He Ain't Heavy

"There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California"--Edward Abbey

Well my brother visited me last week with his friend Walker and despite my own opinions constantly being voiced, my brother is in love with LA and California. The main point of this post is to show ya’ll some pictures because recounting the actual events of the week my brother and his friend Walker were here will probably bore you. I’ll give you a short rundown so the pics make sense then limit myself to captions, I promise :)

Thursday
-Pick up rental car at 6, ‘move in’ to my apartment and hang with my new roomie Erin, and then pick up boys at 11 pm ish cause of flight troubles. Then I took the boys to In N Out, the California fast food chain that most are obsessed with. There’s one right by the airport where people go to watch planes take off sometimes.

Friday
-Drive to Escondido, (with minor detours) eat at macaroni grill, a chain with some enjoyable dishes, as I’m sure all of you know. What can I say; I’m a sucker for cheese and pasta. Drop the boys at the skate park and check into the Holiday inn.

Saturday
-More of the same, skating, although during the middle of the day there is a no skating time so we went to a farmers market and an orange orchard (grove, farm?) and picked oranges then skated more.

"California is a fine place to live—if you happen to be an orange."--Fred Allen

Sunday
-The boys got to skate with almost every professional in-line skater on the west coast, so from here on basically no matter what I did I could guarantee them having a good trip. Then I took them for awesome Mexican food. It was incredible.

Walker with his Carne Asada burrito, his standard order


Will drinking horchata, a cinnamon-y rice milk drink. Delicious.

Monday
-Moving! I rented a 10’ uhaul truck and we moved my stuff one block from my boyfriends’ place to my new place. Low point of the day, getting yelled at in Spanish by a guy upon a not even close to a collision incident; highpoint was the sound of the ice cream cart guy—one dollar ice cream bars=mmmm.

Tuesday
-Skating again, plus leftover shrimp and traffic. Also that night we went to my favorite Chinese place ever, hooray for slippery shrimp!

Will sporting his high class elbow pads with Walker in the background

Wednesday
-Six flags, not much more to say. We got handed a half off coupon, so that was cool. And then leftover Chinese and push pops for dessert, meal of champions. Courtney arrived that day, and we all watched the Olympics with lots of commentary whenever a McCain add came on :)

Batboy looking pensive with his cape blowing in the wind

Batboy's neon shoelaces blind his opponents so that he can karate chop them

California sunsets, made beautiful by smog

Thursday
-Lunch at my favorite sushi place in Beverly Hills. We almost didn’t make it because of traffic. Apparently business lunches make everything miserable in that area but I finally scored a parking space. Courtney, will and I shared some awesome sushi and Walker got some chicken teriyaki (thank goodness they had it, I had a momentary panic attack at being informed of his dislike of all seafood). Then we walked around rodeo drive to see how the other 16th of the population lives and we saw some expensive cars, which was exciting for the boys. Then we went to Scoops, an amazing gelato place where they have flavors like white grape peach, whiskey apricot, and apple pie. That night we had a bunch of people over to heckle the Olympics and such; good times.

Shenanigans

Courtney thinks this is the perfect photo because it perfectly embodies each boy's personality

Friday
-5 am got up and headed for the airport

I was soo glad to not have to drive in LA anymore , and to be able to decorate my place. I'll put up photos when my brown and turquoise paradise of a room is complete!

What a beach vacation is SUPPOSED to look like

Whew! It’s been a while, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, my ridiculously long bus ride. We took a night bus and both got very little sleep and then once we arrived in the city of Zagreb we immediately got on a bus (or was it a train, hmmm, Lena?) to Zadar, a city on the coast, and then another bus to the small fishing village where our hotel was. (In total, about 24 hours of travel) We had no idea what the place would be like because we had booked in a rush in Switzerland, but it was in the middle of nowhere.

