Was Inspired By A Friend

A good friend of mine spent the last week doing some heavy thinking about life, the universe and all that; at least, that's how I'm choosing to think about it at the moment (which may or may not be helpful to him). Anyway, a conversation I had with him during that time, and subsequent information, has inspired me to do some thinking of my own. Or at least I'm in the process of thinking about thinking, as obtuse as that is. 

I strongly believe that there are a lot of problems in this world that stem from the fact that we, as a human race, avoid talking about them, avoid talking about our ideas and the beliefs that we hold most dear. I think that avoidance puts a lot of stress on individuals, especially in the most formative years of their lives and that is a huge problem. 

My friend, most of all, has inspired me to talk about these things more with friends and people in general. But, I know most people don't particularly enjoy being caught off-guard, or being herded into a conversation they would prefer to avoid. So, I'm going to start writing about the things I think about, and I think a lot of other people think about as well. Feel free to read the stuff and, if you want to, strike up a conversation about it at some point. I welcome the feedback. 

Note: I miss being in college and doing research, so I plan on reading up quite a bit on topics that I want to write about so it may be a while before my first post but most likely, they will be in the form of a new blog, link to which will be posted here.

Am Coming Back To California

After nearly seven months away, I will be returning to the land of In-n-out, CAMB, and wonderful sunshine, commonly known as California. My mom suggested that I head back earlier than planned in the hopes that actually being in the same state as the jobs I'm applying to will make it easier to land one. And that idea looks promising as I am supposed to have an in-person interview with a company in Berkeley once I get back (fingers crossed that it goes well!).

So, as most things in life, this adventure is due to come full circle and I will be right back where I started from. It's a nice feeling and I think that actually returning to Davis first thing is going to be good emotionally, to bring a close to my college career and whatnot.

Lately, I've been spending about seven hours a day online, searching, finding and applying to jobs. With any luck, I'll be hired somewhere by the end of August.

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I started this blog to catalog my adventures after I finished classes. I suppose, really, that adventures never really end because, well, life is an adventure all its own, but I've been thinking about ending this blog or at least drastically changing it. I really want to write about politics (and join the myriad of blogs about cooking) but I haven't quite figured out if they would be together or separate and all the logistics, so we'll see. But fair warning to anyone who reads this, I probably won't be posting much on here for a while.

Found Some Old Letters

So, I'm back in Atlanta, temporarily living with my mom and step-dad again until I find a job. I've been here a week now, during which I found and applied to what felt like a billion and one jobs, mostly in California because I really really want to be back on the West Coast, at the very least. Yesterday, I was feeling really bored and just wanted to make something with my hands. I get that urge every now and then, unfortunately, generally when I'm broke and don't have any supplies just laying around. I went digging around in my mom's craft supplies and happened upon a box with some old letters in it. Some of those letters were from my dad.

My parents met their junior year of college and started dating pretty soon afterwards, I think. My dad graduated a bit before my mom did and left Illinois for a job in California knowing that she would soon follow him out there. Apparently, he wrote her a few letters. The ones I saw were all from 1982, about five years before I was born, so that must have been a little before they got married. They would've been married almost 30 years now, if they hadn't got divorced. That's just mind-boggling to me. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if they hadn't.

Mom is trying to convince me to live out here for a while. To look for jobs near Atlanta. I have to say, the idea, in itself, makes a lot of sense. It is significantly cheaper to live over here. With a decently paying job, I could probably own a condo in about three years, comfortably. And that's a nice thought. But I've already been away for too long in my book and at the moment I'm too broke to buy a ticket back to California.

Am Considering Moving Back To Davis

My mom suggested I move back to Davis for the rest of summer. I really want to end up back in California and the majority of the jobs that I'm looking at are located there so it makes sense to be closer for interviews and whatnot (fingers crossed on those interviews!). But also on a personal side, it would just be really really nice to be back again surrounded by friends and just be able to call someone up and hang out in a few minutes instead of being thousands of miles away. There's part of me that thinks that if I go back again, I'd never want to leave, which could be bad.

Only problem in all of this is that I'm pretty much completely broke, so I couldn't afford to get there let alone pay rent for a room once I got there. I guess it's mostly a moot point but it would be really nice to be back and be able to see people on a more regular basis.

Was Welcomed Back With Music And Lightning Bugs

Sometimes I forget just how wonderful the world can be and then a day like today comes along and reminds me just how beautiful life is. It took me almost three hours after I got off the plane to get through immigration, customs and catch the subway to my hostel. So I ended up getting there around 6pm or so and figured I'd be tired pretty soon as my internal clock was at about 10:30pm already. I figured I'd go out for a walk to get myself good and tired and went up to Central Park. I was walking around and I guess just happened to walk by all the super friendly people which is always a good thing in my book. Then I passed by the Bandstall and a concert was set up to start in 15 minutes so I stayed for that and it was lovely. As I was walking by to the hostel afterwards I saw a bunch of lightning bugs and it reminded me of a summer I spent building houses in Appalachia and summers spent in Illinois with cousins, both of which are very good memories for me. I actually teared up a bit as I was walking around because I was just so happy and everything was so wonderful, in it's most fundamental sense.

Made My Way to Dublin

So that was Oxford: I left pretty early the next morning. Took the train up to Holyhead, stopping off in Birmingham for an hour or so. I’d like to go back and check that city out at some point. It has the potential to be pretty cool from what I saw. I got up to Holyhead (on the western coast) around 3pm or so but all the ferries to Dublin were canceled for the day so I had to wait until 2:40am the next day to cross the sea. The left luggage station closed at 4pm so I had to bring my huge backpack wherever I went, which thankfully I’ve pared down on the amount of stuff I’m lugging around so it wasn’t too bad. I ended up walking around the town for a bit and a lot along the seaside. I found some old castles and a beautiful national park. It was lovely; I could have stayed there so much longer but I didn’t want to get caught in an unfamiliar place after dark so I headed back pretty early.

I got dinner in the café in the ferry station around 6pm or so and settled down for a long wait. An Irish guy, David, from Waterford, joined me after a bit. We had a good talk and he was pretty interesting so that was cool. Eventually around 9:30 or so I just got really tired so I dozed for a bit on the seat I was in until 12:30am when the café closed. Then waited in the lobby for an hour before we started boarding the ferry.

Now, when I hear ferry, I think of the little boat maybe twenty yards long that goes to Catalina but this boat was more of a ship. It was huge, I’ve never been on a boat nearly it’s size! There were eight decks just for cargo, which included hundreds of eighteen wheeler trucks. The passenger decks were awesome and there was even a movie theater! I just ended up sleeping at a table for the two hour trip. I was a little worried about the immigration entry because going through it in the UK was slightly terrifying but he just opened up to the page with all the other stamps, stamped it and handed it back without saying a word. There was a bus into the city and the driver was kind enough to point me in the right direction to my hostel.       

Went to Oxford

After I finished with London (which is kind of overrated from my experience, or maybe it’s just not my type of city) I headed over to Oxford. I took the bus there which was a really pleasant experience (I was able to just go up to the stop, pay the driver 11 pounds and get on, baggage and all. The bus was super clean and there was free wifi. When we got in, there were quite a few stops and I didn’t know where to get off and the driver was kind enough to help me out). I’ve never taken Greyhound in the US but from what I’ve heard/seen it doesn’t seem like it’s quite as nice, inexpensive and awesome.

My hostel was just a few blocks from the bus station (which was right in town) which made things quite nice. I stayed at the Oxford Backpackers Hostel and if you ever stay in Oxford, I seriously recommend staying there. You walk up the stairs and are immediately greeted by the sounds of people and a cacophony of colors that is just really welcoming. There is a huge common room to the left with a few couches and comfy chairs, a pool table, a few picnic tables, a bar (that I never saw open but I didn’t stay there on the weekend so it might just be then) and a decently sized kitchen that is fully outfitted. The room I stayed in had eighteen beds so it was a little crowded but it was super cheap (less than 10 pounds I think) and was really comfortable (especially after the bed I’d been sleeping on in London, absolutely worst bed ever).

When I went to leave to go out for a walk after I’d gotten settled I realized that I’d left my water bottle on the bus. It’s a really cute metal one that I’ve had for about six months now so I was pretty bummed about it but I went to the bus station and it was there so that kind of made my day. After that I just walked around town, familiarizing myself with the general layout. It’s a rather centralized town that is quite small and the university takes up about half of the area, I’d estimate. I hadn’t eaten lunch because I’d been on the bus so I had a really early dinner (around 4:30) at this nice café (Coco, I think). I don’t remember what I had but at that point anything would have tasted good, I was so hungry. Later I went out for another walk and found this little street that seemed pretty trendy, northwest of the major thoroughfares. It seemed like that’s where a lot of locals were; there were lots of cute little restaurants and cafes but not too many shops.


