss. several bits of good news though: i bought cancellation insurance on our tickets to zurich, and i can still escape europe unscathed. so i'm wrapping things up in oslo and i leave in the morning for stockholm and then head back to the home of the braves...atl. and i'll get to catch a step sisters wedding, oh how i love those. its sunny and warm here and i'm at the youth internet cafe where everything including printing things is free for anyone under the age of 27. haha! i make the cut. i'm going over to the roof of the opera house now to take in some good views of the city and take advantage of the clear day. i don't want to leave, but i have to go back before coming back so i'll get over it. i'm very ready to dig in some roots here....

Sleep apnea, sverige, and other hostel tales...

a double whammy struck the tiny city of oslo last night: a bon jovi concert with 30,000 ticket holders and Sweden's appearance in another EuroCup game. Insane. So two gals from southern norway took the day off of their university cleaning jobs, packed bookbags, some cigarettes and high heels, all in the hopes of touching their american idol...bon jovi. who was cool when i was like 13. they also love aerosmith, kiss, foo fighters, and any other arcahic american institution they can get their big norwegian hands on. so they were fun. i met a turkish girl who just wrapped up her masters in sweden. she was cool too. but the best, the absolute best, was the guy who stayed in the lower bunk next to mine in the six bed room. i didn't meet him till 3 am, after sweden won the game and he had downed probably two hundred dollars worth of booze. he and his girlfriend came stumbling in, and he collapsed on the bed. at first i thought he was dying, and he might have if the sound of his gasping for air hadn't woken him up. but it did. and as his girlfriend haphazardly climbed into the top bunk he flipped on his side and began the loudest stint of snoring i have ever heard. ever. for hours. i wanted to warn him about the perils and cures of sleep apnea in the morning but i was too cranky for lack of sleep. and when he came out of the bathroom in his tighty whitey (or yellow and blue) swedish underwear i couldn't not laugh in his face. oops.

so i'm waiting for ingrid and waiting for the rain to go away. i'm headed to the contemporary art museum when it does. not only is it free, but it has a statue of michael jackson that i'm dying to see.

and on to another euro cup game tonight when the lobby of the hostel will be choked with people from ten different countries all stretching their necks to see the tv and oohing and ahhing and hemming and hawwing. (sorry, rhyming proves too tempting)

score one for scandanavia!

okay. so norway has quite possibly the coolest government i've ever seen in action. the people are taken care of, there is little to no poverty, everyone speaks english, and though the cost of living is high the minimum wage is...19 US dollars an hour!!!! someone told me i would have to try really hard to make less than 25 dollars an hour. which is good seeing as beers are ten dollars a piece, a cup of coffee is 5 dollars, and a big mac is 4. i met a really cool guy who i have been staying with and he is going to let me use his address for my resident visa application and said i could stay with him when i come back until i find a place. i met another guy who is friends with the vp of the largest media company in norway, passed along my email, and am hoping for some help getting my resume passed along. my norwegian is coming along and my host terje has been really good about teaching me the phrases that matter ('i'm going to go pee in the bushes' & 'cool t-shirt' specifically) but he says i am gifted in the accents and that i am coming along quite nicely. he lets me repeat things over and over until i get it right and will bring it back up an hour or so later so i can reaffirm my memory.

the city itself reminds me of a european new orleans and a lush maine wrapped into a culturally open, interesting, and diverse group of people. i saw edward munch's scream yesterday which was impressive to say the least, sat outside in the largest statue park in the world for a few hours listening to an outdoor concert and hanging with a pack of six oslosians. saw the castle today that runs at about a thousand years old, saw the king's yacht sail into the harbor, rode the tube (normally 8 dollars one way) for free because its on the honor system...consider me dishonorable.

i'm getting excited to settle down and seeing as i've already met so many cool people i don't forsee adjusting and laying down roots as a problem. i also just learned about a website...www.finn.no...where people give stuff away for free. like real big stuff. tables, chairs, etc. terje's apartment is furnished mostly with free things. its strangely utopian.

its the beginning of something fantastic.

oslo shmozlo (or happy birthday meg)

alright alright. so few people who arrange to move somewhere before visiting it end up loving it...but AHA! its amazing. i love it. its expensive. its dirty by scandanavian standards. but its beautiful. old. the people are fantastic.

i might have found a connection to get a job. i'm visiting the school tomorrow and am staying in a hostel tonight. ugg. even hostels are expensive but i've arranged to stay with a couchsurfing host through the weekend so i'll get to hang with a journalism student for two days. he just emailed to say we missed out on a festival today...gay marriage is legal in norway as of today. so i might move here for good. or not.

i also found out that not only does the government pay for people attending their universities they pay for any university internationally that citizens are accepted to. ridiculous.

so its off to the fjords on saturday, some raucous fun tomorrow that may or may not include a spinning class (we were invited to one in the morning by a guy we met at a bar), a few norwegian lessons, a tube ride, a bike rental, apartment hunting, and oh yes...mom's birthday!!!!

i may not have the forsight to get a birthday card in the mail...but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I love you and miss you and think of you pretty consistently and wish i could hug you and say happy birthday but i'm too busy taking advantage of everything you have encouraged and supported me in doing.

so anyone reading this call the sing sing and give that woman what she's due.

the wacky worldwide web

so at this moment i am gchatting with my mother in singapore who is on the phone with ingrid in san francisco who i am also gchatting with while she writes me an email. how fricking crazy. all the while i'm blogging about it.

nexus complete.

car 54 checking in.