We got there, got false directions, walked a mile with our bags in the wrong direction (curse you watering you garden lady, you do not know the area within 800 meters of your house) walked back to the bus stop, asked at a restaurant and walked past said restaurant around a corner and there it was. It was a cute set of beachy, whitewashed buildings and we immediately dropped our bags donned swimsuits and went down to the beach. We had our own private gravel beach and the water was sooooo warm because of the little cove we were in. we decided within about 20 minutes of arriving that instead of staying for two days and then moving on we would stay 6 days and make this little hotel home base.

The driveway down to our little beach, there's a little red umbrella there where one of the most leathery tan women usually sat ALL day every day we were there

This is a shot of our spot on the beach (before we put our stuff on it, we're NEXT to the awesome umbrella, it's not actually ours)

We stayed in the hotel room two nights before moving to a little studio with a kitchenette, it had air conditioning which was lovely, but Lena was convinced I was freezing her to death with my polar bear like constitution, eventually we worked out a temperature that worked for both of us but there was one night where I stumbled in to consciousness to the sound of her trying to turn off the air conditioner with a remote without glasses in the dark…

For a day or two we just sat around on the beach although the gravel kind of hurt our feet so we didn’t spend much time in the water. We went to Pag one day because it was a cute beach town and the water was supposed to be nice. (There is an isle of Pag cheese that is supposed to be amazing, we must have missed it) We got some decent food including delicious meat pastries but the beach was so crowded that we were there for about 10 minutes before we decided to catch the next bus back to our oasis.

These are both from Pag , which is an empty ghost town during the day because it is so hot. and everything is white stone, so the sunlight just reflects directly to the back of your eyeballs. Gelato was a very, very necessary part of life for the two hours we were here.

This was the beach in Pag, you can't see it from here but it was super crowded and the water was colder than our little oasis, we didn't last long here.

One day we went to Zadar to look for new books for Lena (she hated short stories and some depressing novel I had brought, and the hotel only had books and magazines in German and Italian. Italian Cosmo, by the way, is hilarious.) Sadly, there are no English books except for in two cities in the entire country. We ended up doing so many internet errands and things that we completely missed the sea organ we had planned on visiting but maybe we’ll catch that the next time around. We grocery shopped a bit and made it to the bus station about 3 minutes to late for our bus, and the next one was in 3 hours. We ended up passing the time in the bus station by planning out a screenplay idea; people watching (highly entertaining), drinking coke, and having some sort of lamb burger thing.

This was the bus station where we spent about a 1/4th of our time in Croatia. I loved the signs for all of the different restaurants that sell basically the same thing.

Aside from those trips and our daily walk to the corner store (of sorts) to get ice cream or pasta to cook we led a simple life of beach going, movie watching, restaurant eating, and napping that was very relaxing. We even got a raft and some water shoes so we spent as much time as possible floating around. The only downsides were that there were only a few families on our beach and they were boring to people watch in addition to having annoying repetitive noise toys and that I got sunburned. I put on sunscreen, I don’t know what to tell you; I think maybe my body went into shock after going from the UK to the sun so fast.

Movies we saw that Lena had on her computer:

-Horton Hears a Who: loved the book, the movie not so much
-A messed up movie about the life of bob Dylan that I don’t remember what it’s called. Cate Blanchett was awesome and so was the kid in it, but it was way to artsy and made no sense
-The beginning of Four Rooms, a Tarentino movie about a hotel, but it was way weird. Seriously.
-Also the beginning of some very creepy movie where one girl was captured and tortured while the other was going to sleep listening to the backstreet boys. We turned it off at the first sight of blood
-Also don’t remember the title but it was the Cuban version of the godfather with Andy Garcia and every Hispanic actor ever, except S L O W
-Coupling, the series basically the British version of friends, it is hilarious and you should watch it as soon as possible

Anyway, after a very relaxing time in Croatia, with very little sight seeing and a lot of sleep, we moved on to Budapest.

This picture was taken in Zagreb by one of Lena's Friends from school. We were very hot because we were tossing a frisbee in the sun, and the random guy took a lot of pictures of us without asking, we may be Croatian celebs.

