College makes me so overwhelemed that I want to scream.

Oh my god.

Have to write my resume. A late paper. Read this book. Prepare for my conference. Work on the short story, damnit.

RESUME.

Find somewhere to live this summer. Where are we going to live this summer?

Find a job. Aplly for the jobs. Don’t wait too long, there won’t be any jobs.

And my room is a MESS.

Not a fun mess. A horrible mess. A mess like, it makes me depressed to go in there.

But I can’t clean it. I’m too busy. Too busy but I just wasted hours looking for jobs and houses. That did not make my book reading go any faster.

And some really cute kids are maybe drinking tonight and I want to play, too.

Want to get play.

What the fuck?

Why is it not spring break yet?

Why won’t this paper write itself?

I SLEPT THROUGH A CLASS LAST WEEK. I NEVER SLEEP THROUGH CLASS.

Going to explode.
Going to explode.
Going to explode.

I want my backpack and eurail back, please and thankyouverymuch.

mirah is my hero.

"if we sleep together would it make it any better?"

Dear Friend,

Take a look at the following ad:
http://www.hrc.org/millionformarriage/hospital_commercial/

I believe that ALL Americans, including gays and lesbians, deserve the rights, responsibilities, and
privileges that come with marriage. And right now, we have an unprecedented opportunity to make that
dream a reality. Please, join me in adding your voice to a million voices raised in support of civil
marriage for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples.

Or, just head over to www.MillionForMarriage.org and sign the petition.


http://www.millionformarriage.org

Poll #253767: "Please Try Again"
Open to: all, results viewable to: all

Have you ever won anything besides a free soda from one of those "Look Under Cap" soda sweepstakes things?

If so, what?

i think this paper might be smarter than me.

Writing a seven page paper at the very last minute because you know me, I work best under pressure. Actually, I guess the technical length is five to eight pages, but I was thinking seven was nice. Not that six would be bad and you know, if its well written, I am sure five is enough. We'll see what happens. I've got a page and a half written so far and I am starting to see how it is going to come together (oh baby, you know I was scared before I started typing -- I was all "oh no, you are so kidding, I have absolutely nothing to say!") and in any case, I think I want to have it done by six. Though seven wouldn't be horrible. Whatever, it just needs to be done before tomorrow, really. This is my break, in any case. Five minutes to breath and so that when I go back to typing I am fresh and new and ready to jump back in and not repeat myself and whatnot.

HEY! It is so sun-shiney pretty and amazing outside and I am pissed pissed off that I am wasting the day in here writing this paper. And you know when its done I will have more work to do. Because college is not easy like traipsing around Europe. Sometimes I can't believe that I was missing academia. Maybe I forgot that it is so hard that you never have time to clean your room or go anywhere or anything and that you can try to get sleep, but you'll wake up at four in the morning with an overwhelming sense of "oh no! I have SO MUCH TO DO".

(don't get me wrong. i love it and you know it).

So! The end for now, there will probably be another break coming up real soon, so loooook forward to another meaningless update.

PS -- The paper is on Edith Wharton's "The House of Mirth" and the role of women in society. I am using Thorstein Veblen's "The Leisure Class" as well as Elizabeth Perkins Gilman's "Women and Economics" to discuss.

Rock on.

Tink

So I feel kinda lame using Livejournal to do this, but you know, it can't hurt.

In any case, a couple of friends and I are looking to sublet a place this summer in San Francisco/Berekeley area.

If anyone knows someone who knows someone with a place (1-2 bedrooms) looking for realy adorable and fantastic subletters this summer -- let me know?

Ten minutes, go.

The library smells like shower this early in the morning, everyone just out of bed here to start their mornings with study. Quick, quick, before you have to be in class.

I woke up because I had to pee, but one of my suitmates was in the bathroom so I figured – get a head start. There’s an hour to be had. Thought piece due at four pm and I am going the extra mile this week. Doing outside research. I got involved, that’s all.

Walking the other day to my three o’clock class, I had a sudden realization about college. About how colleges (all in general, this one in particular) are really just communities of people gathered in one place to learn. We are here for a common goal. We live together, socialize together, eat together because we want to learn.

It felt good.

My head hurts already because I didn’t get enough sleep and this day will not be one of my lazier ones. In less than a half hour, RJ will knock on my door to bring me to lecture. Then I have lunch with Carmen at 12:30 and don’t forget that thought piece, due at four. But really due at 3:30, because that’s when I have to meet Lyde, my beloved history professor for our conference. So it’ll have to be done by then. Or, well, she’ll forgive me, so it would be okay if I finished it after our conference, got it in at 4:30…best not to think about that option. Due at four.

