Budapest and Krakow

I utilized my time in Budapest for some considerably necessary r&r with my friend Erika and her chihuahua, Baby. Life on the road is marvelous, but not easy. We saw all the beautiful monuments, sculpture and architecture on Castle Hill which sits above the Danube and gives a view of the city, walked through some of the parks and took a day trip to a little town outside of Budapest called Szentendre. The food we had there inspired me- garlic herbed cream soup and chicken with lime and yogurt. I can't wait to make my own spin on these dishes. Szentendre is a curious little town with cottages and narrow winding cobblestone streets, a nice change from the residential communist buildings in Zuglo. She gave me several personal Hungarian cooking lessons. She schooled me on a few different ways to make spaetzle, chicken paprikash, letsco, vegetable and dumpling soup, and cake that we paired with Hungarian red wines. I met Erika in culinary school in New York. She is a reiki healer and heavily into tantra and claims to attain orgasm from simply hugging. She has an extensive collection of new age books and a tantra art collection but it is her English that makes her truly unique. Eleven years ago, Erika moved to New York with out knowing a word of English. Self taught, she used the city as her teacher attending comedy shows and watching Married with Children, Seinfeld and immersing herself into city life resulting in quick, witty comments accompanied by a thick Hungarian accent. I had a blast with her and Baby, I even had the apartment to myself for a few days and consumed this time with yoga, meditation, preparing my visa, flight, hostel and research for Vietnam, cooking, going for walks and reading Anatomy of the Spirit, The Four Agreements, Animal Farm and watched the documentary, the Business of Being Born. I highly recommend all of them. As much as I love chihuahua kisses in the morning, it was time for my next endeavor, Krakow, Poland.
Krakow has the most effortless beauty of any place I have ever seen, which can also be said about the people. Most of the architecture has a shabby chic quality about it with partially exposed brick with bright pink and red flowers displayed on the wrought iron balconies, others are baroque and some look renaissance. Every so often you will see a random building painted with an art deco color like yellow or a soft orange. The Wawel castle is the Krakow's claim to fame and even that has several buildings that don't look like they belong together at first glance but somehow they fit together like a puzzle and after taking a good look, you can't picture them any other way. The hostel I stayed in was about $7 a night and was very difficult to find but I turned out to be very grateful for this hidden gem. Hungary and Poland are the first places on my journey that don't use the euro. Hungary uses the forint and Poland uses the zlotych, that took some getting used to. One dollar is equal to 228 forint and about 3 zlotych. I rented a bike and pedaled around the Jewish ghetto and along the river for a few hours one day. I ate perogies like mad. A little old lady around the corner from my hostel made artisinal perogies in her cute little cafe and I went as many times as possible. I also went to a mleczny which translates to "milk bar" in English. These very small, bleak cafeterias were invented by the communists in the sixties. They are called milk bars because until the early eighties they served dairy based vegetarian meals. They were established to create cheap meals that would be available to anyone. This was definitely a cultural experience. I paid about two dollars for my no frills perogies from the most miserable woman I have ever seen in my life not to mention it was like an oven in there. While they were good and cheap, it was worth the extra money to get the perogies from the little old lady around the corner that have different cheeses and herbs inside and garnished with fried onions not to mention, made with love. I could have definitely stayed another night but the woman at the train station booked my ticket for the wrong night and you really don't want to argue with an eastern European woman, so I'm off to Prague tonight on an overnight train. Onward and upward comrades!

