hello, world

this blog chronicles the european adventures of me (lauren) and my wonderful roommate mia. we were not yet roommates at the time of these adventures, mind you, but we were both "studying" abroad in one of the university of chicago's paris programs.

apparently we did some learning about european history and culture in classes or whatever, but obviously the real schoolin' happened just by living and traveling in europe. you know how it is.

you can mostly tell who wrote what thanks to capitalization. mia does the standard begin-sentences-with-a-capital-letter and also-capitalize-proper-nouns, but i can rarely be bothered. oh yeah, and there's a "posted by" at the bottom of the entries.

enjoy.

Swiss-Germans, DALI, Dada and Facebook

My Gradually Emptying Room
Ain't No Bad Seat Up in My Cadillac
Waiting, waiting, awaiting

Swiss-Germans, DALI, Dada and Facebook

So, this Swiss-German dude is coming to visit me today. . . See this post? This is my best effort at not freaking out. Excuse me if it's therefore rather random. If you could only hear the inside of my head -- it's screaming something along the lines of "OOOMMMGGGGGOMMAHHH FUCK!"

Why is that the only person who sent me any mail the entire time I've been in Paris has been my head doctor?

The emptier my room becomes, the fuller my heart. I'm ready to go home -- either one of 'em, damnnit.

I've been rather ill for about the last week now. Nothing special: hacking cough, blinding headache, full body aches/chills, fever, light headedness, fearing I may chock to death on my own mucus while I sleep. Same ole, same ole. This happens about this time every year my Dad points out. Yes, that's true, but you know what's really lame? Being ill and on a completely different continent from anyone who would care for me either out of love or responsibility. As if being sick wasn't enough, there was the added torture of being sick in Paris. Oh, no I'm not going to go to the Louvre/Musee d'Orsay/Picasso/Pompidou Centre today. No, I'd rather sit in bed and cough by lungs out. Thanks though. Luckily, before I became incapacitated, I made it to an English bookstore. Had I not been so well supplied with mindless epic Fantasy -- I might not have made it. 1,200 pages in three days. Oh the U of C -- you have trained me well.

I found the fabled DALI exhibit on Monday. AMAZING. It was a lot of his smaller, less known works. Many lithographs and a few originals. But still mind-blowing. The pencil drawings, filled in with splotches of bright color, incoherent, disembodied -- surreal. Next time I have an extra 300 euro, I might try to buy some Dali. I found myself staring at pieces for rather extended points of time. This may have had something to do with the adequate amount of medication I was on and the ensuing lack of concentration, but there was something else as well. It was if, could I stare at a piece long enough, thinking about it hard enough -- taking in all the details of perspective, shading, detail, abstract form, light -- it would all convalesce and I would understand. Not just that specific work, or all of DALI but somehow, I would grasp something bigger. More important. It hasn't happen, yet. So,I plan to drool over more DALI at the Art Institute once I'm back in the homeland.

I also went to a Dada (dadadadada) exhibit at the Centre Pompidou. I heart Dada. Dadadadadada. I want to re-read "Travesties" by Stoppard again, now that I think about it. Oh Tzara, Ray Man, Picabia -- were ya'll artistic geniuses, or random crackpots? Either way -- I like it. Hungry for human contact, I emailed Stefan and begged him to talk to me about art. (Facebook told me he's an art history major. Honestly, what did we do before facebook?) And he did, responding that he's not sure he understands Dada being as can't quite grasp their revolutionary struggle. I, on the other hand, am always right smack in the middle of a revolution of some sort. Once I understood that there is no real way to "understand" Dada in a purely rational sense -- if you were able Dada would cease to exist I suppose. Or the mixing the additive and subtractive magic would make the whole thing blow up. Oh fantasy fiction -- the entire exhibit was a little easier to understand. I decided to instead experienced Dada and feel much the better for it.

Strangely, this whole Paris thing has lead me to a new appreciation for Facebook. Long has it stood in my mind as the shiny pentacle of joy for secret stalkers, the haven for the too-shy-to-date. But since I've been here it seems as if it's become the forum for old friends to find me. Not that that doesn't happen frequently -- but given the physical space between me and them, it's lead many people to actually reach out, message me, sneak back into my life. And I'm glad. People from Brookhill whom I haven't spoken to since that fateful day. Middle school best friends. An ex-boyfriend -- with the phrase "My number's still the same, but in case you forgot . . . Feel free to hit me up when you get back." Yea buddy. You're number's still on speed dial.

