severe_fear's trip to Europe
severe_fear has been sending me updates from his trip and I thought I would post them here for all to read.
May 18:
You make exclamation marks by hitting 8.. and 8s by holding shift and hitting !
Since I am now so slow at typing and cannot figure out how to make an apostrophe I guess I should say something quick before my 15 minutes on this thing are up.
I made it okay, the people are friendly and helpful to me so far, though most of them speak terrible english if at all. PERIOD DAMN YOU, NOT SEMICOLON!!
Aaanyway, I am here and alive and trying to figure out which way is north.
Clark
Or clqrk if you type in azerty(qwerty).
Also on May 18:
Yeah, its 4:50pm here right now. I think Im gonna try and go find a reasonably cheap hotel and pass the fuck out. Its weird watching the sun go down and come back up all on the same airplane.
Im really starting to wonder why I came.
Id go ahead and run on to Paris now but Im gonna need sleep soon and there seems to be nowhere there to sleep for less than E150. Geneva looks to be a bit nicer on the wallet.
This place is pretty pricy too, Ive spent about 30 euros today and I still have to pay for a place to sleep. Maybe Ill just lock both my bags up in the train station and go snooze in the park, its one of the coolest things Ive found here so far.
Gotta go check the website for the lodgings Im scoping out now I reckon.
How the fuck do I make a damn apostrophe!?
Love,
Clark
May 20:
just had to get the hell out of French territory is all.. I left Bruxelles and went to Paris, only to find out upon arrival that the last train to Genéve was leaving in 2 hours, I really didn't want to try and find a place to stay there, as I was unsure where the hostel was and everything there is bloody expensive. So I basically saw nothing there.
The train has proved to be one of the most pleasant things about Europe, no need to haul crap everywhere or pay 5 euro to store it in the station, and I still get to see plenty of stuff.
I've missed most tourist traps so far, including ones I wanted to see, but in Genéve and here(Zürich) everything is incredibly beautiful, just walking down the street. And the exchange rate doesn't suck(.75USD to 1 Swissfranc).
I did get to see the Atomium, which they just finished remodeling, and is totally shiny and awesome. I also saw the Jet d'Eau, which was as impressive as it looks in pictures, basically.. I walked out like 15 feet from the spout, which is where a spiked guardrail threatens you not to get any closer under penalty of death, which is good, because dumbasses like me are likely to try and drink from the damn thing or something.
I got here and managed to run into the Fraumünster by sort of accident(I just walked to every gigantic green pointy church I could see on the horizon(there's at least 3 of them) and also found the Grössboobies, I forget the entire name exactly, but it's a pair of domes that shoot up into the sky from what I guess is a church, I didn't go in since I hadn't found the Frau yet and I was anxious to move on.
I did finally make it to the Fraumünster which as it turns out closed for renovation on April 18th of this year, my heart bleeds. I got some pictures of the outside and their courtyard though..
I've had pretty good luck hitting the attractions I wanted to see most, except for all the stuff in Paris, but I realized after I got here that what I had planned is in reality a huge bite to chew.
My main concern at the moment is being thrifty, I've withdrawn about 300 to 400 dollars equivalent so far, and I'm in my 4th city, I just need to keep it that way. I acted like a total noob in regard to the accommodations, and I paid for it. I got a bed in this hostel for 37 francs(Breakfast included), and I'm spending about 5 bucks to use this computer, so it's a pretty good night, budget wise.. No shower for me today though, but it looks like that's going to be a rare commodity if I'm going to make it through this trip on the cash I have.
I showered twice yesterday since I had the opportunity, I spent 100F on that room, which was worth the shower I think, and a decent deal.. the hotel rooms here in Europe make my shack look very spacious, FYI.
Perhaps my 5 changes of clothes will last me until I come back, scary thought..
This thing charges 1 franc per 5 minutes, and I'm blowing way too much on it.. I miss you a lot, but I'm doing better now that people speak my language again, and the other language they speak is German, which I can at least pronounce properly, unlike French.
love,
Clark
May 21:
Im in Salzburg, keyboards are german here just like in Zürich, which isn´t as bad as french, only the y and z keys are switched, and the ´ key is where the = key should be of course(= is made by hitting shift 0, wacky!).
I found an ad in the Bahnhof(train station) for the Hostel, which was within easy walking distance unlike Zürich(even though I walked that anyway), and they gave me a room(with 5 other people in it, but whatever, cheap is cheap) for $27 including the rental of bed sheets(which as it turns out I probably won´t use, I just thought it might be a good idea at the counter) and a towel, which a shower would be hell without, heheh.