The second day, I walked all about the campus. It is a thoroughly confusing maze of old buildings. I accidentally found this super old tavern that my dad recommended to me, the Turf Tavern. It’s from the 13th century or something like that and is in the middle of the campus. I ended up going there for an afternoon drink later. For lunch (this was on a Tuesday), I went to the Eagle & Child, which is where the Inklings went ever Tuesday for lunch, and sat in the Rabbit room, possibly in the same place as Tolkien or Lewis! I got the vegetable melt there which was bizarre because they put the cheese on top of the sandwich instead of inside (maybe that’s normal, idk) and this drink called Pimm’s. I have no idea what’s in it but it was quite tasty.

After lunch, I went to the Bodleian Library and drooled over myself for the hour long tour. If I could live there I would; it was absolutely beautiful. They filmed the library scenes and medical wing scenes from Harry Potter there. And the books were absolutely gorgeous, some of them were housed in these special boxes that I know how to make from working at Shields, lol. I think I’d be willing to pay the tuition at Oxford just so I could use the library; I wouldn’t study anything, just go there and marvel.

That night I went to a fabulous restaurant, called Zizza’s or Zizzi’s, something like that. It’s wonderfully decorated, there was a really good crowd there and the food was amazing. I got the spinach ravioli, which was good but the dessert, omyg, the dessert: the chocolate melt with marscapone, to die for.

Got Throughly Homesick

There is such a thing as traveled-out and I've reached that state. I think I was already there with still a week left to go in the internship but the small chance that was dangling by a thread that I'd still be able to go to Spain with James and Stephanie was staving it off, making everything ok. Now, I don't really have anything to look forward to (minus my cousin's wedding, but no offense Janne, Spain is just so much more exciting) except going home. I've still got a month over here, possibly more depending on when I can get my flight changed to. Plus I've been sick the last week, not hacking and coughing up my lungs, thank god but a terribly swollen throat (tonsils, lymph nodes all that good stuff) and just being plain exhausted all the time. Like today, I woke up from a ten hour sleep and in about half an hour, all I wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep for another twelve hours. I just miss home and knowing where I'm going to be for the next month or two and having a routine and having a place where I can just stay in my pajamas all day, eat some cereal and watch some movies or read a book. I feel like since I'm traveling and in a new place, I've got to go out and see it and get to know it ... but sometimes all you want to do is stay in. And that's hard to do in a hostel.

Anyway, that's where I am right now, at least emotionally/mentally. As for physically, I'm in the west part of London near Notting Hill (like that one movie with what's her face and Hugh Grant, totally watched that one night while I was here and feeling like crap). I've gotten to see a good bit of the city just wandering around. There's this place near London Bridge (omg, there is actually a London Bridge, totally didn't know that!) call the Borough Market, or something like that, that is fabulous. I went there yesterday with an old friend from high school whom I haven't seen in almost five years. It is this HUGE farmer's market with full on built stalls and wonderful food to buy. There was one place that had Apple and Elderberry juice that was to die for. Yeah besides that, I've been to some museums (but at this point they're all starting to feel the same) and I saw the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace which was pretty cool. And they are setting up some stands for the Queen's Birthday; apparently she has two birthdays: her actual birthday and her official birthday. Her actual birthday is early on in the year so she decided to give herself a second one to make more pleasant (weather-wise I assume) for everyone to celebrate. Well that's London in a glance; I think I'd have more to say on it, if I wasn't so travel-worn already so, hopefully I'll be able to make another trip back later in life when I'm feeling a little fresher (I hope the rest of my trip plays out better).

Oh and last weekend was a blast! I spent it in Berlin visiting an old roommate from the Trees who is studying abroad there. I was only there for two nights but he showed me a good time. The first night we pregamed at his place, went to a house party that was practically a little America with a few other people visiting and then around three in the morning went out clubbing until eight. Our group was me, the old roomie, an American friend of his I've met in the states, an Irish girl from County Mayo (Clare) and a few other people that I don't really remember. At the house party we met some pretty cool people, one guy in particular: this British guy named Tom was just throughly interesting. For a good chuck of the night he was part of a conversation on politics focused on American policies. There was another American girl taking part that was so pretentiously dumbassed I wanted to slap her a few times so I ended up taking breaks from the debate for various intervals. Most of the other Americans I met there were pretty similar though and they really got on my nerves. I don't really know how to describe them sensibly so I'm just not going to try (I might be able to in conversation so ask me about them if you're really that interested).

Anyway, around three in the morning, the party was dying down so a bunch of us (including Tom and Clare) went clubbing at Tresor (not sure how it's spelled). Soooo much fun! Most of the people were just doing the European sway from foot to foot and do a fist pump every now and then. I tried doing that for a while but it got boring so I started going full at it, my kind of dancing which is mostly just spastically moving around to whatever beat there is. It was starting to get pretty hot and there were a few guys were their shirts off, so I figured why the hell not and took mine off too. I'm pretty sure a few guys took pictures of me while I was dancing, so that's cool, I guess. The next night we went to another house party that may as well have been a club for the amount of people that were there and the fact that they were giving out jello shots. Oh shit, I almost forgot: earlier that night, I needed some cash so Clare took me out to show me where an ATM was and get a flash of vodka. We had a good conversation, I forget about what, but sometimes if I'm taking with just one person and they have an accent, I pick up on it (especially if I'm not particularly sober) so I started taking in an 'Irish' accent. I really hope she didn't think I was poking fun, don't think she did but whatevs. Then when I was leaving the Sunday, there was a minor fiasco with the public transport and me not knowing German but it all worked out in the end so that's cool.

Tomorrow, I'm headed off to Oxford for a few days and then to Ireland to visit family and the likes, so that should be fun!

Kicked Myself In The Face

The outlook is not very good for me being able to go to Spain. Everything I can find online leads me to believe that it is very unlikely that I will be able to get an extension. I contacted the US embassy here in Brussels (not very helpful at all, I'm glad this isn't a pressing emergency or I'd probably be dead) and they just told me to ask elsewhere (granted, I think legally they aren't allowed to help me or something but still the way the woman responded was terrible). So I emailed the Spanish embassy in London, figuring that I'm going to be going there next week so if I need to I can make an appointment with them later but apparently the email address I found there wasn't actually to the embassy but to a company that they contract work out to. The guy I contacted there thought it was really unlikely that I would get an extension and he said that Ireland and the UK count towards the 90 days (but I haven't been able to find that anywhere and I'm pretty sure he's wrong, god, I hope he's wrong). So, now I've emailed the actual embassy and I'm waiting to hear back from them on whether or not I'll be able to get to Spain. I've got eleven days left until I'm at 90, so I really hope that the UK and Ireland don't count because then at least I'll be able to go to my cousin's wedding in June. If I can't go to Spain though, I'm going to be throughly bummed out.

Random fact: I already drink a decent amount of water, but apparently when I'm stressed out, I drink even more so I've had to pee a LOT today, lawl.

Finished My Internship

So, internship is all done. I spent the last two days cleaning up the site and writing up how to do certain things so that when I left, the information would be available. I had a meeting with my two advisors at 16:00 yesterday and they hadn't asked me to write up that information. The purpose of the meeting, I guess, was to learn a few specific things. They were really impressed that I'd taken the initiative to do that on my own. And towards the end of the meeting, they basically said that if I ever wanted to move back to Brussels I could have a job there, probably as a Team Leader or something like that. It was awesome! I've been seriously considering moving here. I sent my boss an email telling him about the student evaluation he needed to do and at the end asked him to keep me in mind if there are every any opening that I might be qualified for. So who knows maybe I will end up moving to Brussels some day?

On another note: I think I've figured out how to handle the whole visa problem. I've already got plans to visit a friend in Berlin this weekend, so I'm doing that and then immediately leaving for London (the UK and Ireland are not part of the whole Schengen Zone). I'm going to explore those two islands for the next month and while I'm there I'm going to contact the Spanish consulate about getting an extension so I can walk the pilgrimage route in June. This way, I'll have 7 days left out of the 90, which should be just enough to get me in and out of Norway and possibly at the very least in to Spain. So, hopefully, everything will work out okay.

And on still another note: today I packed up all my extra clothes into boxes that I'm going to be sending home and did a test run pack of my backpack. All seems to be well and it isn't too heavy even with my laptop inside, so that's good!

Royally Fucked Up (Kinda)

So, I majorly misunderstood how the visa system works over here. There is this agreement (the Schengen Accords) between almost all of the continental EU members that regulates how visas are handled. I thought that through that agreement I was allowed to stay ninety days in each country. It turns out that it is only 90 days for all of the member countries combined! Right now I'm at 76 days! Which means that if I stay in the Schengen Zone for more than another two weeks, I'll be breaking international law.