If it's baroque, don't fix it

It was time to come down from my Germany extravaganza, so making my way east I stopped in Salzberg, Austria. You've seen it before in the Sound Of Music. The hostel I stayed in did a daily screening of the movie and Sound Of Music tours were heavily advertised. That, and it being the birthplace of Mozart are it's claim to fame. You can walk across the entire city in about twenty minutes. Some travelers make it a day trip before or after Vienna. The entire country has a still, tranquil quality. Very pristine with rose gardens, perfectly manicured lawns and classical music. Austria has the most unique gardens I have ever seen. Pink, white, red and yellow roses are blooming everywhere and these aren't some gimpy rose bushes either. Each individual flower seems to spiral out from the center with perfect velvety petals with expert symmetry. Entities like this prove to me that God exists. Nothing seems to be out of place anywhere, even the H&M, which is usually loud and crowded with clothing and accessories strewn about with deodorant marks and missing buttons was orderly and precise. If I hadn't known any better I would have thought it was a cute boutique shop. Salzberg was beautiful and I never knew such perfection existed. It was almost too perfect, if that makes any sense. It lacked an edge. I'm more interested in places that are worn with evidence of continual use by generations before me.
The next day I took the train to Vienna. The hostel was very far from the center but it was hard to complain when you are on the top of a hill with a view of the entire city and backed up to a vineyard. There are lovely cottages everywhere, I must have one! I need one to use as a sanctuary when life overwhelms me, maybe in upstate New York or something. I will retreat there to cook and knit and tend to my garden and then return to my life with vitality. The first day I went to a traditional Austrian restaurant, which is similar to German food only they describe things like a song: pear slices in a night gown with a juggling pole, mountain cranberries, almonds, cinnamon and a pear rose as an applause. I had a savory tomato, potato pancake with sauerkraut bread. I returned to the hostel and filled my lungs with the fresh mountain air as I looked over the city while the sun was setting. I talked to a girl Marisa from Michigan for the rest of the night before resting my weary head. My utopia was short lived. The next day I got my map and planned my day, but as I stepped out the door, dark clouds began to gather. Relentlessly it poured cold rain all day soaking my clothes and shoes and chilling my bones to the core. It was impossible to even take pictures. I found a huge used English bookstore and bought The God of Small Things and went back to the hostel and read, waiting for the rain to subside. It never did. The book is beautifully written but very gloom and doom. Not a good match for a dreary day. There was nothing near the hostel and I was in alone all day since Marisa left for Hungary. It was even impossible to take a walk. Slugs the size of cigars gathered around my window. I detest those vile little beasts. I watched these slimy ill-colored creatures for hours. They really look much more attractive in their shell, they should stay in there. I sat in stewed in my mundane thoughts all day. I glared at them with contempt and held them responsible for my cabin fever, until my contempt grew to ambivalence and finally ambivalence to boredom. The next morning the girl at reception sent me to the wrong train station. I didn't get too upset because I bought a purple eyelet dress and a shirt and the woman at the register made a mistake and only charged me 8€ for both. I am an honest person but it only happens once in a blue moon and I thought maybe God sent me a gift for all the troubles. Went to the other train station to buy the ticket only to be sent to another train station that I had to take one metro and transfer to another to get there just on time. I sat next to a woman on the train who smelled like onions. I laid out my hoodie, socks and sneakers that hadn't dried from the day before and were reeking like mildew, so we were even. A little old Italian man took a picture of me with his cellphone and started laughing an kissing the screen. This country is batting a thousand with me.
Boy, Slovenia are you a sight for sore eyes! Austria can shove their opera up their ass. Ljubljana's where it's at! Nestled between Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and the Adriatic Sea, calling Slovenia unique would be an understatement. They have their own language but you will also hear English, Italian, German and Croatian as well. I knew it was going to be good when I was following the directions from the train station to the hostel and it said the turn left at the dragon bridge. I thought it was a typo or maybe what they call a draw bridge here, but the bridge really has dragons on it, and it is beautiful! There are baroque style buildings even more distinct than those of Austria. They certainly have that edge that Austria was lacking. This is the first place in Europe that people are starting to look more exotic. Even the alphabet looks different. It is World Cup fever in Europe right now and Slovenia happened to be playing the United States when I was there. There was a castle in the middle of the city but its hard to impress me after the castles in Germany. I really loved it there, it was exactly what I needed-amazing food, great people, beautiful sculpture. I also had the opportunity to spend the night in Kras, which is in the countryside with some locals. It is a village of only fifty people with dilapidated old houses and vineyards. The house had wallpaper that had to have been about fifty years old, I was surprised this place even had running water. There was thunder and lightening all night. The kind that startles you out of a sound sleep. I'm not gonna lie, I was scared shitless out there. It was really beautiful but I was really anxious to get back to the city. One of the locals I met works in the kitchen of an Indian restaurant so I stopped in there to get my Indian fix before heading out. Believe me, I realize how lucky I am.