I read this (http://www.tripnet.com/q-nasty/best-of/brtatk.html) at our pre-Vagina Monologues open-mike-style vagina thing. Had to say the word “Cunt” in front of dozens of friends and strangers. Afterwards, everyone told me I was sexy and I liked it. I liked doing it, too. Terrifying, though. The buzz was like a rollercoaster. The high from overcoming something.

I’m thinking about it cause I’m all dolled up in the same clothes. School-girl style pink and grey pleated skirt, hot pink sweater and my knee-high, oh-baby-baby boots.

Hot stuff this morning. Hopefully, the day will stay as good.

I’ve got this hippie hair all down my back. Wrapped up in a green scarf that I bought in Spain from a street vender. I’ve got this torn jeans on, indecent but I’m wearing grey wool tights underneath and that’s okay. I smell like oranges and fading shower. I feel extraordinarily pretty.

just outta curiosity --

how many of y'all are friendster whores?

(this concept humbly stolen from my hero, corie.)

writers block is eating my soul.

this is an open call for first lines. or last lines. or just lines.

i have a story due in t-minus three days and am paralyzed.



leave me a line in the comments so i can jump off from there?

So we started out as Apple people. A Macintosh LC that we got while I was in the third grade.
I grew up with a real predjudice towards the "other" machines.
Until, of course, we switched. The company my dad worked for starting using PCs and we followed suit to make things easier.
I was very angry for a while, but became quite happy with my PC computers.
The computer I use at school is a big pretty Dell running WindowsME (going to switch it to XP when I get back to school).
But I still have a secret crush on the i-book and all things Apple. (I want to make movies!)
I brought this up with my dad and he said, you know, if I really wanted one, we could negotiate something.
But do I really?

So here. Help me out. Take a poll.

Poll #234664: The Age Old Question
Open to: all, results viewable to: all

Your primary computer is a(n)....

Are you happy with it?

Anything else to say about this age old debate?

So it's not as weird as you might imagine. Being home, that is.

I mean, the money is really odd here.

And I did get off the plane to be greated by a photograph of George W. Bush in the customs hall and had to fight the urge to run and get onto the next flight out...

But you know. Is good, I think.

Getting off the plane and fighting my way through customs was insane. I was so anxious. I kept bopping up and down on my toes like a toddler who has had too much sugar. I was worried I would look suspicious jumping around like that, but I just really really really wanted to see my dad! And then I did and it was good and he carried my big bag for me and I wanted to spin around in circles.

As soon as I stepped onto American soil, I was overwhelmed with this feeling of accomplishment. Like, look! I did it! Ihave come full circle! I have returned! In tact! Better than ever!

Oh. I want a t-shirt.
"BACK! AND BETTER THAN EVER!"

I will make one. My sister, who is the most amazing person I know, has iron on transfers and fabric paint.
This is not why she is so amazing. It's just, you know, afacet of her amazingness.

And on Monday, I will appear at school as the long lost princess that I am.
(leaving places is good because than everyone misses you. and you miss them, too.)

Hey guess what?

The happy stuck.

Tink

Back! At the internet-cafe in the bus station! Again!

Because I am taking a night train and it doesn´t leave until eleven and Hamburg is saying goodnight right about now and you know, I could do worse than paying two euro an hour to sit here and squirrel around. Took a break, though, went and bought CDs at the elctronic-mega-store, Saturn. I got five CDs. Or is it four. Not important. I lost most of my CDs somewhere in France, you see. So I have been slowly rebuilding a collection. I meant to buy Frank Sinatra´s Christmas album, but totally forgot. Ended up with The Police, James, Ben Harper, The Weakerthans and Wilco. Yeah, that´s five.

Oh! And here is a message to the smug checkout girl: I an American, not an idiot.

I swear, I haven´t been treated like that since France. No, wait, that was a sweeping generalization, totally unfounded -- the ticket salesman in Austria was also a jerk to me.

"Do you speak English?" I said in my plaintive sweet-as-pie voice.
"Yes." He glared daggers at me and funished accusingly "And do you speak German?"

Much like this girl who told me they didn´t take credit cards, only debit. So I whipped out my Fleet Bank card. "We don´t take credit cards." She repeated.
"No, its a debit card."
"No. Vi-sa." she said slowly, pointing at the tiny Visa emblem in the corner of my bank card. "Visa. Is. A. Cred-it. Card." she smiled at me the way you smile at very dumb animals and ex-boyfriends.
And no, she was not speaking slowly because she didn´t have a mastery of the language.

In any case. Enough griping. I now have more CDs.

Pointless. This post is pointless.
Or you know, nothing is pointless.
One of those two things.

Also! Here is something.
So I cry randomly since I have started this adventure. Not out of sadness, really, mostly just being overwhelmed. I´ll be walking along, get all mushy and shed a few tears. I did it again today.