In all honesty, it'll be blessedly lovely to have coffee and chit chat IN ENGLISH with all those people. I know I'm drastically different from who I used to be, at least at first glance. I've lost a bit of my Southern Bell/Cheerleader vibe, to be replaced with something that resembles Urban Hippie Chic. (Was that it? Someone summed it up for me on AIM the other day. Hmmm.) My fundamentals are the same though, only stronger, better voiced, more fully realized. I'm living the life I love now instead of a rather tortured Tyler existence. In that, I wholly different. I've freed myself from the judgment of that town, and my own misguided strivings to avoid it's wrath. It's only with perspective that I've been able to understand that at times it is Tyler that's misguided -- well intentioned as those bible-beating Christians may be -- while I stand completely in the right.

And on that note, I go to re-read the few remaining book in English that I haven't sold to Gilbert-Jeune for a few measly euros for food. And waiting. Awaiting. I threw away all my empty wine bottles except for one per day that I have left here.

Three bottles remain.

wishful thinking

(written... sometime last week, i suppose)

so, computer. it's been a long time since i've talked at you. i would say it's because i've been out and about, doing and seeing all paris has to offer. but that would be a lie; it's mostly been because my work is too time-consuming and my stories are too uninteresting. but now, two pages into my 43 for this afternoon (erm, not to mention a few chapters from some book that i'm not even going to touch), i've gotten the urge to ramble a bit. and mia's around, sure, but she knows all my stories already.

where to begin? it seems i last wrote about... berlin? man, i've visited three more countries since then; i'm sorry for being so delinquent!

but before i get ahead of myself, cannes. i'm sure you've heard of it from the film festival. cannes is a lovely resort town in the south of france, though we didn't go in the peak season, thankfully. mia and i declared the weekend our "honeymoon" trip, and what a honeymoon it was! our hotel was a-fuckin-dorable, overlooking a quaint courtyard and complete with a cat. it was also within walking distance of the train station, which was a special bonus since we couldn't figure out how to work the buses.

throughout the weekend, we wandered and browsed and shopped in narrow streets (which thankfully weren't too crowded). we waded in the mediterranean, ate lots of seafood (i had mussels everyday, no lie), and accidentally wandered up to a monastery-turned-museum. we also found an open-air market within spitting distance of our hotel, full of the most tasty-looking fruit i have ever seen, bread and pastries, vegetables, meats, cheeses, flowers... everything that causes joy, really. and from what we could both tell, many people in the market were locals. imagine, for a second, what it must be like to wake up everyday, breathe in fresh mediterranean air, then go to the market everyday for your produce. cannes is not a place i would ever live—i don't particularly like resort towns—but holy shit, do the cannes-ians know how to live! and, for yet another bonus, we didn't have papers to write! it felt like a real vacation. aaaah, give me a moment to bask in the memory.
...

ok, i've gotten ahold of myself. so, amsterdam. the first part of the trip was negatively affected by the papers we had to write... but don't worry, we took plenty of study breaks. the center of the city is tiny; wherever you want to go is probably a 5- to 15-minute wander from where you are, though your journey might be delayed because you stop by every neon-blazing coffee shop you see.

i can't fully judge amsterdam as a city, since i wasn't there long and didn't ride any public transit, but i must mention two things i was bothered by. for one, bike and car and pedestrian paths are all clearly marked, and often in ways that felt restrictive and counterintuitive to me. i rather disliked the whole "walk on the big white path!" deal; i'm much more of a jaywalker. and two, there was a coldness that couldn't be explained by the weather. it was german-esque in that everyone was minding their own business and not messing in yours, but it was isolating because there was no community, no sense that people cared about each other and their city.

granted, everyone was out on the streets, partying and having a great time! (and our hostel room, located on the fourth floor of a building that was one block west of capital-t The red light district, definitely gave us a great view of people partying at any hour of the night or day). but the great time that everyone was having was definitely their own; everyone was in their own head, at their own party, with their own friends. it was frustrating to finally be in a city with plenty of english-speakers and not have any spontaneous human interaction. (it's not that nobody talked to us, but when they did they usually began with a list of languages to see which one we'd perk up at the mention of, then proposition us for sex. uh.). so yes, full of tourists and lacking community, but banging nevertheless. so banging, in fact, that i'll be going back this friday!

barcelona and thanksgiving and dublin are forthcoming. but before i leave, music!

let me preface this by saying that the latest version of itunes looks like hell, but i'm not too upset. and why, you ask? because i used ipod rip with jean baptiste's sweet music connection the other day, and i now have lots of new (to me!) music.

right now, wilco is rocking my face off (yes, jessemr, i know you gave me some wilco over the summer. but it's somehow better coming from a frenchman). i really want to hear rainer maria's "rise," though, but i suppose that can wait a few more weeks.

and in conclusion, every morning i walk through a door that says "douches."

