Change Your Mind About Cleveland

Whenever I announce that I'm heading to Cleveland, I steel myself for the inevitable round of "CCCs" (crappy comments re: Cleveland). "WHY are you going to CLEVELAND?" "Didn't Lake Erie, like, catch on fire a few year ago?" or more simply, "Oh, I'm sorry." It's obvious to me when you say things like this that you've never been there, you don't know what you're talking about, and you should STFU. Or just read this blog about some great things to do in Cleveland.

You think Seattle has the market cornered (no pun intended) on outdoor markets? Cleveland has one of the best markets I've ever seen called the West Side Market. Started in 1840, the West Side Market features 15 bakeries, 34 produce stands (whose prices make me wish I'd never heard the words "Metropolitan Market"), about 35 butchers, dairy merchants, flowers, and the whole nine yards. We bought some of the most delicious baked goods I've had (other than my own! Just kidding.)

Cleveland of course features the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, but it's also a great place for sightseers of a more low-key type, such as those who like historical architecture. We stayed in the historic Clifford House Bed & Breakfast in Ohio City, and enjoyed walking neighborhoods of beautiful old historic homes. Clifford House itself was wonderful -- a beautiful home built in 1868 -- featuring an amazing breakfast each morning and a wonderful dog named Sherlock. In Ohio City was a really great restaurant named Heck's. We went there for lunch and everyone was incredibly impresed with their food, and then later that same day stopped by again during a sudden snowstorm for desserts and hot chocolates. Yum!

Another great haunt in Cleveland is the Beachland Ballroom & Tavern. Yeah, it's in East Cleveland, which isn't a really great part of the city by reputation, but I've never even seen anyone sketchy anywhere near the club and it's really fine. Parking is readily available and the location is a quick 5 minutes or so from downtown. The Beachland features good bands, bad bands, and a lot of music in between. It's just a great old school rock club and a fun place to meet people.

There are some great neighborhoods in Cleveland that are really fun to explore. Besides Ohio City and downtown, there are Lakewood and Rocky River, among many others. I personally love Lakewood, with its great boutiques like Turnstyle and delicious restaurants like India Garden.

So, please consider that that place you so freely dismiss sight unseen is someone else's beloved hometown and a wonderful place to visit. Book that trip to Cleveland and I dare you to tell me I'm wrong about it!

Aruba Honeymoon

Yes, I'm blogging from Aruba. I can hardly believe that the wedding is done and Alex and I are getting started on our married life.

We're staying at the Renaissance Hotel in Orangestad, Aruba. It's a four-star place with it's own private island, three beautiful swimming pools, a spa, many, many restaurants. The people working here are undoubtedly the friendliest service people I've ever encountered in my life. The motto in Aruba is "One Happy Island" and it fits really well. It's amazing to see so many cultures come together and blend so well, instead of colliding in strife. Aruba is part of the Dutch Federation, and that influence is prevalent everywhere -- many, many Dutch tourists and Dutch is the official language. However, Aruba has people from over 70 nationalities living here -- and the Spanish influence is especially strong. It's really close to Venezuela and many of the natives predominantly speak Spanish.

So far, we rented a Jeep and went off-roading (yee-haw!) and got a flat (awww!) but got it fixed by some nice latino guy, and it all worked out fine. We went diving several times. We have done a lot of swimming and relaxing and sleeping and everything. You know, it's just as amazing as I always dreamed a honeymoon would be.

Well, I have to go now. The pool calls.
See you soon, Seattle!

Travel to Long Beach, Washington

I wrote this over President’s Day weekend, but never posted. Hope you enjoy hearing about my little trip.

Writing from Long Beach, Washington: It’s a beautiful night. I’m out on the balcony of my 3rd floor room at the Chataqua Lodge Hotel, watching at the sun set into the surf of the Pacific. The frogs sing a jubilant chorus to the setting sun as its afterglow sends gold, peach, fuschia, flamingo pink, daffodil yellow streamers into the cold dome of sky. And to the north and south, mauve, lavender, slate bleed like watercolors into the deeper blue sea.

First – Bases:
Yesterday morning we began our journey. The night before, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was ready to go much, much earlier than my body. I don’t know why I was so excited. I’m a traveler, right? Why so excited about a three hour road trip? Well, whatever the reason, I was, and I made Alex wake up way too early too. The sun had barely risen when we headed south through White Center and Burien and down I-5. We turned west at Camp Murray, and I got to see where he does his JAG thing. I only saw it from the outside – a tiny, unassuming building, but the fact that I didn’t have to walk over any empty meth baggies or broken crack pipes on the sidewalk to get there make it seem luxe compared to my office. We stopped across the street at Gallopin’ Gerties – an old-school diner with a heart of gold. Our waitress was the kindhearted sort of diner waitress that you can’t help but call a "gal." She reminded me of a great photo-essay in a recent issue of Bust which featured diner waitresses. I have a whole new respect for the ladies who can serve coffee and real good food for twenty plus years, always with a smile. She even took my fussy egg-white and veggie omelette order with only an indulgent smile and an "o.k., sweetie."