They also gave me a map of the city with attractions pointed out on it, but the only part of it I really needed was the street names, which here in Europe are plastered to the walls of buildings in the strangest fucking places, making it impossible to navigate when you first arrive here, though I´m quickly getting accustomed.
I made it to the Hohensalzburg Festung, but they close the interior at 17:30, which I just missed as the train took 5 and a half hours to get from Zürich to here, so I wandered around the outer areas taking pictures and went down to the area below, which I guess is the old city that they talk about online, though I got the impression that the old city center was supposed to be more .. uhh .. in the CENTER of the city still, instead of smack in front of the Fortress(which is what Festung means, in case you were wondering).
Anyway, I´ve completely fallen in love with this city, everybody speaks german by default, but most can speak pretty good english when they need to, some(like the admissions guy for the festung) don´t speak it too well, but it´s not as big of a deal as it was in France and Belgium.
I´ve decided I´m going to stay here tomorrow as well, mainly because I must get into the inside of the Festung now that I´ve seen how awesome the outside is, and also because I just want to explore the rest of the city. I´m a little disappointed that today isn´t my birthday, since if it was it´d have been perfect.
So many things have gone right today, right now I´m talking to you from the cheapest internet cafe yet(3 Euro for an hour), which normally I´d have looked at you crazy if you told me that was cheap, but I have no problem with now.
I bought myself a shirt(sort of gold on green colored, if I recall correctly, I wanted to go for the black & white, but I always remember what you say about my wardrobe being all lacking in life when I´m clothes shopping now), and I also got myself a pretzel that was BIGGER THAN MY HEAD covered in asiago cheese and little bits of mystery meat.. Yum.
I thought it was just my head playing tricks on me when I was going through Switzerland, but now that I´ve had a couple of days to evaluate it I realized that the air both there and here in Austria is so AMAZINGLY fresh and clean.. I feel .. human.
See? I´ve written you another lovely novel of an email and it´s only cost me 1.50 Euros.. Good stuff.
I reckon I´m gonna totter off and check LJ and see if I can reserve a room a few hostels in advance online.. I haven´t had any issues with full-up hostels yet, but then again I´m also fine with dorm room beds.. if I were looking for a private room I wouldn´t have had any luck yet as those sell out well in advance, buncha paranoid people..
Oh, and by the way, everyone in Austin who fed me gloom and doom stories about people getting all of their shit stolen almost ruined my damn trip for me. When I first got here I ended up in private hotel rooms because I was paranoid about the Hostels and it was fixing to fucking kill my bank account, which made me totally depressed and I started regretting ever coming here.. Buuut, now that I´m only spending $35E a day unless I really feel like blowing money out of my ass, I´m sooo happy.
I haven´t really talked to other people that much, I tried to today on the train, a bunch of kids from Innsbruck going to Vienna to visit the International Atomic Energy Association, or whatever it´s called.. We got along pretty well, but unless I specifically asked them something they just carried on amongst themselves in german since they obviously didn´t speak english as fluently, and they weren´t going to struggle with a foreign language just for my benefit, can´t blame em. We´ll see how tonight goes, since I´m in a full 6 person room at the Hostel, none of them were there when I checked in..
Hopefully they don´t snore like the germans who were in the Zürich hostel did, OH MY GOD.
Oh yeah, speaking of nuclear energy, I´ve seen two active cooling towers so far, sort of a strange sight since Texas runs pretty much all on hydroelectrics.. Pretty scary and awesome to look at when taking into the consideration what makes them go.
This place is FWEET.
Clark
May 22:
Whoa! I figured out an option on these computers they have here at the internet cafe to undo the default keyboard setting and make it remap the keys as though it were an english one, hotness.
I'm more or less done being gone, at first I just wanted to be home since I was miserable, but now I'm happy, and all I want to do is come back. I went to the inside of the Fortress today, it was fweet, and as it is situated atop the mountain which surrounds the entire city I was able to see over to the other side from the top of it and get a picture of the mountains on the other side, which are still mostly capped in snow, though they're so distant they look very hazy in the pictures I got, should be good, though..
I've gotten a bunch of dirt particles inside my camera due to switching lenses, fortunately I don't think any of it got on the sensor, but the ones I know are there are stuck to the viewfinder prism(which flips up when the camera takes the picture, making the *click* noise that film cameras are traditionally known for), so I can see them when aiming the camera, but they shouldn't be in the pictures themselves.