Obviously, this is throwing a wrench in my plans. I hadn't planned to far in advance so that's nice because I don't need to cancel trains and that kind of stuff but my plane back to the states isn't until July 27th and I'm supposed to be in Norway and Spain for a month and a half combined.

Argh, I'd been planning to go to Italy and Switzerland and France for the next month until my cousin's wedding. But if I do that I'll definitely go over the 90 day limit and I have to leave the Zone, which means my passport will get checked, to catch my flight to Norway.

I could risk all that to experience everything. A lot of sites I've found online say most people don't experience anything too bad but if I overstay when I try to leave the border guard will see that I've overstayed and I could be arrested, deported and blacklisted from visiting any Schengen country for the next five years! argh

Gave My First Professional Presentation

Today, at work I presented (in French!) the project I've been working on for the last ten weeks to the Extended Management Team. Granted, I was doing the presentation with my two advisors but I had to explain how to do specific things on a website (that I made!) in French to about thirty mid- and upper-level managers! :o It was a really good experience.

For the last two days, I've been unbelievably nervous, like, haven't been sleeping well nervous. But yesterday, after I'd eaten dinner I opened a beer, started streaming How I Met Your Mother and when the show needed more time to load, I'd run through my script. Yeah, I don't do well talking in front of people even in English for the most part so I wrote out exactly what I wanted to say and practiced it a bajillion times. When it came to the actual presentation, I was still nervous but not as much. I was able to get through it, I said umm a lot but I didn't ever slip into English, like I sometimes do and I was able to use a few different verb tenses without stumbling over them, which was nice.

And after the presentation was finished and my advisor and I were getting ready to leave, my boss's boss told me I'd done a really good job in front of everyone and the guy closest to me asked how I'd enjoyed my time here. It was such a relief to be done with it.

Figured Out What I Don't Like About Spring

I really really love spring except for the first few weeks. It's not allergies, the general coulple-ness of the world or anything else spring-y. See, my internal clock follows the sun: when the sun is up so am I, when the sun is down I'm tired. During winter, this works out quite nicely because I end up getting anywhere between eight and twelve hours of sleep every night and I generally function best with about eight and half hours of sleep. Then spring comes around and everything goes to shit.

First off, you've got Daylight Savings Time throwing everything off. My body's gotten used to the sun rising and setting at a certain time. Then the world changes by an hour and I've got to adjust to all that which usually takes me a few days. At the same time, days are actually getting longer which means that my body decides that I should stay awake for longer periods of time. Add on to all of that the fact that I am currently living the closest to the north pole that I ever have (haha, that's actually kind of cool). Brussels is about 50 degrees north of the equator, the closest I've lived to that is Davis which is just shy of 39 degrees. And that means that days are even longer! All that adds up to me getting less sleep, which does not make for a happy Brenda. Hopefully my sleep schedule will regulate itself sometime soon :(

Celebrated Two Holidays In One Weekend

Belgium is a predominantly Christian country which means that yesterday (Monday) was a national holiday for Easter. ING gives the Friday beforehand off as well, so I had a four day weekend, which was nice. I'm not religious (I might get around to that in this post, if not, maybe another) so I didn't really celebrate Easter so much as just the fact that it is spring. The other holiday occurred in the middle of last weeks and involves reading books. I figured since I was in Europe and only a three hour train ride away, I should go to the mother of all libraries, Amsterdam.

There was a bit a mix-up at the beginning of my trip. I got to the station about 12 minutes before the train was supposed to leave but I wasn't sure where to buy my ticket. Finally, I found the Thalys (that's the name of the high speed train company) booth and told the woman there that I wanted a ticket to Amsterdam. She told me to go somewhere else on my left. So I wandered around but I think she was messing with me because there wasn't anywhere else to buy tickets except the BNCB (or something like that, it's the national rail system which doesn't include high speed). At the time, I figured, 'well the woman told me to buy my ticket at a place on my left. This place is on my left and selling tickets so it must be right'. I bought my ticket, ran to the platform and made it on the train with two minutes to spare. If I'd taken more time to actually think things through I'd have realized that I didn't have the right ticket but I really didn't want to miss the train or I'd have to wait another hour. Anyway, so I got on the train and when the conductor came around to check tickets he tells me that I've got the ticket for the wrong train and says I'll need to buy the right one. Ok, no problem right? haha... Earlier that morning as I was getting ready to go I was figuring out what I needed to bring with me and decided to leave my larger wallet at home and just bring my metro pack with me (it's this little plastic bifold that holds my metro pass, ID, and Belgian bank card) so I didn't have my debit or credit cards on me.

aside: Belgian bank cards have two different ways of paying on them: Bancontact/Maestro or Proton. The first requires a PIN and the second doesn't, you just stick it in a machine and it automatically takes money out, no numbers required.

Anyway, the machine that the conductor had didn't take Bancontact or Proton. I searched through my backpack and then remembered that I'd left my wallet at home and was like 'shit, wtf do I do now'. I only had 15 euros in cash on me at the time because I hadn't been planning on spending much more than that and thought I'd be able to use my card if anything came out. So, the guy asked for my ID as collateral and told me to wait for him on the platform when we got to Amsterdam and he'd walk with me to an ATM to get cash to pay for the ticket. When we got there, I waited and I'm pretty sure he forgot but I found him as he was getting on the escalator. We got to an ATM and my card didn't work! (I just have a temporary card right now because I just opened my account and apparently it doesn't work outside of Belgium, whoops). So the guy, throughly amazing, just had me pay 15 euros to make up the difference (kind of but not really because they are different companies).

So after all that, I was a little flustered and stuffed everything back in my pockets. At that point I only had a few euros in coins (which would definitely not be enough to buy any books, the entire point of the trip). I wandered around trying to find the time tables to figure out when the last train was and after I knew that I calmed down a bit. I walked outside, decided to organize all the stuff I'd pocketed haphazardly and low and behold, hiding behind my ID was my US debit card. I felt pretty bad/stupid when I found it but it made my life a lot easier.

After I'd gone back inside to get some cash, around 10 am, I wandered around the city for about three hours. I started out in the western part of the city, which is pretty residential but wow is it gorgeous, I must have taken at least fifty pictures just of the canals! After about two hours of houses and canals I made my way to the red-light district because really, how could you not? Most of the people going into coffeeshops were pretty shady looking but that could have been me being paranoid because I was alone. Anyway, I went into one and picked up two space cakes and put them in my backpack for later. I was pretty hungry at that point, so I decided I'd stop for lunch at the next place that looked decent. On my quest I happened on the Sex Museum. Thoroughly interesting and well worth the 4 euros; I highly recommend visiting it. And happily, right next door there was a pizza place.

Earlier, I'd looked at a city map and omg there was a zoo! I haven't been to a zoo since my freshman year of college and I thought it would be fun to have a cake and go to the zoo (I was not wrong). I sat down at a fountain and ate my cake; right across the street there was a fair with a ferris wheel and other things, I thought about coming back if I was up for it later (I was definitely not up for it).

Right as I got to the zoo, the cake started kicking in. Monkeys, turtles and elephants are seriously the most entertaining animals ever. There was a turtle that was eating out of a metal tray but the tray was slightly too tall for it, I think I stood outside it's stall watching it elongate it's neck trying to get at the food with little success for at least ten minutes. Across from the turtle there was a huge snake that enthralled me; I could see it breathing and that was the most amazing thing in the world right then. And the elephant, omg! it was balancing on a ledge about a foot wide and swaying back and forth; rocked my world.

In an hour or two, I think it was closer to two, I realized I needed a little less stimulation so I sat down on a bench that looked out over a little pond with birds. A light wind was creating ripples on the surface. Me, being me, thought that the ripples weren't being caused by wind at all but by sound waves. There were sound waves hitting the surface of the water and creating ripples but they were outside the range of my hearing which brought me up to a whole other level. I could see evidence of something I couldn't hear; it made a lot more sense to me then, that's for sure. I actually had the presence of mind to write that all down ... kind of ("It was like every single sound wave was hitting the water to make ripples and I could see the sound waves but I could[n't] hear the sounds").

Anyway, that was Amsterdam in a nutshell for me. The next day, I ate half of my second cake at home and that was still pretty potent. Good stuff.