This is What It Looks Like When We Win

Amster -- diggity, diggity -- dam

I feel as if nothing I say will do Amsterdam justice. More importantly, I'm pretty sure I'm in capable of doing it justice. At some point the days all blur together, the coffee shops, the joints all become one and the same, yet distinct. It's become a memory montage in my mind: snippets of remembered conversations, flashes of the light on the canal, the sounds of bells and dutch, the smells. All jumbled into a beautifully smoky idea of what I knew would be a city that I truly and deeply love. And not just for the pot.

Here's some bits from that melange -- the Greatest Hits, so to speak, in no particular order especially not chronologically.

• Watching old music videos from Dutch MTV, with a ticker in Dutch on the bottom. We'd sit there, early in the morning (noon) and eat our cheap ass yet filling breakfast provided by the hostel, slack jawed, glassy eyed. Then, if we were really ambitious, we'd try to pronounce some of the ambient text. Our "Dutch" breakfast: three slices of toast, some cheese, jam, butter, and coffee. Oh, and a joint. Or three.
• There was a huge museum park by the Van Gogh Museum with some modern sculptures. My fav: the huge on in bigger-then man-sized letters that spelt out "I AMSTERDAM" with the "I AM" in red. Super cool. Especially after you visit a smart shop. And these bangin' trees.
• At 11:00 am, they make you get the fuck on the goddamn. The staff -- all male -- comes into the huge rooms, opens the windows, starts vacuuming, changing the sheets. Time to get up Dirty Hippies.
• I didn't fall into a canal. Not even once.
• Bells. Amsterdam is full of churches and other well-lit, ornate shit that's probably important. I know jack about the monuments/buildings/historical sites we wandered past, but the bells, the bells. Every hours you could hear them peeling through the city creating a cacophony of tones, bouncing off the canals.
• Menus dude. Menus. I. Stood. In. Line.
• After Wednesday, we both realized that we were almost out of money. Only solution: eat less. We spent more money on coffee shops then eating. We win.
• I can now roll my own smoking products. I've actually taken to loving to roll my own cigarettes. I'm oh so cool.
• Dutch is the most ridiculous language ever. They use letters in strange patters, pronounce portions of it, I think. It basically sounds like they're totally making it up on the spot. It kinda has the cadence of the intro to that song we all love so much: to the windows, to the walls." But only when sung in a hooky way, using syllables of "doot doot neer neerm neer."

"Excuse me, do you have a rizzla?" Imagine the Australian accent.
"What?" Now image the interpretive dance for "rolling paper."

• Pints of Heineken (which is even better there -- I know, how can that be?) for 3.20 in our hostel. Which means there also a large number of Loud Drunken British/Australian/Irish chicks around all the time, but hey. Right on, get your drunk on. In fact, one of the Irish's boyfriend comes in and says, "Man, every time I see you girls, you're completely blazed." We replied that that's much better then starting your morning with toast and a bud light. Ewwww.
• Phallic Symbols. Everywhere. Our best landmark was in Dam Square: a dutch national monument that looks like a huge dick. Not kidding you. There was also a Homomonument, but we never seemed to wander to it. (I put my Dutch national monument in her Georgia O'Keefe -- Jesse)
• No matter the time of the day, the vast majority of people look blung. So past blingin' they're blung. Red eyed, laughing, stumbling down the street, grubbing the fuck. Lauren and I were a part of that and it was beautiful.
• We lived a skip, a hop and a joint for the red light district. Many nights, we'd find that entertaining area after wandering. We were like, oh yea, I know this "LIVE FUCKING SEX SHOW;" we're totally almost home. We would always hold hands so that the creepy dudes wouldn't hit on us. You would think that the abundance of mostly naked chicks in windows would be enough for them, but no.
• Since my computers been dead, I've been increasing Lauren's musical experiences. Keller, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley. She's been oh so receptive. ( I love my husband!!) Then, we found this really cool basement shop with mural painted walls, and a guitar shaped table. We'd visited a smart shop, so this was of vital importance. We were there for a relative for-ev-er, just chillin'. Then, at one point, Lauren started singing along to "No Woman, No Cry." It was a beautiful, triumphant moment.
• The ambient smell.
• We had a corner store. And I can't do metric conversion, so lets just say Lauren and did the Dam right. Rough estimations appear to be around 25-27 grams. And that's the conservative estimate.