stockholm is fantastic. 

the weather is perfect, the sun goes down for a total of 3 hours per day, the people are happy, the children are adorable, the stereotypes fit (minus a fair amount of obesity), the archipelago is stunning, the royal family is cute, the tube is fast, the streets are clean, the architecture is a pastiche of russian-czech-german-british, and the language is fun to pronounce.

my couchsurfing host has taught me loads about the language and the culture, i have met so man local swedes and haven't met a one that i don't love.

on saturday i walked the city with my host. from top to bottom. we cruised along the water in the southern island of sodermalm and she explained the land that is zoned only for gardening. yes they have pivately owned land that can only be used for gardening and it runs along the water. hundreds and hundreds of plots of just gardens and bike paths. we followed the sounds of an achingly good trumpet player and stumbled upon a private party in a back alley of town. i hugged a metal statue that touches the heating system and exudes warmth outside of the downtown theatre. 

i recovered from jet lag. finally.

 i met up with my fellow bangkok traveler two days ago and we are having a blast. i went to an island called djurgarden south east of the city center yesterday to the world's first open air museum (think colonial williamsburg meets finnish settlement), saw my first live elk and wolverine (the elk is MASSIVE and licks my right hand the wolverine looked like a badger), walked around town collected some bread fruit veggies and cider at the grocery store and had a picnic on a hill in steppsholm with a gorgeous view of the city and watched the sun set (that lasted about four hours) and caught each other up on our travels. annie told me all about her border crossing from egypt into jordan which sounded intense...and tempting. we met three seagulls and watched them howl about the bread we threw to them.

i am headed to oslo tomorrow morning. so throw all of your good energy my way and ental encourage oslo to stand up straight and behave so i can have a marvelous first impression.

swedish suburb shindig.

amazing. 

so i stumble off of the plane zenned out and trying not to focus on the fact that my bag is packed poorly, my flight was delayed which would probably throw off my already tenuous meeting with my couchsurfing host, i was in a new country all by my lonesome, and i was about to be drenched in a languageimmersion whose intensity i couldn't predict.

so i deplane, get ye ole passport stamped, head through to get my backpack, do a post-9-hour flight-change-tooth-brush-face-wash, go through customs, change money, buy a ticket for town, find a phone card, try and call my host, get a fax line, worry, hop on the train to central station, wander out of the train, walk to the rendevous point, ask a stranger if they are looking for a couchsurfing host, make a friend, find wireless access, email couchsurfing host, meet an american-indian family on vacation, goggle at the massive amounts of swedes aimlessly waving swedish flags (more on that later), wait for an hour and then voila! she appears. i get a big hug, we go find a subway pass for me which for three days is....90 US! get on the subway, sit on the subway while train officials try and clear someone who is sitting on the tracks, talk about her recent 6 month stay in iceland, head to her house in the sunny suburbs, and drop my poorly packed bag in a sunny, happy, wonderful apartment.

so phew. i have arrived. and it only gets better. i arrived on a "red day" or national holiday. meaning that all of the swedes in the train station frantically waving flags weren't creepily nationalistic, but were celebrating the national holiday that i can only compare to the fourth of july. i meet a friend of my host, eat some couscous, lightly pass out in the sun in the back yard, and then we head to the grocery to buy materials for a bbq my host is throwing that night in honor more of everyone's day off than any holiday. a short walk and interesting foray into swedish groceries later, we get back and get to chopping, and surf google for pictures of cilantoro which they hae never heard of*. the three of us make a spinach-potato-balsamic salad (the local potatos were some of the best i've ever had), kebabs with veggies marinated in soy sauce and chilli peppers, hummus, guacamole, soy dogs, couscous, and a weird soya meat corn concoction. 

i get to meet another couch surfer staying with my host who is a funny american with a great sense of humor. he's in school at the college of william and mary and is traveling for the summer. he envies my life. haha!

i begin learning some swedish language principles and then slowly, my hosts friends arrive. they are all amazing! smart, funny, amazingly articulate in english, great music tastes, engaged and engaging, trendy (really trendy), and all round fantastic. i look at my watch thinking it is around five and its eight. the sun still high in the sky. we hang out, grill out, veg out, pig out, talk, laugh, sit in the sun that seems fixed in the sky, and have an all´round good time. the sn sets at ten, but the light doesn't fade from the sky until 12:30. my oh my. i wouldn't ever sleep if i lived here. but i guess i'll have to figure it out, as i'l live here soom enough.

so i got a great introduction to swedish life, am hitting the downtown today with johanna, made some good friends who i will for sure stay in touch with when i move to oslo, and have recovered decently from the jet lag. if you just pretend that you haven't gone from southern california to the arctic in 18 hours, the adjustment can be mastered. i say this through cracked out, sleepy eyes, dried out and looking at a computer screen at 7:15 am. oh, and the sun rose at 4. so i'm going back to sleep....