Wanted To Go 'Home'

I really don't like not having a plan, it just sucks. I don't mean the kind of plan where all the nitty-gritty details are mapped out. Those just suck the joy out of life. I mean the big picture, hazy in the distance, that's where I want to end up kind of plan. And right now, I don't have one. I know what I'm going to be doing, mostly, until mid-July but after that I have absolutely no idea and I really really don't like that, at all. I always have a plan. It might change, in fact, it does change, sometimes on a daily basis, but there is always something there to hold on to and take my bearings from. Sometimes that constant plan ends up as plan C or D but it's still there to fall back on if I need to. And I don't even have that right now. I'm finding, being alone over here and all that, that I need some stability in my life. I guess I've never liked the idea of needing it because I've romanticized the idea of traveling around the world and going off on awesome adventures and all that crap. As amazing as it is to be over here, I really don't know if I could do it forever. I want to end up in a place and stay there, never have to move again. And I'd always liked the idea of doing it in a new place but now I'm not so sure. I don't mind the idea of ending up living in the Bay Area, actually it'd be pretty cool to live in the neighborhood I grew up in as a kid. I have good memories there.

Picnicked in Europe

Technology is awesome. There is no better way to say that. Yesterday, Picnic Day (if you are reading this and you haven't heard of it for whatever reason, click on the link. It's pretty much the best day of the year in Davis, CA), I was nearly 9000 kilometers away from my friends, my band, and one of the greatest traditions ever. The days leading up to the epic event, Facebook was covered with excited statuses (statii? status?), which I probably could have done without. It just made me feel so alone over here and wish like no other that I was back in Davis. In that respect, technology can suck it but the day of, I was able to text a good friend (interesting conversation, that one ;p), and keep in the loop on the day through facebook and whatnot. As terrible as it was not being there for the first time in five years, not being able to tell someone to get some sleep before hand, not being able to see updates when people were waking up or during the welcome break for lunch or when freshmen, finished with the day, posted about how amazing their first Picnic Day was, would have been so much worse. I can't imagine living before internet; coming over here for ten weeks would have been like a death sentence (not actually that bad, and maybe it would have forced me to dig deeper than I already have over here, maybe it would have forced me to connect in an entirely different way, but that's all a different train of thought).

I'm really bad at keeping in touch with people that I don't see on a weekly basis. I've haven't spoken to anyone from high school since I graduated, except my best friend and that's most likely because she ended up going to the same college as me. But with technology! I can see what's going on in people's lives even though I'm not actually there. While most of the stuff you see on facebook is pretty trivial ("haven't finished my paper due in 2 hours but soooo tired", link to lolcat, etc.) you still get to see the major triumphs and events in a persons life. I know, a lot of the stuff that has happened to me over here, I wouldn't have gone out of my way to tell more than six or so people about. But I put up pictures and a status every now and then and I'm connected with not just my close group of good friends but also the outer rings of my social circles as well. It's different than past ways of socializing, definitely but I wouldn't say it's better or worse.

Ok, I've totally gone off from where I started here and I forget exactly where I wanted to go other than I'm glad I got to talk to who I got to talk to and that I've been able to see pictures of a place that I miss the day they were taken and that technology is awesome!

Lived Without Electricity (For A Day And A Half)

This past weekend the power went out in my apartment. It started Thursday when half the lights stopped working. That was easy to deal with, just turn on the other lights and make do. By Sunday morning when I woke up at seven, I had nothing; no lights, no stove, no microwave, no toaster, no laptop (it had run out of battery the night before), no tv. Everything got fixed by Monday afternoon but living with absolutely nothing, even for just a day, made me realize just how much I really don't need it. If I had a way to cook my food and I had a way to power my laptop/get internet that didn't involve electricity, I could live without it. That feels pretty weird, especially knowing that it is doable. They have things now where you can charge electronics with a solar charger for backpackers, I don't know how well it would work for a laptop but I imagine it will only get stronger in the next few years. And cooking, all you really need is fire (hehe, fire). Oh, just realized that refrigerators need power, hmm ... that one might be a little harder (slightly random tangent: supermarkets in Belgium don't keep milk in a refrigerated section, it's just on regular shelving. It really weirds me out).

On a completely different train of thought: while I was walking around after work today I was thinking about urban planning and how the pictures I've been taking have a lot to do with it. I've generally been taking pictures of how a city is arranged which is interesting considering I hadn't heard of urban planning until recently. My thoughts wandered around in the region and I got to thinking about public places. I feel like people use them a lot more here than in the states. Maybe I'm just noticing it more and maybe it's just because I am outside more than I usually am. Anyway, my thoughts meandered about along the lines of "what exactly is a public space? and why do people use them? what makes people more likely to use one public space versus another one? probably proximity but also about what is in the space or near it so then what should a public space have in order to make it more appealing to people?... (and on and on)". I really hope I get into that Urban Planning program and if not that one, a different one at some point in the next year. I think it fits me and that it would be good for me.

Went To Walden Pond (II)

I'm writing this after I have delved into Walden a bit. What was typed above was written without having started the book and was only based on what I'd previously know of it. And in that I missed out on a really important aspect of Thoreau's message: it isn't just about leaving everything behind and completely separating yourself from the world, in fact I wouldn't say that's what it's about at all. Instead, it is about truly getting to know yourself, learning the limits of what you can handle and realizing what you can cathartically shed off from your life and in doing so become a fuller person. Granted, I'm still not quite finished reading it as I have juggled between that and the french version of Speaker for the Dead. But that is what I have gleaned thus far as the most important message and I've tried to take it to heart. While I'm here, I'm trying to figure out what in my life has been superfluous and what is truly fundamental.

Researched Urban Planning

For whatever reason, last night I couldn't fall asleep. I hate just lying there and not doing anything. I didn't particularly feel like reading so I figured I'd look into grad schools. The way I see it, the time I'm not spending exploring or working I should spend productively and now is as good a time as any to figure out what I might be trying to do late July. Yeah ... I really have no idea what I'm going to be doing much less where I'll be doing it once the voyage across Spain is done.

For the last six months to a year I've basically had my mind set on trying to get into the UN working to promote literacy. Working at ING has shocked me out of that. I'm fast realizing that I really really really don't want to work in a large company/organization/whatever. I want a group of people small enough that everyone could sit in on a meeting, except I hate meetings. The way I figure it, if you want to talk about something, go talk when you first think of it, don't plan for a meeting in a few days. I understand the need for them if you've got people working in different things on different schedules but that's my point, I don't want to have to deal with that.

So I started looking into something else I'm pretty interested in: Urban Planning, which from what I can tell is planning out how cities should work/be designed/change to meet the future. I've found quite a few places that seem to have good programs at a decent price. San Jose State's is by far the best deal and throw in the fact that if I went there I could probably live ridiculously cheaply with my dad and that's a winner. I'd really like to go somewhere new though. Today is going to be about researching what they have available in Europe!

Quit Shaving For A Month

I lived in hostels for about a month, a little over actually I think. Hostel showers aren't exactly roomy and often don't have hot water for very long. It's pretty cold over here so I've been wearing pants all the time and I don't really have anyone to look especially good for anyway. All of that combines into a very good reason not to shave my legs for a while. And here's what it looked like after that month:

Spring has arrived in Brussels and I'm figuring I may want to wear skirts soonish and I have my own shower now that has plenty of hot water so I decided to shave today. Silky smooth:

It is surprising easy to just stop.

Went To Walden Pond

For a good five to ten years of my life I truly believed that I wanted to live alone for at least part of my life. There was a small part of me that wanted to go off, buy some land somewhere, build a house, start a farm and live completely self-sufficiently and never have to interact with the world. It wasn't so much "oh I hate the world and don't like people" as it was "there are so many problems in the world that it would be easier to just slip away from them instead of having to confront the fact that I don't know how or don't have the power to fix them". The other larger part of me realized that was a rather unrealistic dream especially because before I was able to do any of that I'd have to make enough money to actually have the capital to get started. Anyway, up until a few weeks ago, I longed to have a place of my own that was just mine, and not mine in a creepy Gollum-y my precious way, just something that no one else had claim to, a place to hide away from other influences, I don't know.

In coming to Brussels I have completely cut myself away from my normal social circle. And the fact that I am living alone and that I am only here for 10 weeks make it really difficult to form a new circle. I'm living in one of the biggest cities in Europe and, most of the time, I still feel completely alone. I used to believe that I could and, moreover, wanted to live alone. If Brussels does me no other good, it has taught me that I can do it but that I never ever want to again. I'd always thought I was a solitary creature but I need some degree of personal connection and I'm afraid I just don't have the time to do that while I'm here.

Ironically, or fortuitously, depending on how you look at it, one of the books I brought with me is Thoreau's Walden. I may not have gone off into the woods and lived alone for two years but I feel like I've come pretty close.

Had A Minor Miracle Smashed To Pieces

I went grocery shopping earlier today and had a little mishap. When I've gone the few times before, I'd always seen people buying fruit or vegetables, you know the ones where you are paying by weight but today was the first time I did that. My minor miracle involves the cash registers here. In all the grocery stores (or at least this one that I've been to a few times) the employee sits down while they are swiping your purchases. There is the normal vertical barcode scanner and there is a bit of metal perpendicular to that that I assumed was the weighing machine thing like we have in the states. What was so miraculous about this to me was that the metal bit opens up and that's were the cash is kept. It just seemed so cool that the scale was the top for the cash drawer. Turns out they don't have scales at the registers here, whoops. I had to go take my bananas back to a scale and they have a screen where you have to find the item that you are weighing and it prints out a sticker that tells the employee how much you are supposed to pay, not quite so miraculous after all.

