Ketchup and Mustard

Not really any mustard. Mostly ketchup, because like a failure I haven't written all summer.

So, in no particular order:

My mum visited! It was lovely. We saw shows, bought clothes and books, and got tattoos. You know, all the usual stuff.

I wrote my portfolio. Not, I'm sorry to say, my best work. Between various vacations and so forth, I left it quite late, and had a lot of trouble approaching the assignment. Still, it's in, it's done, and I am basking in my weeks of nothing-to-do until it's time to move to my fall dorm.

I visited Char, Ella, and their gorgeous new baby, whom I will call Topsy. So cute, my friends! It seems bizarre that people my age are parents, but they are, and Char and Ella are quite good ones. We saw Hadrian's Wall and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And Sharkytart came to visit! Sharkytart and I went to high school together ages and ages ago, and have been living in different countries (or at least different states) pretty much ever since. But we stay in really good touch now, and she came out for nearly a month. We did London, and Amsterdam (there is a hilarious story there about our inability to get stoned therein), and came back so I could do my Troilus Redux. And then we stayed with Poppasmart for a few days and went to a castle and wandered around all day wearing Robin Hood hats. You see why these people are my friends.

All in all, a wonderfully relaxing and supportive summer. I got to spend a lot of time with friends, something I haven't done enough since I moved to this side of the pond. I went to fun places and saw many good shows (the Globe's Troilus and As You Like It were both marvelous this year). And through it all I of course read a great many books and watched a fair bit of TV. For TV, I must recommend Castle to all those who haven't seen it; it cracks me up on a regular basis. As for books, I've been on quite the mystery kick (thanks, MOM) and made it through the Sebastian St. Cyr books, the Lady Julia Grey books, the first two Roderick Alleyn books, and today I finished the first Dame Frevisse book. Also the Earthsea quartet, and The Time Traveler's Wife, and a couple more Peter Wimseys. And some other stuff that I don't remember. Quick reviews: Sebastian St. Cyr (by C.S. Harris) gets an A for plot and a C for writing, averaging to a B; Lady Julia Gray (Deanna Raybourn), also a B; Roderick Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh) C+; Dame Frevisse (Margaret Frazer) A-; Earthsea (Ursula Le Guin) B+; Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffeneger) the same; Peter Wimsey (Dorothy Sayers) A-. The movie of Time Traveler's Wife gets a C-, though; that was not nearly as good as the book.

And that is what I did this summer. On the whole, delightfully refreshing, even if England couldn't work up a good day of sun since the end of May.

Dear Wales,

My goodness, Wales, you certainly are pretty.



I think, just between you and me, you are even prettier than Ireland. You have flowers, after all!



But don't tell them; they'll only be insulted.

I also like your beaches rather a lot better:



But your ocean water is sort of obscenely cold. Well, sorry. But it is. You froze my feet!

However, I forgave you, when I saw one of your excellent castles.


I am so pleased I took a tour of your southern bits! (Not in the dirty way.)

I have enjoyed my time here so much, Wales. Your language is kind of impossible to pronounce, but it's also kind of crazy-cool to see written out, and part of me wants to learn it so I can swear in it and have people look at me funny.

Alas, I did not see your stars and I did not get any autographs, but that is how it sometimes goes, and I did have a pretty excellent time at your best pub last night. You do know how to party, which pleases me.

I wish you well, Wales, and I am sorry to be leaving. You're good people, you are. You should keep on being Welsh; you have my approval. I promise to see you again someday!

My Sister's Gonna Hate Me

I wandered around Cardiff all day - well, hang on. I wandered around Cardiff for half a day and then got tired and found the library, and then it closed so I found a bookstore, and then it closed so I found a restaurant and had dinner. But there was wandering. In the morning, there was.

In the morning, I went HERE:


And then I found THIS:



I KNOW! So of course I had to do THAT. And I saw this:




And THESE:



And almost got exterminated by THEM:



It was VERY exciting. For me. Who is a dork.

I Knew him, Horatio

Whee, much to tell, and only eleven more minutes of internet time.

So. Doctor Who must have whupped some serious alien ass over England this week, because the southwest got a freak snowstorm. AS we were driving back from our performance at the naval academy, so we very nearly got caught in it. Well, we DID get caught in it, but luckily we had inside sources and took an alternative route, or we would have gotten SO caught in it that we would have had to be rescued. We weren't that caught in it, but the drive that should have taken forty minutes took over three hours. So that was quite dramatic, but I assume we are relatviely safe from that alien menace now.

Until, like, Tuesday, when another storm is expected. Perhaps the aliens are planning to come back.

Playing the naval college was a story in itself - we got a tour and everything! - but since I only have time for a limited number of exciting stories, I had to prioritize.

Today, we arrived in London, booked into our hostel (triple decker bunks! I am on the very top) and went out to dinnner. And as we came out from dinner, we saw the red carpet where all the celebrities were leaving the BAFTAs. Which was also quite exciting.

We saw Emma Watson (Hermione), Patrick Stewart (again, for me!), Kate Winslet, Noel Clarke (Mickey from Doctor Who) and someone who might have been Helen Mirren, and someone else who might have been Meryl Streep. (Shut up. It was very crowded and hard to see.) So that was a good end to the day.