I also took some pictures of the nearby cemetery, though the catacombs here just happen to be closed ONLY on monday for some reason, so I guess I can't have my cake and eat it and put my dick in it, too.. I would've said have my cake and eat it too there, but even without being able to go to the catacombs this has been so cool that I wouldn't describe it as only having cake.. Wow, that was an awfully long pointless explanation.
I like how Gmail scrolls what you type in a window below the originating email, so even though I'm blithering on I can still see what you said to me and can continue to respond in kind.
I tried on the shirt last night after I got back to the Hostel, and I really like it. I trust your stupid opinion, and the more I explore into the realm of color the more I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I look at previous clothing choices of mine. Though I still think Khakis are disgusting, unless they're very light/borderline grey.. I need to work on the pants.. I think I may take a cue from Loyal and go off the deep end with weird things like bright green corduroy..
I think I offended some old german woman on the way here, either that or she just smolders with generic rage all the time, but she said something I didn't understand to me, and I responded that I didn't understand, and she shook her head in disgust and stalked off.. Normally if people are just pissy people they don't talk to me, so I think it was something I did. Oh well.
Hmm .. how about we change the word evolve to something like .. evolvelo .. That way we can have lovelove, with compatibility for dyslexics?
I kinda wanna go explore more, but my daypack is all heavy and shit and my shoulders hurt and my iPod is almost outta juice, so I think I may just go back to the Hostel and take it easy. I'm en route to Hungary tomorrow, and I'll probably stay an extra day there since the direct train leaves at 11 and takes 6 hours to get there, so it'd be 5pm when I got there and wouldn't leave much time to do anything after I find and check into the Hostel.
I feel a bit touristy going around just taking pictures of churches and fortresses and whatever the hell, I should probably go seek out a nightclub or something at some point, but I'm still a bit nervous going around at night.. That and Austria has a lot of potential to be expensive if I let it, so I think I'm better off doing cheap/free stuff that I like anyway.
In Hungary I'm going to make an effort to go get in touch with the peoples, I think.. That's the plan, anyway.
I should also go back to the Hostel because I need to do laundry as well.
I've been using my fisheye lens mostly, which makes all the landmarks look funky and bent.. I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity for my telephoto lens at the Vienna zoo though, mmm, yes, big kitties!
I suppose I should go check LJ and go do other stuff now..
love,
Clark
May 23:
Nuts, I was looking forward to some sort of response before I ran off to Budapest. I went back and did laundry yesterday, and the washing machine took so freakin' long that I went down to Mirabell gardens and took some pictures of all the weird statues having a wench carrying contest. I then went back to the Hostel and passed out for a little while waiting for the dryer to get done, and awoke to the sound of two totally hot english girls checking into my room.. They didn't say much to me except to apologize for waking me up, and immediately left to go out and drink and didn't get back until 4am with a bottle of Absolut, a Bass, and a 1.5L Coke in tow and crashed the fuck out.
I wandered around later in the evening and found the most awesome little italian restaurant to eat at, they gave me a calzone as big as the Brick Oven's only somehow with the ones from the Brick Oven they rise so much that they're deceptively large, and actually have a surprisingly small amount of innards in comparison to their first impression, except that the ones here are that large, and they don't rise all that much, they really are THAT large. It cost me E6.50, which is pretty damn cheap, even by home's standards.
I figured they'd have a different trademark food here in Austria, but apparently it's close enough to italy that some of them migrate up here so as to not have as much competition I guess. There's lots of pizzerias here. I was taking a pretty big chance on the whole pizza thing, since in Zurich I managed to somehow order the worst pizza I've ever had, and it cost an assload. It was a pretty fancy restaurant though, I guess it was some sort of 'specialty' .. Kinda like snails are a specialty in Paris. Fucking disgusting. That's what I get for ordering something when I can't translate the ingredients.
Time's going by pretty quick, it's already the 23rd, when I first got here I was thinking to myself 'Damn, I've got 10 more days of this shit?'.. Not that I'm sad that it's going by so quick, I really miss home.
2 hours and 10 minutes until my train departs, I think I'll go find it when that gets to be one hour.
Damn, them girls in the Hostel was hawt.. When I woke up one of em was laying facing me and y'know how sometimes when women curl up with their arms in front of them they press their breasts together and they contort into strange oblong shapes?.. Yeah.. Wow. They were magnificent.