*this is not strange to me. not only is cilantro used mainly in south american and mexican cooking, it is mostly grown there, in fact, i am blown away, and we discuss this at length, that we live half way around the world from each other and we eat all the same foods. its kind of weird, and sort of scary how much effort and energy goes into food globalization and that just as we expect avocados to be available in december from brazil, they expect avocados to be avaiable in the winter from israel. johanna points out that she can often choose between organic fruit grown in south america and industrial food grown locally: which is better? is it better to buy for our bodies, or for the level of eco-friendliness?  

easy in, easy out.

arrived in sweden this morning, and i'm sitting at the train station waiting for my couch surfing host. my flight was delayed and i'm afraid i may have made her wait for me. so all is well in scandanavia.

hello kitty.

the service started a mere two days ago, and i am soon to take advantage: delta flies to stockholm, and i will be aboard the third flight. i will arrive at 11:30 tomorrow morning, meet up with my couchsurfing host, get a bit of r&r and then hit the town. this weekend is the "taste of stockholm" festival which is one of the largest culinary events in europe; i'll be there. i'll blog when i get there. as to when i'll be coming back...not sure yet. but when i know i'll merge on to the information super highway and let you know too. so the nordic travels, the scouting my path for the next two years, the apartment hunting, the job search, the language lessons, all begin when i land tomorrow, so yippy kai-yay. 

my socal life.

big news: um there's a black dude with a chance to become prez. thats pretty crazy. and awesome. gonna be honest, i was a hillary fan, but i still really like the guy and if we elect the dinosaur war-hawk its okay, because i won't be living here any more, and perhaps more importantly, i won't be in a country that we could potentially go to war with. so i'm headed to sweden tomorrow, will spend a while in stockholm, meet up with a friend i met in bangkok, go to oslo with her, check out the school and my housing options, train to bergen, then meet up with a friend from school in amsterdam, hang out there for a bit, and then head with her to meet her parents at her dad's house in switzerland. then its back to the states for some family face time and a bit of possession round up, packing boxes, finalizing my residency permit, lining up some school loans, heading back to singapore, and then prepping for school....

santa monica has been wonderful: i've been working on a super fun photo project, have spent equal time on the bicycle and the beach, have had some nice quality time with a fantastic friend, made three new ones, pretended to be famous, saw some famous people (yes, sally field hangs out in venice), read a bunch, wrote a little, walked loads, got blisters and then new shoes, kept the vegan kick going, bought a lonely planet norway, started reading a book to learn norwegian, watched obama win, watched clinton not admit losing, got a bit of empathetic embarassment for her, made some post cards, sent some postcards, and now i have to go buy some toiletries, and pack for the trip tomorrow.

haha.

californication.

i've been too busy with beaches pleasantly consistent sunshine, great company, smooth sailing bike rides, and decision making to blog. but now, sitting in a friend's apartment in santa monica i have my chance. i spent a few days in ventura with a buddy from austin who lives four doors from the pacific, and though i was teetering before, took the leap to...veganism. yes, yes. its stereotypical, its make-funable, but its also pretty awesome. so i've been animal product free for a week or so and don't plan on turning back any time soon. i went on a painfully awkward, horrible, embarrassing blind date, but then had the chance to follow up on a second date that went really well. i made a friend at a bar, talked for a half hour or so about woody allen movies, and went to dinner with him and two friends the next night. i got quarantined in a bar in culver city where a friend of a friend was dj-ing because a homeless guy got stabbed out front. (don't worry, i snagged some la county police tape before leaving crossing the flare barricades) i walked the venice boardwalk, hovered around a flailing and massive drum circle, watched a man with only an American flag speedo and black fanny pack roller blade through the crowds, stuck my foot in the pacific, waved to my mother, reentered the throbbing scene of mid-nineties street vendors, listened to the sound of giggling girls and tattoo guns, ate great mexican, and applied for housing in oslo. so its been a whirlwind, and its too sunny to sit inside and update y'all, so i'm headed out to the beach for a bit more fun in the sun. i'm planning on heading to stockholm on thursday, and then training to oslo.

a true night on the town...

so this will probably make everyone reading this uncomfortable, but before you read the following know this: the sun is up, the city is awake, and i am safe and sound.

i met up with a friend from austin, his girlfriend, and two of their friends in the mission district today after walking around for a few hours aimlessly looking for a thrift store to buy some pants. (i didn't bring any with me, and it turns out that they could come in handy) we had some beers at a funky bar, talked and talked, and then after the sun went down headed to another bar, made a taco stand run, laughed our asses of, talked politics and music, and then went our separate ways. i headed back to the north side of town where i was to crash at ingrid's house. the busses stopped running a solid half hour before i ambled to the bus stop, so i walked two miles to ingrid's, but alas, her cell phone was off, and i was locked out. so i sat on her stoop for a while reading my book, got excited every time someone walked close to her building thinking someone maybe coming with keys, but only crazies and drunk bridesmaids.

it started to get cold so i decided since i had my computer and a book that i would find a twenty four hour diner and surf the web. so i walked east for a while and met a nice homeless woman who i invited out for breakfast. i kind of knew she wanted alcohol and not food so i wasn't surprised when she told me she coudn't walk far, so i gave her fifty cents and asked her where i could get breakfast.

she pointed north and said, three blocks that way to the cala. i didn't know what the fuck cala was, but i walked the three blocks any way. a donut shoppe was open, but the bearclaws looked kind of gross so i headed up a few more blocks before turning around. i walked about ten more blocks and ran into the same woman, at the cala foods. "oh, you made it sugar." she said without a hint of "i pointed you in the entirely wrong direction, said i couldn't walk here but promptly did," and then asked me for more change which i gave her. i kept walking up some massive hills, saw a swift twenty-something tossing newspapers on stoops, and kept walking until i found a gelato shoppe that was closed but had wireless. so i sat on the sidewalk outside, checked email, read a couple of new york times articles, until my butt got sore, then i looked up twenty four hour places, found one six or so blocks away, walked there and had some fantastic people watching. coked out ravers stumbling out of twenty four hour clubs, a homeless woman ambling across three lanes of taxi traffic, only to wander into the diner, wail at one of the customers before being tossed out by a line cook, a crazed frederick douglass look alike running into the plate glass window, and a juicy omelette. drank some coffee, read a little, and then walked towards the water to see the sun rise. and what a fantastic sun rise!!! i find i only have the pleasure of seeing the sun rise in extreme situations, and maybe thats why i always think its so beautiful. but the sky hit this crazy blue before the birds started chirping, clouds swelled up over the skyscrapers like snake skin, and the moon faded back into nothing. so ingrid just called, and i'm headed back to her apartment to catch some zzzz's.