And now, there is no more internet time, so Globe updates will wait until tomorrow, when I actually know something.

Vacation

Such a ... weird concept. Or it feels like it, when you haven't had one in forever.

Part of me was being driven completely insane by my job, feeling like I was going to sock someone on the head at any moment. Another part of me feels guilty for taking almost the entirety of September off. It evens out, I suppose. I realize I haven't had much time off since I got back to the States -- certainly haven't done any traveling except for two or three days to see my family over Christmas. I get days here and there, and my weekends of course, but lots of days? In a row? Crazy!

Plus, makes it much harder to live in denial about how soon I am leaving and how far I am going. Why have I stopped work except to... move to England. Gulp. (It doesn't help that all, and I do mean all, of my friends do more or less the equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and humming whenever I bring it up.)

But first, there is the short vacation. Which hopefully will be my borrowed time, so that when I get back, everything can begin to come together.

There's No Place Like the Parents' House

I don't have much to write about, other than my completely ludicrous sleep schedule. I seem to be on rotation, six hours of sleep, six hours of waking, six hours of sleep... etc., etc. How I wish I were kidding. I must be driving my poor family nuts. I'm certainly driving myself nuts. All I seem to be able to do is sleep, watch TV, read, eat, sleep, watch TV, read, eat. And I'm not talking reading deep things, I'm talking like I can barely pick up the Nick Hornby book I bought for the plane ride.

I am so, so glad to be home. In terms of seeing my family, of course, and in terms of no longer needing to worry about my personal safety sort of 24/7. And not needing to be worried about my stuff all the time, and being able to take a shower and do laundry, and all the practical things like that, things that take up so much head space when you're traveling. Not to mention the sightseeing and adjusting to new cultures and whatnot.

I do, however, have enough travel anecdotes to last me about two years' worth of parties and meeting new people and dinner get togethers and so forth. You know, arriving in Madrid for the first time with a high fever, arriving in Paris for the first time with no luggage, arriving in Slovakia for the first time completely unexpectedly... those are my top three bad expletive stories (as in, I use a lot of expletives in a really negative way). I'm not even sure what my top three good expletive stories (as in, I use a lot of expletives in a really good way) would be -- there are so many. Getting to see a real achaeological dig just outside Rome, where teams were in the process of excavating plant holders and suchlike, the way I felt after going to a concentration camp tour (well, that was more of a mixed expletive story... I actually completely unironically and un-self-critically started mapping out how little human contact I could get away with for the rest of my life), what it looks like inside a pyramid, seeing Socrates's very own marketplace ... I probably have at least one for every country I've seen.

Okay, right, nostalgia is boring. Corner me at a cocktail party sometime; I tell these much better than I write them.

Sarcophagi

I feel like entering a sarcophagus myself at this point. I wanted to write about the Egyptian museum, but I have nothing remotely interesting to say about it. I just sort of wandered around; it's really impressive, mostly from the sheer number of crazy things they have there. I mean, not crazy if you're an Ancient Egyptian, but kind of crazy if you're a modern American. And culturally ignorant, like me. (Seriously, one of my first trips once I get home tomorrow is to go to the library -- I have been having library withdrawal -- and one of the first things I'm going to get is a book of Egyptian mythology. I know the very very basics -- Sun God, Sky Goddess, heart and feather dealio -- all the stuff you can pick up from reading The Egypt Game lots of times at an impressionable age. But I have very little idea of the details. Plus I know absolutely nothing about the history of the Pharoahs, except, you know, Moses and all, so if I can find a history of that that isn't too dry, I'll pick it up. See, I told you I'm having library withdrawal. You know what else, though, speaking of Moses, I don't know how the Egyptians even realized that they had a plague of gnats, or of flies, or of whatever. From what I can tell they seem to have a plague of them constantly. No wonder Pharoah wouldn't let the people go.)

Right, topic. Which I ... don't have. Except, you know, being ignorant and irreverent and culturally insensetive. Sigh. Okay, you know what, I'm tired, and I have to pack for my flights tomorrow. But I am going home tomorrow! Home! Family! Friends! Library! Bookstores! Movie theaters! Netflix! Mexican food! Asian food! Washing machine! Hey, I said family and friends first, don't look at me like that.

Egypt

The economic system in Cairo is completely beyond my grasp. But the pyramids sure are impressive. Seriously, damn. Also, I rode on a camel. (Paid too much for the priviledge, but I wanted so much to see the Sphinx and go inside the pyramid... So I did. I shall spend the summer paying off this vacation. But! Camel! And pyramids. It was excellent.) Plus, lots of tombs, complete with hieroglyphs on the walls and... well, everything you've ever heard about Egypt, I've been seeing today. Seeing part of, anyway; the artifacts are in the museum that I'll go to tomorrow.

Also finished Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I liked it so much better than I was expecting to, despite the sort of underlying misogyny and depressing undertones. Or overtones, actually, they were pretty explicit. But it was good; the scenes were powerful (if a little cinematic) the mood was really well done, and the ending was just perfect. I was really impressed.