I was feeling...not homesick, but nostalgic, I think, listening to all of the Christmas carols. We´re not a particularly Christmassy family, but holdays are holidays and this one is creeping up. So, walking through the Hamburg Christmas Market, I am particularly vulnerable with Christmas carol overload. Then I see a carousel. Its a little one, set up in the town square, in the middle of the market. It has boats and cars on it. I notice that there are some seats that are bigger, and there are moms sitting in them. Because if you´re too scared to go without your mom, she can come with you. Yes, that´s it. That´s what sets me off. If you´re too scared to go without your mom, she can come with you.

Tink

Again wasting time at an internet cafe when I should be outside enjoying Europe.

I just want to tell you that when I curl up to sleep in these hostel beds, I wrap my arms around myself and pretend that I am sleeping next to you.

I miss you so much it has become a part of me. It doesn´t hurt anymore, just beats ka-thump-a-thump along with my heart. I barely notice. Missing you is just something I do.

I am equally excited and terrified to see you. Because as independent as I feel right now, I am scared your presence will bring me back down. I am afraid that seeing you I will remember that I am not a rock. Not an island. That I do not have impentatrable borders, that you have a passport to enter into these parts.

I am scared to see myself in your eyes. Worried that you will not notice that I am more beatufiul now than I have ever been. And if you do not see it, will it still exist?

Tink

So I finally found my name in a Holocaust memorial.

Or, not my name, exactly, but the names of people I share it with.

The thing about my last name is that its rare. Like, extremely rare. Or it is now, anyway. I would tell you what it is, but I am the only Martha F- in the whole world, (and I still have enough Internet paranoia to want to protect myself there). In fact, with a little thought, I could probably count out all of the people with my last name.

See, most everyone was still in Europe. In Hungary. We thought they were all in Hungary, where my great-grandparents are from. But it was a Czech memorial that I found the names.

In Prague, the Jewish quarter is perfectly preserved. Five synagogues. A beautiful old cemetary. The community center. Its not that Czech Jews had an easy time of it, its that Hitler was going to use Prague to create a museum of an extinct race. After he had finished.

The sick part is, that dream at least, is sort of a reality. For a fixed price you buy a ticket to all the synagogues. They all have a sort of museum inside of them. One tells the story of Jews in the Czech republic, one of Jews at all. There were yarmulkes in display cases. It was still vaguely illegal to be Jewish in the Czech Republic until around 1989.

While I was visiting, walking along the little walking path, feeling pretty creeped out by this empty, perfectly preserved shell of a once-vibrant community, there was another group touring, too. Well, lots of other groups, but one in particular struck me.

Jewish men. Orthodox. Big wide-brimmed dark hats, long impressive beards, staunch bellies pressing against dark suits. Five in all, I think. Six if you count the little boy, his curly hair under his sparkly yarmulke, his payos in his eyes. They prayed in all of the synogogues. Chanting and swaying together, voices not soft, but deep and rich, singing their Hebrew. They didn't just pray in Hebrew. They spoke Hebrew.

Unapologetically showing everyone what these buildings were supposed to be used for. Not museums. Places of prayer. Places of celebration. Of sadness. Of worship to God. When they had finished praying they spoke in loud, non-museum voices. Showing their presence. In a place where they belonged. Proving their belonging. Because who dares to challenge them?

I realized they felt the same way I did as I skipped up the steps of the Reichstag. "Jews in the Reichstag. Fuck you, man!" I sang to myself.

It was in one of these synagogues that I saw our name. There is, what the guidebooks call a "sobering" memorial in the Pinkas Synagogue. As though some memorials are light-hearted and pleasant.

The walls of the Pinkas Synagogue have been repainted with the names of all the Czech Jews who perished, the dates of their births and deaths. By town. Alphabetical. I looked out of habit, really. As you do when you see a list of alphabetical names. Found the F's, traced through them with my finger in the air, like I was looking in a phonebook or for my name on a list of classes. And then there it was. My name. Our name. Double consonants and all. The names of the family beside it. Bedrich. Juliana. Jiri. A young family. Perished in 1941, along with many Czech Jews who died at the begining of the war. Bedrich and Juliana were each just under thirty. Jiri was three.

I stared. I didn't know what to do. What do you do? There it was. My name. My relatives. In ink. Immortalized by an unforgivable violence.

The next set was less shocking. I was expecting it now, I guess. Three in Prague. These older, near seventy the eldest, lasted until 1945, too. Ezvram. Leopold. Pavlina Marie. Pavilina Marie doesn't sound Jewish, does it, I thought to myself. But you know? Neither does Martha. Maybe she just married a Jewish man. Maybe her father was Jewish, like mine. Nazis don't care. One-drop rule and all.

I didn't have a pen so I memorized their names. Said them outloud to myself as a poem until I could get outside and call my father to write them down.