Next we went to Ft. Lewis, which has always held some strange fascination for me. Maybe I like watching the Army guys going about their business in their green uniforms and bad haircuts. I like going through the gate, the whole feeling like it’s a border crossing. But most importantly, I love to go to the PX, which for most civilians probably either doesn’t ring any bells or if it does, it’s probably a "who cares" reaction. But the PX is amazing. It’s like a huge Target, but there’s no tax on anything. Because of this, I decided to buy a Zune 80 gig mp3 player (I’m still waiting to find out if that was a mistake). Anyway, the most notable thing besides not paying tax was that there was a huge line of people waiting to see some ultimate fighting champion dude named Iceman or something like that. A HUGE line. People we lined up all around the PX, which is like a mall, so it was a mass of people, mostly young enlisted guys. And they waited patiently for this white trash on ’roids looking guy to sign his cheesy-looking book on which he is pictured topless. (You know, for an organization that is not exactly pro-homo, there’s a lot of homoerotic stuff going on with some of these military guys… )

Something else you may not know about the military: not all branches are created equally. For instance, we had to go to McChord AFB because Ft. Lewis was out of the 80 gig Zune but McChord had it. So when we went to the McChord PX, Alex and I ran into this jail guard from King County Jail. He’s a retired Marine guy, wearing his Semper Fi hat. Ass. I fucked with him when I saw him, saying, "Oh, I didn’t know you were retired Air Force." Boy did he get pissed. He then gave Alex crap about being in the Army National Guard. This guy has the IQ of a slow iguana (and the looks of one as well), but was still all prideful about being a Marine. I think that’s my least favorite branch. They seem the most brutish and possibly evil of the branches of the military. But what the hell do I know?
I never thought I’d be an Army wife. But it’s different, right? My guy's an officer, an Army JAG, for gawd’s sake. Not some jarhead. Does that make sense? It’s still weird that I’m marrying into the military, after all those years trying to escape my dad’s military career. (It’s not Freudian, either. Alex has dark hair and my dad is blonde. And Navy, not Army. Seriously.)

Long Beach:
Long Beach is cheesy and touristy, like most seaside towns. It’s better than Ocean Shores – it just seems to have a friendlier vibe. One thing I noticed is that there were a lot of gay tourists out – and gay tourists would seem to have better taste, wouldn’t they? I should probably know better than to speak in such generalities. In any case, it’s pretty nice.

The first night we got there, we realized that we’d forgotten to eat lunch, so we were hungry at about 5:00 p.m. This worked out well for us because we wanted to check out the 42nd St. Café, which was packed with people having late Valentine’s celebrations. We got in right at the time another party had cancelled. For dinner, we ordered the Valentine’s meal, which was a special menu and came with a free pearl choker for me. We started with the fried green tomatoes, which the friendly and fey waiter correctly advised us "they did exceptionally well." Next we had deliciously fresh wild green salads, with exquisite dressings. I particularly liked my dill and feta dressing. For the entrée, Alex had the duck, which was outrageously good. My only fault was the rockfish with pineapple. It was flavorless and weird tasting – the worst rockfish I ever had. I had to ask the waiter to bring me some more of the dill and feta salad dressing to make it edible. Yes, I poured freaking salad dressing on my fish. All was forgiven after I ate dessert. We had the warm blackberry crisp with ice cream, and it was scrumptious.

The Chautauqua Lodge was one of those somewhat run-down, unfashionable beach places. It was clean and the desk help seemed a little white-trashy. I left my favorite sweatpants there, which really upsets me because they were from REI and were so comfy and fuzzy. Sucks. Anyway, the place was so-so – rough sheets, uncomfortable bed, blah décor – but fabulous in how close to the beach it was. Very conducive to daytime adventures and moonlit hikes.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse & North Head Lighthouse:
These lighthouses at the south end of Long Beach Peninsula are beautiful and very scenic. Cape Disappointment has the distinction of being the oldest functioning lighthouse on the Pacific. However, I didn’t do the tours of them because I’ve already been on a number of lighthouse tours (Heceta Head, Westport, others) but there are excellent hikes around the area that we did and which I highly recommend.

One cool thing about the lighthouses is that there are two of them, because Cape Disappointment is so dangerous that the sea offshore is known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific." Mariners still need a special certification in order to navigate the waters into the mouth of the Columbia River. http://www.funbeach.com/attractions/lighthouse.html

Leadbetter Point Bird Sanctuary:
This beautiful bird sanctuary at the north end of the peninsula is full of amazing views and hikes, and lots of birds. However, it was incredibly muddy and some areas were completely flooded. Unfortunately Alex and I didn’t have our hip waders along with us, so we had to cut our hike short. Which gave us time to go ride horsies on the beach!
Horsies on the Beach!:

There are pics in my photo album. Check it out. So fun.