Phewf

That's not really a word, but it's how I'm feeling. Cairo is overwhelming.

Being here is like every video you've ever seen on a spy show, but raised to the power of ten. All the individual sights are what you've seen on TV, women in headscarves, bright lights, people along the Nile, crazy streets. But of course, it's so different being here, people are always, always, always, ALWAYS hustling you. They will get you any service you like, they assure you, for only a nominal fee. My first foray out, I only got caught by one, and there went ten Egyptian pounds right there. Good news, that's about two dollars. Bad news, I am at the end of my trip and very broke, and couldn't really spare it at all. Sigh. So it goes. I should be happy I avoided it all but once. (I'm not kidding or exaggerating here. Every single minute, someone is demanding something of you. It is NUTS.)

I shouldn't be stressed here, but I am. The engagement ring helps (I am coming up with all these elaborate lies about Imaginary Fiance Will. Backstory, relationship history, personality, career plans, wedding date... I'm such a bad liar; I get paranoid really really quickly and start coming up with all these contingencies) but I get so flustered ignoring people on the street all the time. I know, I know, I'm from Berkeley, that's fairly ridiculous. But still, I don't know, I feel like I'm being so rude, when in actual fact it is self defense and being broke.

Anyway. Tomorrow I promise to calm down and see the pyramids. Meanwhile, news from Athens. I can't get this computer to recognize my flash drive, so no pictures for a couple of days. (Once I get home, I'll just post pictures all the time, from the whole trip, just for the hell of it.)

But! In Athens. The Temple of the Olympian Zeus, which is sort of like the Circus Maximus in Rome, in that the site is huge, so you realize the building must have been incredibly impressive. But there's so little left of it (in the case of the Circus, there's essentially a track; Zeus does better with 15 pillars standing; which sounds impressive until you realize that that's basically one corner of the structure) that it's hard to really appreciate. The Acropolis was more impressive -- there are actually several temples there, including the one with the Caryatids (which I just spelled wrong). But I found out! That's supposedly on the site where Athena and Poseidon had their contest, right, for who gets the city, and Poseidon made a spring well up from the rock and everyone was all impressed, except he's the god of the OCEAN, so when they tasted it it was all salty and gross, and then they weren't impressed anymore, and then Athena planted an olive tree, because she ROCKS, and the Greeks figured out that they could smoosh the olives and make olive oil, and sell it to the rest of Europe for really expensive prices, and then Athena got the city because her gift was more useful and that's why it's Athens and not Poseidons, although ironically, it occurs to me now, they probably had to cure the olives in Poseidon's salt water, so the gifts were actually sort of equally useful, and the city should really be called Atheidons.

Yes, of course I was like that for the whole tour, explaining things and pissing people off. Duh. I haven't changed at all. Plus, it's Athens!

Oh, and it just gets better. I mentioned yesterday the old Dionysian theater (ROCK ROCK ROCK ROCK) and ALSO I saw the Ancient Marketplace, meaning I walked on the same dirt as SOCRATES. I KNOW. IT WAS SO COOL!

Yes, all those caps were necessary. Sigh. No one understands me.

And, we went to this hill, right near the Acropolis, where supposedly Ares was put on trial for sleeping with/raping Poseidon's daughter. I don't know why all the gods were so big on pissing off Poseidon; it seems like such a stupid idea. Although possibly he couldn't ever really take it out on them because Ares would have kicked his ass, and Athena has Zeus sort of perpetually backing her up, so he had to just sort of fume, and so then when Odysseus pissed him off, he really went nuts because Athena was only supporting him sort of off and on, and so Zeus didn't really get involved...

Yeah, I'm taking my weird notions off to sleep now, because I have the same feeling that I get when I say something and everyone looks at me funny and blinks.

Quick Hit: Athens Photos

The universe continues to conspire, but here are some pics I took a couple days ago. Sigh. I really hope Cairo will be more exciting.



There's for the sightseeing, and as a cutesy addendum, here is the sparrow who was my lunch partner:



I thought she was kind of adorable.

Spanakopita. Yeah, I don't know.

I am all safe in Athens, but have come down with a yucky cold. As such, I don't feel like doing anything interesting, and have nothing interesting to say. Instead of interesting things, I am sleeping, walking down the street to get spanakopita, and going back to sleep. Don't you wish you were me?

Byyyyyyy the Adriatic Waters...

The runner up title for this entry was a mixture of Homer and Shakespeare. Yes, there absolutely is such a thing as being too educated.

So here is my splendiforous Venice picture (one of several):



Venice is lovely. It's really a walking sort of city -- canals are by no means as prevalent as I used to think when I was little. And since all the bridges have stairs (unlike, incidentally the bridges in Amsterdam, which are more or less level), so there really is no way to get around all of Venice except by walking. I mean, or boat, but that's expensive. You can't bike, and there are no cars or buses, except one central bus station on the edge of downtown. My campsite was also lovely, as I think I've already mentioned. Italy is fun.