"Oh, where are we?"
"Uh, dude, we're on . . . Sjjeppekij Deithcjk Splat. Sllejjisckjtgc Spllegjjik? No idea."
"Dude, is that two j's in a row, followed by a t-g-c-s? Wtf? You can't do that."
"Well, we crossed a canal. . . "
"Uh. . you mean like 4."
"There's some neon that way. . . " (Neon= coffeeshop)
"Maybe we live that way . . ."

• LOOZA!! LOOZA!! The most tasty fruit creation to ever touch you lips. Looza will always have a special place in my heart. It's totally like food, right?
• Most strikingly, Amsterdam is a city of wandering. I have no idea where anything actually is in that city, but if you give me 15 minutes, I'll find what we're looking for , or something parallel. It was because of this phenomenon of geography that Lauren and I visited so many coffee shops. (Sure, that's it. . .) Where's that coffeeshop? If you wander towards Dam Square, turn left after a while, look around, possibly cross a canal. . .
• Again, after visiting a smart shop, we went to the fungus friendly store next door to our hostel. And there, I meet the most gorgeous Greek man ever. Possibly the most beautiful person on the face of the planet. Rendered me in capable of speaking. Seriously, I couldn't form complete thoughts. Oh, pretty.
• Some of the Dutch look like elves. And then, when you leave the smart shop, they wink and appropriately say, "Have a nice Trip."
• Dutch Pastries. Apple Pastries. Enough said.
• It was if everyone was having their own private party. As Lauren put it, it's like when you're friend tells you about the rockin' party he went to last weekend, full of hillarious. Then, you ask who's party it was: "Dude, I was totally at that party."

Let it be known: Lauren and I won the World Championships. We conquorered our papers, even if they were a little Hunter S. Thompson-esque, but hey, what can you do right?

"From the initial claims of Hobbes and his unfortunate picture of the nature of man, one adds Spinoza’s trust in reason in accordance with God by another name – Nature. Add a dash of Leibniz’s postulate of individual divinity, and stir well. After baking in the oven of the Enlightenment, one is left with Rousseau. where everyone in society retains the liberty to partake of this tasty treat – democracy and personal rule combined with freedom in society. "

Dit is wat wij kijken alsof wanneer wij winnen.

Subject: So the Dutch don't believe in . . .

12:18 pm (0 minutes ago)
From: Mia Valdez
To: Prof. Barash, Lauren Sailor
Date: Nov 13, 2005 12:18 PM
Subject: So the Dutch don't believe in . . .

wireless internet. Or so it seems.

Lauren and I are in Amsterdam, tucked away in our hostel, writing our papers, of course. All that's going well.

Only problem is that we're having trouble finding a place with wireless internet so we can send our papers to you. We are investigating all the coffee shops in Amsterdam to find our saving grace, but it's proving more difficult than expected.

Just to keep you informed,
lots of love,

Lauren Sailor & Mia Valdez
Team Hyde Park: World Championship Edition

AAMMSTTEER . . . . .

diggity diggity diggity DDDAAAAAAAAHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Welcome to the Team Hyde Park World Championship Excursion
Het welkom! Oh de Drol die wij zijn hoog!

We waited in line. Waited. In. Line.
Used a menu.
Need I say more?

hello from our hostel, located in amsterdam's red light district. As in, there are half naked chicks in windows EVERYWHERE. there are canals! Team Goal: to not fall in, or cash ourselves. In may be difficult, but we'll perservere.

After ingesting many smakelijk things, lauren decided to clean the streets of Amsterdam. By spitting water. um yes. that's it. i was cleaning. . . i'm so helpful!

"I love it: everyone around here looks so . . . so blung."

Yes, we passed blingin' hours ago. Shit son, we're blung.

Oh, yea. . . so about those papers. At least after drinking, and singing, we told our prof that these may be, shall we say, Hunter S. Thompson-esque papers. He said that sounded fine.

De vrede uit. wissel u zelf niet in.

Shit Son, that Train Ride WAS Longer then Lauren's Penis

So, here's my much delayed account of Glory, Wonder and Slendor that was Berln. I promise, I have many good, perfectly handy and reasonable excuses for my tardiness. If you care about my side of the "Mysterious Dividing Train Mystery", you should know where to look.