Ezvram, Leopold, Pavlina Marie.
Bedrich, Juliana and Jiri who was three.

No pictures allowed in the memorial. And so I squatted on the ground for what seemed like ages, staring directly at my own name on the wall.

I didn't cry. Not really. I'll admit there were immeadiate tears stinging my eyes. More of shock and surprise.

We didn't know there were any in the Czech Republic.

I might have had relatives in Prague still.

A lot of might haves.

He was three.

Its not that shocking, really, in the face of everything. Lots of babies were killed. Often babies were killed more quickly than older people -- useless, you know, can't even be put to work in a camp. But a baby with my last name?

There hasn't been a baby with my last name in a while. Maybe not since my second cousin Molly was born, come to think of it. Or is my little sister younger? Tory, there's Tory, too, around that set. In any case, its been at least sixteen years.

If my father's cousin's son, a handful of years older than me, doesn't have children, we could be very well be the end of this line -- lots of little girls, you see. If he doesn't have children I will insist that mine have my last name.

I don't want the only babies with my last name to be the ones memorialized in "sobering" memorials.

Tink

Guess what I forgot?

Four years ago yesterday is the anniversary of the diagnosis.

Four years ago tomorrow I met with my brain surgeon for the very first time.

Four years ago today was the strangest Thanksgiving meal I ever ate.

Oh, and I've come a long way, baby.

Four years.

Holy shit, if you will.

Tink

Okay. So its been done. By Charlotte, of course. And then by me. Twice, actually. And I'm going to do it again. Thanksgiving feels like a proper time (I started this on Thanksgiving night, Prague time, couldn't finish) This time, with a twist.