On a completely different note: this morning I saw this guy on the metro. I'm going to call him "Purple Scarf" because well, duh, he wears a purple scarf. I saw him last week too. He gets on at the same stop as me and makes the same connection at the same stop as me. The first time I saw him, we were in the same ... I just realized I don't know the word for it, maybe it's 'car' but the same segment on the train, anyway we were in the same one. I'm still get used to riding a train while standing up so I have to hold on to something while it is moving. And what really intrigued me about him is that he was just standing there, not holding on to anything, it's such a dorky thing to be intrigued by, well he's also pretty good looking, to me at least. Anyway, totally by chance, we ended up in the same segment thing on our second train. Oh and he gets off at the same stop as me. And I saw him again this morning. It was crazy! The chance that I'd recognize someone from a week ago and that they would be on the same train again. Awesome! Another funny/random thing: there is a newspaper printed for the metro, creatively titled 'Metro', but it is printed in two copies, one in French and one in Dutch. The french one, the title is in green and the dutch one, in blue. So you can tell someone's native language (or you can assume their native language rather) based on the color of the title on their newspaper. (Purple scarf had a green one!)

Found My Patch of Green Grass

Since I've been in Brussels, I've formed a sight-seeing routine. After work I usually go for a walk around wherever I'm staying for an hour or two and get to really know the area. Weekends I spend like a normal tourist and go see all the tourist traps. Yesterday I went up to Laeken which houses mini-Europe, the Atomium and the royal Palace among other things. I did all the touristy things for a bit and then got distracted by some interesting side streets notably, Avenue des Robiniers. Bordering this street on the southern side is a wonderfully magnificent park.

While I was walking around in it, completely overwhelmed with amazement, I realized that I could see myself settling down in Brussels. And that thought absolutely terrifies me.

I am really afraid of settling down. When I was a kid, my mom moved us around a lot because she was studying at various places. We didn't move as much as some people, namely some military families, but it was always just when I was really starting to get comfortable in a place, when I was starting to really put down roots in a place, that we would pack up and move. So there is at least part of me that is just really afraid of being in one place for the rest of my life because it is just something so new to me, something that I don't understand. But at the same time, having one place to be home, to be mine has been one of my most profound desires, I guess. It's something that I have held on to but the thought still terrifies me even now that I'm 23 and out on my own. 

Anyway, I've found, for the first time in my life, that I can actually see myself in this city for the rest of my life. Even after a day to turn this over in my head, that sounds so final that I want to run away from it. As I was walking around in this garden I saw myself there 5, 10, 30 years on down the road. 

I walked down through the neighborhood south of the park and when I saw this street I suddenly just knew, like I have never known anything in my life before that when I'm ready to settle down, it's going to be in Brussels and that when I'm ready to have a family, I'm going to raise my kids here. You know when you're watching a movie and there is a couple that falls in love and they just know, they don't have any reason to explain it or any rationalization, they just know, that's I feel about ending up in Brussels. It wasn't even that I decided that I want to live here, it just hit me that I'm going to. 

When that came to me, I was throughly terrified because I am in no way ready to stay in one place for a long time; I want to see everything and learn everything and ... I don't know, just see the world. And there is no way in hell I'm ready to have kids but I realized walking around this area, that I don't have to be ready yet but when I am, I want to end up back here. For the rest of the day, and even now when I think back to it, I had a feeling of really intense calm, like everything was right with the world.

And the kicker of it all is that, I'm pretty sure that no matter how many other cities I see in the mean time, I'll still want to live in Brussels. And that is a completely new feeling to me, believing that I won't find greener grass anywhere else in the world. 

Moved To A New Hostel

I've finally found a permanent place to stay (I can't remember if I've already mentioned that) but it isn't available until the 24th of March so I'm staying in a hostel until then. The hostel I'm staying at now is pretty awesome, oh I just realized I never really said anything about the last hostel I was at.

The Grand Place Hostel was awesome, right in the middle of everything, and by everything I mean all the tourist-y crap, which don't get me wrong, was really nice. The hostel had just opened up, I'm pretty sure the day I arrived was it's first day open. It was about 20 yards from the Grand Place which is pretty much tourist central and about 300 yards from the Central Station which made getting to work ridiculously easy. There are pictures up on facebook so you can check it out if you like.

Anyway I moved to a new hostel on Sunday (the old one had a seven day maximum stay). This one is definitely not centrally located but in two days it's already given me such a different perspective on Brussels. It's in a much more residential area called Koekelberg. Again, it is ridiculously close to a metro station, about 90 yards down the block and it's right next to the Godiva factory/building. I've been told not to try Godiva as it is shit compared to any other Belgian chocolate, which based on the first impressions after a few samples is fabulous, chocoholics dream! Apparently pralines were invented in Brussels or Belgium, I can't remember. Here I get a free breakfast (toast, cereal, tea/hot chocolate) in the morning which has proved to be quite useful and economical. And there is a kitchen so I can cook myself dinner instead of going out to eat. I've been keeping track a bit of the difference in spending: (including the price of the hostel per night for each place) while I was staying at the first hostel I was spending about fifty euros per day. At the current hostel, I've gotten it down to about thirty euros per day. Epic savings win.

Had A Culture Day In Brussels

Today was my ‘culture day’. I went to four different museums. The morning started out with the Musical Instrument Museum. So amazing, it was absolutely fabulous. The battery for my camera ran out before I got to brass instruments and my spare was in the coat check so I couldn’t get any pictures of those which kind of sucks but it was really awesome. You got a pair of headphones and walked around and in front of most of the displays there was a numbered circle, you stood on it and there were selections of music played on those types of instruments that automatically played on the headset. There was one that really stood out for me, it was on an alphorn I think. It was just a long horn like you see in cartoons about the Swiss Alps but the music. It sounded like a cross between a French horn and a flugelhorn and seems to have all the versatility, not versatility exactly but exactitude I guess of a valved instrument. Then another one came in and they were harmonizing perfectly. I was just so surprised that someone could have so much control over something that is totally based on embouchure on an instrument that wasn’t manufactured really. I had lunch at a restaurant right next to the museum, Ciabatta mania. It was really good. You can order freshly pressed juices, I got grapefruit.

After than I went across the street to the Royal Palace of Beaux Arts which is combined with the Magritte Museum. It was pretty cool, there were a few things that really caught my eye. One statue called After the Deluge or something like that. I was absolutely enthralled by it. I must have circled it for ten minutes straight and then came back to look some more half an hour later. Then I went to the Magritte Museum which was interesting. I really wanted to see a certain painting but they didn't have it, at least not on display.

They had something else that was pretty cool and related to that one, oh btw if you don't read French and have never heard of that painting before the caption is translated at "This is not a pipe" because it is a painting or image of a pipe but is not itself a pipe, yay surrealism. At the beginning of the exhibit there was a sketch of a pipe with a caption that translated to "This is still not a pipe", funny but I had really wanted to see the original. 


Oh and random slightly related tangent. Being a student/under 26 in Europe is fabulous! There are sooo many discounts. The instrument museum was only four euros and the double pass for the Royal Palace/Magritte Museums was only three. Amazing!


After I'd had my fill there, I walked back down through the Jardin du Mont des Arts and on the left is the  Royal Library of Belgium so of course I had to go in. They have a museum inside the library on the history of books for free so I went to see that. It was fascinating and they used modern technology seamlessly when presenting everything. At the opening the had touchscreen monitors up on the wall where you could flip through background information about language and the written word. I'm not sure why I didn't take any photos in there but I didn't. I may have to go back so I can.


I wanted to go in and just browse through the books but apparently it isn't a public library and you have to have a pass in order to go in to the actual part with books. That dampened my spirits a bit.


Then later I had planned on going to this Jazz bar to hear some live music I'd heard was going to be happening. I figured I'd go out and have dinner first and head over for a drink to go with the jazz. I got there (l'Archiduc, apparently it's famous) around 7:30 and the band was starting to pack up, I'd already missed the show. I left and walked around trying to find some other place with live music to no avail. You'd think it'd be a lot easier to find something in a downtown but I guess I just wasn't in the right area.