Unfortunately, most girls I've met here in Europe look about 12-16, and I suspect they are just running around on their parents' tab. The two last night were of drinking age, I reckon, but I don't know what that is here, probably 18.
I got carded(passported?) to make sure I was 18 when I was out buying a little implement of destruction for myself by the cutest little blond Austrian girl with a lower lip piercing(kinda like yours, only a stud), and she didn't look a day over 16.. I was rather amused. Which reminds me, facial piercings on women are apparently hot shit here, I've seen tons of em in the two days I've been in Salzburg, and not things I would consider ordinary such as eyebrow rings, mostly a wiiide range of nose and lip rings/studs/weird shit.
I was curious before coming here whether I would show up to a whole city of Arnold Schwarzenegger look-a-likes, but it's not true at all, people here look just like you and me for the most part, except perhaps for the clothes. He looks just about as much Austrian as he does African.
t's 2:03am there, funny, that.
I guess I'm gonna go putter around on the internetz for a bit, go poke my head in European Burger King to see what it's like, find myself some breakfast, buy some snacks for my 6 hour train ride, and jump on it.
Love,
Clark
May 23:
I'm in Budapest now, it's raining and I hadn't scoped out anything to see here before hand, so I'm pretty much wandering the streets like a bum. I started to loosen up a bit and talk to people in Salzburg, but then I got here and while everyone will speak english they definitely are more comfortable with Magyar, and really only speak english to answer questions and whatnot.. I'd kinda like to go see Szoborpark, but Rab & Kristin and them already went and took pictures, so I basically know what I'd find, and it's a fair ways outside of town, so I'm told.. and it's outside, so getting there and then seeing it in the rain wouldn't be too much fun.
Apparently there's some sort of palace or some such down on the river, next to this gigantic bridge, as seen in a photo on a pamphlet I saw earlier, and I know the general direction that the river is in, so I'm gonna go down there after I'm done talking to you.
I don't think I'm gonna bother with sightseeing too much here, since there isn't much I've seen in the brochures that interests me. One good thing is that everything seems relatively cheap.
I haven't got the conversion rates down yet, but I withdrew 50,000 Forint yesterday and my bank account says it cost me $242.. To give you some perspective on that two nights at the Hostel cost me 5600 Forint, two pieces of pizza and a big Fanta cost me 850 Forint, and most T-shirts here cost between 1000-2000 Forint, so it's decent.
I hadn't meant to withdraw that much, and now I've gotta spend it before I leave tomorrow, which is sort of fun, because even at my normal wasting of cash rate it's a lot to get rid of, so I get to waltz around being a rich man for a bit.
My Hostel is .. interesting here, it's the first one I've been to that isn't part of the Hostelling International or YOHO chains. It's basically a very large apartment in a relatively run down building operated by some guy who found an easy way to make money in Budapest without doing normal work. Having scrutinized it all thoroughly I believe it to be safe, but it's very .. local I guess is the best word I can find to describe it?
I'm glad people are flirting with you, I'm not having so much luck here.. Partly because I don't talk to people much, and also because even when I do start making friends either I have to leave or they do, I had fun with 3 girls that were staying in my room at my last Hostel the first night, Bromwyn stole a towel for me.
On the train here I met a couple of Australian guys in their 50's or so who were touring Europe for the first time as well, I got to talk to them for about an hour, it was nice. They were headed for Vienna and then home.
I haven't been taking enough pictures I don't think, I've got 2.7GB left on my 4GB card, and my trip is now if I calculate correctly about half over and I've still got 3.7GB left total. I hope to remedy this at the Vienna Zoo..
There aren't any SUVs here.. Well, not NONE.. I've seen a grand total of 2 since arriving here, not huge ones like an Excursion or anything, but like a midrange Volvo and another weird black one that was actually about the size of a medium pickup.
I know I should talk to people more, but it was hard for me before I left, being in a foreign country where everyone speaks a different language makes it like 10x worse.. I'm hoping having this experience may make me a little more comfortable in my own skin in my own environment.
I dunno what else to say, really, hopefully the rain has stopped.
I guess I should probably go find some way to spend 40,000 Forint now.
Oh, I MUST find somewhere I can buy a towel, very important when traveling abroad, Hostels may rent you one, but they do not provide them by default, and some don't at all. I guess this seems sort of like a given to some people, but I just assumed that where I'd find a shower I'd also find a towel, but no, oooh no.