The train was hot, but we got a compartment almost to ourselves so it wasn’t too bad, and we watched coupling and ate snacks. When we got to Budapest we stayed in Lena’s apartment from when she was studying there and met the new tenant, Monica, who was really funny. We ended up going out for gyros and drinks and instead getting a Hungarian street food that is basically a savory funnel cake covered in sour cream and cheese, it is gigantic and heart attack inducing and delicious.

By the way, I have no pictures, but this apartment was EPICALLY amazing. It had huge ceilings and a balcony and Lena’s room alone was the size of half of my current apartment. It was a huge old beautiful building and it was so fun to stay there even for a few days.

The next day we went to this huge market in the morning to get food for dinner one night and we got pastries and fresh squeezed orange juice (so good) before buying chicken and bulgur and stuff for dinner. The market itself is train station size, it was made during a time when the city was booming and the government built a bunch of new buildings so its old and incredible, plus it has the usual draw of fresh produce and tons of bright colors and cool textures. It is something of a tourist draw, though, so I ran into a lot of people who suddenly stopped in the middle of a walking area to take a picture. In the end, we got stuff to make a pretty sweet tabouli with cilantro instead of parsley and cranberries and then chicken, man I am getting hungry. We ended up eating it later with Monica and Lena’s mom in the apartment kitchen, which was also very cute.

Lena went to pick up her mom from the airport and then that night we went out for a walk around town. (Her mom was such a sport to go out right after a 10 hour flight or however much) I forget the order of things but we had some pretty great meals (mmmm, duck) and saw a palace and walked across a bridge. There was a celebrate the EU fair going on so there were lots of stands with jewelry and things, Lena got me a ring for my birthday that was green and white enameled copper and really pretty. (She has a matching red one so we have Budapest memory rings) aside from the huge number of people it was really fun.

Budapest by night, VERY pretty from the top of our hill

The next day we went to the baths. The baths are an experience, let me tell you, imagine a water park with heated water and no slides and a huge yellow building and you will be close. There were different heat levels of pools and ones with jets and ones with lazy rivers and wet saunas and dry saunas. We were thoroughly pruny by the time we got out. Highlights were the lazy river pools (how many times did we try to make our own when we were little? I think baths should exist in the US too) and the massage by Lena in the dry sauna, very nice.

The city itself had a lot of history and I loved how easy it was to get around and sort of fell in love with Lena’s apartment. I left Budapest early in the morning for the airport and flew to London for a day and a half to wait for my flight home. I shopped and went to the British museum and watched TV in my tiny room in a B&B right by Victoria station. The British museum was incredible, but very crowded so after seeing most of what I wanted (I skipped the Rosetta stone and some of the mummy stuff because of a large horde of Asian tourists, but I didn’t feel a huge loss) Then I went to Gatwick airport and flew back in to Atlanta and then took a shuttle home finally. The funny part about the flight was I was next to two teenage boys and their mom, who ended up having very personal serious conversations about, whether they should be having sex before marriage RIGHT next to me. I do not want to hear that people, can’t you wait the 5 hours that it will take to get you not right next to me? Clearly the subject has waited for years, just a little longer? But no, alas.

And that was my epically huge summer vacation. It was a lot, and probably more that I will EVER tackle again, but it was a wonderful experience.

Things I will miss from Europe: easy transportation, easy access to good food (basics like cheese, yogurt and bread), laid back people, free museums

Things I missed about the US: stores being open after 5 pm, our money, yes it is all the same color but it is lighter (no one and 2 dollar coins) and it FITs in my wallet, sigh, little things, barbeque, Mexican food (oddly enough in Budapest I had a gyro that tasted exactly like a taco, it was the closest I got to Mexican food in about 6 months and it was trying to be Greek!), movies coming out on time, less expensive everything, seriously the US is soooo much cheaper than all the rest of the ‘civilized’ countries in the world.

Tune in next time for updates on my new apartment and the great big California adventure that was my brother’s visit:

Fondue=Nirvana

"Any country that has melted cheese as it's main dish must have good people" -Lena

So when I left off, I was in Scotland with Courtney and we had managed to do all of the things that she wanted to do but never got to do while she was in Edinburgh. Then we went to London.