Pelicano’s:
We heard great things about a restaurant called The Ark, but it apparently closed, so went to new restaurant called Pelicano’s in Ilwaco. Located in the south end of the peninsula, Ilwaco is less touristy and more upscale, featuring a quaint harbor and a relaxed pace of life – kind of like Wallingford crossed with Shilshole. The food was wonderful and reasonably priced considering the quality. Plus, they had one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten, which was an ice cream "sandwich" made out of baked meringue cookies with pomegranate ice cream in the middle. Yummy yummy yum.

Only downside? The snooty waitress (yeah, waitress. Not server) was of the "aren’t you so lucky that you get to eat here?… you so don’t deserve to be here" type. A side note: we stopped after dinner at this beautiful lake just as we were leaving Ilwaco. The moonlight shining on it was just unreal. So still and perfect and peaceful, with frogs and bugs singing to the moon. I want to leave Seattle and go home, and this could be it.

Long Beach at Night:
First night, we walked along the dunes and up to the ocean, except the ocean looked so huge and alien that I was literally terrified that it was going to turn into a tsunami. I kept a wary eye on it as we made our way along the shore. We saw a fire burning and thought how cool it would be to hang out at the bonfire. We joked that we should just crash the people’s party and just go on up to the bonfire, but as we got closer to the fire, we could see that indeed, there was no one there. We went up to the fire and confirmed the builders of the fire had recently left. We both were uneasy. It felt strange, like an ambush was possible. Why would people build a fire and then just leave? After a time, we found that hanging out at the fire was less pleasant that it originally looked. If we were upwind of the fire, it was cold; downwind was smoky. There was nowhere you could sit comfortably and be close enough to enjoy the warmth of the fire. Plus there was a distinct feeling that we were being watched. We left the mystery fire and went back to the artificial but dependable warmth of our semi-shabby hotel room at the Chautauqua.

The last night in Long Beach, we went for a long, late, moonlit walk on the beach. It was surprisingly mild outside, walking amongst the silvered grass of the dunes, and down to the water. We wandered the beach, trying to figure out what everything was from afar. We had a terrifying moment when we couldn’t figure out what this weird-looking apparition floating out above the water was. Alex said it looked like one of the creatures from War of the Worlds. And to me, suddenly, it was. He was braver than I and went closer to the alien invader to investigate and possibly counterattack. However, the alien suddenly disguised itself very cleverly as a big sign up on a pole. (Why are there signs in the ocean? Who puts signs in the ocean??)

Fort Columbia:
I love how when you fall in love, you find out these wonderful things about your partner, things that they might not have been sure you would be o.k. with but then you wind up loving it. My guy likes, of all things, old forts and battlefields. I am into haunted spaces and forgotten corners, which actually works pretty well with his thing. At all these old sites, there’s enough creepy abandoned stuff to keep my imagination engaged and to make me happy too.

Fort Columbia features abandoned bunkers and observation decks out over the meeting-place of the Pacific and the mighty Columbia, some well-kept and oft-visited by tourists, some overgrown and isolated, even dangerous. We trekked up and down trails, which were actually listed as unpassable. We had to climb over fallen trees. We probably hiked for three hours. It made me want to hike like crazy. Alex makes me want to do everything more. More hiking, more horseback riding, more movies, more symphonies. I want to do it all, with him, over and over again. (I can’t believe I get to marry this guy!)

So now we’ve been to a few of these old military sites. The Civil War trenches at the Shirley plantation on the James River, Virgnina. Fort Worden up in Port Townsend. Friday Harbor British Camp and American Camp (site of the great Pig War – started because a British soldier allegedly shot an American pig. Seriously.) And when I was recently in Hawaii, I went to Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii. I guess he’s rubbing off on me.

Driving Stick:
Only really notable thing about the ride home is that Alex took us to an abandoned part of Ft. Lewis and gave me a lesson driving stick shift on his Mustang. And that just shows that love makes you do some crazy shit: go to abandoned bunkers, trust your fiancé to drive your sportscar, even really outlandish behavior, like inviting someone to spend your whole life together. Ain’t love grand?

Los Angeles, I'm Yours

I have the above-titled Decemberists song stuck in my head. That song is actually not a celebration of Los Angeles, but a sort of ironically melancholy lovesong. But here in Seattle, exhausted and... grey-feeling, I sing it, meaning it, without irony. It's raining and cold and grey and miserable and damp, and it reminds me of that September when I first moved here eleven years ago, and it rained for months on end. What a terrible winter that was. None have been that bad since, but winter in Seattle is just not a good thing. So Los Angeles was a welcome change. The sun shone in soft golden rays that actually warmed me up, unlike the pathetically weak grayish rays that suffice as "sunshine" in wintertime Seattle.

Should I just say I had a great time in L.A.? O.k., I had a great time. But maybe you're more detail-oriented than that. Maybe you want to know exactly what went down. I'm going to tell you. Everything. (You already know that's a lie, don't you? I have many secrets…) I'm going to give you the PG version, o.k.? Read between the lines or don't, up to you.