if she hadn't called, i was going to go to an episcopal service, but she says the priest is boring and a bed is tempting.

moral of the story:

if anyone had seen me wandering the streets they would have assumed i was a vagabond (not too far from the truth) and looked through me, past me, avoiding eye contact. in fact, as i had my backpack on and was wearing flip flops, the only "normal people" i saw averted my gaze and power walked to safety. there but for the grace of god go i.

a true night on the town. san francisco and i are now close pals.


p.s. don't be annoyed momma and papa. i probably shouldn't share things like this, but hey, thats what this blog is all about.

oh and...
i also waked past a cafe with all of its lights of but the door was open. two homeless men were inside drinking soy milk from the fridge and just kind of chilling out. not sure that they broke in per se, maybe they just tried the door and it was open? either way the owner is in for a surprise when he comes in next. one of the guys might still be sleeping in a booth. and i wouldn't blame him. when the city shuts down and you have no place to sleep, inside seems like such a privilege reserved for special people.

sf part deux

the city of fog has held off its wrath for the last couple of days and has unleashed its rainy self today. i've had the chance to hang out with several of my favorite people in the world, help ingrid drag a couch on the sidewalk back to her apartment, grocery shop and make amazing thai curry at 11 pm, listen to ian freestyle his way through life, sit in parks, walk the streets, miss a bus, get on the wrong bus, go to the wrong side of town but catch a great view of the bay, watch a softball game at the foot of the golden gate bridge, see the peninsula from the same bridge on a clear day and again at sunset, see san quentin and alcatraz from the outside, thank my lucky stars for not being locked inside either, played frisbee, broke a frisbee, and bought a train ticket to santa barbara for tuesday.

i'll be taking the pacific coast liner to santa barbara and then heading to ventura to meet up with a buddy from austin. i love my trains.

planning on leaving for oslo from los angeles...

i'm back...

i'm in sf with whitaker and laura having a blast of cold, fog, massively expansive views of the golden gate bridge and the ocean, a stunning annie liebowitz exhibit, and a game of asshole with clicquot as the substance of downing. jet lag is going well and its nice to be back where people drive on the right side of the road.

who needs socks?

i'm sitting in tokyo counting down the minutes, nay, seconds, till i can get on the flight to atlanta. so far i've met a retired us general who is consulting in baghdad. he met with malaki last week and swears that we can get out in the next two years. he is "perturbed" by the american media; loves his grandchildren and his church; set aside 2 million for each of his 7 grandchildren; all in all i know his life story, but didn't have the nerve to ask him how much money he's making from the stock he owns in bechtel and haliburton. oh well, i'll have to grow a pair before i can become a real journalist.

i met a woman on the flight from singapore who is traveling to knoxville of all places! her daughter and crew are traveling for the global destination imagination (formerly oddessey of the mind) contest at ut. how weird. so we got to talking and she was fantastic and was so nice about letting me out of teh window seat on the massice a-330 whenver i needed a good walking around on the seven hour flight. got in early which was great, my connection time was a bit scary, so i hurried to the delta ticket counter for the ultimate irony. landing thirty minutes early gave me an extra thirty minutes to sit here waiting for the flight that was officially five hours delayed. ugg.

so into sf at midnight. and i'll be a sight to see. drooling on my jetlagged self murmurring combinations of singlish, japanese, english, and who knows maybe some french and possibly a little norwegian. i'm totally unprepared for the weather. hopefully my pashimina and flip flops will do the trick. seriously. only brought the one pair of shoes. oops. no socks either. who needs socks?

good news: confirmed seat in business to atlanta so atleast i'll be in the lap of luxury for the 14 hour flight. sipping champagne, eating braised duck, etc. etc. i am spoiled, but atleast i know it!

oh, and i met a nice group of guys from guam headed home from baghdad. we got to talking and one of them said: "its hard when these guys come from america and work for the private companies and they get paid, like twice as much as i do. and i could get killed."

i just finished the shock doctrine and am equipped with some good questions so i've learned a lot in this four hours of purgatory. i have the sinking feeling that no one is reading this. and the keyboard is sticking so i think i'll stop now....

here i go again on my own. (insert 80's maudlin drum line here)

so after learning a few new tricks about travel, i am off to tokyo at 6am tomorrow morning. after that seven hour flight its off to atlanta, and then off to san francisco. in sf i will be spending time with some long lost friends, making nice with the norwegian consolate to get some help with my residency permit questions, and then will be flying to amsterdam and then to oslo to visit the university of, and check out my potential new digs. i'm tired just explaining it. so i'll be blogging along the way to keep you all in the loop.

