Ooof.

I take it back. There is no city of microbes creating all sorts of pollution in her small intestine, instead, it is where the Devil resides, and man does he cook up some pungent brimstone.

The Cat

My parents have nicknamed their new cat Stinker. Her name is Dinah, but she generally goes by either "kitty" or "Stinker." "Kitty" is self-explanatory and so, for the most part is Stinker. Because my GOD she farts. Enormous, room-clearing farts. You'll be in one room when you become aware of a frightening miasma and realize that the varmint that dropped the bomb is in ANOTHER ROOM. My theory is that there is a steaming metropolis of bacteria in her small intestine industriously building microbe-sized sky-scrapers and raising families and generally creating clouds of sulfur that the cat regularly purges.

5 Year High School Reunion

My 5 year high school reunion is coming up.
Which is interesting because everyone I have talked to has had a different take on whether or not they are going, and why.

A says that she won't go, because she's dolefully sure that she will drink too much and either hit on some boy inappropriatly or tell everyone EXACTLY what she thinks of them.

B laughed for about 2 minutes and blared "everyone knows the only reason that you go to your high school reunion is to BRAG!" To which L (somewhat sarcastically) said:

"We should go and be that artsy crowd and tell everyone that we are 'living our dreams.'"

J next door said "yeah, why not?"

My sister suggested sending an emissary to go and report back: who has bleached their hair, who has a problem with anorexia, who's still an asshole, who reinvented themselves dramatically, etc.

K said "yeah, let's go!" which makes me think that he and I will end up being the emissaries.

Me, I dunno. I am probably going to be very passive about it. If someone picks me up, I will go. Otherwise, I will make no effort. It won't be unpleasant, but slightly surreal. Piedmont is a small town, therefore I went to pre-preschool, preschool and college with a bunch of my classmates. One girl and I have been at the same school since kindergarten. But this doesn't mean that any of us were close, we just knew each other existed for a long, long time. Also, Piedmont being a small town and most people being fairly active on facebook, we know all of the gossip already: who already has babies, who's married, who's become a born again christian etc. I can also only think of 2 reunion scenarios:

1) The same kids who hung out with each other in high school will again seal themselves into their social groups and talk to no one but their friends, either out of shyness or ingrained Piedmont social rules that no one can escape.

2) I have the same polite, uninteresting conversation again and again:

Our Hero: Oh, Hi Classmate I Haven't Seen In Years! How are you? What are you doing these days? Um, where did you go to college again?

CIHSIY: Look at that ring in your nose! How long have you had that?

OH: About 2 years

[insert vague chatter about piercings and tattoos]

CIHSIY: Oh, I went to UC_, these days I am working my way up the corporate ladder/an engineer/in grad school/interning. What are you doing?

OH: Oh, I am a bum who is going to move from my parents house to Denver at some undetermined date. There I am going to work a crappy job while I contemplate becoming a nurse.

Despite the cynical bend to the end of that exchange, I am actually ok with currently being a bum and the idea of being a corporate lunky/engineer does not appeal in the slightest.

That's the problem with all of these reunion-things, you feel like you have to justify everything, whether you are going, whether or not you are going, what you are currently doing versus what you want to do. And it's all so very, very, exhausting. But real interesting to watch.

Turkey

I am irrationally afraid of birds. Birds have no discernible pupils therefore I can never tell where they are looking. They also move in three-dimensions (people only walk around in two, think about it) and like to fly in my face. Plus they have disgusting scaly feet and sharp, evil beaks (absolutely no pun intended) and carry all types of gross flus and plagues. Plus, they're icky. Icky icky icky. Yeugch.
The vast majority of people laugh at me and tell me that I can take any bird (except maybe an ostrich) but once when checking into a motel in Wyoming the motel owners cockatoo took a shine to me and lovingly flew into my face. I screamed my freaking head off and ran behind the counter and into the motel owners apartment.
In France A and I were eating lunch up at Le Sacre Coeur and the sheer number of pigeons there lurking around had me quivering in my travel sandals.
There is a small triangle of land that is formed by 3 streets. Piedmont, being Piedmont, has nicely landscaped it. There are a number of large-ish redwoods and some flowering shrubs and ferny things. There is also a nice cement clearing in the center that has a bench and a trash can and a container holding dog poop bags. I pull the dog into that clearing to purloin dog poop bags but he always pulls at the leash and refuses to go no further into the clearing. Today I figured out why. I was pulling the dog towards the trash can (as usual) when a wild turkey stepped out of the bushes and fixed me with an evil eye, lifted an eye brow and said "beat it, kid." Bailey (the dog) and I booked it out of there and crossed the street.
Wild turkeys in Piedmont seems a little silly because there is not much space for them to roost peacefully, and Piedmonters call the police for EVERYTHING (the police blotter reads like an anal, old lady's random complaints. "Man reported lurking outside of house, turns out it was the gardener" or "car reported sitting for a week, the car was registered to the house across the street.") I've been afraid of walking down there, though I keep telling myself that I could kick it and scare it away, but then I imagine the police blotter if I try to defend myself: "woman reported, pecked to death by wild turkey

Actual Oktoberfest Post!

Europe has a different attitude towards alcohol (obviously) than the USA does. This manifests itself mostly in the preparations that European governments make for Friday and Saturday nights. For example, in Amsterdam they put up extra urinals for men on the weekend because they have a problem with public peeing (they also had electrified wires that shocked the malefactor as soon as the stream hit the wire, they also have special piss-deflectors that they set up in corners, which were metal panels angled in such a way as to deflect urine back up into the pissers face/pants etc). It feels as though they sigh and say "well, just don't pee in the doorways and stay out of people's yards." It makes sense, in most European cities you can get anywhere either by walking or taking their spectacular, safe, public transit and therefore fewer people drive.
Munich, where they have Oktoberfest, welcomed us with open arms. I had a warm, fuzzy, and blurry time there. The festival organizers put a lot of thought into it, there were tons of roller coasters and huge white tents filled with smoke and warmth and hundreds of jolly, beery people, all wearing lederhosen and dirndl skirts. I asked someone why he actually owned lederhosen and he weaved a little, raised his hands, and slurred: "It's traditional."
Each enormous tent is sponsored by a brewer and they only serve that beer inside that tent. They also sell overpriced barbarian food in the tents, I saw them roasting an entire pig carcass at tent. Each tent is decorated in the "Bavarian" style and is packed with picnic tables and has a raised platform where the band plays. Every 10 minutes or so the band stops playing it's oompapa music and launches into a German cheer that I got pretty good at faking towards the end. You will only be served if you are sitting at a table. People reserve tables for after a certain time (4 or 5 pm) but before then you can sit wherever there is room, or wherever you can convince people to let you in. Oktoberfest is full of good cheer, as no one has any plans but getting sloshed and singing in German. So, it's not that hard to find someone who will let you sit with them. In fact, they frequently become your good friends for the next few hours. You drink together, compare stories etc. We sat next to some other Americans first and talked trash about how each other were voting in the then upcoming election. Another time we sat with some older Germans, one of whom told me to marry Ben because of his good hair and good teeth.
Because we didn't reserve a table we would get there early (11-ish) drink a few liters and then ride the roller coasters. One operator let Ben and I ride again for free-zies, which was pretty damn sweet.
Once it got dark we'd squeeze into the (cold) outside tables and have another liter (I tried a shandy one night and it was horrible. It tasted like perfumed or soapy beer and I couldn't finish it) and talk to our table mates until we staggered home.
Oktoberfest could have been skeazy and gross, but there were plenty of bathrooms and all of the guards didn't care about people acting drunk and there were no obviously predatory men there. It wasn't until the night that you saw the effects of the vast amount of alcohol that was being consumed. Around 11 pm people would start to prop up their passed out friends in corners and you would see piles of vomit and chains of people supporting each other as they tried to walk home.
There were also little shows, we saw a promo for one and then somehow got into the theater (for free, I have no idea how that happened. I blame Evan for being enormous and tough-looking and just walking through the guys collecting money).
We noticed a rather sedate auditorium the last day. It wasn't advertising anything but the 3 Euro fee to gain admittance into this rather nondescript little building. We decided to try it, and it was so worth the ticket price.
There was a large, low cone in the center of the room that was about 12 feet in diameter. An announcer would announce an age group (say young-ish boys) and they would leap over the barrier and race for the center of the cone and sit there, facing outwards. Then the cone would begin to spin. The outermost people would be spun off of the cone. Then the cone would speed up and more people would be sloughed off. At some point a guy sitting up with the announcer would release a large, stuffed, pumpkin-shaped ball that was hanging from the ceiling just above the top of the cone. There was another cord attached to the pumpkin that this guy would use to control it and basically harass the people in the center with it until they were spun off as well. If that wasn't enough, once there were only 1 or 2 people left 2 burly guys in crewcuts would begin lassoing people so if you got far enough you had to hit the pumpkin out of your face and jump through lassos and keep your balance on the spinning disk. People took it VERY seriously. In order to keep their balance people were holding onto or laying on top of perfect strangers with ruthless looks on their scary, scary faces. They did everything short of actual violence to stay in the center for the longest time possible. I have NO idea how that game was invented, but it was incredible to watch all these lederhosen and dirndl people pushing eath other off of a spinning cone and fight a flying pumpkin and lassos.

Back to the Cushy Bosom of Pieeeeedmont

Back from England! No more crappy boss or hostels potentially full of bedbugs (eeeeeew). Instead, I am in the land of multiple-ply toilet paper and pillows (Oh my god the pillows. My bed has 8, and only 2 are decorative).
I also am unemployed and therefore have loads and loads of time on my hands. Unfortunately, I also have no money to spend in that time. So I am cooking.I am currently attempting to make home-made stock for the butternut squash risotto that I am going to make tomorrow.
I am also walking aimlessly around and wringing my hands about the presidential election. Too much coffee and too much riding on this election is making my stomach queasy and my hands shaky. I actually had to go and lie down just now because my stomach was cramping.
oof, I have no focus right now.
More later.