Love,
Clark
May 18:
You make exclamation marks by hitting 8.. and 8s by holding shift and hitting !
Since I am now so slow at typing and cannot figure out how to make an apostrophe I guess I should say something quick before my 15 minutes on this thing are up.
I made it okay, the people are friendly and helpful to me so far, though most of them speak terrible english if at all. PERIOD DAMN YOU, NOT SEMICOLON!!
Aaanyway, I am here and alive and trying to figure out which way is north.
Clark
Or clqrk if you type in azerty(qwerty).
Also on May 18:
Yeah, its 4:50pm here right now. I think Im gonna try and go find a reasonably cheap hotel and pass the fuck out. Its weird watching the sun go down and come back up all on the same airplane.
Im really starting to wonder why I came.
Id go ahead and run on to Paris now but Im gonna need sleep soon and there seems to be nowhere there to sleep for less than E150. Geneva looks to be a bit nicer on the wallet.
This place is pretty pricy too, Ive spent about 30 euros today and I still have to pay for a place to sleep. Maybe Ill just lock both my bags up in the train station and go snooze in the park, its one of the coolest things Ive found here so far.
Gotta go check the website for the lodgings Im scoping out now I reckon.
How the fuck do I make a damn apostrophe!?
Love,
Clark
May 20:
just had to get the hell out of French territory is all.. I left Bruxelles and went to Paris, only to find out upon arrival that the last train to Genéve was leaving in 2 hours, I really didn't want to try and find a place to stay there, as I was unsure where the hostel was and everything there is bloody expensive. So I basically saw nothing there.
The train has proved to be one of the most pleasant things about Europe, no need to haul crap everywhere or pay 5 euro to store it in the station, and I still get to see plenty of stuff.
I've missed most tourist traps so far, including ones I wanted to see, but in Genéve and here(Zürich) everything is incredibly beautiful, just walking down the street. And the exchange rate doesn't suck(.75USD to 1 Swissfranc).
I did get to see the Atomium, which they just finished remodeling, and is totally shiny and awesome. I also saw the Jet d'Eau, which was as impressive as it looks in pictures, basically.. I walked out like 15 feet from the spout, which is where a spiked guardrail threatens you not to get any closer under penalty of death, which is good, because dumbasses like me are likely to try and drink from the damn thing or something.
I got here and managed to run into the Fraumünster by sort of accident(I just walked to every gigantic green pointy church I could see on the horizon(there's at least 3 of them) and also found the Grössboobies, I forget the entire name exactly, but it's a pair of domes that shoot up into the sky from what I guess is a church, I didn't go in since I hadn't found the Frau yet and I was anxious to move on.
I did finally make it to the Fraumünster which as it turns out closed for renovation on April 18th of this year, my heart bleeds. I got some pictures of the outside and their courtyard though..
I've had pretty good luck hitting the attractions I wanted to see most, except for all the stuff in Paris, but I realized after I got here that what I had planned is in reality a huge bite to chew.
My main concern at the moment is being thrifty, I've withdrawn about 300 to 400 dollars equivalent so far, and I'm in my 4th city, I just need to keep it that way. I acted like a total noob in regard to the accommodations, and I paid for it. I got a bed in this hostel for 37 francs(Breakfast included), and I'm spending about 5 bucks to use this computer, so it's a pretty good night, budget wise.. No shower for me today though, but it looks like that's going to be a rare commodity if I'm going to make it through this trip on the cash I have.
I showered twice yesterday since I had the opportunity, I spent 100F on that room, which was worth the shower I think, and a decent deal.. the hotel rooms here in Europe make my shack look very spacious, FYI.
Perhaps my 5 changes of clothes will last me until I come back, scary thought..
This thing charges 1 franc per 5 minutes, and I'm blowing way too much on it.. I miss you a lot, but I'm doing better now that people speak my language again, and the other language they speak is German, which I can at least pronounce properly, unlike French.
love,
Clark
May 21:
Im in Salzburg, keyboards are german here just like in Zürich, which isn´t as bad as french, only the y and z keys are switched, and the ´ key is where the = key should be of course(= is made by hitting shift 0, wacky!).
I found an ad in the Bahnhof(train station) for the Hostel, which was within easy walking distance unlike Zürich(even though I walked that anyway), and they gave me a room(with 5 other people in it, but whatever, cheap is cheap) for $27 including the rental of bed sheets(which as it turns out I probably won´t use, I just thought it might be a good idea at the counter) and a towel, which a shower would be hell without, heheh.