Travel Tips:
1. it is possible to squeeze toothpaste from a big tube to a travel size tube easily and cleanly by pressing the two heads together. this is a pretty huge development for those of us who hate traveling with huge tubes of toothpaste. (i count myself as one of those sensible movers and shakers)

2. all american airlines fly out of the same terminal in tokyo. this is important. very important. you'll thank me later when you find yourself staring blankly at a garbled sign of japanese and say, oh yeah, thats right alix already answered that question. haha. and who says blogging is a waste of space. well, aside from me.

so, to those of you who read this and are disheartened by my glorious return to the states and seeming deletion of you from my must see list, know that i love you and that i don't play favorites. actually thats dead wrong. i play favorites. but i (and my convenience and bacchean fun) always come first. i will see you all before you know it, and i may be able to regale you with the fragrant norwegian language. i can already count to ten:

en
tu
tre
fire
femh
sechs
scheu
accte
ni
ti

we'll talk soon, i know it.

alive and well

made it through the highlands of malaysia.
after a quick scotch and some pretzels, i'm off to bed.
safe and sound in an air con room...

back home. in style. jungle style.

so its 4:30 here so i apologize for any babbling, but i guess that is what blogging is all about: babbling into a megaphone and then assuming that someone somewhere is listening and thinking hmm, alix is having an interesting time.

i'm boarding a train in one hour to singapore. its an all day and all night train, but the best part? it goes through the heart of the cameroon highlands in malaysia'
s legendary jungle. there will be monkies. and lizards. and more palm trees than my eye can discern. and the clackety clack that has become the soundtrack to my life.

back to the singapore. and to a phone where i can call all of you who have missed the sound of my voice.

back to malaysia...

so after a twenty hour train ride from bangkok i disembarked, walked half a mile to the border crossed it, met some ukranians, split a cab to the next town, found an internet cafe to get a hostel booked, and here i sit. in this little cubicle with lots of bashful women in headscarves staring at my knees. awesome.

points of note: train was hijoacked not to long ago in southern thailand so our train was choked by soldiers with ak-47s for the last leg of the trip. it was an interesting thing to wake up to: someone ripping the curtain away from your berth incidentally point a gun at your chest and asking in another language to see your ticket. i almost peed myself. but i didn't and laughed instead (i'm picking up in the asian "cool heart" philosophy and its doing me good). later he sat next to me in the dining car and had coffee and just sort of stared at me.

so now i'm back in malaysia, catching a train to sinagpore tomorrow morning and arriving there tomorrow night at 11. and this train ride is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world.

penhomenal

this morning's first outing: a trip to the killing fields outside of the city. little more than a field with a thoughtfully constructed memorial, the site was rife with emotion still. placards marked the three onsite mass graves, a tree where a loudspeaker designed to drown out the sounds of the executed, a pole where children were beaten, and a stack of skulls that reached three stories high. there were butterflies everywhere, starving cows whose skin provided little more than a membrane to shield bones from the street side dust, a few water buffalo ambling around, and lots of children offering there service as subjects of photographs for a dollar. it was depressing, needless to say.

and then it was back on the bicycle. at first i just wanted to go north of town to see wat phnom. but that was silly, depressing, full of dollar gorged beggars and americans who have still failed to notice that pointing feet directly at buddha, pointing at people, and leaving the functional volume on digital cameras are all no-nos. it was a freak show. so i headed even further north to check out some random wats, hung out with a few kids for a while and jumped rope with them, fumbled through the eight lanes of traffic, got a little sunburnt, ripped through the central market before realizing i was going the wrong way, and just returned to my hostel sweaty and dirty.

i'm loving the city but longing for air sans melting plastic, corrugated metal sparks, and dust. maybe a few paved roads, and a respite from the ubiquitous motorbike.

poly-lanes and pseudo temples

okay so all of you who might have been worried that i wouldn't be able to brave a bike again (and sorry to all of you who had simply hoped i wouldn't) rest easy. i rented a bicycle early this morning for 2US and cruised around the city. literally all around the city. at first, i was mortally afraid of the steady flow of mopeds, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, buses, vans, dump trucks, and cyclotaxis. and then i sort of figured out the system of what i have dubbed the poly-lane. its so organized, and i was moving so slowly. the farthest area from the center of the road is reserved for those going against traffic: once you figure that out you're set. slower vehicles stay toward the right, and to cross the street or turn you just have to head steady in one direction and don't make any sudden moves. or else....SPLAT! its like a ginormous and neverending game of frogger.

so i cruised to several wats, and they were homesteads for many squatters, young monks, old beggars, and trash. lots of trash. the structures themselves are beautiful, but the city hasn't really had the time, money, or energy to preserve its landmarks. the city itself is the landmark.

everywhere i go i have a hard time not picturing the not so distant past when all of the streets were full of soldiers dragging people out of their homes and evacuating the city. THE ENTIRE CITY. the buildings and silent streets were left vacant for four years while pol pot et al redefined the society by destroying it.

i went to tuol sleng today, which was the main torture center for the khmer. it, appropriately enough, predated the prison as a primary school. the devices of torture, many skulls, some original beds, cells, and photos were on display. it was profoundly painful to see. the gallows are still intact. young soldiers used to hang prisoners by their arms upside down until they passed out and then dunk their heads in fish water to wake them up and commence interrogations. there is one mass grave on the site, but most of killing was donw in the fields, one of the main sites i'm going to go see tomorrow.

i really like this city. my hostel is kind of bunk, but i've made friends with some brits, a czech, and two security guards who fed me dinner last night.

i also went to the royal palace and silver pagoda which are odd replicas of bangkok's. the concrete, gray painted nagas are a sign of how new the history is.

funny moment of the day: a chinese family asking a monk to take their picture. he obliged, and i chuckled. other funny moment, all of the tuk-tuk drivers who are supposed to be notorious for heckling and following tourists around to offer them rides laughing at me incessantly for the bicycle. other funny moment: the backs of my hands are sunburnt. not so much funny as very strange looking.