XXX

On June 20th exactly two months have elapsed in my travels and is also that of my birth. One score and a decade ago my nineteen year old mother and twenty three year old father had a very hairy baby that they did not know what to do with. I was told I even had black hair on my ears that eventually fell off. Having a baby so young forced them to get married and grow up rather quickly. So you see, I'd like to take some credit for raising them as well.
A few years ago, thirty sounded daunting to me but now that it's here, I couldn't be happier. I am at my physical and mental peak and traveling the world. As I reflect over my life I realize I haven't done too bad for a girl from Eddystone, Pa. I became a homeowner at twenty two with the help of no one, pursued my craft of hairdressing for almost fourteen years and achieved all of my goals with that, have too many wonderful friends to count, was on stage with Diana Ross in the third grade, hung out with Roger Waters and have my mid-life crisis behind me (culinary school). Although my twenties were marvelous, I'm glad some transformations took place. My pasty translucent skin, flaunting blue veins became "ivory", love handles are now "curves", and my contorted teeth give me "character". My ideas on friendship, success and relationships have taken unexpected turns as well.
The morning of my birthday, I arrived on the night train from Slovenia to Budapest. It was the worst ride of my life. It was an old dirty train, packed with people and the seats didn't recline at all. They came in and checked for passports about six times just to wake us up and be assholes. Welcome to eastern Europe. My friend Erika surprised me at the train station, I didn't expect to see her there at all. She made me lunch and gave me really cool silver earrings as a gift when we got to her place. That night we went to dinner at an amazing Asian/Hungarian fusion restaurant called Karma. I had roasted duck with Hungarian dumplings and Hungarian red wine. It was so good I'm going back for it again before I leave. After dinner we took a walk along the Danube, which is unbelievable at night. It is the most beautiful part of Budapest. The next day we went to the Turkish baths and got massages. Though the baths were very therapeutic, we got manhandled by big Russian women, clearly you do not have to be licensed to do massage here. Erika was pissed, I thought it was hilarious. You cannot have the light with out the darkness. Though challenging, I am grateful for it all.

Deutschland

Starting in the north, my first stop on the Germany tour was Hamburg. Being Germany's biggest port, the city is surrounded by water but ironically burned to the ground after a four day fire in 1842 started by an arsonist in a cigar factory. Many of the buildings were rebuilt only to come down once again in World War two and rebuilt once more. So the architecture in Hamburg is fairly new compared to the rest of the country. It was a great intro to Germany and I was satisfied with spending one night.
Berlin however was epic. Graffiti clad buildings scarred by bullets and shrapnel from the war, contrasted with tree lined streets and one green park after the next. A plethora of restaurants, cafes, biergartens, second hand stores and parks were steps away from my hostel. Germany is considerably less expensive than the other countries I´ve traveled to and it was actually more inexpensive for me to dine out than to cook for myself. Lucky for me there was an Indian restaurant next to the place where I stayed. I became fast friends with the owner and he would not let me pass by without first having a cup of chai.