Tuesday, Wednesday (South Pasadena):
My first night: warm air and car fumes waiting for the shuttle to EZ Rental. I could feel excitement shimmying down the cement pylons and up my spine, adventures waiting to happen. L.A. is waiting for me to live it.

I had my first experience driving the L.A. freeways, going from LAX to Pasadena at night. I was so thoroughly freaked out at the prospect of driving that I found it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Dave Stone's house is in South Pasadena. The night was much quieter than where I live in West Seattle, and palm trees swayed in time with orange-scented breezes, dancing with their deciduous partners. Dave's room is cozy and dry, nestled in a rooftop, and featured a couple of great Beatles posters. We had delicious noodles at a place in Chinatown… I wish I could remember the name of it. We went back to Dave's place. I like Tosh; he's a fancy Japanese dog. I think Lily is maybe an Aries; I know she's part Chow and she scares me because she barks a lot and stinks. Dogs are fun, but they are very smelly and dirty. I was talking with a friend in L.A. about how I'm going to write a book called, "The Problem with Dogs." It was really funny at the time.

Anyway, the next day, we drove back to Chinatown and looked around. We checked out a cool artsy shop called Ooga Booga. We went to Old Town Pasadena. It's got an H&M, where I did a little damage. I seem to be powerless over jewel tones. This season it's sapphire and teal. Last season it was violet and plum. What next? Don't worry; I won't do something horrible, like wear yellow.

Griffith Park: Just as cool as I remember from before, except that I'm not a 26 year old idiot (I'm a wizened 29 now, of course), and they've dug out two whole floors underneath the observatory. There are some really cool new exhibits, including one where you can simulate what would happen if an asteroid, comet, or other object were to hit the earth (hint: sometimes the world blows up!).

The night ended with me not getting to hang out with Daniel House because I had to meet up with these other people that Dave and I know. It was imperative and hopefully Daniel House doesn't think I'm a complete douche.

Thursday (Downtown, Santa Monica)
I went running at the Arroyo Seco, which is a huge gorge in Pasadena. My run originated at a horse ranch, led me next to the L.A. River and under the graceful curves of the Colorado Street Bridge, and I finally turned back at the Rose Bowl. As I ran in the shadow of the bridge, the song "Everything in its Right Place" by Radiohead came up on my iPod, and my runner's high kicked in. Need I tell you it was a transcendental experience? It was genuine and empowering, unlike the acid I dropped on my last visit to L.A., which was exciting but also left me frightened and vulnerable and feeling a million miles from myself and everyone else on the planet.

Later Dave and I hit Scoops, this amazing ice cream place. I had the Brown Bread flavor. I know, it sounds disgusting, but actually, it was incredible! It was mostly sweet and carmeley with crunchy bits, reminiscent of brown bread without tasting like a glob of raw dough as I had feared. Dave had the Sesame Ginger. Spicy and refreshing, sweet but not cloying. (Just like me, right?)

Before I knew it, it was time to go to Downtown. For some reason, "going Downtown" seemed almost as intimidating as "driving on L.A. freeways," so Dave was kind enough to lead me to the very exit I needed, and then I forged ahead on my own. I looked about, wide-eyed, at what appeared to be a bunch of road construction and old factories, and nothing that possibly looked like it could be a place anyone would ever deem "home." Donihue (the second of my L.A. Daves, as I like to call them) didn't pick up his phone. I tried again. "Dave, it's me. I'm here. Where are you?" Sent a text. "I'm here. Where u at?" And again, ring, ring, no answer. Panicked, I drove in circles, going down increasingly sketchy streets, and occasionally completely ignoring road signs (such as No U-Turn, Stop, and speed limit signs of all stripe). Finally I gave up and parked next to the side of the road, with the engine on and in drive, hands on the wheel and right foot on the gas, just in case. I later found out that the place I parked was in EAST L.A. That's right, folks; I've been to East L.A. and I lived to tell the tale! Though I guess these days, people are moving there. Soon it'll be the new Los Feliz.

Finally I heard from Donihue and we met up. He lives in a really cool loft, or maybe I should say lived, because he was in the process of moving out. I hung out while he frantically dealt with issues involving trailers and European releases and situations in India and what seemed to be a million different time obligations. The combination of the moving-related chaos in his house plus all the work he so obviously had to do informed me that despite his generous offer, to stay there would be to get in his way. So, we went to Japantown and had sushi and sesame chicken. L.A. has such great restaurants. After, I walked down the street, my fuschia dress flapping in the breeze and me daintily holding it down, while Mexican construction worker dudes gave my self-esteem a big boost.

We walked back to my car, and Dave gave me one of the best hugs ever. Awww… Dave Donihue! He's the best! Such a friend. A joke, told by Donihue: "So I was dating this girl and she was smart, and funny, and drop-dead gorgeous, but I had to break up with her. I told her, 'I just don't want to be in a long distance relationship, you know? I mean, I live here in Downtown and you're all the way in Santa Monica. That's like seven miles from here!'" I told everyone that joke. Hee.