so i'm headed to bangkok on tuesday, and then on to penang, and then back to singapore via the jungle line from khota baru in malaysia. i really love this city though, and plan to come back...

phnom penh

headed to the capital today...

back in cambodia

my journey started at 4am this morning, shower, packed, took a taxi to the train station: eerily quiet and full of sleeping beggars. a five hour train ride turned into an eight and half hour train ride, but it only cost a dollar to get from bangkok to the cambodian border at poipet so i'm not complaining. split a tuk-tuk with a japanese backpacker to the border, the driver tried to rip us off, but failed miserably and was oddly resigned to defeat, after several direct orders to take us straight to the border he relented and no longer wanted us to play cards with some of his friends and get a visa from them.

a mean immigration man wanted a lot more money than i knew that we had to pay, but again, after a few, okay fine i will go back to bangkok to get a visa and you won't get any money from me, he relented. crossed into cambodia, and boarded a little bus through a mob of so called "mafia taxis" met a guy that i trusted for some reason, he took me by motorcycle to his house, arranged a share taxi to come pick me up and i sat in a camry, that if you switched the driver and passenger seats, and tacked on a "bkends" license plate would have been susan daigre's car. felt bad for the pack of brits in front of me at immigration who were boarding a so-called ksr scam bus. in this scam passengers are taken to a remote location , the driver feigns the car's break-down, kicks everyone out, and then his friend shows up charging them ten times as much to just get them back to where they started. atleast they weren't traveling solo, so they have good company in their abandonment.

thumped along on highway 5 for two hours, and slipped around a massive rainstorm, trash heaps, children with distended bellies, gas stations comprised mainly of whiskey bottles full of petrol, and the putrid smell of burning plastic that has been consistent since the outskirts of bangkok. but for five dollars, a mildly painful lesson in cambodian music, and an introduction to an adorable family and the lengths they go to to milk the tourism bribery schemes without directly ripping anyone off, i have arrived in battambang.

in the morning, after a HOT shower, and some early morning bathing in air con, i am taking the bus to phnom penh.

so i made it. and now after an ankor beer and some khmer food, i'm headed to bed.

photos of the grand palace...

grand? you bet your ass.

so i went to the grand palace today. gad its amazing. and i saw the most revered buddhist shrine in asia. all gold and a little buddha (2 feet tall) of solid jade. and i saw the largest reclining buddha in the world, and i tell you wat (get it?) that sucker was big. huge in fact. but the jade buddha was discovered like 100 years ago, when the stucco it was smothered in was chipped away and someone noticed that there was something hugely valuable underneath. a massive treasure hunt ensued, but it was just the one found. i took a water taxi on the chao prayu river (sp?) which was clogged with tourists, most of the german and chinese persuasion, skuttled along and walked around the city shrine which is basically a massive and ornate homage to the current king. haha, white house. try GOLD COMPLEX. it is amazing how young america is.
a tuk-tuk driver tried to rip me off. he didn't succeed and when he realized he couldn't scam me he left me at the second of the three stops we agreed on. before i paid him. so in the end i made out with a nice trip across the city free of charge.
they say nothings free here: but i got out of the situation with my wallet, my dignity, and a FREE ride.
i'm dizzy thinking about my day. and getting amped up for the temple of dawn and the trimuvit wat tomorrow. i wish there were someone here with me to experience all of this but i feel that my life skills are in a rapid growth spurt, even though i'm constantly worried about getting robbed, beaten senseless, or just getting a sunburn!
so far i've avoided all three and that was my wish at the lucky buddha today, to continue the streak of good fortune that has led me here. i am so thankful for getting to see all of this. and do all of this. and learn all of this. thank you everybody who has helped me get this far. hopefully i can get postcards to all of you, although i doubt i would get much else done if i were to commit myself to thanking everybody who has made this possible.

so this is asia?

i've never experienced culutre shock before, because i've never had this feeling before, which i'm pretty sure is culture shock. i walked and walked to get my bearings yesterday, and i felt dizzy from the frenzy of people whizzing past, but moving so slowly. finally after getting a little bit oriented i set myself a task: subway to the lumphin park and then to the moon bar. so i hopped on the skyway train, hit the subway, got off two stops later and voila. pure silence. the park was full, but everyone, no matter what type of clothing they were wearing was jogging around this massive path. there was a free exercise gym outdoors with rickety rowing machines, pull up bars, and whizzing stationary bikes. there were so many people exercising in the heat. in the middle of the park was a big lake that wrapped around under skyscrapers and housed tones of massive turtles and atleast one GINORMOUS moniter lizard. it was like the size of me.

so after getting some peace and quiet, i headed to the banyon tree hotel in the financial district. On the 61st floor of the second tower is the worlds largest open air bar and a spectacular view of the city. i wathced the sun set there along with a few other obnoxious westerners, paid the equivalent in one nights accomodation for a gin and tonic, and then headed back home.

ugg. so now on to the central pier to catch a boat tour of the sights of on the banks of, you know, bangkok.

the science of berth

so, i just arrived at my hostel in bangkok after a day in georgetown and a 20 hour train ride through the top of malaysia and the tail of thailand. i have decided that i love riding on trains which is funny because i fly for free...anyway. about to tackle the city and this ridiculous heat

batu caves

13 km north of kuala lumpur in the southernmost part of a limestone bed of southeast asia lies a massive cave with roughly 300 steps carved out. they lead into a massive hindu temple. i climbed the stairs at noon, so that when i got into the inner chamber the sun hit directly on the temple. water dripped from jagged tips of calcified spikes and monkeys ran around snagging whatever they could manage, mostly coconuts. i took a local bus (U6) and paid about fifty cents for a days pass to get there. it was awesome.