Without further ado --

100 Things That Make Me Happy On My Travels Through Europe

1. The black leather pink-starred wristband that is always snapped around my wrist, the ticket stub from my plane trip across the ocean zipped deep inside it.
2. My big, blue "turtle house" of a backpack, that I love to hate, but also love to live out of (my whole life! thirty pounds!)
3. Floating on my back in the hotsprings in Baden, too happy with my life to care about my body in a swimsuit.
4. The coffeeshop in Utrecht, just minutes away from the huge cathedral. A chilled out spot if there ever was one -- the perfect place for me to waste three rainy afternoons with hash and Looza pinapple juice.
5. Pineapple juice! Oh, hells yes, the official drink of my quest for self.
6. For that matter, Falafel, the official food of the journey. Best falafel? Berlin, near Rosenthaler Platz.
7. Speaking of food, corn on the cob being sold for less than a dollar, US, as street food in Prague (a brilliant idea!)
8. Christmas Markets! Why do we not have these in America? Or do we and I am too ignorant to know?
9. Viennese Coffee. Really is better than other coffee.
10. Czech/German/Dutch Beer. Really is better than other beer.
11. The adorable, hilarious hungover American girls in the hostel in Vienna. Made me feel like I was at college.
12. Getting lost and subsequently stoned and more lost, with Steve and Luke in Amsterdam. One of the nicest adventures I have ever had with some of the nicest strangers I have ever met.
13. Oh, you know, legalized, decriminalized drugs -- always a good idea, I think.
14. The carnival in Leiden, the town "invited by Children". I mean, come on, you can have pancakes for dinner? I am not convinced that the entirity of the Netherlands is not being run by some really clever kindergarteners.
15. The internet cafes in Austria -- friendly, cheap, big comfy chairs, MTV...its the little things, you know?
16. Paying only fifteen euro a night for a HOTEL ROOM in Salzburg. With CABLE TV. WITH MORE THAN TWO ENGLISH CHANNELS. And the Euro Video Music Awards were on that night, too. No, for real. And Justin Timberlake won three and my favorite, favorite Sigur Ros video (untitled #1, holy moly so amazing) won Best Video. Fair and just, I tell you.
17. Radiohead in Berlin, baby.
18. Smoking hash on the beach and watching the sunset!
19. Walking through Zurich blasting Michael Jackson's greatest hits on my headphones.
20. New, smaller jeans.
21. The exceedingly trendy (so trendy it hurts) ex-pats hang out Jordan took me to in Berlin.
22. Lora and Martha's grand Chateaux tour. Singing Disney songs through some of Europe's greatest castles. Visiting the castle which Marlinspike (from TinTin) is based on.
23. The hysterical "room number 16" episode in Blois (remind me to tell it sometime) which cumulated with the voice of the governer of California shouting at us from a pinball machine "I AM THE FUTURE".
24. Fundue in Paris at the hippest fundue restaurant this side of the alps -- white wine out of baby bottles.
25. Going dancing for the first time and loving it.
26. Going dancing for the second and third times and STILL loving it.
27. The beautiful boy who attempted to pick me up in Nice.
28. The huge statue of Freddy Mercury on the bank of Lake Geneva in Montreux, which I couldn't help but laugh out loud at.
29. Seeing the alps across the lake and feeling like crying because they were so beautiful.
30. A hairbrained scheme (that never even got off the ground) to convince an Austrailian boy to kiss me in front of the Eiffel Tower.
31. The best mushroom soup I have ever eaten in my life in Budapest. Maybe the best soup I have ever eaten in my life. Or the best mushrooms. Or something, regardless, some very good food.
32. Brushing my teeth with toothpaste labled in a language I can't understand.
33. Drinking Fanta Orange like its real Orange Juice.
34. Wearing the same clothes for days on end and knowing that no one will notice (well, if they don't smell me, that is).
35. The blackout in Baden.
36. The most incredible contemporary art museum I have ever been inside, located in Geneva Switzerland. So amazing I didn't know how to handle it.
37. The electric guitar, "Go Johnny Go" exhibit at the Vienna Kunsthaus, complete with listening stations and really really good music.
38. Italian Disco compilation purchased in Berlin.
39. Falling in love with the DJ at a club in East Berlin on the Sprei.
40. Reading "A Wrinkle in Time" while lying belly-down in the grass in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.
41. Finding an abandoned half-bottle of Lavendar Dr. Brommer's just as I had run out of body wash -- hurray for good karma!
42. Discovering the work of Isabella Allende and slowly working my way through everything she has ever written -- good train reading, if I do say so myself.
43. Text messages from Alison in Scotland.
44. The ease of the internation cell phone.
45. Basel, Switzerland. Full of hippies and hipsters and a perfect blend of French and German cultures.
46. Praying in Gothic Cathedrals.
47. Fixed price menus in France -- three course meals for fifteen Euros? Oh boy oh boy!
48. The hostel in Utrecht with the fully stocked kitchen -- everything free.
49. The sweet guy in the Basel hostel who left me with his radio when he went out so I could listen to music in the common area.
50. The amazingly sexy boy behind the bar in the Munich hostel who I hear was from Missouri (no doubt!) but I was too much of a pussy to ask and find out.
51. Speaking of amazingly sexy strangers, who I have catalogued in my mind, the cute cute cute boy sitting in front of me at the St. Michael's Basillica in Budapest, writing in his journal. No kidding. Writing in his journal. I took a picture of the back of his head with my phone. (That's just LIKE a come on, right?)
52. Planning to come back and visit absolutely all of the places I have trucked through on the train.
53. The train! I love train travel. Totally relaxing. Soothing. Big windows.
54. All of the awesome British authors I have been introduced to via the foreign-language section of international bookstores. Collin Bateman. Is he being published in America? If so, you should all read "Turbulant Priests". Probably everything else he's written, too. But start with that one. More light-hearted than Chuck Palahunik or Brett Easton Ellis, but in the same vein, I think.
55. The rush of arriving in a new city. It's like a drug. I get high off of strange train stations and unfamiliar streets.
56. The cute-as-pie Turkish boy at the Doner Kebab stand in Geneva who made fun of my French accent.