Now, though, I'm on my way (actually already in the waters of) Greece. So far it looks like California except in island form, but possibly it will be more exciting once I actually land. The boat is very, very relaxing, although I got very little sleep, having booked deck passage without a sleeping bag (dumb dumb dumb). Anyway. Guys on the boat keep hitting on me, like all the time. I'm not saying so to brag; they're mostly far too old for me; I'm just kind of mystified. My hair is all salty-stiff and awful and I'm wearing the pants that make my butt look big. Maybe it's the cute Parisian shoes, I don't know. One of the devoted swains is the Captain of the ship, who saw me struggling with my luggage yesterday and has since been very attentive. He took me to the bridge, and the forecastle, and all kinds of places I wasn't supposed to go, which was awesome and nifty. Then he got fresh with me, and I deployed Imaginary Boyfriend Will to keep him in line. (Imaginary Boyfriend Will is tremendously helpful in these respects... He is going to propose sometime while I'm in Greece -- definitely before I get to Egypt. Ella gave me an old ring she had that is apparently worthless but looks quite a lot like an engagement ring, if you don't look at it too closely. Hey, Imaginary Boyfriend Will can afford to be cheap; we're going to break it off once I get back to the States.)

Anyway. It's a good thing the voyage is so relaxing (my main activity is sitting in a deck chair in shorts and sunglasses, reading Middlemarch) because I am wicked stressed from trying to get in touch with Dallas Theater Center. I finally reached them the other day, and arranged for an interview, but I've since had to cancel, because the phone cards advertised on the ship have completely failed to be actually available. I'm supposed to call them at midnight tonight -- after docking -- which is great except that it depends on my ability to 1) stay awake and alert that long; I only got four hours of sleep last night, and 2) find myself an international calling card in Patras once we dock. I am praying that Patras will be like every single other city I've been to, namely with plenty of tourism and therefore international phone cards, but there isn't any way to be sure. I should just be thankful that they want to talk to me, but instead I'm chewing off my own cheekbone, because I know I look like a flake. Oh well. I can't imagine my other job prospect (for the summer) is any too pleased either, since she wants to meet me before she hires me and I'm on the other side of the globe.

Bitch moan, bitch moan. I've wanted to go to Greece since I was about eight years old, and spent many years of my life since then daydreaming about it. More than half my life I've wanted to get out here, I get here, and I'm biting my nails about job prospects for the coming year. Sometimes being a grown-up is not nearly as fun as it's made out to be.

The Vacation Part of the Vacation

Whee! Venice!

So, I left Dublin at six this morning. (And by the way? I am so OVER Ryanair. You read it here first, Ryanair sucks. My flight cost one euro penny, but each kilogram over the first fifteen in my carry-on baggage was eight euros. Since I have one carry on bag that is fifteen kilograms and another that is twenty, I had to pay them like a hundred and fifty to even get on the plane. I hate Ryanair. Also I am annoyed because the twenty kilo bag is mostly dirty laundry and winter jackets. Serves me right for using the "cheap" airline.)

But, nevertheless, I got on the plane in Dublin at six and got off the plane in Venice at ten. This is like getting on a plane in Vancouver and getting off in L.A. Suddenly I only need one layer out of my four. Getting to my campsite was a headache, involving a lot of walking and almost pulling out my shoulder blade, but now I am here, they upgraded me to a semi-private trailer (I only have to share with one other person, who doesn't seem to have got here yet) and there is a swimming pool. So I am ignoring the city of Venice for the afternoon and going to take a nap in the sun. Shut up, I had to get up at three to catch my flight.

Anyway. Tomorrow I will write all about Venice and post pictures if I can, but now I need to go finish my mystery novel.

Addendum, later in the evening: God, I completely forgot how relaxing Italy is. I feel so very much better than I did. I love Italy.

Piccies!

That is pretty, pretty, pretty Killarney, where I am right now. Sadly I forgot my camera on the bike ride I took today around Muckross Lake -- I did about twenty kilometers, ten of them on an empty stomach. Yeah, that was pretty stupid. But I saw lakes and waterfalls and forests. Ireland is the best place I ever heard of for playing "Maybe it's the road to."

Since I have now figured out how to upload pictures, here is one from Berlin:



That's a pretty good view of the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, downtown near the Brandenburg Gate. The tour revealed a certain amount of -- well, I don't think trivia is exactly the right word, but it's what I mean. Other options considered for the memorial were a huge vat of blood, a huge oven, and the little pieces of the Brandenburg Gate, which would be blown up with dynamite for the purpose. I'm pretty glad they went with this one... each slab is the same width and depth, but different heights, generally getting taller towards the middle. When you're in the middle, it's pretty nervewracking. People are wandering around it constantly; whether you want to be alone or with other people, you sort of can't. Some people, of course, kind of miss the point and climb all over it, giggling and talking about stupid shit. There are actually police officers who hang around so that people respect it and don't get too rowdy. Which is really, really disturbing when you think about it. But by far the most interesting piece of information is that the stones are coated with a substance that makes spray paint not stick, so that the memorial can't be graffiti'd. The company that makes the product is the same one that produced the Zyklon B gas that Hitler used in the gas chambers in Auschwitz and other camps. When this came to light, the company publicly announced it, apologized, and provided the coating for the memorial free of charge. There was still a huge controversy... this is one of the reasons I love Berlin.