Quick Oktoberfest Blog!

Ariel has puyt up a few pictures from Oktoberfest, including one very unflattering one of me. It happens. You can see them at

http://twoblackshoes.blogspot.com/

more later, I promise.

If You Hate Gloating, Don't Read This Post.

My traveling companions and I lay on the beach and bobbed around in the Mediteranean all afternoon. Then we stayed up late last night, drinking sea-foam green margeritas and eating chicken roulade stuffed with zucchini, spinach and chevre. We couldn't find limes or triple sec or good tequila or a shaker or ice that didn't come in 5 pound blocks, but Ben managed with unsweetened lime juice and blue curacao and crummy tequila and a tupperware and ice shards that Evan chipped off of the 5 pound blocks.

I am going to go read chick lit in the sun and then we are going to have polenta and possibly duck confit for lunch. After that, we are going back to the beach.

I keep putting on too much sunscreen and therefore have not tanned AT ALL. I am a little miffed at that.

But there are worse things.

So, Hey For The Sunscreen

I am in Nice! Which is a beach town! That makes me miss Santa Cruz! It's warm and dry and we spent 4 hours sitting on the beach today and we are going to do it again tomorrow. The next day we will do tourist things.
We just came from Rome, which was nice. There are lots and lots of ruins in Rome. There are also all sorts of buildings that were dedicated to the old Roman Gods. For example, the Temple to Venus which stands next to the Coliseum. Vatican City is also in Rome. It never occured to me that Rome is the seat of 2 major religions, one old and one newer. I suppose the old Roman religion maybe only became major when it became a mythology. Then people painted all of those damned paintings, hundreds and hundreds of them, dedicated to the same Glorious Moments in Roman Mythology that all hang in the Prado. It's also hard to wrap my head around all of the things that people did because of religion (I am talking art-wise, not crusades-wise). All of the cathedrals and paintings and stained glass windows etc. that non-Europeans travel to Europe to see. But then, I am kind of an atheist, so if i am ever uplifted or inspired to do something it is usually because there is cake at the end of it. I do like cake.
A note on Venice, where we were before Rome: it's kind of an adult Disneyland. It feels pretty damn artificial. Even the water in the canals is milky and fake green. There is no where on the island where you can go to escape the tourism. What do the locals do? Do they all live or work or play on the mainland to avoid the toursit prices? Is there a special Venice card that you get if you live in Venice for more than 2 years? I don't fit Venices demographic. It's for people who want to genteely eat overpriced spaghetti next to a smelly canal and listen to accordion players play cheesy music. I am nasty because it doesn't appeal to me, though it may appeal to other people.
I will write about Oktoberfest next... it desrves its own post.

Bedbugs!

Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww! Popped one with my t-shirt and it ws full of blood.
When Ariel told the hostel people that our room had bedbugs, they weakly told us that we must have brought them with us. But, they didn' exactly put up much of a fight.
We're moving to another room.

Since

We have all, I believe, figured out that I am no longer in England. I am, in fact, in Budapest. Specifically in Pest because Budapest was once two cities (Buda and Pest) on different sides of the Danube (it is actually called something else here, but I forget the name) that grew and combined. Within the city (district?) of Pest Ariel and I are staying in a tiny, quiet hostel located in an apartment built for giants. The ceilings are about 25 feet high and the doors are about ten feet tall, and the doorknobs on said doors are shoulder height on me. Our beds are some sort of couch-style lounge surfaces that are covered in a slippery material that passively dumps the sheets onto the floor while I am sleeping. We had planned to go to Vienna instead of Budapest but we have been loosely traveling with a pair of girls who were coming here and we decided to follow along. We met them in Krakow (side bar, I tried to write a blog entry in Krakow and didn't because I didn't feel like writing. Turns out that was a good move because I just read what I had saved. This is what I wrote: "In Krakow. It is very very cold") and they visited us for a few days in Bratislava and then we caught up with them here in Hungary.

I have not blogged at all since Prague, and since Prague there has been Krakow, Bratislava and now Budapest. Since there is lots to write about and now that I have caught you up on where I am physically (Hungary, Pest, Hostel-built-for-giants, tiny closet housing the hostel's computer) I have a lot to say about the past 2 weeks. So I will try and write it all down, hopefully.

In Prague, Beer is Cheaper Than Coke.

Yes, my friends, it is.
Also, Ariel says "hi."
Anyways. 0.2l of coke is 40 koruny (sp? anyways, prague dollars) and 0.3l of beer is 30 prague currencies. So, coke is twice the price of beer here. Which is fine, because I donªt really drink soda and this is the first place that I have been able to justify having a beer.
A few nights ago Ariel and I ran into this guy that we hung out with in Amsterdam and so we hung out with im again and we all commented on what a small world it is etc. it really is such a small world, but not in the "small world" sense so much as there is a rather select group of people who:
A) Like to travel
B) Can AFFORD it
C) Stay in Hostels
D) Travel specifically in Europe
and E) Can travel in September.

So, we really shouldnªt be that surprised.

Everyone but one girl in our hostel room is from the states, specifcally the western US; we have Alaskans, a Hawaiian, and someone who was living in Nevada.

Prague itself is lovely and was warm and sunny for the past two days, and then today the other shoe and the temperature dropped and it was chily chilly chilly. Once more for emphasis: chilly. Which was ok if surprising because the sky was still bright blue and so I couldnªt (and still canªt) figure out why it was so cold. It was like cosmic-all-powerful being suddenly realized that it was September, said "oops!" and hurriedly turned the thermostat down. Every time I walked out of a building I shivered and put my jacket and my sweater back on (which is exciting becaue I found myself a hunter green, plaid, wool-ish, bomber jacket at a flea market in Amsterdam and I like it lots. Itªs almost like having a new toy.

Today Ariel and I went to Prague castle which is huge and pretty and expensive, about 475 Prague units. Which is €19. Which is $25-ish. I can afford it because the hostel is about €9 a night (weªve been paying about €20). I now know some quite random crap about Pragueªs history because of the super-dense audiogiude that I rented, and couldnªt absorb. I know that St. Wenceslas is considered the true ruler of Prague and that somehow Prague became Episcopal in the 8th century (which is strange, because I could have SWORN that the episcopal sect (?) was invented later than that, but then my parents donªt call me the family heathen fer nuthinª.

The real star of the show, thoug, were the little coffee machines that were sprinkled around the castle. I love them. Ohhhh so much. You put your ridiculously small amoutn of money in, then a little plastic cup pops out of the machine and proceeds to fill with your choesn beverage (or, as in my case, whichever Czech gobbledegook seems to fit your mood) and then you slide your super-sweet, fragrantly steaming, excessively warm mystery beverage from itªs track and sip it. I had a mocha (I think) and a marzipan cappucino (I think, I gathered this flavor from the coffee machine in the hostel, which is in English). The coffee dispenser in my hostel also dispense 10 prague-ies worth of soup. I donªt know what kind of soup it is, or even if it is soup, but Iwill try it and get back to you. I promise. Unless it really is soup and kind of dull soup, at which point I may decide that the soup is not worth posting about.

I am going to go try the soup and let someone else use the internet right now, so, more later.

Berlin Post

I am in love.
With Berlin.
So far.
It´s cheap and urban and the keyboards are reminiscent of American keyboards. Plus I had a super cheap shawerma that was fantastic (fresh and minty and sesame-y, with chilli sauce) and then I went and had a small waffle-cone of orange-chocolate ice cream (my favorite). The cone wasn´t even stale, it was crisp and sweet and mildly cookie-like.
Did I mention that it´s cheap?
The past 2 nights Ariel and I stayed with a couchsurfer named J. She´s a photographer and so this morning she photographed us for a project about couchsurfing and globalization. I couldn´t relax and so I look stiff and sombre in all of the pictures, which is too bad. But, I am happy that I got to participate in it.
She took us to a legitimate flea market which was loads better than Camden (!!!). People were selling their art and vintage clothes and cheap goods (I bought embroidery needles) as well as absolute junk (boxes of watch straps or piles of old-style calling cards for public telephones from before everyone had a mobile and lots of polaroid cameras). We dropped by some sort of techno music festival which was interesting, as Ariel pointed out "youth culture in the first world is the same EVERYWHERE." The audience at the festival could have been relocated to anywhere and could have fit in. We stayed for maybe half an hour, then left because it really wasn´t Ariel and my scene, and J was no longer interested in that sort of thing anymore.
Berlin seems to have a more unconscious alternative side, or maybe Berlin is mostly alternative. Most people have lots of tattoos and piercings, or they´re Muslim (we are staying in a hostel in an area with many Muslim people). But, as I said earlier, in a lot of ways it seems less studied. And less subversive (I am not sure that that is the word that I want to use there) Christiania, in Copenhagen, was a different type of alternative. Less urban (obviously) but less hip too, which is kind of a relief since the lines between alternative and hip seem to blur in somewhat obnoxious ways. Also, in Berlin their seems to be an emphasis on youth culture rather than general trends towards alternative lifestyles. Man, I use that word a lot. I think that it will be interesting to see what hip kids of my generation are like in 20 years. Will they still be vegans inhabiting the hip areas of cities on mattresses on the floor and subsisting on beer, cigarettes, vegan sprouted-wheat bread and coke? Will they be a softened version of themselves? Or will they go the opposite direction and become born-again republicans?
I dunno, may be a little of both.