I never considered myself much of a history buff but how can ones curiosity not be aroused by German history? I learned the detailed story of the wall, got an in depth look into the holocaust, Nazi book burning, and went to a model concentration camp which is now a memorial. I was reluctant to see such horror but even locals recommended it since it is such it serves such great significance in our worlds history. I highly respect Germans for owning up to their past. I wasn´t sure if it was going to be taboo to talk about Hitler or the holocaust but they do not deny or sugarcoat anything. There is however a 5,000€ fine for doing the Hitler salute. When I first arrived to Germany I thought everyone was arguing but it turns out that's just how they speak to each other. Intense people these guys are. Its hard to believe they are so close to France. After witnessing the history of some of the darkest days in the worlds history at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, I was on the train attempting the impossible task of comprehending what I had just saw when I was approached by the ticket Nazi.
"Vas dies ist?" he roars at me.
"That's my ticket." I tell him.
He angrily rambles on something in German and the man next to me explains that I am in zone C and my ticket is for zone AB. Honest mistake. For example, most of New York City is zone AB except for places like Coney Island or Brighton Beach. The lack of communication is causing everyone on the train to look. He motions me to come with him and I do the walk of shame past the spectators. My mind starts to race with thoughts of what the consequences were to an offense such as this. While traveling alone usually strengthens me, I have my weak moments as well, such as this. He took my passport and ID and demanded I pay him 40€ on the spot, but I claimed I didn´t have cash one me. He literally slapped the fine in my hand, barks something in German and gave me a look of repulsion before walking off. Between Sachsenhausen and that I sat on a bench and salty tears began to stream down my face, dragging my black mascara with it. After I sat brooding for a few minutes I began to think of the absurdity of the situation. How a man so powerless in his life takes it out on a tourist who makes an honest mistake and finds it necessary to cause a scene and inflict shame for no good reason. I should have ran. Absurd I tell you. Absurd!
My friend George that I used to work with in New York is in a long distance relationship with his partner in Bamberg. As fate would have it he was visiting at a most opportune time. His partner Marcos is Brazilian and Italian, has been living in Germany for twenty six years and plays the flute for the Bamberg symphony. I was welcomed to stay at his apartment which has quite the collection of oil paintings and sculpture. I was spoiled for three straight days including a day trip to Nuremberg, traditional German cuisine, we went to a beirgarten and I even got to wash my clothes in a real washing machine. These Bavarian towns are world heritage sites and very well preserved. They really make you feel as if you have stepped back in time, Nuremberg is still surrounded by castle walls and played a big role in the Nazi movement. It is where Hitler gained much of his power at the Nazi rallies and also where the trials of the German officials involved in the holocaust took place as well. It´s hard to believe such a lovely place has such an ugly history. On a lighter note my hair was so long and straight I looked like Cher. I could´nt even tell people that I did hair for a living. Thankfully George had his scissors and hooked me up with some Linda Ronstadt waves.
By chance, I arrived in Munich the day before the city's 852nd birthday. Some people went all out dressed in indigenous clothing and there was festivities everywhere. After seeing this, I knew I could never handle Oktoberfest, which I hear has six times the population during those two weeks. I walked through the English Gardens and everyone was out picnicking and celebrating. I stumbled upon part of the river where everyone surfs. I took a video and I will post it when I can actually use a computer that doesn't suck or is in English. Surfing in Munich, who knew? Summertime in Europe is packed with tourists and it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find accommodations. The only option I had in Munich was a campsite. I shuttered at the thought of camping, I swore off camping after Woodstock 99´ but I figured worse case scenario, it will only be one night. To think I once complained about a ten person dorm, this was a hundred person tent. I ended up having a blast at this place. It had all new facilities and tons of people my age. I met two brothers from Virginia and ended up traveling with them for a few days. Nate is a welder in Richmond and just turned thirty last week. He told me tales of living in the south while chain smoking Marlboro reds. The one that would intrigue me the most would probably be the one about him putting his ex-wife through nursing school and then leaves him for a doctor. There was a twelve gauge shotgun with a pistol grip involved. His tattoo sleeved arms and southern twang completed this elaborate story. His brother Chris is a devout Christian who never swears and is waiting for marriage to be intimate with a woman. These two were a trip.