Anyway. I'll post more pictures when I get a chance.

Dublin Pubs

Well, how the hell else am I supposed to write about Dublin?

I was only in Dublin for one day -- okay, I arrived mid-afternoon, but I arrived on five hours of sleep and after plenty of time spent on trains and in planes and on the bus, etc., etc., etc., so my evening was something along the lines of buy sandwich, eat sandwich, sleep.

But then I arose, like the rosy fingered dawn somewhere else in the world; in Dublin the dawn was gray and cloudy and ucky. Seriously, Ireland is cold, y'all. Also expensive. Also completely dead on Sunday. If you are ever going just for one day, make it a Friday. Nothing happens on Sunday, and nothing opens until 2pm.

I left my hostel at around ten thirty, and it took me like two hours of wandering around in the cold damp to figure that out. But then, oh, but then. Then I found a pub. I love pubs in Dublin. Tea was two euros, which seemed horribly expensive until the guy brought it out and it was a whole potful. And I just got to sit, and drink it slowly, and read my Bill Bryson book (yeah, I broke down and bought it while I was in Durham). And then I finished my tea and the barkeep came to get my empty dishes and asked if I wanted more. "Um," I said. "Of course you do," he answered, "sit tight and I'll bring it out for you." And he did. And I sat in the pub for like three hours, all comfy and drinking my cups of tea. And he only charged me for the first pot.

"Thank you," I said. "Not to worry," he answered, "it's an Irish tradition to sit around in pubs drinking tea. You can stay as long as you like."

And that totally made me love Ireland. If AuntE had come to some of the pubs out here she would have liked the British Isles much better.

Then I went to the Irish National Museum and learned about the Irish wars of independence. And don't get me wrong, the English were bastards and evil and I'm down with that, but I do think it was moderately scummy of the Irish to wait until World War I had started and then buy a bunch of guns from the Germans and attack the English on the other side. Don't worry, I'm not making that opinion public; I like Ireland and don't want to get lynched.

Then I did the Literary Pub Crawl. Not sure if it's quite worth 10-12 euros, I'd put it at about 8-10, but it was good. The actors were excellent and professional, and the atmosphere was much more relaxed and friendlier than the atmosphere at the Berlin Pub Crawl I did a few weeks ago. At that one everyone was trying to get drunk and hook up, and I just got awkward, but at this one we learned lots of literary trivia and I made friends with a nice Canadian couple about my age. We compared travels, it was fun.

And now I am in Killarney, after a six hour bus ride. Ireland really is as green as you've always heard, I was not disappointed, but I did fall asleep for about half of it. Shut up, learning about Irish authors is taxing. If you're drinking Guinness at the same time it is. I'm totally right.

I've Kind of Forgotten What Day of the Week It Is

I only left Ella and Char's this morning, and within one hour of leaving to travel alone I've forgotten all the normal stuff like what day of the week it is and which exact days I'm traveling and the conversion rate between the pound and the euro as applied to living in the UK and its environs. Sorry, Ireland. What I mean by that is that you can get a sandwich and a soda from a deli for a little under five pounds or a little over five euros. But you're spending less in Euros anyway. This would probably make plenty of sense to me if I had been sober and gone to bed early last night. Sigh.

On the plus side, I made it safe here, I had a fantastic, awesome time with them, and I scored a bus ticket to Killarney for about half what the internet said it would cost to take the train. All this pleases me.

I know it's boring to read about my various money thoughts and sleepy travel stories. I'll be doing better tomorrow after I've gotten some sleep and seen some of Dublin.

Dancing & Debating

I am having so much fun in Durham this week. It is exactly the right amount of layaround, late-sleeping, making a mess all over Ella & Char's living room, plus cultural treats, and the best part, the fun-ness of Johnny talk. (We are dredging up so many old stories. Char was a senior when I was a freshman, so we've got literally like seven or eight years of scandals to talk over and laugh about. I once read a quote that said great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events and shallow minds discuss people. I've never believed it, because I never met anyone who didn't enjoy discussing every single one of those things, usually in quick succession.)

Anyway, last night Ella took me to her lindy class, which I sucked at after spending three or four years trying to figure out Johnny swing, which is significantly easier than the normal kind. But it was full of really friendly people and good times, and it ended at the pub, which is never bad.

Ella and Char are also being converted to Wonderfalls, which makes me feel rather better about how much time I spend watching the show. This makes me happy. They also agree with my consensus -- not the best thing on TV by a long shot, but clever, and oh-so-cathartic.

Tomorrow I shall decamp for parts west, namely Dublin and Killarney. Yum, Ireland. And by that yum, I was referring to Guinness.

The Globe is my Tiffany's

Except I never eat breakfast there, because the shows are all in the afternoon and evening.

I was only in London for one night, but of course I have obligations for my one evening. I got very lucky, too -- totally sold out, and a long line for returns, but I scored my standing ticket at the very last minute, and that made it even better.