I realize that I haven´t said much about Copenhagen. We stayed with this guy T who we never saw but he was hosting a French Canadian guy too and so we hung out with him which was cool. We saw a design museum and that small statue of The Little Mermaid. Then we went to saty with this woman, L (the one with the cats who took us to the party). L was great and had lots of ideas of things to do in Copenhagen. We went and walked around Christiania, this alternative living e-squatters community (look it up, it´s great) and it felt a little like Santa Cruz because it was laid back and people tended to garden the same way (overgrown and bushy and colorful) if you went away from the main street (pushers alley or something like that). And the houses were built bz the owners and were wooden and really cute and again mildly santa cruz-ian. Very macrobiotic.
The party was fun but Ariel and I were tired and so we left early. There was pizza and a band called "Hapcore" that I enjoyed a lot. Kind of weird and there were 2 harpists, the lead singer-songwriter and then a very meek, geeky girl who wore socks with her sandals and baggy skirt and who would read some magazine when she wasn´t playing, even though she was still on stage.

That´s about it so far... internet is cheap here so maybe Iwill update this more often, but I don´t have a lot of confidence in that statement.

OH! I forgot! I checked my bank account this morning, and I am UNDER BUDGET. Nice.

Emily is in Denmark

Contrary to the title of this blog, I am not in England, I am in Denmark. Copenhagen to be exact (which my host says is pronounced "koo-ben-houn"). Ariel and I are staying at our third place in koobenhoun. We had a hostel which was weird and located out in no-where-land so we re-located to a couchsurfing dudes place and are in another couchsurfers house now. She has cats and is very nice and is taking us to a party to support a center for prostitutes and drug-addicts tomorrow night. I REALLY like this couch surfing thing.

Aaaaanyways...

In an attempt to atone for a lunchtime fling with a McDonalds chickenburger and fries, Ariel and I threw caution to the winds and each bought ourselves some super-Danish, open-face sandwiches called smørrebrød. A doesn´t eat red meat and so she went with a recognizable sammy with hardboiled eggs, lettuce, shrimp, and mayonaise. I,on the otherhand, coundn´t decide which sandwich appealed more and so I pointed vaguely and told the woman to go to her left and said yes. This, in vertical ascending order from the plate, is what was on my smørrebrød:

Scandinavian rye bread (which is bitter, oh so bitter)
Butter
A slab of beef that had been breaded and fried, but was now cold and soaked in
Some sort of brown gravy product
Cooked onions
Mustard
Pickles
Parsley
A round of canned pineapple

I ate it all, and it was weird.

I proudly told my host about my unabashed passion for local culture and how I ate such an ethnic sandwich. She told me that she had never heard of a smørrebrød of that type with that kind of stuff on it.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you end up unintentionally imitating that dude that I always ended up sitting near in the dining hall who dumps his plate onto his tray, mixes it up and then eats it while loudly proclaiming that his weird melange of salad bar items and rasta pasta is tasty.

Feeeeeebo!

Well hello friends!
Ariel and I are in Amsterdam, she says hi.
Hi! I say. We are at a hostel that recently upgraded us to a shiny, 3 person room instead of a dingy 6 person room.
E here. You are probably thinking to yourselves, "who is the third person?" (actually, I doubt that you were until I asked the question for you, just roll with me here).
A here. Our third person is ZACK BAXTER (private eye). No really, he's just a dude from San Luis Obispo whos is such a bro-dude it ain't funny.
E: but nice. And decent, so no worries there. BUT we have a TV! Not that we've really used it. We watched a weird video of a cowboy watching mini "Indians" doing "war dances" and it was a leetl unexpected.
OH! Paris was nice, we didn't see our host F much but we saw museums and the seine and stuff. We went out with F one night and caught up with him and his friends after they had had quite a few drinks of an alcoholic nature. The girls at the table next to us went outside to smoke, leaving a bag on the banquette and 2 full beers. We speclated for a little while about them leaving the beers and whether or not they were really coming back.
Then F's friend V took the beers.
The girls came back and sicced the bartender on us until another friend of F's paid for the drinks. F and one of them talked heatedly and good-naturedly about the drinks and V's "honest mistake." We continued talking to this table of people and chatted about Paris and things to do there. It was nice. As we were leaving Ariel apologized to one of the people and the girls said dismissively
"Don't worry about it (eye roll) that was so Parisian."

A few days later F, Ariel, and I went to a free showing of Hitchcocks "Foreign Correspondent" in a park. 10 minutes into the movie it started to rain and instead of leaving everyone pulled out raincoats and huge umbrellas and stayed. We only had my small, leaky umbrella to stay under and therefore got soaked because that umbrella barely keeps one person dry-ish. Luckily, the rain ended 5 minutes before the movie did.

And then Paris ended.
Actually, only our visit in Paris ended. We reserved tickets for Amsterdam for the 6:25 am train because the jerk at the ticket office said that that was the only available train. He was a dirty rotten liar, so when we missed that train by 30 seconds (we had to get our eurail passes validated and therefore missed it even though we got to the validator-man exactly at 6:24:52 and the platform was 20 feet away) we got to take the 6:55 train to Brussels and then a domestic-y no-frills train the rest of the way. Wa-hoo.

And now, I am tired and am going to bed. Will explain Febo later.
Say goodnight Ariel!

Goodnight guys! I will try to update my blog at some point as well. When there aren't people in line behind me glaring if I use the internet for more than 5 minutes. Bums.

So...

After Paris I went home for a week and a half, to pack and to wait for Ariel to finish her stuff in Edinburgh. It was nice, and I didn't do much other than take care of Hannah and wandle around.
Theeen Ariel came and we hung out for a while. We saw "the taming of the shrew"in the park and it was nice.
Then we left for Paris, where I am now in a rediculously expensive internet cafe. We are couchsurfing and staying at this guy, F's apartment in the suburbs. It's a little hard to commute into the city to do our toursit thing, but he's really nice and fun to hang out with and it's great being able to crash at his place for free as well as having a local to talk to.
And my time's about to run out.
More later.

P. T.: The End

Yeah, so then I went back to my hostel and didn't sleep much because it was noisy and slightly too warm. The next day I read in the Tuilleries for about 2 hours and sunburned strips down my shins (my left shin is now peeling) but got a nice, biscuit-like tan on my shoulders and back because of my strapless dress. Then I went and bought an overpriced, depressing sandwich. I ate that in the (shade) Tuilleries as well. I sat on a nice bench for a few minutes before I was joined by some guy who sat at the other end. I wasn't even close to facing him so the first few times he said "bonjour" I assumed that he was talking to someone else. Then I realized that he was talking to me. I turned slightly to see a middle-aged dude whispering "bonjour" at me. I said it back, and turned so that I was facing as far away from him as I could. Unfortunately, having said bonjour I couldn't take it back and he proceeded to try and have a conversation with me, despite my unresponsive body language and one word/sentence answers. The conversation went something like:

Awkward Man: So, are you Parisian?
Our Hero: Um, no.
AM: Oh, where are you from?
OH: San Francisco.
AM: Oooooohhh, I thought that you were European. I am Egyptian.
OH: What did you say? I can't understand your French very well...
AM: repeats himself
OH: Hmm.
AM: So, you want to get a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with me?
OH: Um, No thanks. SO... I have finished my sandwich and don't really want to talk to you, so I am going to give you a tight-lipped smile and say au revoir. so, um, au revoir. Walks away.

Theeeen I went to the Musee D'orsay, I prefer the Centre Pompidou.
I ambled back to the hostel because I was going to then wander around Montmartre in the evening. I walked into my room and one of the other people staying there beamed at me and said what sounded to me like:

"We all Japanee!"

I shared my room with 3 Japanese ladies, all traveling around France by themselves. One was only staying in Paris, and she was only there for 6 days. She flew 17 hours to get there and then 17 hours back, for a week-long trip to Paris. I am still amazed. The only one who spoke any English coherently was an English teacher from Tokyo, so we didn't talk much. Sigh.
I chickened out of going to Montmartre because the neighborhood is flanked by gnarly ones and I didn't want to deal with that. So I walked down to the Seine and wandered up and down it's banks and ate an ice cream cone that tasted like it was flavored with mint tea, instead of peppermint oil, I was not amused.


Across the Seine from the Louvre.




The Seine, with the Unsatisfactory Ice Cream Cone.

Then I took out my map and a man immediately materialized out of the crowd and asked me slime-ily (and in French) if I were alone. I gave him a cold look and said no. Then I put my map back in my bag, walked 10 feet away and took it out of my bag. ANOTHER man appeared as if from nowhere and asked, in very good English, if I needed any help. I thanked him and declined his offer.
Then I decided that I was sick of being a Single Woman Traveler instead of a random tourist and took myself back to the hostel. I can assume that maybe they just wanted to help, or were innocently concerned that I would get lost or was lonely, but I can just as easily assume they were looking for a single woman tourist who was therefore vulnerable to... whatever. I hate that about traveling by myself, the feeling that isn't always there but pops up more frequently than I like that I am potentially vulnerable, or that because I have no obvious protection that I am easily taken advantage of. It drives me NUTS. Single Woman Tourist seems to be synonymous with "easy prey" in some people's minds and I therefore have to put up with more CRAP than a single man tourist.
Sigh.
The next morning I walked around Montmartre (around Sacre coeur etc.) before I had to leave to catch my bus back to London.


Me and Paris, from Sacre Coeur.


Montmartre bit.


I accidentally found the Moulin Rouge. Look! There it is. It's surprisingly small.