We ended up going on a day trip to to the Neuschwastein castle in Hohenschwangau. I was there when I was twelve and it´s lavish interiors drew me back eighteen years later. King Ludwig the second designed this castle and was successful at making a fairy tale. It´s right in the center of rolling hills, mountains, an emerald forest and bridge next to a waterfall. If you are in Germany, this is not be missed. It was the inspiration for Disneyland´s Sleeping Beauty castle and 6,000 people a day visit in the summer. On June 13, 1886 the king died a mysterious death in knee deep water. Some believe he was assassinated by parties who thought his eccentric ideas would bankrupt Bavaria. It´s also mysterious that we were there on June thirteenth. After we saw the castle we went to the small town of Füssen to walk around before heading back to Munich. We had one of my best meals so far that day which was venison and dumplings with pear and cranberries. Later we found a bakery that sold pastries that are made from scraps of dough, rolled into the size of a softball and covered in chocolate or sugar. The food in Germany is very heavy and took some getting used to. Being a foodie, I tried as many traditional foods as I could, including the beer. I went to several biergartens and tasted many local beers. My favorite is half lemonade, half beer but I still couldn't finish a glass. The alcohol content is much higher than the beer consumed in the U.S. but has a much smoother flavor. The food is served very medieval style with large portions of meat and big heavy beer mugs. I tried spaetlze, different types of dumplings, curryworst, bratworst, saurkraut, white asparagus with hollandaise, and lots of pretzels. People stared in awe as I doused them in mustard so it's definitely an American thing. I don't understand how the hell they eat them dry. Well, Im all Hitlered out. I beleive it's time to cross yet another border.

Love Letter to New York

Dear New York,
How I miss you so. Forgive me for ever doubting you, for surely I will return and is where I shall dwell. Remember our younger days when I was but a girl? You seduced me and beckoned me to the island and I acquiesced. Intrigued I was by the diversity of humanity and powerful energy that looms about. Creating a hell of my very own, I accused you. I blamed the extreme weathers, the mighty winter and the scorching summer, my tiny Queens studio and meager wages. You stared me down, how you frightened me, but now we have a clandestine understanding. Only I am responsible for my mirth. How dare I blame my inertia on you? You've seen me at my weakest, ugliest and most beautiful. I've grown to love all of your idiosyncrasies, such as your Broadway beginning in the east and continuing on to the west. I've visited parks around the world only to leave me yearning for the footpaths of your Central Park. To know you is to love you New York, and I am certain that your concrete will rise to meet my feet upon my return and I will once again walk with ease through your labyrinth. Soon enough I will be at brunch in the West Village with my friends building castles in the sky. For there is no other place for me in this vast world.
Love,
Gigi

Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam

After the sensational Paris, I decided to sojourn in France one last time. My friend Fabien whom I met while he was working in New York, heard I was traveling with scissors and invited me to come stay with him in the north of France in exchange for a haircut. He lives in a fabulous house walking distance to everything I needed. He has great friends and family that were more than generous to me. We had traditional northern French food which consisted of carbonnade(beef in sauce), welsh cheese(similar to cheddar) and porc with mariolles cheese, salad, bread and wine. Can you think of anything more decadent? Lille is a great little city, I wish I could say the same about Brussels.
Belgium. I just didn't get it. Do I need to know a local there to find the cool things? Was it because it rained all day? Their claim to fame is the statue of the little boy peeing, chocolate, the center square(beautiful but not worth going for), beer and fries with sauce. They have a ton of sauces to choose from. I liked the andalouse which was like a spicy mayo. It was suggested to me to accompany the fries with beer but I really hate beer. I want to love beer, I really do. I want to be the cool chick that can sit around with a bunch of dudes and drink an ice cold brewski. As a teenager, I would force down 40oz's waiting for the day my taste buds would acquire the flavor but the day never came. It's annoying that when everyone is drinking we have to make a special stop for me to get wine or vodka. I'm just being true to thine self. Besides the fries, there is literally nothing to write home about. A lot of people suggested a cool town close by called Brugges but I had enough of Belgium, I was ready for the bad boy: Amsterdam.