The play was Othello, not my favorite for a variety of reasons, and sadly this performance didn't really change my mind. I always get the feeling that in order to write Othello, Shakespeare took the two main character traits of Aaron, from Titus, and split them into two characters and wrote a play about those two. Othello got the dark skin and the resentment implied therein, and Iago got the evil and cunning and whatnot. And you know, there's nothing wrong with that, work with what you know and all, but the way the show ended up, it's really intensely difficult to do.

Because, right, Othello has to do this complete 180 degree turnaround, and the catch is he really doesn't get very much time to do it in, and he doesn't get very much provocation. So you need to foreshadow fairly, because otherwise it's racist (the idea that a black guy can just change from good to evil at the drop of a hat), not to mention the audience is just lost, but if you foreshadow too much, it's still racist (even the black guys that act the best are really only wearing a thin covering of 'civilization' and they can throw it off at any time). Now you could argue that this just makes it a racist play, and in certain ways that's true -- it doesn't have Merchant of Venice's saving grace of the whole if-you-prick-us speech. But I've been thinking about that, and I don't think you HAVE to play it racist -- as long as you give Othello subtle but concrete emotions behind his actions.

Because the story makes perfect sense if Othello IS very civilized (I hate that word but can't think of a better one in this context) but people have been being racist against him all his life, literally everyone EXCEPT Desdemona. And so he's come to expect it, and he's very on guard against it, and he's very paranoid about it, and all that is feeding him all the time. And then, really, all he would NEED to do is hear something about how Desdemona doesn't really love him or is just like everyone else, and his world really WOULD collapse, and it would lead to him questioning himself, even possibly without realizing it. Does that make sense? As in, he's so used to hearing that he's a barbarian, and he spends his whole life trying to be as much like the people around him as he possibly can, to draw attention away from it, and naturally he's intensely sensitive on this point but of course he can't possibly SHOW that, because then people would flip out more. And he finally meets someone who loves him for himself (that's the whole point, isn't it, she loves him for the stories that he tells her about his life) and he feels like he can relax and let his guard down in front of her, and she really cares about him, and finally he seems to have won something and fit in, etc. And then he lets his guard down enough to trust her, but SINCE he's still really sensitve about the whole thing, it WOULDN'T take much for Iago to play on that sensitivity in the form of jealousy. And Iago would have to play it like jealousy, because Othello is so used to comments about his race -- he withstands them just fine from Desdemona's father at the very start of the play -- but the jealousy would tie in nicely with the fears he already has. And from there, it's not really a very far leap for Othello to be like, you know what, fuck you ALL, and quit acting the 'civilized' person for their benefit, and be so angry and hurt, and in back of all that really questioning his own self worth -- CAN anyone love me, AM I not a good person, IS it because of something I can't change -- and let all that swing him too far the other direction, right into wife-murder-in-her-bed territory.

And I really don't think that's racist, in fact, I think it's kind of anti-racist, showing the ways that racism can drive the most normal people into hideous things -- because racism helps drive Iago, as well.

Right, so the performance. I had the same problem with this show that I had with Titus last fall -- namely, they didn't get my interpretation across. Heh. Okay, I'm sort of kidding. What I mean is that in both cases, I felt like the play lacked subtlety. I thought the acting was good, I thought the energy was on target, the cast worked well together, etc., etc., but in both cases everything else was so very good that it threw into sharp relief for me the lack of subtlety when it came to why these people were doing the crazy things they were doing. I thought the 'clicker' scene in Titus -- the turning point scene, I mean, the one where he laughs -- was glossed over and we as the audience didn't get to see why he was laughing, that the elements didn't build, that the play stayed on one level instead of building and crescendoing like a piece of music. Okay, what I know about music fills maybe a teaspoon, but that's the analogy that makes sense to me. And that should come from the characters as written; you're telling a story about people, and it gets so much more powerful when you see exactly why everyone's doing everything, because then you get all creeped out about your own personality, which in my view is kind of the goal of good theater, especially good tragic theater. Which maybe tells you something about me.

And it's hard for me to critique that stuff, because both after Titus and after Othello, my own interpretation became really clear to me, so I think in both cases it's entirely possible that they're doing it on purpose, so that people's ideas about the play become clear to them. Mine only became clear after a lot of thought, but I was influenced enough by the play to take that thought, so maybe this is the best kind of theater there is, much as I might prefer the kind that presents such a clear interpretation and such clear motivations that you feel part of the story, and you question your character afterwards and all that. (And I know that kind of theater is possible, it's just insanely-beyond-all-reason difficult. But that was Romeo and Juliet a few years ago, and Richard II the year before that; I don't know who that guy is but I kind of want to kiss his feet and then stalk him.)

And this is why philosophy majors should not be interested in doing practical theater. Right here, case in point.

All that aside, I still felt this production was too choppy, something about it hadn't quite gelled yet, but it is only the third performance, so possibly that's coming. Iago was excellent; so were Roderigo and Desdemona. Wasn't a fan of the guy playing Othello, but that was entirely because of what I was talking about before. There were some very nice touches, like having him dress in Shakespearean attire until the day he's going to kill Desdemona, and then dressing him in Arabian robes. (See, you see what I mean? And I didn't even think about that until just now, practically, yet it obviously and clearly influenced my own interpretation of the play, and now I'm like, oh, so that's why they did that.)