They also gave me a map of the city with attractions pointed out on it, but the only part of it I really needed was the street names, which here in Europe are plastered to the walls of buildings in the strangest fucking places, making it impossible to navigate when you first arrive here, though I´m quickly getting accustomed.
I made it to the Hohensalzburg Festung, but they close the interior at 17:30, which I just missed as the train took 5 and a half hours to get from Zürich to here, so I wandered around the outer areas taking pictures and went down to the area below, which I guess is the old city that they talk about online, though I got the impression that the old city center was supposed to be more .. uhh .. in the CENTER of the city still, instead of smack in front of the Fortress(which is what Festung means, in case you were wondering).
Anyway, I´ve completely fallen in love with this city, everybody speaks german by default, but most can speak pretty good english when they need to, some(like the admissions guy for the festung) don´t speak it too well, but it´s not as big of a deal as it was in France and Belgium.
I´ve decided I´m going to stay here tomorrow as well, mainly because I must get into the inside of the Festung now that I´ve seen how awesome the outside is, and also because I just want to explore the rest of the city. I´m a little disappointed that today isn´t my birthday, since if it was it´d have been perfect.
So many things have gone right today, right now I´m talking to you from the cheapest internet cafe yet(3 Euro for an hour), which normally I´d have looked at you crazy if you told me that was cheap, but I have no problem with now.
I bought myself a shirt(sort of gold on green colored, if I recall correctly, I wanted to go for the black & white, but I always remember what you say about my wardrobe being all lacking in life when I´m clothes shopping now), and I also got myself a pretzel that was BIGGER THAN MY HEAD covered in asiago cheese and little bits of mystery meat.. Yum.
I thought it was just my head playing tricks on me when I was going through Switzerland, but now that I´ve had a couple of days to evaluate it I realized that the air both there and here in Austria is so AMAZINGLY fresh and clean.. I feel .. human.
See? I´ve written you another lovely novel of an email and it´s only cost me 1.50 Euros.. Good stuff.
I reckon I´m gonna totter off and check LJ and see if I can reserve a room a few hostels in advance online.. I haven´t had any issues with full-up hostels yet, but then again I´m also fine with dorm room beds.. if I were looking for a private room I wouldn´t have had any luck yet as those sell out well in advance, buncha paranoid people..
Oh, and by the way, everyone in Austin who fed me gloom and doom stories about people getting all of their shit stolen almost ruined my damn trip for me. When I first got here I ended up in private hotel rooms because I was paranoid about the Hostels and it was fixing to fucking kill my bank account, which made me totally depressed and I started regretting ever coming here.. Buuut, now that I´m only spending $35E a day unless I really feel like blowing money out of my ass, I´m sooo happy.
I haven´t really talked to other people that much, I tried to today on the train, a bunch of kids from Innsbruck going to Vienna to visit the International Atomic Energy Association, or whatever it´s called.. We got along pretty well, but unless I specifically asked them something they just carried on amongst themselves in german since they obviously didn´t speak english as fluently, and they weren´t going to struggle with a foreign language just for my benefit, can´t blame em. We´ll see how tonight goes, since I´m in a full 6 person room at the Hostel, none of them were there when I checked in..
Hopefully they don´t snore like the germans who were in the Zürich hostel did, OH MY GOD.
Oh yeah, speaking of nuclear energy, I´ve seen two active cooling towers so far, sort of a strange sight since Texas runs pretty much all on hydroelectrics.. Pretty scary and awesome to look at when taking into the consideration what makes them go.
This place is FWEET.
Clark
May 22:
Whoa! I figured out an option on these computers they have here at the internet cafe to undo the default keyboard setting and make it remap the keys as though it were an english one, hotness.
I'm more or less done being gone, at first I just wanted to be home since I was miserable, but now I'm happy, and all I want to do is come back. I went to the inside of the Fortress today, it was fweet, and as it is situated atop the mountain which surrounds the entire city I was able to see over to the other side from the top of it and get a picture of the mountains on the other side, which are still mostly capped in snow, though they're so distant they look very hazy in the pictures I got, should be good, though..
I've gotten a bunch of dirt particles inside my camera due to switching lenses, fortunately I don't think any of it got on the sensor, but the ones I know are there are stuck to the viewfinder prism(which flips up when the camera takes the picture, making the *click* noise that film cameras are traditionally known for), so I can see them when aiming the camera, but they shouldn't be in the pictures themselves.