Grew Up A Little

So yesterday and tonight I went out wandering because I think that is the best way to get to know a city, if you follow a guidebook you really only get to see what they tell you to see and I want to see everything, even if it isn’t all that interesting or the safest area in the world, but anyway as I was out wandering it got to be around dinner time. Both nights right as I was getting pretty hungry I happened on a restaurant that looked good; looked good to me implies that it has a cool name, it looks open, there are a decent amount of people in there already eating and on the menu posted outside there are at least two vegetarian options. Yesterday, it was Les Chapeliers on Rue des Chapeliers just off the Grand Place. I ordered a vegetable pannelloni or something like that. It was basically shredded carrots and cabbage (I’m not actually sure if it was cabbage, it could have been endives which seem to be very popular here) wrapped in pasta and drenched in the most amazing cheese sauce I’ve ever had. It was about 5/6^th cheese and the rest was tomato, absolutely fabulous. I’m not the biggest fan of cabbage but with that much cheese just about anything will taste good. And I had a half liter of, I think it was the blond Maes, but I’m not sure. I asked the waiter for a recommendation and he said something really fast so I’m not sure. It’s funny generally when I have beer and food together the tastes just completely don’t mix. Usually, the beer comes out first so I have the taste of it without the food flavor interfering. Then the food comes out and the mixture of flavors just clashes for me. This time, the flavors clashed but it wasn’t in a bad way. I’ve yet to have a bad experience with Belgian beer (and on that note: Kriek. Remember that word. Seriously. For people who saw me at any point last fall around Thanksgiving you may remember how I raved about Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Ale. This is similar in that the flavor is so unique but it’s like fifty times better. It’s a cherry beer apparently. Framboise is the raspberry equivalent. I don’t think it’s as good, it’s decent but not omg, orgasmically amazing like Kriek).

Tonight I was out wandering in the St. Gery/St. Catherine area which is kind of northwest of la Bourse (the old stock exchange building) and I stumbled upon this Thai restaurant, Luna de miel (Honey Moon). I’m not sure what street it’s on but it’s pretty much right across the street from la Bourse. I got just your basic Pad Thai. It was fabulous, spicy as hell but superb. It was a huge plate, not so much that I felt sick afterward but enough to really fill me up and I didn’t have a very big lunch and it was only 10 Euro! And the atmosphere was wonderful in a muted kind of way. It was decorated in deep oranges and reds with pods of tree trunks clumped together that sprouted 2x4s as branches. I don’t how to describe those but it was really neat. I’d have to draw a picture or something.

The thing that was nice about these two nights was that what I ended up ordering was exactly what I wanted but I didn’t even know what I was craving. Yesterday, after work I went out for a walk southeast toward the center of the city and Avenue Louise (which on first impression is really overrated) and ended up getting ridiculously lost. I think I left my hostel around 4:30pm. Around 5:10 I decided that I wanted to head back. I still hadn’t found a permanent place to stay instead of hostel hopping and that was really frustrating me so much so that I couldn’t enjoy just being out exploring a new place. I planned to go back to my hostel and do some more emailing/calling/sleuth work until I came up with something so I turned down a street that I thought would get me back. Apparently I’d walked a LOT further than I thought: I’d walked almost to the Shuman area (I take the metro to work; it’s about a 14 minute ride with six stops before I get off. Shuman is the stop before mine, so I’m guessing it’s a good two miles away from my hostel at least). I hadn’t walked in a straight line, anything but in fact so I’m guessing after I decided to turn back I ended up walking about 4 miles. It was starting to get dark, I was in an area I’d never walked around, I didn’t recognize any of the street names so I had no idea where I was or even which way to go, I was tired and hungry and just upset with the whole not having a place to live situation. I just wanted a place to sit down, have a good drink and good heavy food. I ended up finding it right around the corner from my hostel. Which was nice because, lightweight that I have become, I was a bit buzzed after that half-liter.

When I was walking down the Mont des Arts I couldn’t help thinking about this whole situation. They say that it’s on trips like these that you really learn about yourself, your strengths and weakness, who you are and grow immensely as a person. Last night, I felt like this trip was too much for me. I just couldn’t deal with it, I wasn’t ready for everything that I have had to deal with. I felt like an utter failure because it felt like nothing was going right. Generally, up to this point in my life, I haven’t worried about much of anything all that much. I’ve tried not to plan too far in advance because the way I see it you never know what is going to change in the future and you can’t plan for everything so why worry. And generally, things have fallen into place for me. Not worrying about anything worked. Things just went together without much help from me and I didn’t have the added stress of worrying about whether or not they would. I’m coming to realize on this trip that life doesn’t always work out so nicely, that sometimes you need to have a plan and then a back-up plan as well for when things don’t work out so well.

Fell In Love

I never thought it would be possible but I have fallen in love … I am completely, head-over-heels in love with Brussels. I think I could spend the rest of my life here and never get bored or restless which happens rather often for me (usually after I’ve been in one general neighborhood for two years or so I start to get restless and want to move to somewhere new and if I don’t the feeling will go away eventually but it will come back with greater intensity and more frequently until I do something about it). It’s just so interesting here. You have a building from the early 19^th century sharing a wall with a very modern minimalist one, you have people conversing in three or four different languages in the scope of one conversation, you have a monument that was built to commemorate the Belgian civilizing mission in Congo and graffiti promoting anarchy. And from what I can tell all of this is continually evolving and changing and melding. Brussels has taken practically everything I’m interested in (the interaction between people [anthropology], the interaction between governments [international relations, the EU], architecture, the influence of language on culture, French, art, city planning and conservation) and put it all in one place where I can easily, well maybe not easily, soak it all up and just kind of study it. It’s absolutely fascinating. Right now, I just really don’t understand how people know which language to use when. Belgium has three official languages but not really. The country is basically split in two: Flanders and Wallonie. Flanders speaks Dutch and all official documents and whatnot are done in Dutch. In Wallonie, it’s French. It a few cantons in the southeast, it’s German. And in Brussels, all three are official but places are only required to do it in Dutch and French. But usually businesses, from what I can tell, try not to give preference to one of the languages by using it, so they use English instead. It’s crazy! I love it!

Cleaned Up A Bloodsmear

So last night I fell asleep around nine and woke up at one in the morning and couldn’t for the life of me fall back to sleep so I lay there dozing. The two girls I’m sharing a room with came in around three or so. They had gone out to see a band play (one of their friends is in the band) and came back completely drunk. One girl was already passed out and the other was trying  to get her into bed which, really stupidly was the top bunk. There was another bunkbed completely open that I would have put her into on the bottom but whatevs. So around six in the morning the passed out one falls out of bed and hits her head on the floor, and get this … sleeps through it! Her friend tried to get her awake and sitting up and then realized she was bleeding. Around that point I ‘woke up’ out of my doze, realized she was bleeding and helped out a bit. I cleaned up the blood that was on the floor and got her sitting up while her friend went down to call an ambulance (that is a really weird word). The paramedics just left with her and they are taking her to the hospital. In a terrible way, it’s kind of nice because this is the normal time I’d be waking up and now the room I’m in is empty and I can lounge around in the morning like I like to. Again, absolutely terrible of me. 

Finally Got Reliable Access To Internet

So after a few weeks of not having very good access to Internet, now I do, yay! I wrote about a few things in a word document some days so I'm going to try to post those according to the day I wrote it (note: the dates these are published under are the days I wrote them. I am uploading them on 3/15/11 just in case you wanted to know) and then maybe eventually I'll get around to days 2 and 3 of Paris, no guarantees though :/

I have reverted to my ‘normal’ sleep schedule, the one I follow when I have no normal social interaction besides between nine and four in the afternoon: fall asleep around eight thirty or nine and wake up around four thirty or five. Going to sleep isn’t so much a problem but waking up that early in a hostel is difficult to say the least. I don’t want to get out of bed and wake any one else up but I can’t fall asleep again because I’ve already gotten nine hours of sleep. I end up dozing for a few hours and in those hours I’ve been having the weirdest dreams.

Last night, and I don’t remember even a tenth of the details now, I dreamt I was with band people and there was a monster attacking us for some reason. We were in a city that is a lot like Brussels, small and narrow streets but fairly clean and we were trying to escape the monster. For some reason, we only had access to one car and it was a stick shift. Only Emily could drive it but the monster was trying to chop off her hand every time she shifted. So we put a mitten on her hand and she sat on it and we tried to outdrive this huge thing, I think it was insectoid, without leaving second gear. There was more to it but I don’t remember anything else except it was really really important that Emily’s hand not get cut off b/c she needed it to shift except she wasn’t using it. Dreams are weird.

I had one the night before too that involved band people in some crisis situation again and I’m pretty sure Emily was heavily featured in that one as well. From what I remember it was a cross between band, Eureka and Ender’s Game. Alison and Tess from Eureka were in it. Tess was pregnant and me and Alison were talking her though some emotional problem about it she was having and all the while there was some crisis going on, I don’t remember what now, but we were in a space station that looks how I imagine the one in Ender’s Game looks like. We were in a huge room that housed smaller fighter type ships (kind of similar to a Y-wing from Star Wars but not entirely) and tons of band people were running around getting to their ship to go out and fight something. I remember being internally frustrated about having to console Tess instead of helping with whatever was going on. And I think the my conscious part of my brain was thinking why is she pregnant because she isn’t on the show and oh shit pregnancy is fucking freaky.