Off to Santa Monica. I was not excited to drive west to Santa Monica in rush hour traffic, but it wasn’t that bad. Of course, going from west to east must have taken those poor people an hour and a half to get home. Ridiculous. I wended my way through the wall-to-wall traffic and eventually saw the exit to Santa Monica. I like the road directions to Santa Monica… it's basically like this: "Drive west. When you get to the Pacific Ocean, turn right and park."

Time to meet Jamie and watch the sunset. I put my bags at his place and together we walked the across the street to Santa Monica Pier (yeah that's right. He's oceanfront…. Hot!). I went and tried to get perfect sunset pictures with seagulls flying in the camera's path. The whole Jonathan Livingston Seagull look, you know? I would've settled for some Christian inspirational card look, but the light was no good for that. But I got a couple of nice pictures of the ferris wheel and the octopus thing and Jamie.
They have these outdoor movies at the pier and lucky us, they were screening Roman Holiday that night. Of course it was freezing right on the waterfront, and even with all those layers, it wasn't warm enough, so we watched it back at Jamie's. Lovely film, that.

Friday, Saturday (all over)
Friday morning, I had a headache and so I laid there for two hours waiting for the storm to pass. Bad, bad headache. After that, I felt much better and so went for a run from Santa Monica to Venice Beach and back. Some wonderful views and some, well, hmm. I saw a lot of things, like a beautiful young woman who seemed to think it was a great idea to wear orange spandex stretch pants with a pink and purple tie-dyed spandex top, and her hair in a pink and orange scrunchie on top of her head. Awesome! Venice Beach is full of all kind of fat tourists and lean locals being awesome at beach sports. Hot guys spiking volleyballs, abs and pecs gleaming copper in the high noon sun, while chubby Midwesterners shot pictures of real, live Californians. I saw some of the best skateboarding of my life, one guy with that low key casual "who me? Oh yeah, I guess I sorta do rock" kind of thing, another who was more overt about his skatergod status, punishing the pavement like a dom disciplining her Bellevue businessman.
After running I had to go back and hot myself up for the super-special behind the scenes tour of Paramount. It was really fun but it would probably not be as interesting to read about as it was to go to. Let's just say that I'm now tight with Jesus the security guard, I know Jamie's boss secretly wants to give me his extra (yeah, extra) plum-colored Vespa, and I know where Lucille Ball liked to kick it back in the day. And maybe, just maybe, when I was on my way from Astroburger back to Paramount to get my car… maybe I saw a three name celeb. But I couldn't tell you about it, because that's not very L.A. cool to do so, now is it? So I won't tell you about illy ob ornton and his ig eesey-ass grin at me. I guess even big old stars still think a purdy girl is purdy. Well, at least I'd know he's not phobic about making a lifelong commitment – he's done it a few times now!

I hung out again with Dave Stone and our mutual friends in Los Feliz that night. Our friends rock. I thought I lost my shawl that's 90% knitted (that's taken me nearly a year to work on so far) and had to invoke the good old Catholic standby, the prayer to St. Anthony to intercede in helping find lost things. I found it! St. Tony is such a badass, awesome saint.

Afterwards I met Jamie and his friend Mary at Birds, this trendy place in Hollywood that film industry people like to hang out at. The best part was when it started raining and all the starlet wannabes and trendsters had to crowd under umbrellas, while their Uggs (yeah, people still wear 'em. Seriously, ladies. What's up with that?) got soaked and their make-up became mussed.

The next day, Jamie and I had delicious crepes in Santa Monica at the aptly named Café Crepe. Is there anyone out there who can make the case that the nutella/banana combo is NOT the best crepe ever? I think not.
Afterwards, it was raining. WTF?? In fact, it was raining so hard that the streets flooded. See, since it rarely (not never) rains in Southern California, they don't put drains in the streets. So, just crossing the street, my jeans were wet to the knee and my shoes full of water. Thus, we did the only sensible thing to do: we went shopping. At Planet Funk I got a really cute Tokidoki shirt which features all kinds of insanity, like little dudes in cow costumes with Tommy guns, and evil milk cartons with horns. Double awesome! High school kids go into seizures of jealousy when they see it. I also checked out the new Sarah Jessica Parker (hint: shop carefully. The clothes are inexpensive, but some of them feel even cheaper than they are).

Later, I met up with Ashley. The rain had stopped and we enjoyed a coffee and a walk and a talk. She so rules. I'm sure she's going to be a hugely successful photographer someday. Next I went to Benihana. I had the lobster and the fillet mignon. But then, so did he.

