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.