After stumbling upon the Moulin Rouge I caught my bus, and an annoying seatmate. Some Italian guy who talked and talked and talked and would NOT shut up, and was an idiot. It is entirely possible that he didn't understand what I said, but he usually responded appropriately, and I could understand him perfectly. He asked my advice about talking a cab from the bus station to his host family's house in Tooting, which would have been a 50 pound cab ride, and completely ignored me and pretty much told me that I was wrong. He then pulled out a tube map to show me that Victoria Station and Tooting Broadway were very close together and wouldn't listen when I told him that the tube map was in no way a representation of the geography of London (it guides you on using the tube. The lines have been straightened out so that you can read the map, not learn about London). When I told him that there was no such thing as a pass for the tube that would allow him to use it as much as he liked for a flat fee paid in the beginning, he ignored me again and implied that I was not European and therefore did not know how European metro systems worked. I was too polite to deck him and tell him that I had lived closer to London than he ever had and therefore being European did not enter into the equation, and that this was London, not Paris. I also did not point out to him that he was a moron. I am polite and kind and restrained.
Despite my chatty/idiot seatmate the bus trip was fine and they let me into the UK again (phew! they don't sometimes because they're afraid that we will try to work under the table now that we have friends and flats and connections). ALSO, instead of taking the ferry we went in the Chunnel (Channel Tunnel!). The bus drove into a train and the train bolted through the Chunnel in 35 minutes. I was amazed. The train makes sense though, if there's an accident in the Chunnel, it would be out of commission for months, and no one could be rushed to the emergency room in time.

I have now been over (in an airplane), through (in the ferry), and under the channel.

After leaving the bus, ditching Chatty Cathy, and working my way through the web that is the London underground (the line I wanted to take was down, so instead of 5 stops and no changes I had to change and go 11 stops) I had to take the train to Royston and then a bus to Cambridge because THAT line was down as well. Stupid public transportation.
All in all, though, despite the complaining it was a very nice little trip.

P. T.: Part the Second

I spent my first day in Paris bumming around. I went to the tourist office where I found out that Fridays after 6 pm people under 26 years of age are FREE. Which was exciting for 2 reasons, 1) Because I can't spend much money and 2) I hadn't been able to meet anyone at the hostel and therefore had no one to go out with on Friday night. After the tourist office, I went to the Centre Pompidou, which I LOVE, they have fantastic exhibits there, I want to go back there again and again and again. I was there for 4 hours and had to leave at the apex of my visit there because i either had to eat or pass out. On the very top floor they have an exhibit of modern art made between 1900 and 1950, which I think is my favorite time period for art. There were some great exhibits on design as well. There was a suite of rooms dedicated to Philippe Starck as well as to inflatable furniture (and designs of inflatable living quarters, there was one actually on display. It was large and squishy and a violent banana color, it kind of looked like something from Barbarella). Then I bummed around the Tuilleries and then the Louvre. They have excavated the dungeons of the old palace that used to be there, which was pretty cool.
The Louvre has some pretty spectacular collections are archaeological artifacts, not only because they are well preserved etc, but because they have been curated and are explained well. At the British Museum the little explanatory panels are useless, they only say something along the lines of "bronze headdress with lapis beads. 1500 BCE. Donated by Sir Fancy-Pants McPorkington " which I find frustrating. English people amass impressive collections of treasure/archaeological artifacts in order to die and leave them to some museum. Where the curators carefully place them in glass cases and leave us to wonder at the implications of the object (who wore it? why? what does it say about that culture?). At the Louvre, everything was carefully explained and put in the context of the culture (for example: there was a room dedicated to agriculture in Egypt because they're economic and social systems were based on agriculture. There was even some discussion of peasants and slaves. Museums in England definitely have exhibitions with Ancient Egyptian artifacts, but they're all about gold and fancy sarcophogi with fance and jewels. Luxury goods that some dude collected because he had the cash to do so and then gifted the whole damn thing to some museum.)
oof, outta steam. more later.

Paris Trip: Part I

My 6 months of work-visa were up as of Friday the 8th. I had to leave the country by that time and come back on a tourist visa (which technically isn't a visa, it's something like a "visitors pass" because USA citizens don't need to get special permission to enter the UK. I looked it up, and a fair amount of countries do need them. Mostly for people from third world countries who are seeking asylum, or want to come and work or for medical tourism. People from certain African countries need to get a TB test before they enter the UK, makes sense). SO. I had to change the stamp on my passport and to do that I needed to go through immigration and the only way to do that is to leave the country and come back again. After hemming and hawing and investigating cheap places to go and cheap ways to get there, I decided to go to Paris, even though it's Ariel and my first stop on out European Tour because I speak a little of the language and there are a bazillion things to do, also because there is a bus that goes from London to Paris. And it is pretty cheap (ryanair is really only cheap if you book far enough in advance).



So, I took an 8 hour bus ride from London to Paris. It was really nice. I had my iPod and some mystery novels and most of the bus to myself. I curled up and read trashy literature and ate prefab sandwiches and listened to my headphones.
Dover was nice, small and I got to see the famous White Cliffs of Dover. I didn't take a picture of the money shot (the picture that everyone takes of the cliffs. I figured that I would take a picture on the way back. I didn't for reasons that I will explain later).





The port itself is designed exclusively for cars. Not people AND cars, just cars. As if the people should never get out of their cars, or if they meld with the cars to become one being that happens to have a motor and wheels and no brain.
It's an enormous parking lot dotted with building and crisscrossed all over with white lines delineating lanes going this-a-way and that-a-way and marking out parking spaces in neat grids in order to organize the cars to board the ferry. It feels incredibly mechanical. Very, very, programmed. All of these precise lines of cars slowly rolling into cavernous rooms on large boats. It felt like being a part of a giant organizing and collating machine, all right angles and efficiency and obedience. A car/person brings people onto the boat, where it lets them out. Then the whole ferry (feeling like it's built of many many little cars) crosses the channel and docks. All the parts run back to their cars and putter out single file in their little lanes.
If robots ever took over the world, the world would be much like the port of dover: efficient transmission and organization of data and things. Luckily Dover's a really pretty town, and the sun was shining and the sky was blue and the water a milky green and the sea gulls were screaming so it wasn't as chilly as I am describing it and I enjoyed it.
Once we got to Calais the entire bus was pulled over and sent through customs (I assume that this is a pretty big port for drug-trafficking) and I sent my bags through an x-ray machine and said that I had nothing to declare and then everything was alright. Sorry, no pictures of Calais, it wasn't terribly pretty.
Then the buss and I rolled into Paris, where I took the metro to my hostel and slept there. Which was very uneventful.

To be continued...

Google

So. While meandering through the interwebs just now I searched "European knife laws" because I was thinking that having a little swiss army knife would be super helpful with the whole eating cheap picnic-style aspect of my upcoming European Tour. It was unhelpful-ish (except for the UK website about their laws, which is great. More on that later) because I found almost NO info about carrying knives. But, I DID end up on a white pride website. Ah, the internet. Someone on this site had posted a question about carrying knives in Europe, not because he wanted to cut open baguettes and slice cheese, but because it's illegal to carry handguns in Europe. My immediate thought was "where do you need to carry a handgun for protection in the US?" Ok, grizzlies aren't something that you want to meet unarmed (at least with bear-mace, which is a HUGE spray-bottle of mace) but people aren't really THAT crazy. An outlier is exactly that, the exception to the rule. For a million incidents, only one may need guns to keep it under control. I think that it's a little silly to always expect to be the exception. A zealouts extreme take of the Boy Scouts' maxim "always be prepared." Which means that you will always be traveling with too much baggage, both emotional (oh, the paranoia and self-doubt!) and physical (knife, handgun, compass, fish hook, water filter, spare boots, tire patch kit, magnifying glass, spare saw for cutting fire wood, 6 or 7 copies of your passport, money belt, extra travelers checks, rape whistle, pepper spray, penicillin, spare under-pants, nail clippers, sewing kit, spare gas, flare gun, book of common phrases in every single language ever [I'm talking to YOU ancient Greek, you never know when you'll fall in a wormhole and end up somewhere unexpected!]). So, I am trying to not over-plan my trip too much. Maybe I will try and under-plan it. The less crap the better.

Damn, i've rambled on forever on something not terribly interesting. Sorry. I will post later about an English person's relationship to their government, which I think is kind of interesting.

Priiiiiiiiiiivate Parts!

My co-worker, K, has recently had a circumcision. I am not really supposed to know this, but T outed him. It went something like this:

T: K, tell Emily what surgery you're getting.
K: (All eyes on him, noticeable silence, looks uncomfortable)
T: Go on, tell her.
K: (more silence, you can feel waves of embarrassment radiating from him, he has practically broken a sweat and refuses to look me in the eye)
T: (brays) PRI-I-vate parts!

I know, now, why K had surgery, and hasn't been able to ride his bike recently. Apparently one of the regulars, Ch, heard about this and told K about his troubles down there, meaning, for some reason he had to have his testicles removed. He showed K part of the scar, down there. Of all the things I could know about Ch, that's probably the thing that I least wanted to hear.

I made french fries for the first-ish time today (I made them once before, when I worked briefly for the Cambridge Uni physics lab cafeteria, but that was easier because there was a timer) because T thought that I knew how to do it. So J (another co-worker) showed me how to do it and I did it! I was kinda proud of myself. Not that it's hard or even requires skill, I was just so sure that I was going to monumentally fuck something up. you know, scald myself with hot oil or accidentally fry something gross (or inedible, like a napkin or celery or something equally ridiculous) and serve it to the Water Polo Club (the recipients of the fruits of my labor) who would eat it and either be too polite to say anything or would tease the crap out of me or never come again and they are one of the mainstays of the P.
But then, I am only working there for 2 more weeks! Hurrah!

T-isms

Another T-ism:

"We're here to make money, not give it away" (re: a drink that was over-filled).

My Day Job

Forgot that I had these.