I wonder what tonight will bring.

Ate Lunch Next to Sacre Coeur

After I checked in to my hostel (which was really decent. If you ever need a hostel in Paris you should check it out Caulincourt Square Hostel. They were really well priced and it included a free breakfast if you woke up early enough and free internet) I walked around looking for a park to eat in which was surprisingly hard to find. For some reason, I had the idea that there were little parks hidden everywhere in Paris and that it would be really easy to just happen upon one, not so much the case. Anyway, I had packed some food for the plane but didn't end up eating it because there was a vegetarian option for the hot dinner so I ate that for lunch because I didn't want to waste it (that was a rather convoluted sentence whoops). So I walked around trying to find somewhere to sit down and just take everything in while I ate. I was pretty sure a waiter would get mad at me if I tried to eat my own food at a cafe table on the sidewalk so I didn't want to do that and I was making my way down the hill from my hostel. On that note, for some god awful reason I had it in my head that Paris would be flat (I guess Davis has spoiled me a bit in that regard), not the case at all, quite the opposite in fact. Walking around those three days was a damn fine workout. I got myself a bit lost, because that is the best way to be in a new city! and looked right when I came up to some intersection and saw an unbelievably tall stairway. I'd say the rise in elevation was at least 50 yards (funny side note: when I picture distances in my head I usually compare it to a football field and how many eight to five steps it would take and convert that into yards, lawl) and through a gap in some buildings I could see the Sacre Coeur. So I went up that way, and ate lunch at this park that is right by it. A misty rain had started by the time I got there.

The Sacre Coeur is literally at the top of this huge hill and from the front facade of the church looking out over the city, on a good day I'm sure you could see for miles. That day wasn't a good day so I could see maybe a 100 yards or so. I went back and explored the hill for a while. There is a square two blocks away from the church that is filled with touristy stuff, artists selling paintings, musicians, restaurants, gift shops, caricature/portraiture artists and the like. And the architecture there ... omg it made me drool, absolutely gorgeous. There were a few museums that I'd passed but I didn't go into them, meh. I prefer exploring stuff on my own and just seeing it in its natural habitat to having it presented to me altogether.

Well I think that is the conclusion of Day 1 in Paris. Kind of uneventful towards the end. I think I fell asleep around 6pm because I was just so tired from not sleeping on the plane and then slept until 10am the next morning or so.

Flew To Europe

So I haven't posted in a while because, well, me being me I forgot to pick up a plug adapter before I left the States which then meant that my laptop ran out of power. Anyway, so I'm in Brussels, well actually I'm in Lubbeek which is about 20km outisde of Brussels, right now. I'm staying with my boss and his family until I find an apartment but I'm getting way ahead of myself and I'm starting in the middle instead of the beginning where things aught to start.

Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous at all about this trip in the few days leading up to it. I'd prepared myself well enough, had everything printed out, had scoped out places I wanted to go, written an itinerary, and all that good stuff. I waited until the day I was leaving to pack so I could lay everything all out and figure out what I wanted to leave behind and what I was missing (I also took pictures of everything I brought so that in the unlikely case that my luggage was lost I had evidence of what was in it). The minute I picked up my luggage from the carrousel in Paris I realized I'd packed way too much. I should have bought a suitcase half the size of the one I got and only brought what I could fit in that and my backpack (oh yeah, I got a full on backpacking backpack so I have it for when me and some friends walk across Spain later this year!).

Anyway, the flight was decent. Before I left I read up on how to avoid jetlag. The most important thing, it seems, is to stay hydrated. And after that, it is to adjust to the new time zone as quickly as possible. Since I was arriving in the morning most places recommended to either get a full sleep on the plane or stay up all the next day and go to sleep at 10pm at the earliest. It had been my intention to do the former but I couldn't fall asleep on the plane so I watched the movies instead; it was sooo cool because they had a screen for every seat and you could choose what movie you wanted to watch. I watched Easy A which I'd been wanting to watch forever and something else that I don't remember now, meh.

I got to the Paris airport, picked up my luggage and attempted to find the RER (kind of like the metro but it goes further outside of Paris) that would take me to Gare du Nord. I seriously walked in a circle for about 20 minutes because the elevator that led you there was only marked on one side and I kept missing it. I left my huge suitcase in a luggage locker in the Gare du Nord and then attempted to find my hostel. I had looked at a map before I left to familiarize myself with the route I'd need to take to get there. On the map, what looked like 1 block actually corresponded to about 10 or 12 so what looked like it would take about 20 minutes took quite a bit longer. I got a little bit lost in the process. There were maps of the city around and I knew where I was supposed to end up generally so I tried to follow those until I got there. The street my hostel was on wasn't actually on the map though oh and on that note: it took me about 30 minutes of walking around to figure out how the streets were labeled. They don't have street sign poles on the corner; instead there is a plaque mounted on the building at the corner. I would walk to an intersection, not be able to find the sign and then turn a random direction hoping it was mostly right. And about half the times I did that I was right at the correct intersection and if I'd taken the other street I would have gotten there. I ended up going to a Starbucks across the street from the Moulin Rouge and using their internet on my iPod to pull up a map and I followed that to get to my hostel. I think I got to the train station about 9am or so and I didn't get to the hostel until 12:30.

Anyway, I'll continue the update later as I have a lot to write about still and I don't particularly feel like typing anymore, lawl.

Realized I Don't Know All That Much

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress or grievances.

- The  United States Constitution, 1st Amendment

For various reasons, that I might get around to explaining within this, I've realized that I don't know and understand the governing documents of the US well enough. I know your basic information about them but I don't really understand how they work and adapt to different situations and the impact that has on our lives. I've decided I'm to be doing some research on it (random aside: I find myself missing being in school and wanting to research and write papers and essays on various topics). 

I've been reading a lot about the American education system lately (mostly because at some point in my life I want to be part of fixing it which means I have to understand what it's problems and limitations are) and to me at least, I don't feel like I've become a well-rounded citizen which I believe is an important part of an education. The purpose of education in a democracy is to create citizens who have the basic knowledge needed to make good voting decisions. If I, a highly educated young woman, feel that I don't know enough about my government and how it works, there must be at least a few others out there feeling the same way. 

Anyway, there was a lot more that I had intended to write about but I went off on a different tangent and forgot the original intentions except that I have decided that I will include an epigraph in every post. I think I'm going to try to have it relate to the subject of the post, maybe not though. For the first posts it will be a combination of the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The way I see those are two of the most important documents that recognize my personal rights as a living human being. 

Was All Kinds Of Productive

So, time is closing in on my departure date for Europe, crazy as that is. Only about thirteen days now until I leave. I got an email from my future boss dude saying I officially have a work visa! So that is a huge weight off my shoulders. I just have to mail a passport type photo over before I leave and then it's completely and totally taken care of.

I went out earlier today and walked to a Target near my house. I filled some prescriptions there and then walked over to the ups store and had my photos taken. I had to get six taken for various things. It was really cool. So, I've had a passport since I was 13. I don't remember taking the photos for that one. I got it renewed when it expired a few years back and had my photos taken at the post office in Davis. They had a digital camera there and I got to see the pictures before they were printed out. Today, the guy took it on a dinosaur of a camera. It was about the size of a family size cereal box, maybe a bit deeper, and it was ... shoot I totally forget what they are called but it where the image is transferred to the paper inside the camera and it is completely developed in a few minutes only. Anyway so it was one of those kind of cameras. So cool!

I only need to send one photo over to Brussels but I had six taken and it is super extra exciting why (at least to me). I'm in the middle of applying for Irish citizenship! And I'm finally being productive about finishing up my application. Part of it is sending over two passport sized photos and now I have them which will allow me to get on with a bunch of other stuff as well. Hopefully I'll get everything finished and be able to send it off before I leave. Once it is approved I can live and work anywhere in the EU with practically no restrictions! Hell yes!

I also worked on my itinerary for the first few weeks that I'm going to be in Europe. My mom is totally freaking out about me leaving on my own and hopefully this will help her out a bit. She's probably going to know where I am at all times better than I do. She's asked me to get in contact with her every single day to let her know that I'm still alive and well (I personally think it's overkill but it'll make her happier so I'm going to do it). To make that easier on her I set up Skype on her phone and taught her how to use that and how to text which are probably going to be the easiest ways to contact me. Now however I'm able to access communication, she'll be able to see it right on her phone wherever she is, yay.