When I meet someone new and talk of travel ensues, I always ask their top destination. There is much you can learn about a person. Caribbean resorts? Safaris? Jersey Shore? It's absolutely vital, especially for potential significant others. If your a foodie, it's impossible to travel with someone who's looking for a Subway sandwich right? When someone says their top destination is Amsterdam, they immediately lose points in my book. They usually don't even know where it is on a map so I test them. This is one of a series of tests I give to people when I first meet them. I'm kidding! I don't do that. Maybe sometimes, just to trim the fat. It's one thing to go to experience everything and another thing to go to get high and hire prostitutes. Not hot. There were tons of men here just for that and could care less about anything else. Amsterdam is truly a unique place and does have legalized prostitution and marijuana but also so much more. The bicycle culture might be my favorite aspect. 500,000 bikes, 20,000 stolen, 10,000 found in the canals every year. This is the epitome of a bicycle friendly city. I was became captivated by the ebb and flow of the cyclists and ended up staying five nights.
Standing in the room where Anne Frank wrote her diaries had an enormous impact on me. Already a compelling story, being able to go behind the bookcase and up the hidden stairs to where these people suffered so badly brings so much awareness to me. This was only ONE families story. Anne's dream of being a famous writer came true when her father Otto, had her work published after her death. Otto said he realized he never knew his own daughter after he read the diaries she kept. I read this in school but I can't wait to reread and learn from this young girls story of courage, prejudice, family, strength and faith.
Some European cities offer a free walking tour funded by the government. Not only because the Irish guy Bernard who gave the tour was hilarious but I also made a new friend, Georgette. She is Brazilian/Dutch and ran out of money while traveling and is getting herself together living with her aunt out in the boonies in the Netherlands. She comes to Amsterdam on the weekends to hang out with the guy she's seeing and her cousin. Her cousin has a sweet loft right on one of the canals. We hung out all day and had food in Chinatown. Her boyfriend insisted on paying because the dutch are notorious for being cheap and he doesn't want the reputation. Hence the expression 'going dutch'. She is so beautiful and exotic but would not let me take her picture. We learned so many cool things on the tour. I won't bore you with too much history but it's so intriguing. Did you know New York was first named New Amsterdam before England renamed it? Does Bouwerij, Breukelen, Haarlem, Greenwijck, Staaten Eylandt or Konijanen Eiland sound familiar to you? He also told us about how they used to execute people here before the guillotine was invented. For the women, they would put them in a bag and threw them in the water with stray cats, so not only were they suffocating and drowning they were also getting scratch by an innocent kitty who was also fighting for its life. For the men, they would cut their heart of their chest and hold it before them as they bled to death. This was punishment for something like public nudity. Yikes.
The canals are constantly being replaced with new water from the ocean so it doesn't get stagnant like in Venice but they still have a rodent issue because of it. Everything was stored in the very top of the houses to prevent the rodents from getting to it. They would bring it up with a pulley, but the rope would swing too much and break the windows. To prevent this they started building the houses to slant forward. They did this until someone had the brilliant idea of making pulleys that extended a little further from the house. Perfect example of people being in charge that shouldn't be. Changing the architecture of the building when could have done something so simple. This is why I am skeptical of so-called 'experts'. They are usually self proclaimed for one thing. Modesty is something I admire, people who brag about themselves usually suck at what they do.
The Van Gogh museum was impressive but it was hard to enjoy because it was so crowded. They take you through all the phases in his career, including his Japanese phase which was my personal favorite. I didn't see Starry Night because you guessed it, it's in New York.