Little Story-ette

I was lying in bed reading and contemplating getting up when I heard a bizarre sound, kind of like the pages in a large book being riffled through. I sat up, certain that it was a book that I had kicked off the bed, or a poltergeist (I am a very logical person) and looked out. It was a bird that had flown into the 2 inch opening of the window and was beating it's wings against the glass. I did what any mature, wise, calm person would do and screamed my head off and shut the curtains on the bird. I ran outside with some vague plan of opening the window more from the outside (there's a latch that catches the window once it's open a few inches but you can release it with a little difficulty) so that there would be a wall of glass between me and the bird. I turned the corner of the building just in time to see it fly out of the window. All that was left on my sill was a tiny, fresh, bird turd.
I don't know how the bird saw the opening,much less was able to fly in. The window is a big rectangle of glass that swings open at the bottom. There are no trees or bushes right next to it, so the bird didn't just happen to hop in.
Crazy bird.

London Trip

My roommates have left for the week and have gone to Michigan, taking my day-job with them. SO I am left with lots of time on my hands and no one to spend it with. With my newfound time I went to London to stay with D (who I met through Nick) and bum around the city for 2 days. D took me to a nice party thrown by one of her professors (she is getting her MA in dance anthropology). I met the other people in her program and some
of her professors and talked to some other who gave me good ideas of places to visit and things to see/do (for example, in Paris you can rent bicycles cheaply and cycle around the city which means you can see more of the city and pay less to see it). We also went shopping at the charity shops in Richmond and had lunch sitting next to the Thames. This morning I went to Camden Town and paid a little too much for a beat up brown leather satchel (but it fits ALLL of my requirements for a travel satchel: it can hold a sweater, an umbrella, my wallet, my sunglasses, my glasses, a book, my phone, and some papers quite comfortably and has a lot of compartments and it's a little beat up and unobtrusive). I like Camden Town for the most part, but they didn;t have any interesting septum jewelery and they were all trying to sell different versions of the same things (spiral-y hippy jewelery, vintage clothes which I love but can't justify buying at this moment (side note: when will I ever have enough money to justify buying the superfluous things that I want?), leather goth stuff, handmade leather bags, and cheaply made trendy things) and so they all kind of stepped all over each other. I also got depressed because I have been hoping that I could find somewhere one of those blazers that school children wear. Some just too small and awkwardly fitting enough but a little worn and maybe with a school patch on the breast pocket. Unfortunately, I think that there are recycling programs from these jackets, or they're used until they fall off the wearer or technically the school owns them and therefore reclaims them at the end of the school year. Humph.

While walking to the train station I saw a chicken and kebab shop called "Tennesseeland" which I thought was a funny mis-translation.

The Westminster underground station is exactly my idea of the interior of either a space ship or a post-apocalyptic bunker. It's huge, but underground and therefore made of steel and concrete and has staircases jutting out from one wall of this enormous space and shooting into the opposite side. The florescent lighting is bizarrely hidden in niches and nooks and therefore gloams from nowhere. I felt like I should be stomping the steel tiles in leather boots with unnecessary buckles and wearing gray linen pants and an army green sweater in tatters, you know, Matrix-style. Also at the Westminster Underground they have enclosed the tracks in a clear plastic case, so that when a train comes the trains doors line up with doors in the casing and they open (somewhat) simultaneously to let people on/off. This shell and the dim lighting serve to make me feel like I am boarding futuristic space trains that will drop out into the ether and take me to another planet. But it still feels like public transportation because people still grumble and politely ignore each other and are in a rush to get wherever they are going. So it's, you know, nonchalant space travel.

General Update

Nothing new to report.
My bosses still suck, I am thinking of writing a pamphlet on how to NOT be a sucky boss. It would go something like this:

1. Refrain from the rhetorical question when chastising an employee. For example: "Did you not see that the chairs were untidy?" because only assholes need to degrade their employees that way, and it's 90% likely that your employee will resent and look down on you for being so childish.

2. If you employee doesn't make a vocal answer to your rhetorical bitch-slap, please please please do not repeat your question, forcing said employee to look at their feet and say "no, sorry" like a three year-old caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

3. Do not curse and act irritated for things that in no way inconvenience you or impact the business. i.e.: The employee puts an empty bottle into an unused sink below the bar because she doesn't have time to put it in the recycling bin at that exact moment because there are 10 more drinks to pour and ring up, and the sink is unused and out of the way. The incorrect response would be to say loudly "what the fuck is this doing here?"And stump away muttering.

you know, things like that.

I have started making faces when T. does such things. I grit my jaw towards the beer I am pouring, or I wait until he has left and I grimace and sneer at the door he exited through. Because, I am a mature person.

I am always impressed by how teenage-ish people can be. Wait, a better way to put it, how impressed with themselves they can be because they live by bumper sticker and novelty t-shirt sayings. T. has had some good one-liners that deserve to be written down and looked at askance-like (never end a sentence with a preposition). Such as:

"I don't pay you to think."
and
"There's only one way to do it, and that's my way" (this with a little self-satisfied smile.)

S and I are regularly disgusted by the regulars who are in their forties and fifties and still go out every night to drink A LOT. Or there's D. another regular in his forties who was there when I started my shift one afternoon and confided in me that he had been drinking since 8 that morning. I swallowed my pity (aren't there better things to do with your time?) and acted dutifully impressed at his clear bad-assery. He was very impressed with himself and his "24 hour party" (ok, that wasn't very clever but there are so many shirts and posters and bumper stickers about partying all the time that I don't really feel the need to knock your socks off with my smart-ass wordplay). I am pretty sure that he was drinking alone in his house, and then by himself for a few hours in the pub before the other regulars trickled in and kept him company (then paid his tab, called a cab, and sent him home).


Despite the rather depressing nature of this post, life is going pretty well.
Caitlin, Will, and I are teaching the baby "tricks." Before you accuse me of treating the baby like a puppy, let me point out that she loves the feeling of communicating with us, and her "tricks" are rather like communication. For example, there is "hooray!" When you say "hooray!" and hold up your arms, Hannah holds up her arms and smiles. Sometimes she'll lift her arms on her own and we all put ours up and yell "hooray!" and Hannah smiles. Then there's "whoosh!" which happened by accident. She jerks her hands down her head and we push our hair forward with our hands and say "whoosh!" Or there's clap hands which works the same way, someone claps (either Hannah or Will or Caitlin or I) and then Will, Caitlin or I say "clap hands!" and clap our hands. I just taught her "bump heads." When you say "bump heads" and put your head near hers, she will gently bump her forehead against yours. Or, oddly, the side of her head against your forehead. She doesn't quite get a kick out of "bump heads" but she'll oblige.

Novelty Cont'd

Soo, I have already pointed out that there is a dearth of novelty in my neck of the woods. Well there is. Except for word differences. For example, did you know that a toothpick is called a "stick" or a "cocktail stick" here in The Bog They Call England?
I learned this in a faintly humiliating slightly humorous manner today.

During a busy Friday lunchtime C. shrieked me into the kitchen and shoved a small bowl of olives into my hand, flew to the other side of the kitchen and said something to her cutting board about "having sticks out there." I asked what she meant by sticks and instead of describing them she stood in the middle of the kitchen and bawled "STICKS, dear, STICKS!"in my face. My uncomprehending expression made her "tchah!" in frustration and she sent me out of the kitchen with a different order. I figured out what she meant by "sticks" (eventually) and went back to pick up the order. She said something directed at me (but to the cutting board again) and I tried to point out that I hadn't known what sticks were (I am now wondering why I even bothered, she already thinks that I have mashed potatoes for brains) and she whirled around started to say something, flew to the other end of the kitchen, turned and triumphantly wailed "well, you should have recognized that they were missing and figured it out from that, so HA!"

So ha?

Touche, C., we have fought a hard battle and I concede some sort of win to you. Um, yeah.

Someone called an IPA an "ee-pah" today.

My klutz-itude is infinite. I broke 2 glasses and a wine bottle today at work. Luckily both glasses were empty and the wine bottle was almost empty, definitely less than a glassful remaining.
We were busy busy busy at work today. Was nice.

Women are the worst customers in England. They get 15 year-old boy syndrome and try too hard to impress the dudes that they're with by treating the barmaid (me) crappily.
For example:
Lady A comes in with Fellas B and C. Fella B orders an orange juice and lemonade (translation: the contents of a little bottle of orange juice and then enough Sprite to fill a pint glass) Tom has ominously told us that when make said drink, one puts in the lemonade from the soda gun and then adds the orange juice. The problem is then estimating how much space to leave for the orange juice. Apparently, this way it doesn't fizz over so much and waste lemonade. So K. my co-worker does the correct order and either doesn't leave enough space for all the orange juice or it fizzes over a lot and gets the counter wet (the counter is always wet, so whatever). Lady A finds this disproportionately funny. She then orders the same drink but, laughing nastily and glancing at her companions for admiration, says to make sure that I put the orange juice in first this time.
I say "we're not supposed to, it's wasteful"
Lady A insolently (not to mention unnecessarily) ask: "what does it waste?" (translation: what the fuck do you know about anything?)
Emily: "lemonade"
I pour out the lemonade and add the orange juice.
"STOOOOOOOP!" she screams "you didn't leave enough room for all the orange juice!"
I cock an eyebrow, look her in the eye and pour the last drop of orange juice from the bottle into the glass, which has NOT fizzed over, and push forward a perfectly poured and formed orange juice and lemonade.

Callouses

I have been observing (read: picking at) some callouses on my right palm just below my middle and ring finger. I assumed they were from biking and they were only on my right hand where my hand would scrape the handlebar when I pulled the breaks.

Today I realized that my callouses are from pulling pints (it's harder than you think).

Yes, I have beer callouses.