57. Being cat-called in French by two Arabic looking men while in Amsterdam. Actually, all of the catcalls in Amsterdam were sort of endearing. Can't decide if its the tone of the town, or if it was just early enough in my travels that I didn't want to strangle everyone.
58. Walking a little too closely behind middle-aged American couples and pretending that they are my parents, listening in on their conversations.
59. Cobbelstone streets, even though they make me stumble all over my own feet.
60. The Sweedish girl I met in Berlin who struck up a conversation based on my Dansko clogs.
61. Watching straight, adult men drink Smirnoff Ices and dance together in a club in Munich.
62. The crew of hysterical kids I met briefly in Budapest, who were all there on a study abroad program to study math. No kidding. Math. In Budapest, of all places.
63. My tendancy to speak with a slightly Southern accent when talking to other Americans for the first time. Who knows where this comes from? Not me, but I find it adorable in myself. "Where y'all from?"
64. The Turkish kid (about four, maybe five?) I met on the subway in Paris. Its not done to smile at strangers in France -- tabboo. But the two of us were so enamoured of one another that we kept twisting our mouths into funny shapes and smiling into our cupped palms, making and breaking eye contact, checking to see if his father had caught us. Shamelessly flirting.
65. Waking up on the night train to Vienna to a cup of coffee and roll with jam -- an unprecendented pleasure. Served to me by the cutest conductor in the whole world.
66. The way most of the German-speaking world seems to respond "a little" to the question "Do you speak English?" which seems to mean "Why yes, fluently, but with a slight accent."
67. Trying to sort out a bus schedule with the aid of a French schoolgirl in the countryside. Listening to me stumble along, she finally said, "Oh! Parlez-vous anglais?" To which I responded with an enthusiastic, relieved "Oui!". She smiled. Shrugged. Said, "Pas moi!" and laughed.
68. Sleeping through my breakfast at the Salzburg hotel, only to have the manager look quite concerned about my well-being, attempting to go out and function on an empty stomach! (Nice to be coddled)
69. The all-you-can-eat SUSHI bar I discovered in...you know what's funny? I remember the sushi bar and have not the slightest which city it was in. That's sort of happy, too, really.
70. Neutella Crepes. Another brilliant streetfood.
71. The fact that top-forty American pop music seems to be par for the course as background in fairly upscale Eastern European restaurants.
72. Watching two boys spraypaint gorgeous graffiti in broad daylight in Basel.
73. The way German words feel harsh and unfitting in my mouth. How fun it is to spit them out.
74. My chocolate-croissants-are-the-only-good-breakfast theory. Lasted quite a while.
75. Drinking my coffee with less and less sugar and milk in it. Just like a grown up.
76. My new game of make-believe shopping in which I enter stores, touch everything, browse slowly and cafefully and decide with great diligence which item I am going to buy, all the while knowing I can't have any of it.
77. Okay, really shopping is fun, too. Did you know that H&M; is slightly different in each city? I go in to all of them. I bought a skirt. I think seventy-five percent of the clothes I am currently carrying are from one H&M; or another. That's sort of funny. Actually, maybe even more...
78. The glittering of the bricks in Utrecht after a good, hard rain.
79. The glittering of the absolute capitalism in Zurich.
80. Communist architechture. Walking back in time through the streets of Berlin.
81. Chateaux Chillion (is that how its spelled?) in Montreux. On a petite island looking out at the alps. The first castle I was in that I wanted to play make-believe-I-am-Queen-Gwenyvere in (I wanted to make believe I was other people in other places, of course). The place was PERFECT for banquets.
82. Looking at castles with Lora as though we were browsing real estate listings. Deciding which one would be perfect for the commune.
83. Funniculars! If only because it is so FUN(icular) to say the word.
84. Planning to come back to absolutely every town I am in. Okay, maybe except Nice.
85. The fact that someone in the hostel for the past few nights has been practicing the flute part of the Nutcracker ballet.
86. The fall leaves as they appeared on the hills above Baden.
87. Sam Taylor Wood's photograph (seen in a museum in the Netherlands, I think) called "Self-Portrait as a Tree". It was a lovely, poignant picture but I also liked imagining him seeing a tree and thinking "That tree is exactly how I feel right now."
88. My cute-as-pie reporters notebook with all my jotted down thoughts, phone numbers, lists, addresses, directions, names of artists...
89. "The Once and Future King" sticking out of the side pocket on my backpack. Really just there for reassurance.
90. Being able to speak French to people and be understood. Not fluent, of course, but it was a relief.
91. Talking to my parents every day for the first time since I lived in their house. They require a daily "hi, I'm still alive" phone call, but its really nice to touch base with them so often. They always sound genuinely glad to hear from me. As though I have been away for years, not months and haven't spoken to them in weeks, not 24 hours.
92. Realizing that I don't get lonely anymore. I can spend days now in my own company and never resent it. Sometimes its nice to connect with people, but sometimes its nice to be alone with my thoughts and wills.
93. I'm going to have Christmas in Dublin!!!
94. And I had duck for Thanksgiving. Maybe its me, but I think that's cute.
95. The Berlin public transport system. If I ever get my own city, whoever the genius was who designed it is totally coming with me.
96. Singing the score of the Sound of Music outloud to myself as I walked through the town where it was filmed.
97. Finding my rhythm. Somehow, I never used to be able to fill my days. For a couple of weeks at the begining, I always felt like I had exhausted my options by early afternoon...didn't have anything to "do". Now, I am totally comfortable with it. Fill my days. Don't know when that switched, but I sure enjoy it.
98. Bugeurope.com the independent budget traveler's best friend. Oh, and of course my darling tattered and battered Let's Go Guide which currently looks like its been through a nuclear blast. I sharpied the words "Don't Panic" in "big friendly letters on the front" after I finished reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
99. The fact that I only have a vague idea how I am going to fill this next week and that I can afford not to know.
100. I'm twenty years old. In Europe. No responsibilities and a Eurail pass. THAT makes me happy.
(and thankful)