Grabbed Ashley in Hollywood and raced downtown to some gallery show with Dave Donihue and his friend, and unfortunately we were only able to stay for about 15 mins because it was getting late and we were late for Dash Snow's show in Chinatown, and the galleries there close at 10 p.m. We only got to be there for a few minutes as it was, but the cool thing was this. The entire gallery space was one huge lightbox with his photos lined up against it. Everyone except for me was wearing black and seemed to have darker hair. I had on this fairly hot teal dress and you know what my hair is like. It was an ultravividscene moment.

I had fun hanging out with my friend Melissa's cousin Steven and his cousin Shari. We watched The Thrones with a sinking realization that we were wasting a lot of hearing damage on something unpleasant to listen to. But we really wanted to stay for Abe Vigoda. Ashley was amazing when she pointed out that they were not, in fact, Jade Pagoda, which is what I was calling them. It's just easier to say, o.k.? So, they were these fun, noisy kids having a great time on stage. Reasonably listenable and unreasonably cute.

Sunday (western L.A. and beyond)
My last day. Met up with Dave at some place and ordered from the kid's menu (you can do that without raising eyebrows in L.A. Everyone's on some kind of diet. I love that.) Then we drove all over the western parts of L.A. so that I could start to learn more about some of the neighborhoods. If I could afford it, I'd like to live in the west. Santa Monica would probably be my first choice, but it's pricey… maybe I can come up with some sort of deal? We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm here. I'm working some overtime, selling everything I can, trying to save up money. I'm culling needless people and activities and expenses and time sucks from my life. Sorry if you don't hear from me. I still love you. I'm just busy trying to do something with my life. I'm writing again and I'll be doing even more soon. This is a difficult thing about writing and friends: I kinda have to be alone to do it, unless you want to get together with me for coffee and writing. In that case, we’ll avoid speaking to each other, listen to our iPods, and occasionally look up over our laptops like we're playing Battleship (thanks, Shawn).

I think I gotta leave. I love Seattle. You know that. But I'll write about that some other time. For now, know this: as much as I love it, I need to move on. I need to shelve my past and the future that I dreamed about that can't happen. I need to have new dreams, new dramas, hell, even new disappointments. A future of sunshine and smog.

Travel: Croatia & Prague

Croatia
We made it to the Istria Peninsula of Croatia as the sun began to set. As we entered Rijeka, we got lost in a very intimidating industrial district and had to ask for directions from a security guard. I'm not sure what language Robert spoke to the guy in; apparently the Croatian and Polish languages share some words, though not so many as Czech and Polish. My terror was unjustified; imposing looks notwithstanding, the guard gave us good directions and we arrived at our hotel, the Jadran, in time for nightfall. Our room was directly over the sea, where the Kvarner and Kvarneric* branches of the Adriatic meet. The sea comes right up to the foundations of the building, and I could hear it gently lapping below. It was a warm, still night, and a soft salty smell wafted up to me. The moon shone in a long milky track on the dark, silken sea. I sat on the balcony and realized that I might never be so content again, so I savored each moment. I felt I could taste the moon melting on the sea, hear the stars tinkling like far away bells.

The next morning, we enjoyed a wonderful and fresh breakfast, eaten on a balcony overlooking the sea. Everything at the Jadran was amazing except their farmer's cheese, which, compared to the cheese in Italy, reminded me of what happens if you leave thin sliced cheddar out on a table overnight and then eat it the next day. It was chewy and grainy and it just wasn't that great. But the baked goods and the fresh fruits and the coffee with milk… oh! So fabulous. We bustled out, and decided to check out the beach down on the island of Krk. Robert insisted on stopping at some small-town grocery, I think it was in a place called Njivice. I waited in the car and watched a pot-bellied old man standing around in a year by the store, wearing nothing but a saggy pair of white briefs. It was a hot day, and even the local goats just stood there, focusing on moving as little as possible. Then a piercing "whoop, whoop, whoop" sounded from the car and its lights started flashing on and off for no ascertainable reason. Something is wrong with the security system in Robert's parents' car, and the alarm started going off full-blast. Try as I might, I couldn't turn it off. The old man ran into a house and the goats scattered. As people left the grocery, they glared at me and looked even more annoyed than the average Croatian. I still have no idea how it eventually turned off. Nothing we did seemed to have any effect whatsoever.

We got to the beach at Baska. It was punishingly hot, and I already had a rash on my hands from sun exposure, so I knew our time at the beach would be limited, but I had enough time to memorize the fantastic views. It's not surprising to me why some people call Croatia part of the "Balkan Riveria." A number of tourists of different European nationalities were taking advantage of the relaxing vistas – the rare turquoise water and the sunbathers on the gravelly beach (which was very hard on the feet. I was glad I had sandals with me). When I went for a swim, I was shocked at the salt taste in my mouth. I've never tasted water that salty in my life. So after you get out, your skin is all dry and salty and you start to heat up in the sun, and it's no wonder so many of those large German women looked like big, overcooked sausages. On the contrary, I might have been the palest person there, but I'm so glad I went running a lot before my vacation. I have never felt so relaxed at a beach as I did then – it really helps to feel comfortable in your own skin (if a little salty and tight). In any case, if you want a beautiful European beach experience that's not nearly so expensive as the French Riviera, I can't recommend a better place than Croatia.