Novelty

I haven't been writing much (or rather, writing much of interest) in this blog any more. I suppose the novelty of my time abroad has worn off. Upon reflection though, there are still little things that trip me up. A customer and I had an exchange the other day when he came up to the bar and asked for a "biro" (pronounced "buy-roh"), as in "can I borrow a biro?" "a what?" "a biro" "a WHAT?" "a BIRO! you know, to write with?" "oh. A pen." England also isn't that new to me. Not that I assume to understand every nuance of the culture. And I am not saying that in a world-weary jet-setter type of "oh, England is soooo passe" manner. It's just not exotic. At all. Possibly because of the exchange of television shows and movies and books that goes on between the countries. Because we all speak the same language, therefor it's easy to sell such things to the other country (no need to translate much, just turn "snogging" into "making out" and "pen" into "biro"). Though here we get into the murky world of whether tv is a reflection of what a culture is or if it makes culture or if it presents a picture of said society's morals and mores (I can tell you stories of incredibly isolated Alaskans being into hard-core rap, when you initially think to yourself "where the hell would they have heard that? much less had the chance to buy the cd" and then remember MTV and Borders. Even Alaska has MTV and a Borders, even thought it may be a 7 hour drive to get there. And guess what? So does Cambridge). While we were in Madrid, Nick asked me why it felt like he hadn't really gone anywhere. He disagreed with me when I said that I thought it was because he was seeing something only slightly different through his same eyes. For me that may be why my experiences aren't new anymore. Though England is an overwhelmingly new place to be, I am still myself. I am still mentally Emily with Emily's problems and frustrations and eccentricities, even if I am physically in England. Now that I can anticipate people's reactions and can count out money without fumbling over the coins I see everything through the same lens, and I still have the same reactions to things. Maybe I have set down some tiny roots into Cambridge, at least as far as routine is concerned. I know where to buy good coffee, and where I am going tomorrow to buy new bathing suit bottoms, where to take Hannah so that she can walk around (and I can can get a good cup of coffee). England has gotten just a little bit comfy.

But don't get me wrong, I would never want to live here for more than a few months.

Madrid Cont'd

The tapas in Madrid was great, the first night we went to some neighborhood on the cusp of becoming hip (in that universal cycle of ethnic/cheap which draws the artists and the young, broke, and hip which draws the boutiques and before you know it there's a gap and an urban outfitters then a Whole Foods and it's too expensive for most people, this neighborhood is in the young/hip/broke stage) and had fishy (as in we ate fish) tapas at a place hazy with smoke with worn decor and cracked stone flooring and looked like it hadn't been redecorated since 1940. It was great, lots of different people there and cheap beer and a relaxed atmosphere. Then we wandered down the street and ate round 2 at a new place that felt like less of an institution, more of a business to tempt the young and hip (if not completely broke). The food was good there, but I was still suffering from bummer-tummy and couldn't eat or drink much (which sucked. Nick had to cajole me to eat some more of the steak that we ordered, "one more bite Emily, just eat one more bite" "No!" "Pleeeeease!").
We went to the Prado the next day and were there for EIGHT hours. We even ate there and went back for more. There was a fantastic Goya exhibit on his work during some war (I have no concept of history) that we saw. It was so good that it took 2.5 hours to go through but felt like 30 minutes. I really like Goya. The exhibit was especially welcome because the rest of the museum is dedicated to Glorious Things. Every goddamned painting there is of Apollo/Saturn/Venus/Helen/God/Virgin/Jesus and their Glory. Every Single One. Four hours or whatever it was of the glorification of godly things made my eyes go cross-eyed. So I would wander from room to room and sit on a bench and wait for Nick to catch up. The Goya exhibit was more about the barbaric things that people do in the name of Glory, and how terrible it is. Prints of bodies hanging from trees after a war, or bulls and people fighting each other, and that famous one of the guy begging for mercy in front of a firing line (he's reaching out to them, there are other people around him, it's night... you'd recognize it if you saw it) and poor people dying in horrible insane asylums etc. There are splendid rooms in the Prado completely dedicated to Goya in the permanent collection, too.
Tapas that night was the place across the street from the hostel and was really good, things like deep-fried green tomatoes with cheese and fig jam, and a sizzling platter of meat (this was more Spanish-like) which were really really good, if a little expensive. We tried to go out to gay bars that night but ended up getting a drink at one place that offered mojitos for cheap(-er) and then going to a gay bar called "Ricks" which referenced Rick's Cafe Americain in "Casablanca" and the bar was covered in pictures of Humphrey Bogart and the pillars holding up the roof had fake "Moroccan" coverings. The joint was just beginning to jump and other women were showing up (I was the only one there initially) when we left at 3. On a week night.
I wouldn't have left that early but my tummy was being a jerk again (there's a theme of bummer-tum throughout this whole visit). Nick and I talked to these 3 dudes who had all moved there from Colombia that we were sitting next to for the time that we were there. One of them couldn't speak much English, so he would stand up and lean over the table saying "WAIT WAIT WAIT!"
and we'd look at him expectantly and he'd say:
"Always Coca-Cola!" or "Happy New Year!"
The last day of the trip we went to the El Retiro park and had a picnic lunch there and ate bread and manchego and chorizo. We tried to go to some book fair, but it was closed. We also went to the National Archaeology Museum which will be great when they finish building it, in 10 years. It was really well presented and they had some interesting stuff.
That night we went to a tapas place called "El Tigre" and ate cheap and greasy tapas with our solar-plexuses pressed uncomfortably into the bar and fighting the crush of 20-somethings scrambling for beers and food. If I ever go back to Madrid I will go there again. Nick saw some kid that he recognized from PHS there and we laughed about how the party-tour through Europe was such a middle-class/Piedmont thing to do during your summer vacations in college. You're supposed to come back and say things like "dude, I was so wasted during that whole trip that all I remember is having a good time!" and then their audience in response has to intone something along the lines of "yeah!" or "YEah boyeeeeee!"

The Vomit Post

I had some sort of vomit problem early yesterday morning. I say problem because I am not quite sure why I puked quite so much. Caitlin had a queasy spell for a few days, which I may have picked up from her, or my employers' habit of buying milk-on-the-brink (it's cheap!) finally got me.
Normally sickness problems like this suck but are not much of an issue. You clear your schedule and spend the day within chunks blow of the commode, feeling sorry for yourself and wishing that you were dead, but dressed in pjs and weakly sipping herbal tea.
I had to to go Madrid.
So I hauled myself home from work at midnight and caught the 3:30 am bus for Luton airport and took my flight to Madrid. At least every hour from 2:15 to 9:15 I had to stop what I was doing (usually holding my head in my hands and wishing that my flight/bus/Madrid would get canceled and I could go home and get into my pjs and drink tea etc.) and book it to the loo. I arrived in Madrid and sat myself down with a lemon fanta (fanta fanta, doncha wanna?) in the only place to sit down in the airport and tried to pull myself together (and keep the soda down) the soda stayed put and I sacrificed mucho dinero to a taxi because I had been puking for the last 7 hours and there was no way that I was going to be able to eat anything for at least another 24 hours.
My taxi driver was uninteresting except that he called me lady. I checked into the hostel at 12 and they told me that I could shower etc, but that my room wouldn't be ready for a few hours. I sat ona sofa in the common room and "read" (or, passed out) and the guy caught me and let me get into my room early. I staggered into the first bed I saw and slept for 5 hours. I stayed in that bed until 8 the next morning and woke up feeling infinitely better. I even ate breakfast and an enormous lunch. I now have something akin to cute motion sickness rather than all the time crap-i-tude.
That was today. Nick came in late last night and we tried to see the Prado but it was closed so instead we walked around a lot and saw the Palacio Real. It was impressive and had rooms that were entirely walled and ceilinged in porcelain.
Now we are going out for tapas.
Screw you weird tummy issue!

PS

Earlier this evening Caitlin walked in on me trying to fit Hannah into a big purse. I was gently folding her so that she could sit in it with her head sticking out the top and I could carry her around (much like a tiny dog in one of those tiny dog handbags, I'm beginning to think that I treat my niece like a puppy, I even called her puppy the other day) when I heard Caitlin say "HEY!" She accused me of being a bad person, until she remembered that she and Will had previously placed their baby into a large, canvas bag for humor purposes. We squabbled over that little piece of information until we realized that the baby was whining and fussing while we were deciding who was a worse person for treating the baby like a toy and pulled her out.
"At least I put her in a tote bag."

Fire Alarm!

It pissed rain all day today. The property management association came by and checked the fire alarms and I had to leave for a few minutes because technically I am not supposed to be living there and I wanted to avoid awkward conversations. Caitlin was home for most of today, and we got the grocery order and put it away (no car, so Caitlin and Will get their groceries delivered) and hung out.
This afternoon Hannah and I took one look outside and said "yech" so we stayed inside and shared a grilled cheese sandwich (she and I both have weaknesses for them. whenever I make one she stands with one hand on my knee, looking up into my face and makes frantic "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!"s until Caitlin says "C'mon Emily, just give her some" and I do) and watched music videos on youtube. Then I forgot that I had another sandwich on the stove and the fire alarm went off for the whole building, and I met the neighbors as they turned it off for me, and I covered my face with my hands and apologized profusely.
After the fire alarm panic I taught Hannah to raise both hands above her head every time I say "Hurrrraaaayyyyyy!" During dinner she buzzed around in circles saying "vvvvvvvvvv" to herself like a bumblebee, stopping periodically when Caitlin, Will, and I raised our arms and said "hurrrraayyyyy!" to (sometimes) mimic us and giggle (ok, 3 out of 5 times ain't bad, she's not even a year old).

Bit of a Rant Here...

Today I was supposed to turn on the tv at the pub and show some rugby game. T. double-checked with me that I knew how to turn it on and pull down the screen (they have one of those tv-projector things that, you know, projects onto a screen) before he and C. left to go look at houses (they want to buy one).
In twos and threes all afternoon a dozen blokes wandered into the pub and asked if I was going to have the rugby game on. I said yes, of course. They ordered lagers and waited outside in the sunny courtyard for 3 (when the game started).
At 2:45 I shut the blinds and turned onto the telly. It was a rugby game. Three dudes entered and sat down.
"This isn't the right rugby game."
"oh?"
"yeah, this is the BBC, the one we want is on SkyBox." (something like satellite tv I guess, gets you more sports channels)
"Shoot, T. must have forgotten to turn it on."
"Well, you can turn it on."
"Um, no, sorry, I can't. The box is upstairs in T. and C.'s apartment and they're out."
"No, just turn it on."
"I can't, lemme see if O. (T. and C.'s son) is up there."

