20070630

      My comfortable friends, I greet you today from a pizzeria in Barcelona. It has been too long since I've last written, so there are many things which I have to share. Barcelona has many things in common with the rest of Europe; they serve pizza and espressos, and play much English-language music. But, Barcelona is a city that never stops partying. During the day along La Rambla, the main street which runs down to the beach, there are human statues of all kinds, magicians, and even a 4-person circus. I can't figure out why, since this is mainly a tourist area, but there are also a many bird and rabbit sellers. I must admit, I was tempted to buy a fighting cock, but I didn't think my hotel would allow me to keep him in the tub.

      From the top of the Columbus Column, you can see much of Barcelona. I also ran into a couple girls from Hong Kong going into law school, and so made a couple friends that have been better than a pair of wheeled tripods for my photo-journaling. For example, see this documentary photo of comparative European play-equipment. Also, it's wonderful if you don't like making plans to encounter other people who do, since you can mooch off their planning skills.
      On Wednesday, we went to a hedge-maze. I didn't think it could be confusing at all, but I was pleasantly surprised. However, anyone with a stack that runs 3 elements deep can navigate the maze. Or you could just touch your right hand to the wall, close your eyes, and follow the wall for a long while.
      Here I am trapped in a glass box.
      Here I am trying to get away after escaping the glass box.
      Here I am giving up.
      After a short tram ride from the maze, we saw the Gaudi park. Gaudi exemplifies Spanish style, with his chaotic placement of tile mosaic and organic forms. Everything fits together precisely because none of the elements match. We also encountered in the Gaudi park a fantastic one-man band.
      This is the world's largest pineapple.
      Don't drink from the public fountains.
      Beware the (fe)male prostitutes. It says so in the pizzeria.
      Mullets are the latest fad in Spain.
      This is actually an ice-cream advertisement. Get your head out of the gutter.
      On Thursday, after touring the Barrio Gothico, which is a wonderful neighborhood with plenty of shopping, we went to the Dali museum. If you are ever near Spain you must visit. Noone but Dali would adorn a building with eggs and bread. Throughout the museum, there are several art pieces with coin slots. For a small fee, you can bring his kinetic sculptures to life. I didn't know what this Cadillac would do, but I had one of the Hong Kong girls take a photo with her camera inside the car while I snuck a coin into the machine. Quite to our surprise, the inside of the car started raining. Wonderful. What I realized later while walking through the museum was that the umbrella hung at the top of the sail boat 30 feet above the Cadillac had changed from closed to open. He's a tricky guy, that Dali.
      Friday brought us to the contemporary arts museum. This was very contemporary; mostly a series of video installations. So we watched some, and made hand-puppets of others. I don't recommend going to any other museums after you've been to the Dali museum; we were well adored by the security guard who followed us through our visit. Security guards just don't understand interactive art.
      Here I am with a tourist.
      Has anyone seen the gun-show?

20070626

      Good cheerful morning to you, fellow travelers. It is not impossible, and perhaps not difficult, but certainly adventurous, to arrive in a foreign land and navigate one's way to a bed of uncertain existence. So it was last night that I managed to find my way by bus to the Plaza Cataluna at 3am. When an 11:45 arrival is delayed an hour, and you add on the time it takes to carefully collect as much information at the airport as may be useful later, then throw in a long bus ride, this is about right. I landed only several blocks from a hostel which probably had open beds, but decided that the concierge giving me directions to the hostel was friendly enough that I should splurge and get a hotel for the night, and enjoy proper sleep and proper shower. This morning, I have extended my splurge for 3 more days, and I am happy to write you from my private desk, freshly shaven, and feeling quite dapper. It feels _great to have a desk!
      So it is that I am here in my hotel enjoying the first bit of privacy and relaxation I've had in ten days. I will see the outside of the hotel soon enough, but for now I am pleasantly realizing that there is a reason to pay extra for better accommodations.