A few days ago I reserved my hostels in Paris and in Brussels and bought my train ticket from Paris to Brussels. I'm basically set except for the fact that I don't have a place to live yet after I've actually started the internship. It'll fall into place though I'm sure. I'm really not too worried about it. Thank the cosmos though for the internet. I don't know how people traveled before without being able to check things out before arriving in a completely different country.

On a completely different note: I've been watching a lot of TV lately. Not a very broad swatch of shows so much as a really deep one. I've watched the entire series of Bones, Eureka and (not quite as impressive) Being Human. It had gotten to the point that I would stay up far past my bed time watching episodes back to back because I was just so engrossed in them. Hopefully now I'll be able to get back to normal and fall asleep at a decent hour ;)

Lived In Purgatory For Two Months

So apparently Purgatory is different than what I thought it was. According to my trusty dictionary it's basically hell, which in retrospect makes sense as you'd be purging your sins. But one of my favorite fantasy authors used it as the name for Limbo, so that's what I mean when I say purgatory. Anyway, this two and a half months between school and the internship is doing wonders on my psyche and not all in a good way.

I feel lost half of the time even though I know where I'm going ... it's just that it's taking forever to get there. I hate waiting especially when I know exactly when something is going to happen. If I'm waiting for something that is sometime off in the future at some unspecified date, that's okay, not great but bearable. But waiting for a specific thing, a specific time, a specific departure is torture. I just want to leave tomorrow, right this minute if I could, and get on with it. It's like I'm running a 400 meter hurdle run and I've gotten over all of the hurdles but decided to take a water break right before the finish line. I'm afraid that if I don't go through with this right away, I'm going to lose momentum, that I already have lost a bit of it. Sometimes, I'm absolutely terrified about going to Europe alone and planning on living in country where granted I know a bit of the language but not enough ... argh.

But then I tell myself that everything I'm scared of will just enrich the experience and me in the long run. And I do enjoy throwing myself into something without worrying about the future, I've had practice with that, so I should be fine.

Maybe these few months of nothing are a boon. I have the chance to purge myself not of sin but of doubt, insecurity, fear, and regrets. Not to become a new person, just clean a bit of the dirt off so a bit more of me is visible to the future.

Lost All Ability To Drink

So I went out with my parents tonight, to that same bar/restaurant that me and my mom went to that has bands play and what not. We were originally going to see a play put on my a local theater group that one of my mom's coworkers is in but it was sold out. Anyway, I had two beers and on a drunkenness scale of Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday to Gollum jumping into Mount Doom after the Ring I was about just about to leave Lothlorien. That is all kinds of sad but makes sense because since I have moved to Georgia I've had three beers and a mixed drink including what I had tonight. I really didn't drink all that much during my college career but it was a hell of a lot more than this. I've become such a lightweight but I guess that is okay. Going out on my own in Europe might be a little more dangerous though ... that'll just make it more fun I suppose.

Thanks go out to a friend of mine who introduced me to stereomood. I've been listening to it all day and it's had exactly what I've been in the mood for, epic win.

Got A Temporary Job

So I have pretty much nothing to do here in Atlanta so my mom hooked me up with a temporary job working as an independent contractor for the university she works for. It's pretty sweet. I sit on my bed all day, do data entry, analyze it, figure out a way to make it better and then fix things ... well almost, I haven't gotten to the fixing part yet, but I will soon, probably tomorrow. It's a nice and extremely easy way to make some extra money for Europe!

And on that note, pretend that you are reading this 26/2/2011 at 1:40am (EST) and then in exactly 4 weeks I will be arriving in Paris for the beginning of my big trip. God, I've still got so much stuff I need to take care of. I should get around to doing that instead of putting it off.

It's weird being here in Georgia (terrible segue, I know) but I'm living here with my mom and my stepdad and I've been here long enough to realize that they have a new routine in their life and it sounds a bit conceited to say this, but it doesn't really include me anymore. Sometimes I feel like I'm intruding on that, though I know my mom doesn't mind because when I'm not home she rarely hears from me. I don't remember ever seeing my mom happier than she is with my stepdad.

I'm the kind of person who needs to have proof to really believe something. All my life I've never had a reason to believe that anything lasts forever: things change, people come in and out of your life, you move to a new place, etc. I've dealt with enough change in my life to be okay with it but I've always wondered how much a thing can change before it looses it's essence and becomes something completely different. I still don't have an answer to that one. Anyway, the nice thing about being here and seeing my parents interact over an extended period of time is that, I don't know ... this sounds all kinds of cheesy but it's true ... my faith in the ability of relationships to last has grown a bit. My parents got divorced eighteen years ago and even after almost two decades I haven't quite recovered from it, funny. But being  here and seeing them, seeing the way my dad and my stepmom interact, and being old enough to understand most of it is helping.

Discovered I Have A Personal Philosophy

(note: I'm still working through most of this, so I kind of ramble on a bit, especially towards the end)

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about what I want out of life, where I want to see myself eventually and how both of those relate to my fundamental philosophy on life. Generally, all I want out of life is to change the world in a positive manner so that when I leave a place it is in a better state than when I  entered it (granted, that calls into question what it means to be 'better' but I don't really want to deal with that right now). The underlying assumption here is that the world, or at least parts of it, can be made better and I admit that is a fairly large assumption. As to where I want to see myself: I want to be working with a large organization that promotes education in various locales, whether that organization is a government or not, a for-profit or not, in whatever area. The details don't matter so much to me.

But I've realized in all this thought (there was a lot more but I haven't sorted through it all yet, what I wrote above is just what I've gotten somewhat organized in my brain so far) that I actually have my own philosophy on life that has been slowly forming throughout my life and is now actually gaining shape because I have learned how to express it in the last few years. The way I see it one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, about living or about being human is the preservation and dissemination of knowledge or information.

Throughout virtually the entire history of the human race the driving force in our ability to survive has been the effectiveness of our ability to teach the next generation the most pertinent information discovered by every generation before it. With the invention of writing, we were able to preserve information for years, centuries even, instead of just the minutes it took to speak the same words. The extended life span increased the ability to take that information to places much further away than oral transmission could ever hope to reach.

The basic definition of literacy is the ability to read and write but I personally think that it has come to mean significantly more: the ability to glean information from a source. Granted my definition is pretty vague but recently there is talk of computer literacy, music literacy, wine literacy, numerical or math literacy, etc. so it seems to stand up and apply to all of those as well. Most of the more specific kinds of literacy involved learning information and the easiest way to do that still involves the most basic literacy: reading and writing.

The way I see it, the best way to help a person is to help them help themself, convoluted I know. But from everything I've learned in college, it is impossible to learn about, understand, internalize and create a solution for a problem that has never been a part of one's own daily life because it is practically impossible to really see the way everything interacts and effects everything else; the only way to have a true understanding of it is to have lived in it. Every situation is relative, no matter how many similarities you can find between two situations, their differences will necessitate varied solutions. Anyway, the whole point to that is that for a person to help themself, they must first be literate. Literacy is necessary for education, education creates informed minds, informed minds lead to informed decisions and informed decisions enact positive change. When said positive change is enacted by local people, generally, it is more likely to succeed in the long run because the people have an invested and personal interest in the area.

Beyond that, if a person is literate they are able to inform themself through their own sources instead of relying on one person or institution. Getting information from more than one source allows a person to avoid a biased, and in some cases corrupt, knowledge base.

Realized I Need A Masters Degree

I spent virtually every waking minute of today researching possible opportunities for my life after the internship and subsequent adventures have ended. Pretty much all morning I looked at Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Both of them offer really nice segues into graduate programs. I think at this point I would be a better candidate for TfA because they seem to cater to new graduates which is nice. Ideally I'd like to start this September but I wouldn't be able to make it to the summer training sessions so I wouldn't be able to start until September 2012 which is just silly to be planning this far ahead for. And for the Peace Corps, I don't really have enough experience or time to create experience to really be a good candidate just yet.

Anyway, what I really want to end up doing , or rather, where I really want to end up is in UNESCO. They are, from what I can tell, one of the most important authorities when it comes to international aid for education and literacy and that is where I want to be. But every job opportunity that I can find related to them requires at least a Masters Degree; even the internships are only for graduate students. So, it's looking like I'm going to need to go to graduate school, which is going to entail taking tests and getting letters of recommendation and etc etc etc ... argh.

I'm looking at George Washington University in D.C. They have a program in International Development with a specialization in International Education. That is pretty much all I want from a graduate program but it comes with a fairly hefty price tag: 45,000/year.

On another note, I was looking around for government jobs as a possible thing to do after I get back (whenever that is) and I found a pretty cool one: Archives Specialist. It's at the National Archives and Records Administration, or something like that. Crazily enough I actually have all the required experience and education so I applied for it. I'm not sure when the job is supposed to start but if I could work that out to start in August or so I'd be in heaven.