London is way over-rated; it is very big and very crowded. I feel the same way about it as I do about LA, its size allows it to have certain opportunities others do not, but it is SUCH a hassle to take advantage of them! Granted, some of the hassle (forgetting my wallet at the hostel and having to walk all the way back) was of my own making, but most of it was because of the extreme amount of people in the city, and London and the UK in general are expensive.

We did go to the TATE modern art museum that had some interesting stuff in its collection, a special Cy Twombly exhibition, and a collection of photographic portraits. The photos were my favorite because it was done chronologically and Courtney loves Cy Twombly so it all worked out. The next day we went to look at graffiti/street art that was commissioned by the TATE from a few artists from Spain and South America. It was fun because they give you a map with lots of pink dots on it and each corresponds (somewhat inexactly) with a piece of street art so it is like a scavenger hunt. My favorites were old circular light street signs which were repainted and then hung up in random alleys because people almost never think of adding objects to the street instead of just painting on the wall.

After an extensive period of art scavenger hunt/ picnic lunching, we decided to see Westminster abbey and Buckingham palace, which we did briefly, the church was impressive but the palace was sort of boring. Then we went to buy high tea and, to use Courtney’s words, we were thwarted. The first place we went was closed for a private function and the next was out of high tea. Sigh, one day it will work out but fate instead wanted us to drink tea and eat dry chocolate cake while WATCHING three young American girl tourists nibble at their finger sandwiches and waste at least 30% of it.

We needed a pick me up after that so we went and found a movie theater to watch the movie Wanted. Movies are very expensive there and because I didn’t get a student discount, I ended up paying 10 pounds to see a very ridiculous movie with the most hilarious cheesy training sequence ever. When we got out of the movie the finals for the Euro 2008 soccer game were already on and we wandered around trying to find a place we could eat dinner and watch the game. Every bar had a crowd of men outside watching the game through the windows but we finally found a small Italian restaurant playing the game on a projector screen. We had pasta a la Sofia Loren, an anchovy caper pizza (tasty and very, very salty) and wine as we watched our team, Germany, lose to Spain. In a restaurant full of Spain fans. But the food was amazing.

The next day we took the tube to the airport where they changed the destination of the train we were sitting in 3 times because of delays. In the end I had to say goodbye to Courtney in the train because my flight was very soon. (Except it got delayed, but oh well) and then I flew to Switzerland to meet Gaby and Phillip my Swiss friends, and Lena my travel companion/roomie for the next two weeks.

Gaby was my nanny back when I was wee, in around 1995 and she graciously said she would host us in Switzerland. This involved she and her husband, Phillip, who is almost a doppelganger of my dad, driving us everywhere. They showed us a rotating restaurant on top of a mountain, where they filmed the James Bond movie ‘In Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and the air was so thin we got tired walking around the top of it. Then a cute little town halfway down the mountain with a mouthwatering cheese shop. That night Phillip cooked up fondue which was AMAZING. As Lena put it, any culture that could make an entire meal out of melted cheese has to be good people. I want a fondue set as soon as possible because I could eat fondue at least every two weeks. Phillip was a proponent of a small glass of schnapps to aid the digestion because ‘it is very dangerous to eat only cheese’ it was nice in very small sips but I don’t think I could detect the hint of pear flavor above the heat of the alcohol.

View from the top of the world

People would actually parachute from the top of the mountain. This one small Asian guy asked us (in english oddly enough) if we would hold up the top of his chute for him like a kite. That's him standing on the steep slope. when the time came, he said "Thank you!" yanked the chute into the air, and jumped off the mountain.

Lena and I during out little high altitude hike. Yes that is a snowball, in July. Also we saw a woman hiking this in tight white pants and heels, according to Lena she was Russian. I LOVE people watching.