Also, I made it up to Durham, I'm staying with my university friends, and am having a very good time seeing the sights and talking Johnny.

Out Out And Away

Made it safe to Brighton yesterday evening. I spent the day on various trains -- Normandie to Paris, Paris to London, London to Brighton -- hauling my luggage around, sweating, and reading Hammett's The Thin Man.

My theory of travel remains as firm as ever, and in fact is getting more detailed. You'll remember of course that 80% of people, me included, are just trying to get to their destination in as hassle-free a manner as they can, 12% become total assholes and 8% hit a kind of travel nirvana and ascend to the ranks of angels. I'm very firmly in the 80%; when I am in train stations I just want to find my train, with as few interruptions as possible; I therefore hate all other people in the station, including but not limited to people who are walking slower than I, people who are walking faster than I, people who are standing still, people who have more baggage than I, people who have less baggage than I, and people who are breathing. I'm very impressed with people who DON'T get like that when they travel; there seems to be a loose correlation between not being a stoic bitch and not having four large bags that you are responsible for all alone; this may deserve further research. On the plus side, guys in England can be just as sweet as guys in France when it comes to helping the pack rat carry her suitcase up the steps in the train station, which is nice.

I spent most of my time on the train reading The Thin Man, which I really liked. I especially loved Nora. Nick was pretty cool, kind of a cross between an older Gregory Peck and a younger Humphrey Bogart (and there ain't nothing wrong witht that) but I admired Nora more for being smart and not a pansy and able to put up with Nick being so hard-boiled all the time. I wish she had been the one to solve the mystery, but you can't have everything.

Amster! Amster! Dam Dam Dam!

So yes, I got stoned in Amsterdam on 4/20. I know, right? Sadly, Brite, my traveling companion on this excursion, did not take to smoking a hash joint (which is what, exactly, anyway? Brite refused to get a straight up weed joint, but I'm confused, because I always thought hash was oil). Anyway, Brite had never had so much as a puff before, and I was sympathetic, because the first time I ever smoked a joint I got wicked paranoid and StonerEx, who had given me the joint (he wasn't my ex at that time, though) was not at all pleased by my negative reaction to it. Yeah. Don't smoke to impress boys. Anyway, so Brite didn't get paranoid, but she got kind of weirded out from being so relaxed (Brite, spends even less time than I being relaxed) and she got hungry, which she didn't like.

Brite: Would stopping at McDonalds make me a pig?
Me: Does tripping over your own feet when you're drunk make you uncoordinated?

But let me back up a little bit. The stoner thing is what you have to talk about up front, but really my trip to Amsterdam was about much more than weed. I also drank a lot of beer.

Friday started with the quintessential mad dash for the train station. The train station is on the other side of town, and we had to catch a seven o clock train for Paris so we could get a ten o clock train for Amsterdam. So we get just outside the building -- around 6:20 -- and I realize I've forgotten my cell phone. This is not cool, for reasons that will become clear. So Brite takes my bag, and I run quick like a bunny up the stairs to my apartment, find the phone amid the black hole chaos of my room, and book it out of there towards the station. I had planned on catching up with Brite, but we took different routes to the train station, so I sprinting and walking and walking and sprinting, and she was hauling all our crap, and we were both "shitting it" -- her Englishicism, not mine -- and then we got to the train station at the same time with like fifteen minutes to spare. This tells you all you need to know about Brite and me.

So we get on the train, and within an hour our next drama starts. You see, Brite and I only confirmed that we were going to Amsterdam as of like, last week. So we didn't think to make hotel reservations until, like, Tuesday. For Friday. For Friday, April 20, in Amsterdam, Holland. Yeah. There was diddly squat online. Duh. Aside from the 4/20 thing, it was also the tulip festival. Right. So we start calling. One of the hostels we call is like, oh, don't worry, we keep 40 beds free, just call us on the morning of your arrival and we'll hook you up. We open at eight. Foolishly, Brite and I figured our problems were more or less solved. So at eight, we start calling, and it's like trying to get tickets for a rock concert. Read: the phone is busy. We call for two hours solid, the phone is never not busy, and at times we are calling literally every two seconds. Amid the laugh riot, we arrive in Paris. Of course, because we live in Normandy, we arrive in Paris Montparnasse, and because we are headed to Amsterdam, we have to depart from Paris Gare du Nord. As you may (or may not) recall, Montparnasse is fucking ginormous, and the Metro is only about six miles from the train part. And a metro ride halfway across town, and then we get to Nord and have to get to the main line trains there, and we have how long to do all this? 40 minutes. Yes. There was a great deal of running and swearing and continuing to dial that stupid hostel, but yes, we did make the train.