So, on to travelogue! We pull into Berlin last Friday, 9:00 am. We walked through a moderately sleepy, but gorgeous, moderately rainy Berlin. I think Berlin does the rain well -- it doesn't distract from it's restrained, enduring beauty.

After meeting our most gracious hostess, we walk through an adorable market and make it to Chez. Yittz.

Oh the Glory! Oh the Splendor! Wonder, Joy and Awe! It's a house. With a kitchen. And real beds. AND SHOWERS THAT DON"T SWITCH OFF EVERY 3 MINUTES. Seriously, the shower even gets hot -- steamingly hot. I know, it was intense.

After a holy shower, and some paper writing, we fall asleep. Five hours later, we emerge for more internet and supurb lentil lasagna.

Yitz and Hannah are lucky. Not only are their parents charming, intelligent, wonderful people, but they can cook. I know I've been craving home-cooked food, but shit son, this was beyond fantastic.

We meet up with Kristin, whom Lauren met her last time in Berlin. To sum up that evening, we each drank 2 liters -- yea, as in, we get 2 liter bottles of soda for parties, only beer -- making it home in time to say hello to Brian as he read his morning paper.

Repeat afternoon one: sleep, "work on papers," eat scrumptious food, go out. Saturday night, Kristin was sick, so Lauren and I embark on our own adventure.

WE FOUND THE BEST BAR IN THE WORLD.

Sorry for the caps, but honestly -- best bar ever.

When Lauren returned from Berlin the first time, she kept telling me about this place, and she was right: it was the hippie homeland of Berlin. It was amazing.

The Bar of the Gods is at the top story on an artist colony. On the fourth floor we found an exhibit of Alexandre Rodin. Mind blowing. Devestating. It made me think, This THIS is why I paint, why I act, why I participate in art: because day I want to be part of the creation of work of this caliber.

Back to the Bar: it's basically a bunch of couches on a porch, with heaters, gratuitous disco balls, and tap beer. Obviously, I was in love.

As if the night could get better, we go next door for live music, at Zapatos. It was billed as jazzfunkpolkareageefolkpop. How could we pass that up. It was really good. Really really good. We got miny German lesson from the random shit/drum playing chick. Lauren restrained herself and did not throw herself on the saxophone player. It took some self control, let me tell you.

After telling some creepy English dude that I wouldn't sleep with him, no matter how hard he tried, we decided that donner kabas were in order. He kept saying everything was 'eehlahreush. Then he called us his American Whores, so we let him buy us only one more drink before we peaced.

God created donner kabbabs to prove that he loves us and wants to have a delicious, but well-balanced diet. I about shat myself.

And, we met some friendly Germans, one of whom may come to visit me at some point. I'm not holding my breathe, but hey, that'd be cool.

This past friday night, as I embarked on my failed dated attempt, somene in the kitchen someone said to me, " I don't know how you do it -- some people just meet guys all over the world. I can't."

Uh . . stay up until hours of the night drinking heavily? Or smoking at hookah bars? Don't know what to tell ya kid. . . . Honestly, I have no idea. Not that it ever works out, but that's a horse of a different color.

Anywho, we stumble in at a quarter past 8:00, again greeting Yitz' parents, as we fall in to bed. But, not before we all made plans for our awakening at noon for roasted chicken. Thank God the food was so good or I wouldn't have been able to talk myself into getting up. But, of course, it was earth moving and I didn't care that I'd had less then 3 hours of sleep and was still rather drunk.

After more sleeping and failed attempts to write paper (noticing a pattern yet?) we meet with a non-puking Kristin for the wham-bam speedy version of a tour of Berlin, taking an Oh So NEEeededd journey into the Tier Garten. Krisitin is a goddess and I shall forever be in her debt. All give due praise and glory to her wonder.

But seriously. So, after our brief sojourn to the woods, we ran all over everywhere, finally sprinting across the train station to catch a fateful train. Lauren and joked that maybe we should do that more often as a form of exercise. It was pretty entertaining.

The train proved, shall we say, adventurous? But in the end, I came to appreciate the blatant reaffirmation that there are good people out there. Genuine, wonderful, competant people. I foget that sometimes, or more specifically, forget true nature of humanity, if only given a chance. . Basically, it was life affirming, and I needed that: a mental shakeup, if only for the homecoming it produced.

So, Ireland this weekend? Right on.