Next we drove west to Pula, which is an ancient Roman town. We visited the grand Colliseum that used to hold about 23,000 people in its heyday. It's still a viable performance venue, though its capacity is now limited to 5000. The coolest (in both senses) part of the Colliseum was the underground section, where you could see the areas that they used to hold the gladiators and animals between matches. You could also see the enormous person-sized jugs that contained wine and ale. It's very interesting to me to compare the ways we are still so much like the ancient Romans. Many consider sporting events to be the highlight of their existence, but in no way complete without an overpriced, lukewarm, flat cup of beer. And if we think we're so enlightened as to be above pitting one creature against each other, well, that's debatable. We've got illegal fights between roosters and pitbulls, and we have legally sanctioned boxing and ultimate fighting which is just a step removed from pitting gladiators against each other. It's just wild to me to see how incredibly influential the Romans were on the modern world, and how much their mark remains.

I realized with a sinking feeling that we really only had one day, two nights in Croatia. We'd have to leave promptly first thing in the morning to get to Prague by nightfall. We only had a limited amount of time left, and it was my turn to pick what to do. For some reason I was incredibly drawn to these ruins in Dvidgrad, which was not even on out maps. There was a one-paragraph description in the guide book, saying only that it was "about 10 km from Svetvincenat." We drove up and down the roads trying to find the castle, making some wrong turns into villages that looked like something out of a movie. Chickens plucked unseen treasures out of the dirt roads, scattering upon our approach. Villagers ran from their cottages to see who on earth was driving up their one lane road. We got the sense that everyone in the village would have already known if someone else in the village were expecting guests. Eventually, we drove almost at random, going back towards Rijeka and saw a tiny sign saying "Dvidgrad" pointing down a narrow, windy road. We decided to check it out. That late summer day golden glow hung on every single thing, lighting up dust motes and making the entire scene almost mystical. Crickets chirped their sad songs to each other. We walked in the leftover footprints of peoples' lives, trying and failing to understand what it was like so many years ago. What had been one of the biggest cities in Europe until the 800s was no more as of the 1600s, due to the plague, malaria, and finally, sacking by the Uskoks. The experience of going to the castle left a huge impression on me, and it even provided some of the inspiration for the screenplay I've been working on.

We spent the evening in Reijka, but honestly, it's not worth much space here. It's an o.k. city, very beautiful, especially because it's right on the water. However, the experience was nothing that special. We had mediocre pizza at some forgettable place. The service was terrible. The waiter was grumpy and horrible and tried to overcharge us. And I realized that most of the people I saw were scowling. Perhaps historical events form the character of the people. Croatia has held out for centuries immemorial against warring factions. A less noble explanation is that it's still the mid-90s in Croatia. The music still seemed to be heavily grunge influenced, and the kids there are just getting into baby tees and belly shirts. Lots of muffin tops there. Croatia more than anywhere else I went on this trip "feels" Eastern European. People were usually very friendly but their surly expressions make me wonder what's really going on.

Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia
We left Croatia going north, and quickly hit Slovenia. Beautiful rolling hills with forests gave way to picturesque fields of wildflowers. The houses were small and tidy and had beautiful, colorful flowers growing in front patches and windowboxes. We continued north, going through Austria, then Slovakia. The funniest thing that happened that day was in Slovakia, when we had to stop to use restrooms. While I was in the bathroom I noticed a big chocolate stain on my right on my ass. NICE. So, I used some water to try to get it out, and one of the towels. The towels, unfortunately, were treated with some green dye that got all over my khaki skirt. I tried to rinse it out, and that part of my skirt got soaked. It looked so bad with the huge wet spot that I just put the whole thing in the sink and soaked it. I went out to the car to find something else to change into, and there were these four Slovakian army guys sitting right outside the bathroom. They saw me and just started laughing, without any attempts to hide it. I changed into a different skirt, and that raised some eyebrows as well. Just call me Grace.

I guess maybe Slovakia's just not my lucky place, because we had a problem at the Slovakian border. The border official said that we didn't have a vignette, which is something you have to buy in order to travel across roads in certain countries. Austria, for instance, has a vignette; Italy and Slovenia do not, and charge a toll instead. (Wouldn't that be a good idea here? How about charging the people who use the roads the most more for road upkeep?) I didn't even know we needed to have one, but no matter, we had to change money to get Slovakian currency and then bribe the official in cash in order to pass. Meanwhile, as I stood outside waiting for this to happen, the wind and rain started picking up and it got decidedly chilly. The sky turned a dark yellowish bruise color. The uber-cute Czech border guards giggled a bit at me as my filmy summer skirt and top quickly got soaked and flapped like old rags in the rising wind. It proceeded to rain harder than I have ever seen it rain anywhere, in my life. It was coming down so hard that it was almost impossible to see the road. Much impeded, we lumbered along to Prague.