Tink

This is your post from Prague, the most beautiful city I have ever been in. "Prague is," I wrote in an email to Jordan, "everything they say about Paris."

Honestly -- why does silly Paris get all the romance press, when clearly THIS is the city for lovers?

Getting here was hellish, though. My last night in Budapest they were having Karaoke night in the hostel bar. Fine by me, not something I wanted to partake in, but you know, if drunken Europeans want to sing American pop songs, that's their business, right? Except of course that the dorm room I was staying in was right above the bar. And not even close to soundproof. And karaoke night went on until three thirty in the morning. And I had to wake up at seven. And even with my ear plugs in and my headband on over them and the fucking pillow over my head -- it was too loud to get ANY sleep.

But dilligent as ever, I woke up at seven, wanted to be at the train station at eight-ish, you see (like to be early, paranoid) and damned if I wasn't eating my free breakfast.

So I woke up and force-fed myself some cheese and bread, not really hungry, as not sleeping makes me feel queasy, but you know, susitance and that. So I ate. And then trucked my backpacked self to the station, sat in the cold and waited for the train. Finally got on, slept in fits and starts, unable to really rest after we reached the Slovak Republik's boarder and a hoarde of large, toothless men came on board and began to argue loudly and jovially with one another in Slovakian. So anyway.

And so then I asked if the train was going direct to Prague. My ticket implied that it would, but my Eurail schedule disagreed, had me getting off the train somewhere in the Czech Republic and waiting a half hour and then getting on another train. In her broken English, the conductor explained that yes, the train would go direct to Prague, but NOT (she emphasized) to the main station. Panicked by the possible implications of this, I opted to get off and switch as my Eurail schedule advised (it would only be much much later that I realized the alternate station was only two subway stops away from the main one...).

So I get off the train and I have to pee and I haven't eaten anything in, like, nine hours and I am basically grumpy and have to buy a ticket to Prague main station and then wait a half hour, according the board. So I buy the ticket and camp out in front of the train board, waiting for the track number to be announced.

I wait. And wait. And wait. And the track listing remains blank. This begins to worry me more and more as it gets closer and closer to the train's arrival time. Eventually, with two minutes til departure, according to the board, the train's name begins to flash violently, meaning "all aboard". So I freak out. I find a track that has a train going to Prague. Only, of course, NOT to the main station. Freaking out more, exhausted, half-starved and pissed off, I frantically run up and down stairs to, you know, all of the tracks. Until one has a sign with my train's name on it.

Yeah no kidding. No train there yet, though. Seems its a little late. Or, that's what I'm guessing anyway. A man asks me in Czech if this is going to be the train to Prague. I tell him I don't know in, English. He looks like he pities me -- I can't decide if I look that shitty or if he just can't believe I don't speak Czech. The train shows up and the man asks the conductor if its going to Prague (I mean, that's my best guess. I don't really speak Czech, as I think I stated. All I pick up are the words "da Praha?") He then turns to me and smiles, speaks to me in Czech, again, "da Praha". He gets on the train. So I follow him. Praying.

I get on the train, I find a nice empty seat in a nice empty compartment, put my bag next to me and sit down. The conductor comes. Looks at my ticket. Makes a face. Says something to me in Czech. I say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand. I only speak English." He frowns some more. Says something else to me in Czech. I gape, shake my head to show how little I understand. He shrugs, says something in Czech and hands the ticket back to me.

Here is the part where I start freaking out. What the hell is he going on about? The ticket is invalid? The train doesn't go da Praha after all? I DON't SPEAK CZECH! Finally, after he passes my compartment a few more times without coming in to throw me off the train or express more complications in Czech, I decide to calm down. The train is going somewhere. If it is not Prague, hopefully it will be somewhere with a hotel. I look out the window and breathe, try not to fall asleep so I can keep track of station names, hope to get off at the right one.

It is on the train that I get homesick for the first time since Den Haag. Out the window, approaching the city of Prague, there is a highway. A big, curvy well-lit highway lined with huge, gaudy billboards and neon-sign covered sprawl. Gas stations. Discount stores. Fast food. And I want to go home to Missouri. I want off the train. I want to be in Zach's jeep, driving back home to Webster Groves, through the bright lighs and ugly sprawl. I want MY Shaell Stations and Home Depots. I want Mack trucks with English slogans on their sides and billboards preaching the word of God.

I almost laugh at myself. I don't even have the sense to be homesick for my bubble of a college. Or my family's cozy house outside of Boston. I am not aching for the Charles River, not the East Village, not my futon at home...I want midwest suburban sprawl.

You can take the girl out of the midwest, but I guess you can't take the midwest out of the girl.

When I finally get to Prague, I am frazzeled and tired, I want to collapse. I want to hide. I do not want to talk to anyone, I do not want to see anything, I want to get into a bed and sleep. I make my way through the unfamiliar subway system (only two stops) and ride up towards Nam Rebublicky (Republic Square) on my new favorite escalator. Its my favorite because it is perhaps the slowest, shortest escalator in the world. I am not kidding. You could probably run up and down the steps twice in the time it takes this escalator to reach its destination -- its adorable really. In any case, as I emerge, I see my first bit of Prague. And promptly forgive the entire day.

The buildings are stunning. The streets well lit and wide. There is a Christmas market and the air smells like mulled wine and pine needles. Everyone was right, Prague IS like a fairy tale.