I also took some pictures of the nearby cemetery, though the catacombs here just happen to be closed ONLY on monday for some reason, so I guess I can't have my cake and eat it and put my dick in it, too.. I would've said have my cake and eat it too there, but even without being able to go to the catacombs this has been so cool that I wouldn't describe it as only having cake.. Wow, that was an awfully long pointless explanation.
I like how Gmail scrolls what you type in a window below the originating email, so even though I'm blithering on I can still see what you said to me and can continue to respond in kind.
I tried on the shirt last night after I got back to the Hostel, and I really like it. I trust your stupid opinion, and the more I explore into the realm of color the more I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I look at previous clothing choices of mine. Though I still think Khakis are disgusting, unless they're very light/borderline grey.. I need to work on the pants.. I think I may take a cue from Loyal and go off the deep end with weird things like bright green corduroy..
I think I offended some old german woman on the way here, either that or she just smolders with generic rage all the time, but she said something I didn't understand to me, and I responded that I didn't understand, and she shook her head in disgust and stalked off.. Normally if people are just pissy people they don't talk to me, so I think it was something I did. Oh well.
Hmm .. how about we change the word evolve to something like .. evolvelo .. That way we can have lovelove, with compatibility for dyslexics?
I kinda wanna go explore more, but my daypack is all heavy and shit and my shoulders hurt and my iPod is almost outta juice, so I think I may just go back to the Hostel and take it easy. I'm en route to Hungary tomorrow, and I'll probably stay an extra day there since the direct train leaves at 11 and takes 6 hours to get there, so it'd be 5pm when I got there and wouldn't leave much time to do anything after I find and check into the Hostel.
I feel a bit touristy going around just taking pictures of churches and fortresses and whatever the hell, I should probably go seek out a nightclub or something at some point, but I'm still a bit nervous going around at night.. That and Austria has a lot of potential to be expensive if I let it, so I think I'm better off doing cheap/free stuff that I like anyway.
In Hungary I'm going to make an effort to go get in touch with the peoples, I think.. That's the plan, anyway.
I should also go back to the Hostel because I need to do laundry as well.
I've been using my fisheye lens mostly, which makes all the landmarks look funky and bent.. I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity for my telephoto lens at the Vienna zoo though, mmm, yes, big kitties!
I suppose I should go check LJ and go do other stuff now..
love,
Clark
May 23:
Nuts, I was looking forward to some sort of response before I ran off to Budapest. I went back and did laundry yesterday, and the washing machine took so freakin' long that I went down to Mirabell gardens and took some pictures of all the weird statues having a wench carrying contest. I then went back to the Hostel and passed out for a little while waiting for the dryer to get done, and awoke to the sound of two totally hot english girls checking into my room.. They didn't say much to me except to apologize for waking me up, and immediately left to go out and drink and didn't get back until 4am with a bottle of Absolut, a Bass, and a 1.5L Coke in tow and crashed the fuck out.
I wandered around later in the evening and found the most awesome little italian restaurant to eat at, they gave me a calzone as big as the Brick Oven's only somehow with the ones from the Brick Oven they rise so much that they're deceptively large, and actually have a surprisingly small amount of innards in comparison to their first impression, except that the ones here are that large, and they don't rise all that much, they really are THAT large. It cost me E6.50, which is pretty damn cheap, even by home's standards.
I figured they'd have a different trademark food here in Austria, but apparently it's close enough to italy that some of them migrate up here so as to not have as much competition I guess. There's lots of pizzerias here. I was taking a pretty big chance on the whole pizza thing, since in Zurich I managed to somehow order the worst pizza I've ever had, and it cost an assload. It was a pretty fancy restaurant though, I guess it was some sort of 'specialty' .. Kinda like snails are a specialty in Paris. Fucking disgusting. That's what I get for ordering something when I can't translate the ingredients.
Time's going by pretty quick, it's already the 23rd, when I first got here I was thinking to myself 'Damn, I've got 10 more days of this shit?'.. Not that I'm sad that it's going by so quick, I really miss home.
2 hours and 10 minutes until my train departs, I think I'll go find it when that gets to be one hour.
Damn, them girls in the Hostel was hawt.. When I woke up one of em was laying facing me and y'know how sometimes when women curl up with their arms in front of them they press their breasts together and they contort into strange oblong shapes?.. Yeah.. Wow. They were magnificent.