The next day, Phillip drove us all to Switzerland’s wine country. (And sorry, Phillip, I don’t have all the names of places in front of me because I can’t get out the route map you gave us at the moment, but I will put up place names when I post my picture post once I return home) we rode the train for part of the way; we were in the car, on a train car, going through mountains, it was incredible! And much faster because only the train has a tunnel through the mountain, otherwise you have to go over the top. We ate at a steak restaurant, a delicious lunch with herbed butter for our steaks and it was amazing because other than burgers it had been a long time (ok Paris) since I had eaten beef. We also went to see a glacier which was incredible and huge but i have no really good pictures of it sadly.

View from the train before we go through a mountain. Houses in Switzerland are really pretty!

Lena and I after amazing steaks


The noble 'Mountain Pig' roughly translated from Swiss slang. I don't remember what they are actually called but there was some tourist trap zoo of them for us to see, isn't it cute?

That night we ate at Gaby and Phillip’s neighbor’s house. They had an outdoor barbecue house type thing and we had grilled chicken and sausages and everything was delicious. We couldn’t understand our hosts a lot of the time but Gaby told us that was probably better as our host kept making odd jokes.

The next day Gaby, Lena and I went to Bern for the day while Philip packed up his and Gaby’s stuff to go on their trip to Spain the next day. We had a great time in the city walking around and souvenir shopping as well as going to lunch and eating spatzl and rosti which were both incredible. Gaby and Lena both humored me and we also went to an art museum where there was a retrospective exhibition of a Swiss artist called Ferdinand holder that was pretty interesting. Also in their permanent collection they organized everything by subject matter rather than time period or style, which was interesting because in one room you could see how animals were painted in the 14th century versus the 20th century. I liked it because each painting was not lost in a sea of paintings in the same genre, but in some cases they covered the walls to such an extent that I was overloaded.

Bern was gorgeous, tons of old clocks and fountains everywhere and an extremely blue river.

Bern's crest is of a bear so they have a 'pet' bear in the city but he is very sad looking because his 'habitat' is not very natural. Gaby said that they are building a new home for him, hopefully it is finished soon!

OK, this was one of the weirder/cooler things I saw in Bern in a sports store. It is an elevator that you hop on and off of like an escalator. What happens if you get stuck? Does it reach the top and switch directions? No idea, but it was awesome.

The next day Phillip drove Lena and I to the train station and we left for a day in Luzerne while they went off to drive through Spain. They were incredible to show us such a great time and I hope that someday they will visit me so I can do the same for them!

Anyway, Luzerne. We walked around a lot and did a bit of shopping but since I left the map of the city and guidebook on the area in the locker we put our bags in we didn’t really know a lot about the tourist attractions of the area, which was fine with us.

I had also forgotten to print the actual tickets for our bus ride to Croatia because I had printed the confirmation sheet and thought that was enough. Cue annoying conversation with the head of the bus company. This was unpleasant both because of his attitude/clear dislike of us and also the language barrier. We finally agreed that we didn’t actually need to print tickets and the confirmation sheet would be enough. Fast forward 5-7 hours when we are waiting at the bus parking lot having spent the very last Swiss francs on dinner and we go to the office again to make sure everything is ok. The SAME guy is on shift and this time he says we do, in fact, need tickets, even though he has looked us up on the passenger list and knows we have paid in full. Finally he prints us tickets and we wait with crowds of people in a disorganized parking lot for our bus. (None of them are really labeled very well) We decided that Croatians must run the bus service because the Swiss are MUCH more organized.

Anyway, finally our bus comes and we find out there is a fee to check our bags underneath the bus. We had no money because we had carefully used it all up on a nice dinner so Lena ran off to change a few American dollars while I tried to stall the bus driver. Guess who comes over to speed up the bus leaving and gets angry with me for holding everything up? Yep the same guy from twice before. Thankfully Lena came back and saved me from his wrath, but seriously nowhere on the ticket or website did it say ANYTHING about a bag fee! We got on the bus and there were no open seats together and after asking a few people if they would mind moving (which two of them very grumpily refused) a nice man finally moved and we sat down in the very crowded bus (which was completely full by the way so why the attitude about moving from once aisle seat to another?) and began the 8 hour journey to sunny Croatia.

Tune in next time for my ramblings on travels through Croatia and Hungary and my final journey back to the US. Till then!