We never did get ahold of the stupid hostel, though. So four hours later, when we arrive in Amsterdam, around 2pm, and no place to stay. We buy a map in the train station, have no idea how to use public transportation (I mean, in Amsterdam. Of course I know how to use public transportation in general. As a sidebar, considering I grew up near San Francisco, how completely wrong is it that cable car/trammy things make me nervous? I have this nagging doubt that they can't possibly actually get me where I'm going) so we hoof it over to the hostel. Full. The other hostel. Full. The place that's supposed to hook you up with a hostel when you don't have one. Got nothing. We get rejected by like six or eight other places (a couple of places have like, one bed for one night for eighty euros, and we reject them) until an enterprising young hotel manager tells us to try the tourist office. A boat, we are told. A boat, two beds, two nights, 150 total. We'll take it, we say, convinced that the next stop is the train station or a homeless shelter in Rotterdam.

And let that be a lesson to you -- okay, let that be a lesson to ME -- to search out accommodation well in advance, even if I don't really have to do that when I go to Paris. Must not get complacent during tulip festival. Anyway.

Right, so we got to the boat, we rested, we headed out, there was the aforementioned stoning and eating. On to Saturday.

We went on one of those great New Europe free tours on Saturday -- honestly, I cannot possibly pimp that company enough. I want to work for them. They're the best tours I've ever had -- and we learned all sorts of interesting factoids. Like! The Dutch people had neither last names nor numbers on their houses until they were invaded by Napoleon in the early 1800s. It was very, "Bob [okay, fine, Hans] who owns the bakery with the flying horse on the side, you know, the one on the corner by the big canal" sort of goings on. So that by itself is kind of a fun and cool fact, but then! This bit is hilarious. So Napoleon and the French show up, and they're like "You must all have lazt names! Ooh la la!" and the Dutch are like "Screw this," and the French are like, "You will all show up tomorrow morning to register for last names!" So the Dutch are very resentful and they decide to put one over on the French. So they show up the next morning and, you know, the boring ones are like, "I'm Bob Baker, cause I am one," and then the practical jokers get up and say "I'm Hans Bornnaked." "I'm Gretel Pubichair." And the French don't speak Dutch so they just write it down and the Dutch go home and laugh their asses off. Of course now two hundred years later, and you can tell exactly what kind of sense of humor your great great great great grandparents had.

Hee. I thought that was so awesome. Because I am twelve. We also saw the Red Light District, lots of canals, and the Jewish Quarter. And other stuff that I can't remember, because my brain cells are used up on that Mr. & Mrs. Pubichair thing.

Right, so then Brite and I split up and I headed to the Rijksmuseum, where there are some Rembrandt and Vermeer. And I like Rembrandt, although I wasn't a huge fan of the Nightwatch. And I realized that I really... don't like Vermeer as much as I ought to. It makes me sad, but I just don't see it. His colors are too dark or too bright or too definitive or something. Oh, I like Girl With a Pearl Earring okay -- although that's in Haag somewhere and I haven't seen the real one. But the other stuff... meh. Just a vague feeling of guilt that I don't like it more. But I do like Rembrandt's portrait work really a lot. His trick with faces is inredible.

Anyway, after a rest back on the boat, Brite and I head out for evening fun. We were actually prepped to pay for the Red Light District tour, but we were too late, so we went out for dinner and drinks instead. Dinner was tasty, although we're both fastidiously picky (me: vegetarian plus fish, health food; Brite: meat eater, hates fish, likes food that tastes good) so finding overlap was a little tricky. Asian food ends up the quickest compromise. We hit a couple bars after that; and then wandered around till we found a club. Brite had (understandably) really wanted to go clubbing in Amsterdam, and we'd been told that the clubs got going between eight and eleven. Perfect, we thought. Yeah. This club that we found opened at 11:30, was halfway across the city from the river, and the trams stop at midnight. Nothing daunted, we paid the outrageous cover price, went in, prepared to dance. Nothing. A DJ, very overpriced drinks, and a bartender who told us the scene actually starts around one.

Fuck that, was my reaction, I was falling asleep on the table. So Brite and I negotiated and ended up bailing. We headed up to a neighborhood closer to where we were actually staying -- took the very last tram up to the river -- and found a coffee shop and shared a thai stick. The coffee shop closed at one, but there was a bar next door playing fun dance music. We did the little "Are you up for it?" "Yeah, sort of, I think, are YOU up for it?" dance and ended up going in... and stayed for two hours, because it was awesome, and when we ran out of money, the bartenders gave us our second round for half prices. (There are many annoying and scary things about being a girl and traveling more or less on your own. But one way in which it is excellent is that you can pretty much count on being able to drink approximately twice the amount of booze you can actually afford.)

On Sunday, we shook off our mild to moderate hangovers, and hit the Anne Frank House on the way to the train station. We were kind of rushed, and had all our luggage and that, so we didn't get as much out of it as we could have, but it's incredibly moving even so. It's a big enough house, and nice enough, until you think about eight people living there together and never being able to leave. I reread part of the book when I got back to France, and I'd forgotten how much of it is Anne talking about how everyone is sort of at each other's throats kind of constantly. I can't even imagine it... every time I try, I shiver uncomfortably. I totally love my family -- Anne obviously totally loved hers too -- but we would kill each other. And then you get to the end of the museum and there was the whole display of the diaries and the showing about how they all died, and I got all choked up thinking about how she was my sister's age when she died.

Then there was the train and France and walking home from the train station, but that part's boring. And that was my trip to Amsterdam.