Unfortunately, most girls I've met here in Europe look about 12-16, and I suspect they are just running around on their parents' tab. The two last night were of drinking age, I reckon, but I don't know what that is here, probably 18.
I got carded(passported?) to make sure I was 18 when I was out buying a little implement of destruction for myself by the cutest little blond Austrian girl with a lower lip piercing(kinda like yours, only a stud), and she didn't look a day over 16.. I was rather amused. Which reminds me, facial piercings on women are apparently hot shit here, I've seen tons of em in the two days I've been in Salzburg, and not things I would consider ordinary such as eyebrow rings, mostly a wiiide range of nose and lip rings/studs/weird shit.
I was curious before coming here whether I would show up to a whole city of Arnold Schwarzenegger look-a-likes, but it's not true at all, people here look just like you and me for the most part, except perhaps for the clothes. He looks just about as much Austrian as he does African.
t's 2:03am there, funny, that.
I guess I'm gonna go putter around on the internetz for a bit, go poke my head in European Burger King to see what it's like, find myself some breakfast, buy some snacks for my 6 hour train ride, and jump on it.
Love,
Clark
May 23:
I'm in Budapest now, it's raining and I hadn't scoped out anything to see here before hand, so I'm pretty much wandering the streets like a bum. I started to loosen up a bit and talk to people in Salzburg, but then I got here and while everyone will speak english they definitely are more comfortable with Magyar, and really only speak english to answer questions and whatnot.. I'd kinda like to go see Szoborpark, but Rab & Kristin and them already went and took pictures, so I basically know what I'd find, and it's a fair ways outside of town, so I'm told.. and it's outside, so getting there and then seeing it in the rain wouldn't be too much fun.
Apparently there's some sort of palace or some such down on the river, next to this gigantic bridge, as seen in a photo on a pamphlet I saw earlier, and I know the general direction that the river is in, so I'm gonna go down there after I'm done talking to you.
I don't think I'm gonna bother with sightseeing too much here, since there isn't much I've seen in the brochures that interests me. One good thing is that everything seems relatively cheap.
I haven't got the conversion rates down yet, but I withdrew 50,000 Forint yesterday and my bank account says it cost me $242.. To give you some perspective on that two nights at the Hostel cost me 5600 Forint, two pieces of pizza and a big Fanta cost me 850 Forint, and most T-shirts here cost between 1000-2000 Forint, so it's decent.
I hadn't meant to withdraw that much, and now I've gotta spend it before I leave tomorrow, which is sort of fun, because even at my normal wasting of cash rate it's a lot to get rid of, so I get to waltz around being a rich man for a bit.
My Hostel is .. interesting here, it's the first one I've been to that isn't part of the Hostelling International or YOHO chains. It's basically a very large apartment in a relatively run down building operated by some guy who found an easy way to make money in Budapest without doing normal work. Having scrutinized it all thoroughly I believe it to be safe, but it's very .. local I guess is the best word I can find to describe it?
I'm glad people are flirting with you, I'm not having so much luck here.. Partly because I don't talk to people much, and also because even when I do start making friends either I have to leave or they do, I had fun with 3 girls that were staying in my room at my last Hostel the first night, Bromwyn stole a towel for me.
On the train here I met a couple of Australian guys in their 50's or so who were touring Europe for the first time as well, I got to talk to them for about an hour, it was nice. They were headed for Vienna and then home.
I haven't been taking enough pictures I don't think, I've got 2.7GB left on my 4GB card, and my trip is now if I calculate correctly about half over and I've still got 3.7GB left total. I hope to remedy this at the Vienna Zoo..
There aren't any SUVs here.. Well, not NONE.. I've seen a grand total of 2 since arriving here, not huge ones like an Excursion or anything, but like a midrange Volvo and another weird black one that was actually about the size of a medium pickup.
I know I should talk to people more, but it was hard for me before I left, being in a foreign country where everyone speaks a different language makes it like 10x worse.. I'm hoping having this experience may make me a little more comfortable in my own skin in my own environment.
I dunno what else to say, really, hopefully the rain has stopped.
I guess I should probably go find some way to spend 40,000 Forint now.
Oh, I MUST find somewhere I can buy a towel, very important when traveling abroad, Hostels may rent you one, but they do not provide them by default, and some don't at all. I guess this seems sort of like a given to some people, but I just assumed that where I'd find a shower I'd also find a towel, but no, oooh no.
Love,
Clark