20070625

      Bored fellow traveler. It is true that I have not placed any of these entries online, though I have been diligently adding to them each day. To my knowledge, Amsterdam has 5 computers at the StayOkay Hostel, and several more at an Internet cafe I discovered yesterday after its 6pm closing hour. Apart from these, I'm not sure there are any computers in the city except my cardboard-covered VAIO, and other such laptops brought into this Internet-free city.
      I dined last night in Chinatown at a fine Thai restaurant. For under EU30, I had fried prawn balls before my fried cuttlefish with peppers, and plenty of hot sake and jasmine tea. Any time I'm having hot sake with jasmine tea, the meal is guaranteed to be good. I'm not sure, though, what to make of the fat cat that cleaned himself by the table across from me. He has either no need, or no trouble catching himself enough mice to eat.
      I woke early this morning to eat my breakfast and pack my backpack, so I could return my bike and get to the central train station. After an hour's wait (I got #401 today, when they were serving #350), I found out that a train ticket would cost EU250, and last overnight. I had found a plane ticket for 9:30pm costing only EU118 last night, but thought I could save half that by taking the train. So much for thinking. So I went through 4 more lines to get a ticket to the airport. (FYI, Europe is a cash place. Any time you have less than EU25 on you, you should start looking for an ATM. If you're taking a train, you should not have less than EU100 on you in case you need to pay for a special ticket.) At the airport, it only took another several lines before I had found a pay phone which could dial the 0800 number for my air-carrier and order the ticket for only EU120! This would all have been easier today if 1) I had listened to advice of others which said that trains are always more expensive for long travel, and 2) if the lady at the Vueling ticket window busy taking a personal call had not lied that her computer was down just to get rid of the line. (Incidentally, it took her five minutes to pause the phone to tell me she could do nothing for me). So here I am enjoying the company of you and Chomsky and waiting to travel. Knowing that every time I travel consumes a full day, I think I might skip Menorca, or try to do a short day-trip and focus my time in Barcelona on enjoying the subtleties of the city. As one of my Australian friends describes it, I much prefer to be a traveler than a tourist.
      For those of you patient enough to have read my words, you'll understand why this next picture is called "Spot the Italian."

20070624

      Yesterday I finished telling you about the Van Gogh Museum and the nice cafe. Today I sit at a "Lunch & Koffie" a short ride from the Rijksmuseum. I have just finished a nice conversation with an Amsterdamian about all things worldly. As it turns out, things are not all sunshine and roses even in Europe. To this day, Switzerland's economy is bolstered by their use of strict immigration policies to prevent permanent residency of foreign workers. This allows them to hire cheap labour from abroad and keep them only for long enough to capture cheap labour from immigrants who do not have the ability to demand better pay. Oh well, it could be worse; at least it's all consensual.
      At the end of yesterday, in the cafe, I met a local man who is quite nice and a self-taught inventor. He has led an interesting life, currently consumed by his fight to keep contact with his daughter, who was kidnapped by her mother who Polish courts awarded custody to even after this. I have heard in law classes about similar Polish legal issues, and it is very educational to have this concrete example. After a long discussion with him, I went home which took me through the red light district. This is a very interesting place; sex workers have very hard jobs, even with the liberal system of regulations Amsterdam uses to make things easier for them. For anyone ready to condemn the red light district, I offer the reminder that every city has its own prostitution districts, but that in most cities it is not safe to walk through these areas, and the police offer no recourse for women against violent crimes. Here in Amsterdam, at least, things are kept civil.
      ( . . . Rain drives me away and I visit the Rijksmuseum . . .)

      After the rain drove me from my cafe, I toured the Rijksmuseum, which has a wonderfully manicured small garden in which the entrance line forms. The museum itself is a wonderful example of Dutch architecture using varicolored bricks to create ornamental patterns in the building without adding to the cost. The Rijksmuseum has a smaller collection that I had expected from the outside, but it features Rembrandt's enormous painting, Night Watch. It also has a 4 meter, 1/12th scale model warship that is over 300 years old, and numerous amazing examples of Dutch realism. Their use of light and their advances in color theory really make these masterpieces stand out. Another noteworthy piece is a doll house which cost as much as a small villa, with ornate perfect miniatures by very skilled artisans. The level of detail and quality sustained in this doll house is sufficient that I would be delighted to live in a life-size replica of it.
      After the museum, I went off for a random bike ride. I found several things you might find interesting: First, how do you get pianos into your house when the staircase is really a ladder? You construct houses with outward-slanting faces so people can attach a pulley to the top and lift without breaking windows. And what if you're just too lazy to take the stairs? Put an elevator outside!
      Can you think of a better way than this for two kids to have fun in traffic?
      Don't forget that you're never too ill to bicycle.
      This is a pigeon party.
      This is a Jon party.
      This is a high quality rental bike. It looks like crap so it won't get stolen. When the Germans lost the war, they fled Amsterdam to Germany by bicycle, which is only a 12 hour ride; but they stole all the best bikes they could find to do so. To this day, Amsterdam has had only crappy bikes because good bikes stand out from the rest and are almost certain to be stolen. To this day, Amsterdam shouts at soccer matches against Germany "Give us our grandfathers' bikes back!"
      This is VondelPark, just next to the StayOkay Hostel.
      Incidentally, all the canals around Amsterdam make it a wonderful place for night and evening photography or just walking.
      If you're a guy and you need to use the bathroom on the street, you can use one of these public urinals. It's all the fun of peeing in a dark corner of an alley but without the loneliness of peeing alone.