i took the bus back in to town, and found a little nasi stand and ordered some tom yam soup. spicy but sooooo good. i then headed to the kl sentral train terminal to get some info on my trip to penang tomorrow morning. good thing; the local train isn't running so i'm going to have to take a bus. i got off at a random stop on the monorail and ended up in the thick of chinatown. zigging and zagging alleyways of louis vitton and dior, fruit stands, dried fish heads, speeding motorbikes (which have an odd habit of ending up on sidewalks here), and lots of kissing noises.

i stumbled across all of the things i thought i wasn't going to have time to see: a massive hindu temple on the edge of chinatown, a huge chinese medicinal shop in traditional architecture, merdaka square, the national mosque, central market, and the largest chinese temple in malaysia whose name i can't remember. the clouds started hovering ahead as i raced through the square and found a nice taxi driver to take me to the monorail stop just as i felt the first raindrops and heard the first clap of thunder.

i rode back on the monorail in the heavy rain and wound all the way through the city. several views of the twin towers later, and i ducked off a few blocks from the hostel and skirted back "home." to penang tomorrow and thailand the next day...

one more thing...

i found out yesterday i have been accepted at university of oslo for their media studies masters program...!

kl

so the rain and a hostel with free computers is making ye ole blogging easier. i wondered the streets today and headed to the city's main mosque by train: it was a veritable compound (15 acres) of beautiful architecture and men wondering in and out. i was there at the bewitching hour when the call for afternoon prayer rung out over the streets of downtown. i watched men flurry across the road and flood into the gates as i stood on the train platform drively above the entrance. it was pretty awesome. and then i wondered the chow kit market for about two hours, which is a rather dingy conglomerate of fruits, dried fish, wallets, motorcycles zipping along sidewalks, and something that smelled putrid. i walked in and out of little alleways with vendors and ever time i ducked outside the twin towers stood hovering. and then all the sudden i couldn't see them. and then all the sudden it started POURING! i was unprepared, and walked for a while longer before i had to duck in to a few places for a respite. i accidentally ate the signature dish i was supposed to be tracking down. all i knew when i got into the restaurant was that "ayam" means chicken and i couldn't understand anything else on the menu but "roti" (duh) and "tom yam" soup. so i ordered, under the roti section, "murtabak ayam." and it was awesome. thin bread under and wrapped around a dense concoction of onion, egg, chicken, and some other stuff. all the while to be dipped in a red curry gravy that was freaking amazing. and my lunch cost 6 RM, or 2 US dollars. sweet. so tomorrow, i'm off to the train station to pre-buy tickets to penang, check out the towers, and wander around somemore, maybe go to the main city park?
selamat!

malacca (melaka)

still not sure how to spell the name of this quaint little town. it was the biggest sea port in the world like five hundred years ago, and now its a tiny town with a few 500 year old buildings. the people are wonderful, the religions are mixed: buddhist and chinese temples, sit next to hindu temples, which sit next to mosques, which sit next to christian churches. a river splits the town, and my mom, a friend, and I stayed overlooking the river at a tiny little cafe downstairs hotel upstairs combo. while eating dinner one night, we saw a monitor (sp?) lizard slither out of the water and climb up a moss-covered embankment on the other side. probably two and a half feet long. so i'm headed to kuala lumpur by bus today...

hiatus = imminent Xplosion

So its been awhile since I've posted anything, Singapore has been keeping me very busy: from stumbling through neighborhoods that giveway to cultural authenticity unlike I've ever seen, to passing out midafternoon to recover from a seemingly long but surprisingly short day walking in the heat, to the food. I've been tasting everything, watching people, guessing nationalities (and failing miserably) getting used to the mass transit, and getting acquainted. And now I'm off for another mini-epic journey that I promise I'll keep all of you up to date on. Below is a picture of the train routes in southeast asia. So far, I know I'm going up to Melaka, to Kuala Lumpur, to Penang, to Bangkok, to Battambang, and then to Phnom Penh. We'll see about Laos on my way back. All on the rails, all by myself. But, this is backpacking fodder so I'm thinking I'll make a few friends along the way who are in all likelihood fun, funny, and wielding great stories! Just cross your fingers that they speak fun English. Two important notes: don't get too jealous, and don't worry: I'll be just fine.  

                                 

 

Cambodia

I just arrived back in Singapore after spending the week in Siem Reap province in Cambodia. I have never seen anything like the beautiful people, the language, the heat, the ancient history, and the recent genocide's aftermath. I am posting 2 pictures (I'll post more later), one of a boy from a village off of Tonle Sap Lake, (ironically meaning sweet fresh water) and the other of the Anghor Wat Temple that I took from the back of an elephant as we ascended a mountain. The contrast is ridiculously appropriate.