I went and pressed the buzzer that buzzes upstairs if one of us down in the bar needs T. or C.
No response.

"Oh, O? He's out, passed him on my way in. Just turn on the SkyBox."
"I CAN'T."
"Oh, does T. have a mobile? Call him."
"I don't have his number."
"How about the other barmaid, you know, the northern one from Leeds." Says the bloke who is Northern himself.
Emily says out loud: "J? I don't have her number." Inside: "Jesus, she's been working here for less time than I have, just because she's from your 'hood' doesn't translate to more adroitness with electronics."

So, I call S. who confirms my inability to do anything about the situation. Meanwhile, the three guys who have stayed through all of this (by this time the match has started) ask for the remote and are laboriously flipping through every single channel. I want to scream "Just because you have been fueling your alcoholism at this pub for longer than I have worked here does not mean that you know how to work the pub television!"

AAAHHHHHHH!!!

Another obnoxious customer interaction:

This cold, prim woman and her equally frigid partner ordered a large plate of stilton, cheddar, pickle, salad, and bread. Traditionally, this combination is called a "ploughman's lunch" or, in vernacular, a "ploughman's." C. happens to serve it with pita bread, I dunno why. They also don't call it "ploughman's" on the menu, again, I don't know why.
So, I serve them their meal and about 10 minutes later the woman approaches the bar and says:
"Hi, I'm sorry but the bread is pita bread. With ploughman's is usually regular bread."
At this point I have no idea what she wants, so I answer something innocuous that invites her to say more, or end her complaint there, something along the lines of "Oh really? hmm..."
She goes on to tell me that LAST week it was served with ciabatta. I offer to exchange it, and bring her some regular bread instead. She ignores my offer and repeats everything that she just said. She has still not asked for something, or given me a problem that I can fix. She hasn't even complained. All she has done was point out that a Traditional English Ploughman's Lunch Does Not Come With Pita Bread, in a nasty complain-y, pissy voice.
Was it pure xenophobia, telling the foreigner that it was Wrong, and instructing me in sacred English lore? (I am pretty sure now that she thought that I had made the food.)
Or...
I dunno. I am going to dismiss her as a jerk who won't tell me something constructive.

Which leads me to similar incidents that happened when I worked at the Nick. Customers coming up and saying things like "why don't you play any old/artsy fartsy movies here? why can't you serve cappuccinos as well as coffee? Where are the hot dogs and bonbons that they have at the other theaters?" and other such trivial nonsense that, well may not be that trivial, I as a drone can't do anything about. Don't rip MY ear off because we've stopped playing a movie that you couldn't see until now, or we don't serve a dish the way that They have for centuries.

Post post-postianism and it's affects on middle-class females ages 22 to 24

dyed my hair red. was an accident, i was aiming for warm brown. so, i now have very red hair and c. laughs and calls me "ginger." red hair is not considered to be something that you want here in the uk.
pub is going well, money is being made, i have learned how to pull the perfect pint of real ale (there isn't much skill to pulling lager).
did you notice that i called it "real ale?" yup, there's a difference between ale and "real ale." it's different the way a square and a rectangle are different. an ale is, you know, an ale and a "real ale" is a beer that has been brewed and fermented in something, then put into the cask that you pull it from and allowed to ferment again. otherwise, it's brewed in some other vessel and decanted into a keg, and then re-carbonated. this is what ususally happens in the us. and it is much fizzier than "real ale" and so pulling cask-conditioned (or "real") ale is different than keg ales.
do you feel smarter now? you should.
or at least put it into the back of your head for some night when you are playing pub trivia and they ask you why beer in england is flat.

hummmmm...
it's getting warmer but is warm and cloudy and swampy. and makes emily go "yeechhhhh."
baby is walking and mumbling and we are getting along swimmingly.

yup... that's all for now folks.

over and out.

Bogeys

Last night some dude tried to wipe a booger out of my nose for me.
S. and I had finished work early and decided to celebrate with drinks at a pub. There, I noticed a ruckus over S.'s left shoulder. It was some dude who saw the bit of my septum piercing retainer peeping out and assumed that it was a booger. He then came at my face with a cocktail napkin, swaying drunkenly and saying "waitaminnit, hol' still. I'll geddit" while I bawled "it's a piercing IT'S A PIERCING" futilely.
His friend was embarrassed and bought me a drink to make up for it.
The whole thing was pretty damn funny.

Act I, Scene 1

Act I, Scene 1.

A pub.
Emily is behind the bar, making Simon's drink. Simon, a regular, is leaning against the bar, waiting for his drink. S., a Dutch girl who works in the Pub's kitchen, enters stage left, carrying a bag of trash.


Emily: Man it's cold

Simon (to S. though he is responding to Emily's remark): Uh-huh. Perfect weather for snuggling with a Dutch girl. S, isn't there someone who is Dutch around here? {insert naughty/lecherous grin here}

S. (helpfully): A Dutch girl? I'll go and find her. (Exit stage right)


*End Scene*

Never Mind the Bollocks

When people mention the song "God Save the Queen" what pops into my head isn't the original regina-loving ditty, rather it's the Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen." Which goes something like "God save the queen, and her fascist regime!" and then the rest of the day I sing "nooooo-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o fuu-u-u-u-uture, noooo-o-o-o-o fuuu-u-u-u-ture..." and wonder where it came from.
It took me awhile to notice that I immediately thought of the Sex Pistols instead of the original song.
I should make a movie of my life as seen from my head. It would have a fucking awesome soundtrack.

Punter Highlights

Punter: noun. People, patrons; like people who go to pubs.
"Who is that guy at the bar?"
"Oh, he's just some punter."
I am not sure that that definition is entirely correct, but it is for the purpose of this post.

Thursday night C catered a dinner for 65 Spanish people in the pub. The Spaniards were in Cambridge to learn English in order to go back to Spain and teach other people English. Which was funny, because the whole night they would come up to the bar and order "a haLf of Foster" (they pronounced the L) rather than "a half of Fosters." C served a horrible (stereotypically English maybe?) dinner of over-steamed carrots and broccoli and fingerling potatoes and what should have been steak and mushroom pie but was really a ladle of stew-ish filling poured onto a plate already containing the veg and topped with a square of puff pastry. At leas the pudding was nice, rhubarb trifle that we (the staff) got to eat too. Nice but cold and rich for the excessive portions that we ate.
C was in full C-mode: she ranted at the woman who organized the dinner for not making the vegetarians easier to find (what was she going to do? sequester them at their own table? tag them with neon yellow spray-paint? C is nuts) and once the dinner was completely served she got drunk (level-headed drunk, not messy or obnoxious).
The diners, on the other hand, sang. First, some woman sang "Think of Me" from The Phantom of the Opera, all opera-style with hand-gestures and funny jerky movements. It was fucking hilarious, unfortunately no one else has my sense of humor and so I had to laugh on the inside, which was difficult. Then they ALL sang some Spanish songs. Followed by (of course) "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" ("Breeeeng back, breeng back, Oh breeng back my Bonnee to me to me") and various Beatles tunes (Yesterday, Yellow Submarine, that was good). Then they put their arms around each other and danced a nice cancan. I once walked into the loo to find two women rehearsing another duet (duly sung). C, by this time 7 or 8 gin and tonics under (she's a bit of a hardened drinker), put some Abba on the stereo and they pushed the tables to the sides of the room and turned it into a disco. It was fun. I dislike disco as a rule, but I admit that it has its place and time. It was also fun because Spanish people are "civilized" when it comes to drinking (KT and Will's word for it, meaning they drank lots of halves very slowly and were jolly rather than ill-behaved).
Meanwhile, the water polo team came in and stood around the bar uncomfortably. They were drawn, I imagine, to the fun that the Spaniards were having but were too uptight to join the party. Lewis (or L as I should call him) came in and looked horribly uncomfortable and out of his element and we laughed at him. Then C, S, and I (tv reference is unintentional) hung out and had a few drinks after the pub closed. Was nice.

Last night, Sunday night, there was no one in the pub except for the 20 members of a rugby club from one of the Cambridge University clubs. They drank something like 12 pitchers of lager (we ran out of both Kronenburg and Fosters) in addition to drinks that they purchased separately. My boss came down to walk his dog, looked at the group, looked at me (the only person behind the bar), said "Have fun" and went back upstairs.
Actually, it was ok. Usually I feel really vulnerable when interacting with packs of British males because they are more interested in their mates' opinion of them than in being decent people and will sacrifice your dignity without a second thought if they think it will get them a laugh. Instead, these kids were nice and mopped up their own spills (as in "hiya, do you have a mop we could use? We spilled a little beer and don't want anyone to slip") and said please and thank you and were polite. I also got a kick out of being chatted up by tipsy 19-year-olds.
Conversations like:
Punter Lad: What part of the states are you from?
Our Hero: California, near San Francisco
PL: Really? I've never been there, been to LA though. I am half American, my mum is from Georgia.
OH: Really? neat.
PL: So I've really only been to the East Coast and LA, they're like, different countries!
OH: It's true!
(The kid who played PL in this conversation [yes, this conversation actually happened, it's not a dramatization] proceeded to say "totally!" a lot the rest of the night, something that I don't hear British people say a lot, though I don't interact much with British youth in a social capacity, so how would I know).
I left before they did, and had to suppress an urge to pat them all on the head and tell them that they were good lads.