One I wrote, maybe. I drop my stuff off at the hostel, ask for a single room so I can sleep as much as I like, but I stay up. Do a little walking (I can't help myself!) -- eat some street food. Buy a Czech beer. Smile. Skip a little. Love everything.

I sleep in the next day (which was yesterday) do my sightseeing, drink some mulled wine and indulge myself in the Prague premiere of Love, Actually. Laugh and cry the whole way through. Come out and love everything some more. Go see the movie. Now. Abandon your Thanksgiving dinner for it. SO GOOD. I'll admit, it was probably enhanced by my vulnerable, Prague-loving state, but oh my goodness gracias, I literally had to talk myself out of going to see it again tonight. My favorite piece of fluff so far. Hugh Grant's dance scene? Alright, so its no Tom Cruise in Risky Business (what is?) but let me garuntee -- when I buy the DVD (like, the day it comes out) that scene will be played and replayed.

I am a happy kitty. This was a long post.

I had duck with cabbage and dumplings for Thanksgiving. A traditional Czech meal. I also had Garlic soup to start and apple strudel to finish. I ate so much I felt like I was going to die -- and that's the point, right?

Happy Turkey Day, kids.

Tink

Yes, I am aware that it is eleven thirty at night and that I am supposed to wake up tomorrow at seven in the morning so that I will have time to have breakfast before getting to the train at my prefered get-to-the-train-before-you-have-to-so-you-dont-freak-out-in-a-foreign-city time.

But you know? I had already paid for this hour+ of internet time and figured I had best use it up before traveling seven hours away to Prague.

I'm in Budapest now. In Hungarian you slur that "s" a little so it sounds like Budapesht. Its kind of sexy that way, I think. But Budapest is a pretty sexy place. I have enjoyed myself immensly, even though I did not make it to the Turkish baths (yes, Turkish Baths in Hungary....the Ottoman empire invaded and all that they left behind were some spas, not bad if you think about it, really) and had to spend half of today working on course registration instead of exploring the city. I have had a nice time here. The city suits me. Eastern Europe makes me strangely excited.

When I first got here I was overwhelmed the conflict of the desire to escape the soot and relative-poverty with another deep feeling starting in stomach and spreading outwards to stay here and never leave.

Partly I know that is because of my own romanticism. My father's family was Hungarian. I say was because they are Jews. The ones not already relocated in America (my grandfather first generation) were killed in one fell swoop by the Nazis, as were almost ninety percent of the Hungarian Jews. I wanted to feel that there. To understand it. This is my "old country".

I went to the synagogue here in Budapest, the second largest in the world (Temple Emmanual in NYC being the largest) and by far the most regal, beautiful synagogue I have ever been inside. The first time I walked to it, it was Friday night, so of course it wasn't open, but I stared at its mosiaced walls anyway. As I walked back to my hostel, the sun was setting and I walked past a tall, handsome Jewish man in all black, traditionally clothed. Walking with him was a gaggle of small Jewish boys. Five little boys at least. All under twelve. One who must have been under four. I was overwhelmed with their presence. Jews. In Hungary. A man who working hard to please God and to repopulate Europe with Jews. I wanted to scoop up the littlest boy and kiss him on his pretty dark-haired yarmulke-covered head. Instead I tried to take a picture. I didn't have my camera and didn't want to be intrusive anyway, so I yanked my fancy new cell phone from my purse and snapped one with its lo-fi digital point and shoot. The boys were walking too quickly, though, and instead of handsome little men, instead it is a picture of small dark ghosts, their smeared presence standing out against the yellow wall of the synogogue. That's closer to what I saw anyway.

On Saturday morning, when I happened to be walking past the synogogue again, I ran into people who had just attended morning services. Old Jewish men. Some older than my grandfather. With their long white beards and payas. I lingered on a street corner so I could watch them walk past, ambling through the streets of Hungary, chattering to one another. What is it to be a Jew in Hungary? I wanted to know. These men were old. They must have seen such things. Had they left and come back? And what courage that must take.

The Holocaust memorial here in Budapest is outside the Synogogue, over a mass grave. It is a silver tree, a weeping willow, branches weighed and almost touching the bricked ground beneath. The leaves are etched with the names of those who died. Not nearly everyone, but a number. I spent maybe a half hour reading the names, wondering if I would find my family's. I didn't. I read the names outloud in my whisper voice. So many Joszefs, so many Lilys. So many. Fischer. Fleisch. Weisel. Klein. I read as many as I could until the effort was exhausting.

Tomorrow I leave this place and head towards Prague, which I hear is like a fairy tale, but will have less of the personal tug at my heartstrings. Budapest I will return to. If only to prove I can. Maybe that's what those old men are doing here.

Tink