Up and...walking

I'm sitting at Mike and mom's desk and I'm torn as to which way to look: the computer (a new mac, with, as Mike calls it "brushed aluminum") I look to my right and out over the balcony and straight to the water. Right to a massive game of battle ship. There are about 100 long cargo ships in sight hovering out in some of the bluest water I have ever seen. Or I could look in to the apartment. Beige marble tiles span the office, living room, and bathroom. The ceilings must be 12 feet high, there are 3 balconies, one of which stretches out of my room (high class living!). It is so humid and already pretty toasty, but I've managed to wake up at a reasonable hour. Mike is showing me all of the things he acquired on his last trip of "bargaining" (I've seen his skills before and its quite a show.) he's wearing an "it's better in the bay, bay st. louis shirt" and drinking coffee to kick himself into gear after a long trip. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I wish you could all see this. It is too beautiful to describe and so cool to see where my mom has made her home.

I Arrive

Just got to momma's house. Alive, well, with swollen legs, and greasy hair. Ewww. Nice visuals.

Tokyo

In Tokyo. So. Tired. I have a five hour layover and then an 8 hour flight to Singapore. All these efficient short people everywhere. What to do for the tall American? Assimilate obviously. I'm already fluent in Japanese.

In the land of the giant.

Surprise, surprise, I'm in the Atlanta airport. It is, I'm afraid, my home away from home. But I'm checked in, through security, coffeed up, prepped for duty-free, and ready to rock. And roll. And sit in a tiny space for 14 hours. Yeah. Gotta get revved up. Well, to all of you that love the sound of my voice, I'll call when I get settled. And to those of you who don't like my voice, you're either not reading this or I don't like you anyways.

Auntie A. And Avah.

Here are a few pictures of me and the ol' niece.

Atl. How I love to hate thee.

In a traditional spurt of standby luck, I caught the second to last seat on a tiny airplane determined to weather the...weather. I flew out of Baton Rouge where I was staying with my dad and prepping for my asian adventure. Picture Bill Murray wandering eyes glowing with the shimmer of Tokyo lights, looking up at the skyscrapers and around at all of those short people. That will be me so soon I can hardly stand it. To Tokyo tomorrow morning, Singapore the following day and then Cambodia with madre and crew. I'm now sitting in the main atrium of the airport, charging up and waiting for my lazy brother to pull himself out of bed to entertain his sister. Oh, Atlanta. You are near and dear to my heart.

South By What?

This morning I woke up still dressed with one leg out of a half-zipped sleeping bag. My feet are twice their normal size and alley dirty. Wristband adhesive is caked to my arms. Tan lines zig and zag across my body. My ears are ringing and my head is cinched in at the seams. There have been several battles between South By Southwest and I -- mostly exhaustion battles -- and I think South By may have won the war. But, I tell you once if I tell you a thousand times, having an all access wristband to see more than 1700 bands in a borderline tropical, cutting-edge town, fed the audiophile in me until I just couldn't take any more. I think I will drive home in silence. Thank you to everyone who kept up with this vicarious adventure, and thanks Jennifer for putting together this forum, and thanks SXSW for the wristband and the good times. And thanks Cory and Marshall for the couch. And thanks Austin for hosting my revelries again.

A-town after Chi-town and L-R. Obviously I love the endearing acronym.

So. After a stop in Champaign after Chicago and then another in Little Rock. I'm in Austin. No tickets, no flat tires, and very little sleep. Off to bed and to the convention tomorrow. Ridiculous amounts of musicians in an awesome city here I come.
Sara and Colleen in Little Rock. Note the Mockingbird pint glass.
Me and Liza. Oh what fun little Doogie Howser is.
Avah getting clean after requesting a shower. She is her mother's daughter.
Weird you can't see the blood dripping from my nose in this picture. But hells yeah for an NBA game and a taste of the LeBron James magic.
The new business partners. Charlie and Ryan.

SXSW-bound

Click here to check out my blog for South By Southwest in Austin, Texas at One Times One

Chi-town

With VIP treatment, excruciatingly delicious food, great friends, beautiful snow, and fun new people, Chicago laid waste to anything I considered well-orchestrated and indulgent. After 48 hours, a birthday party and table at an almost obnoxiously hip club, an afternoon at a gym/spa/club/restaurant, and lunch at Lou Phillips the start of Route 66 I just got back to Champain and will spend tomorrow with Katy and Avah shopping for Singapore...off to Austin on Monday, and then SXSW for Tuesday...

Champagne...no. Champain.

After an 8 hour drive from Little Rock, I just arrived in Champain. After rabidly running around with Avah for a few hours and eating my mom's potato soup perfectly replicated by Katy, I'm headed to bed, and Chicago tomorrow to hang out with a friend from school and to a Bulls game sans Michael Jordan.

Give me Memphis or give me...um...

Eudora Welty's house! Yeah Southern women who write great fiction.
The Jettas together again!!!
A little Sun Studios?
This man is bettin on some doagies.

Memphis destruction!

Picture Time!

Sunrise at South Beach and Nicholson...
Barack at Tulane...
Barack's dog...
Helen Horde Dunn, or, as she prefers to be called, Helen the Great...

Ms Miriam being coy.

Yo what up Elvis.

So, back in Memphis again, and it looks even less and less like the place I used to live. Got in the car and it was 68 degrees, got out it was 39. Some might consider it inappropriate that I'm sitting in a coffee shoppe with sear sucker boat shorts and flip flops on.

A few photos...

The first 2 photos are in Montreal in January. The first is the statue next to the hostel I stayed in - that day it snowed about a foot and a half and delivered winter direct to my door in full force. The second photo is of me in front of Concordia's Communications and Journalism building looking uppity and double chinned. The 3rd photo is on St. Charles early in the morning before Zulu (really early) - the ladders are lined up and ready to go for the parades. The fourth photo is sick irony on Carondolet and the fifth is a view down the St. Charles street car line with Rex in full swing...