Side note: Every time I say that I am from California, the person I am talking to remarks, aghast: "And you came HERE? WHY?!?"

Insomnia Post!

If I were a character in a Victorian novel, I would be the penniless companion. KT would be my sister who married money and status, and I would be the sister who lived with her and her family in their big manor because A) they couldn't afford to feed a spinster daughter at home and so that B) I could marry money as well.
I would order the servants around abominably but take care of the children. I would do chores because I knew that I was there on charity but I would make sure that everyone around me knew that I was doing them, so they knew that I was earning my keep and wouldn't throw me out.

Luckily, these are not Victorian times and I am not a character in a novel.

So I get a paycheck and days off, and am enjoying my stay rather than fretting about starving in hedgerows.

Tiny Tots and Little Lambs

I slept late this morning and was awoken by my sister pushing open my door. I looked over to snarl at her for waking me up and couldn't see her. I pushed myself up higher and saw my niece instead. She had toddled into the hall, away from her preoccupied parents, and pushed open my door. She chirped loudly and happily in an "I found Emily! Aren't I clever?" sort of fashion, teetered fully into my room and waited for me to get out of bed and pick her up.

Also, I had roast lamb for dinner. It was decent, but you can;t beat meat and potatoes and gravy and broccoli to fill you up satisfyingly. Work was really really boring otherwise. There were very few/no people there and there are only so many shelves that I can wipe down and glasses that I can put away.

Liar

I am a liar.
The guy who drinks IPA and who I thought was named Tom is actually named Lewis. Sorry to disappoint.
He brought his wife in today and she talks EXACTLY like he does. The same head movements as well. It's pretty funny.
She told me all about being a bedmaker at Downing College (a college at Cambridge University) and about barging into rooms with "do not disturb" signs and kicking the boys (it's an all-male college) bedmates out so that she could make the bed. And about calling their parents and letting them know that ther sons were still alive, and the stacks and stacks of Christmas letters that she receives from them still. I like her.
Still, I am afraid of becoming like her and her husband. Sitting in a pub talking about all the things that I used to do, instead of things that I want to do in the future or things I am doing currently.
At the same time, they clearly love sitting in the pub and telling barmaids (and anyone who will listen) about their wild youths and crazy capers and who am I to judge them for their enjoyments.
And, because I can't help but generalize, do certain people push themselves to do all the "crazy" stuff when they're young because they feel that they can "relax" when they're "too old" to do interesting things any more?
Reminds me of my parents talking about some of my more wild classmates from high school that they saw recently, how a few of them looked like they had prematurely aged, or like they were much older women trying to look like much younger women. As if they had pushed themselves too far in the 8 year span of high school and college without doing anything interesting (or what I consider interesting) and their enthusiasm for things had lost intensity.
Maybe I worry too much.

The End Of The World

Ok, so. I went and visited Nick (and Debbie, hi Debbie!) in London the other day. We went to Camden to eat half priced food that the stalls were trying to get rid of (a filling meal for only 3 pounds!) and people watch.
English girls and I are WORLDS apart. I keep watching them (I hope not creepily) and trying to figure them out. They all seem to wear fashion uniforms. They make Americans seem very dull and almost puritanical by comparison with their up to the minute style. Which does not mean that many girls have GOOD style. It's true they are trendier than American girls but the theory seems to be that the more trendy items you can wear/carry the better you look, whether or not said items fit you or are flattering. I am calling this the Topshop Phenomena. Most stores of similiar prices and client-base and quality (H&M, Wet Seal to some extent etc.) Topshop does not release a "line" every season. Instead, it pelts the customer with clothing that changes weekly. Some women go every lunch break because if something comes in one week, it can be sold out the next and never be seen again. This means that trends can be weekly. This week: leggings and Uggs. Next week: minis and stilettos. And because it's pretty cheap, it's possible to buy things weekly and discard them lightly.

Back to Camden. Nick, Nick's friends Gloria (and later Debbie) and Carlos and I went to a pub called The End of the World. It's supposed to be a big punk club but there was nary a good mohawk in site. Instead it was filled with Topshoppers wearing the latest "punk" gear and heels and lots and lots of makeup. I was getting ready to feel out of place and slightly uncomfortable amid these birds in their fine feathers (yes, that cliche has been done to death, but it was like being in a park filled with parading peacocks) when Nick pointed out that I was wearing my septum jewelery which was as much makeup as I needed.
I like Nick.

We found a table near a fire, which was nice because the pub was cold. Some guy in a striped shirt (I am going to call him Striped Shirt) came up to the fire too, and sat kind of at our table at the corner that was closest to the fire. We ignored him because he was obviously drunk and a little creepy. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned over them, towards the fire. Every so often a security guard would walk by and tap him on the head and tell him that he couldn't sleep there. He'd prove that he was awake and they'd walk off. I went up to get a round for my party and the bartender warned me that if I was also buying a drink for Striped Shirt that they would kick us out when they kicked him out. I assured her that I wouldn't and she let me have my drinks. Since they cut him off at the bar, he was trying to get other people to buy him drinks but no one would do it.
At about 12 a guy walked up to our table and asked us if Striped Shirt was our friend. We chorused "NO!" And he said that he and his friends had been watching us for a little while and talking about what jerks we were for ignoring our clearly drunk friend who was about to pass out into the fire. We set him straight finally.
Damn. This story is hilarious when told. I am too tired right now to write it differently. So, it will have to stand as is. Maybe when I am less sleepy I will attempt to write it in a funnier way. Or I will lose interest.

You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here

The other night I threw out a rowdy group of drunk patrons. They were all weight-lifters over six fet tall and I threw them all out by the seats of their beefy pants. They were so impressed that they made me their queen and built me a house made of chocolate that had chocolate fondue fountains gently arcing out of toffee basins amid fields of strawberries.

I am a dirty, rotten liar.

I did throw some people out of the pub, but they were 12. And sober. And inches shorter than me. And scary as hell. My bosses T and C live above the pub with their son, 12 (13?) year-old O. T and C went out for the night when I was working leaving O alone with his friend Ol. At about 10:30 a group of 12 year-olds showed up and asked for O. I had no way of getting in touch with O, and they said that he wasn't expecting them. So I said there was nothing that I could do. They didn't look like they could be friends of O's, O has a mod haircut and is no toughie. He respects his parents and walks the dog and is very polite. When I say "how are you doing?" He always replies "Well, and how are you?" These kids were to into being cool.
They left, or so I thought. They came back and sat on the porch area and smoked. A) Kids under 18 aren't allowed in pubs if they are unaccopanied by a parent and B) if they smoke on the pub property they get us in trouble as well as themselves. There was only one guy in the pub besides me. An older man named L who is probably in his late 60's, early 70's. He might have been a tough guy back in his youth but no longer. I noticed them smoking and said that I didn't want to be the one to kick them out. L responded by jumping to his feet and saying that he would do it. I figured that I had to toughen up sometime so I said no, I would do it.
I went out there and said that they would have to leave, especially if they were going to smoke. The kid smoking tried to claim that he was 16 (the legal smoking age) but didn't have ID. So he stubbed out his cigarette and he and his mates got up to leave. As I was walking indoors one of them called out "just kidding! he's only 12!"
I turned around icily and said sarcastically "No kidding."
They didn't like that.
They moved the chairs around as they were leaving. I could hear it but not see it and decided that taking the bait would be worse than having to fix the chairs around the tables later.
They came back 5 mintues later and the Kid threw a passport onto the bar in front of me, It was a picture that could have been him and the dates were right for him to be 16. He said "don't you believe that I am 16?" and I started to say "I dunno" but L, clearly thinking that he would help out the nice barmaid in need, jumped up and barked "What are you doing here! get out!"
Which was the WORST thing that he could have done. These kids were looking for some victim to get into their faces. They WANTED someone to threaten them, to make them feel tough when they called the persons bluff.
They left but kept coming back and the one kid, the ringleader who had been smoking and who threw the passport in my face, would fling open the door and scream insults at L. They were hilarious insults because they were English insults and made noooooo sense to me:
"You, go back to hangover court!" (rehab for alcoholism?).
"Your dripping nose, dripping into the burgers at princess court, do you remember?" (what?).
Ultimately his mates decided that he had gone too far and persuaded him leave the pub alone. Only one of the kids had even hint of a mustache and 2 of them had those uber-gelled faux-hawks (clearly future popped collars and cubic zirconia ear studs).
I said previously that the insults themselves were funny, but L came off as a toothless old man, all bark and no bite. He likes to tell me and the other barmaids tough stories about his wild youth and revel in what he sees as our admiration of him being a retired bad-ass (not really, we all think that he's full of crap but we all put up with it because we don't really care). He had told me all about some guns that he had carried while in Nigeria in the 60's and the lion that he shot and bushwhacking around the Yukon while working for BP etc etc.
Bored adolescents with too much time on their hands and brittle pride who haven't yet discovered the opposite sex are scary people. If I had called the police they would have come back and done something worse (I dunno, egged the place, thrown rocks at me). There was no way that I could win that situation because they knew and I knew (and they knew that I knew) that they were willing to go farther than I was. The only way to at least tie with them is to affect an "I really don't care, but whatever, you're really not worth my time" attitude so that they don't feel like you've challenged them. And then freaking L gets in the way to protect the poor helpless barmaid who really has a much better handle on the sitaution than he does. Guh.

In other news, I got a nice new haircut! And it was cheap cheap cheap because I got it from a haircutting school. Looks nice, though it took 2 hours and made me late for work. T forgave me anyways and made fun of me for staring at my new hair in the mirror and preening.
He's also decided that he's director of my social life and has attached me and S onto some sort of pub crawl that the waterpolo club is doing (clubs get free french fries and sandwiches if they come to the pub at the same appointed time each week, and the waterpolo club comes every tuesday). Could be fun, could be awkward. We'll see.