While working fashion week in New York, I met a guy named Tommy who comes to work fashion week every season. He owns a salon in Amsterdam that also doubles as an art gallery. The mirrors hang from the ceiling and slide around in a track to they can be easily moved for exhibitions. We sat and drank tea and talked until he had a client. It was good to see him, I felt so inspired by his studio and also his enthusiasm for the salon, editorial work, art and fashion. It's good to feel gumption again for my former career before I burned myself out. Somewhere along the way I lost myself through work politics, failed relationships, and finding my way through the labyrinth of New York. Sometimes it feels as though it's gone like dust in the wind never to be found again. Lately I've felt a wave of passion crashing over me.
Prostitution was started here because of it being a major port. Sailors would do what they needed to do, then head to confession after and all was forgiven. It got to the point where the church would sell 'indulgence cards' that you could buy before you sinned so it would eliminate the need to confess after. Really guys? un-friggin-beleivable. I walked through the red light district with people from the hostel and let me tell you, these women are gorgeous and there are numerous to choose from. They look like dolls and they are standing in the windows beckoning men to come inside for the meager price of 15 minutes for 50€. I talked to a guy that says it's a bargain, he pays much more than that to take a woman out on a date. However you get your kicks.
The "coffee shops" are everywhere. When you enter, they give you a menu of all the different types of marijuana. They also sell mushrooms, hash and stimulant pills. Prostitution and marijuana are not really legal. They have laws with many gray areas. If you live under a rock and have not seen one of the best movies of all time, Pulp Fiction, I will let Mr. Vincent Vega explain it to you in "Royale with Cheese":




And they do drown em' in that shit too!ugh. In the next two years they are shutting down a lot of the red light district and many of the coffee shops, so if that is your main priority here then I suggest you come soon.
Dutch Wonderland is an amusement park for children in Lancaster, Pa. They have rides, games, show, mini golf and a camp ground. So I hear. I never went. Let me give you a little vignette of my childhood. Vinny and I wanted to go to Dutch Wonderland so badly so mother set out on a quest to take us. I wore a pink and gray dress for the occasion. My mom is very intelligent but lacks an internal compass. I was about eight years old holding the map in the front seat. My mom would pull up to an intersection and ask me what way to go. We drove all day and never found it, so my mom did the next best thing she could think of and pulled into a Dairy Queen and let us eat as much ice cream as we desired.
Oh, I went to Dutch Wonderland alright. It wasn't my intention, but I got high every day. It's unavoidable really. Mark my words: I am NEVER smoking again. I was smoking the weakest they offered and it was still too much for me. I ate a spacecake and it was all over. Anxiety city. I'm too old for this shit. So if we are ever hanging out and it's present, remind me of how much I loath it. In fact, just punch me right in the face if I attempt it. Really, just do it. Remind me of how I thought it was never going to end and walking through a maze trying to find my hostel with street names like, Valkenburgerstraat, Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat, and Kloveniersburgwal. The mere thought is making my head spin. Trees are not my thing, I really don't know what I was thinking.
I did try some new foods. A popular street food is raw herring with onions and pickles, sounds strange but it was delicious. I splurged and got rijsttafel my last night, which means "rice dishes". Amsterdam has a huge Indonesian infulence. They bring out about 15 little dishes with saffron chicken, coriander beef, Indonesian salad with peanut dressing, two types of rice, different types of vegetables and battered and fried banana for dessert. The flavors are similar to Thai food, it was so yummy.
I finally finished Dracula and it was incredible for so many reasons. Not only was it beautifully written, to me Mina was the perfect example of how female power is sometimes in the submission. My next book is called Holy Cow, a true story about woman who travels to India and hates it, then she got her palm read by an airport beggar who tells her that she will return to India. She screamed "never!" and gives him and the country the finger. The prophecy comes true and moves there for love 11 years later. I'm looking forward to this one, if you have ever spoke to me, you know that I have an obsession with India. There were bookstores galore in Amsterdam. Books are better then people sometimes, and so are animals. I miss my little Juneaux tremendously. I bought my guide books for India and southeast Asia. My plans for Asia are still larve at this point but I'm getting the ball rolling. I'm having a wonderful time abroad but I miss everyone terribly already. sigh.