Prague, Czech Republic
It is so hard for me to write about Prague. Maybe you'll understand someday, later, when you're in love, and you have to leave your lover behind. But maybe you'll have the good sense to fall in love with a person, not a place, and maybe that's a totally different experience. In fact, I'm sure it is. Here's the thing: I dream about Prague all the time. I constantly think: how can I get back to there? What is going on there right now? Oh, I dream of it and I wonder, can a city dream? In my conception of the universe, Prague dreams of me too. It dreams of my rubber-heeled purple Campers roving on its cobbled streets like a shiatsu massage, my platform stilettos striking it like staccato hammers, driving the patterned cobblestones into the ground an infinitesimally small amount downward with each step. Prague feels my eyes roam all over it, taking it all in and loving what I see.

I have this theory that Prague and I are meant to be together. I'm part Czech, after all – my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were Bohemian, the part of the CR where Prague is located. Is it possible that I'm genetically predisposed to feel like I belong there? What if I'm right? I need to go back.

So, Prague, in the more, here's-what-it's-like, tourist-friendly fashion: Prague is a remarkable example of a glorious old European city wasn't bombed to high hell during WWII. Praha, as they call it there, is an amazing place, with many wonderful historical sights. I'm going to omit descriptions of most of them, because if you want a guide book, I suppose you'll just go buy one. For me the best part of all that was simply to see so many eras of history layered upon each other. One of my favorite parts of the city is called New Town, built in the 19th century. I love it, that that's "new" there.

We stayed at the Jeleni dvur,* which is in this wonderful, quiet part of Prague called Hradcany* behind the grand Prague Castle. The room was tiny but had windows overlooking the Castle walls. We had a great starting point for our excursions, just a few blocks from everything. One of my favorite excursions was to the Toy Museum in Prague. There was a myriad of wonderful old toys, and one couldn't help but feel sentimental for a seemingly simpler time. And then they had to bring on the Barbies: they had a Barbie exhibit which included all the old school Barbies and then all the new, crazy weirdass couture Barbies.

We had lunch at this old school Czech restaurant, where the menu was entirely in Czech, and the waiter spoke only Czech. I had a dish that was exactly the same as my mom used to make, some tender roasted pork with potato dumplings and other roasted veggies. I wonder if she learned it from her grandmother. Everyone talks about how bad the food is in the Czech Republic, but I think that's because they're eating at tourist traps. Anyway, I loved it.

An added bonus? There was an outdoor music festival going on by the Vltava River, and different areas up and down the river had wonderful music playing, all different genres: hardcore Czech rock groups, folk music, indie. My favorite stage was the one playing hip-hop. These girls were doing a fabulously good job dancing to Nelly's beloved "Hot in Here" song, and then a jester hopped up on the stage and began doing the exact dance they were doing. Perfectly. Every single move. A jester. In the US, the closest thing to jesters you get are acne-pocked teens at Magic the Gathering festivals who love Staind, Fatboy Slim, and Disney showtunes, who feel rebellious because they wear a jester cap that they got at Hot Topic. In contrast, this jester managed to be a jester and still be so completely fucking rock and roll at the same time. In between sets, he got on his razr and texted people. It was amazing.

I wound up making some friends in Prague, which was unexpected and
wonderful. I had such a fun night, wandering around the city, having cappuccino and cake, enjoying the way the lights play on the dark river, trekking through the silent courtyards around Prague Castle, empty of their tourists. I also went to a 100% weird club that was three levels and featured strippers on the bottom floor. I practiced my very few words of Czech, supplemented by my only marginally less few words of Polish. I loved being on my own on a Saturday night in this truly world-class city.

My last day in Prague, I went to mass in Czech at St. Vitus's Cathedral by the Palace, and saw the door where St. Wenceslas was rumored to have been murdered. We had lunch, and then all too soon, it was time to go. We drove back to Zurich through Austria and Germany. My last night there, we went to look for a traditional Swiss restaurant. Where the place had been, the restaurant was no longer, so we went to the next closest place, which happened to serve Thai and "pan Asian." Word to the wise: stick to cheese and chocolate and yogurt in Switzerland. (I'm spoiled, of course. I've heard people say that there's better Thai food in Seattle than there is in Thailand.) I picked up a last few boxes of Sprungli for Marcus and it was time to go to bed. My plane left early the next morning.

Post Script
Blogging about my experiences in Europe has been an interesting process for me. I realize that part of me doesn't want to finish this blog, because that means it's really over. It's over a month since I got back. Time for me to stop talking about it, dreaming about it – at least not so relentlessly, right? Maybe finishing this is exactly what I need to do to get "back in the swing of things." Maybe I've been waiting until I have another trip coming up to finish this series, because I fear my life might feel bland or boring without something to look forward to. No worries: today I booked my tickets for Los Angeles.

*I don't have the characters on my computer to spell some words properly. This is the closest approximation I could make.