In case you haven't noticed, I don't blog here any more. Because sadly, it is no longer a Pscandinavian Pshow, or in fact, even much of a Pshow at all.
Home-tied, and it seems like it will be for a while. Perhaps if I find myself in newly foreign lands again, I shall continue here.

Festival Newspaper!

The Fringe Festival was an excellent way to close-parenthet my trip. I used to work in theatre, but having since moved on to mostly live events, I really haven't seen too many plays. But I saw more theatre in two days than I had in the past two years! Only half of it was good, a quarter of it was pretty bad, and a quarter alright.
The best part however, occurred on my last day, when I heard that vaguely familiar cry of hawked festival wares, in this case: "Festival Newspaper!" Though not in an Irish accent, nor even what would have been most likely: Scottish. Some indistinguishable accent... Wishing I could report it was in a Danish accent because that would be so circular and complete, but either way, my uncontrollable giggling caused more than a few to give me suspicious looks and a wide berth. Well, damn them, but it was a very fitting end to my trip.

Also, had my last lunch with Leonard for probably quite a long while. Well, part of me hopes it is indeed a long while, because that means he will settle nicely in Scotland, and that is what he wants. But then the rest of me, the selfish me, wishes he would just move back to LA. But I guess if he was to come back to the States, Los Angeles isn't his first choice. Another goodbye, one in the midst of a long string of goodbyes...


Inevitably though, the end drew nigh, and I had to make my way to the train station. And maybe I'm just making out like I'm special (of course I am!) but, though it was fair weather the whole time I was in Scotland, on the last day the skies opened up and poured down. So I reckon it was Edinburgh weeping at my departure. Of course. Then again, I might as well have been crying too, for having to walk roughly 2 hours in the rain, with a couple trips back and forth from Leonard's.
And then a late, as well as seemingly interminable train ride that lasted 5:10 rather than the scheduled 4:44! Damn you Brit/ScotRail!! Those lost 45 minutes actually cost me my previously made plans. I had meant to go over to Matt's for a quick hello and goodbye, before picking up my stuff and heading out to meet Alex by 11 for a night out. However, with that much lost time, there was no way I would be able to do both. Matt was great about it too, and offered to drive my stuff to me, and just let me run off to meet up with Alex.
But... well, it's a bit rude to say hey, nice knowing you and thanks for letting me leave my stuff here, but I'm going to fuck off to a club now, and not see you again for ages without a really proper decent goodbye. Not that he wasn't invited to come along, but "not on a school night." But then again, that meant not seeing Alex at all, since I was leaving the following morning.
So, after mentally running around like a beheaded chicken for the better part of an hour (how does one do anything mentally whilst beheaded? I don't know, but that's what happened ;), having my phone die on me so I couldn't talk to either Matt or Al about what to do, I finally just decided to go to Matt's, because Al has plans to come to LA sometime soon.

And then I arrived at the train station, with my phone still dead. So I somehow persuaded one of the Tube guards to loan me use of his phone, swapped sim cards to text Matt and Al, to find... even with batteries, phones don't work underground. I must have talked to the nicest security guard ever though, because he walked with me outside, so I could finish my texts and calls.

So Matt picked me up, and we spent a lovely evening in hello, and a sad and awkwardly silent morning cabride in goodbye.


Then a long transit: Tube ride (I hate Heathrow!), airport, airplane, over 5,000 statute miles travelled, but the emotional distance is measureable only in time. How long do you think it will take before home feels like home again?

Yes, Los Angeles is 'home,' but I've forgotten that. All these places are no longer familiar; I don't feel like I belong here. It feels like some other transitory stage, this stop on the way to my next one. Yes, I missed people, I missed good food, I missed the sun. But... the waiting room is more poignant than the actual event. If I could have just stayed in that limbo a little longer, savoured the waiting, had more proper goodbyes...
I know, whinge, whinge: complaining I wanted to go home during Scandinavia, and then coming home to wish I were still out there in the wild.
But now I still miss people - and this time it's people I won't necessarily see again, unlike the people rather permanantly stationed here. And I don't know why I thought I'd be able to do nothing, worry about nothing when I got home, but certainly compared to Edin and London, I've much more to worry about: a job, a degree, a new life?!

But here I am: Welcome back to the real world, Pshazzah...

Hylander!

London was sad. I hate goodbyes. Well, saying goodbye to London probably wouldn't be so bad, but saying bye to all my mates.... hrm...
Though, as I was coming in from Heathrow, I saw a Sainsbury's and thought, "home" even though it really isn't. I probably won't miss Sainsbury's so much, its not like it was any sort of special grocery store. But still. Not seeing the familiar orange lettering... it just won't be the same.
Then Edinburgh for the night, back to the hostel I was at over Easter holiday. Boy, that was weird. Almost everyone I knew had gone. In fact, everyone I knew from MArch, all the ones I'd hoped would be there had moved on... except for the very one that I'd hoped wouldn't be. Not that it was so bad, I barely saw him, just a bit in the morning, and I don't know if he even remembered me. So whatev. I guess no hard feelings.

Left for the Haggis Tour the next morn, saw the gorgeousness of the highlands, all windswept and lonely. Heard the many lame jokes (a few good ones too) of our pretty cool, but still slightly weird, slightly off tour guide. Glencoe, Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Battlefield of Culloden, &c.






Now for festival time; quite looking forward to it! Staying with me mate Leonard, who I'm happy is getting settled, but I'm sad is here. Even though it's good while I'm here, it's not good when I go home in a few short days... Seems to be just a load of goodbyes. Maybe just goodbye-for-now, but you know how those things go... sometimes you just lose touch.

M@t with whom I'm staying in London seems to not care when he loses touch. Just not too bothered.... I wonder if he'll feel the same when we lose touch.



I wonder if any of my other UK/travel friends will feel like that too....

Anyway, its festival time. Happy thoughts, lets go fly.

München

Like I said, Krakow was great. Except I didn't meet any Poles. Only a *mrf* pole.
One of the coolest things about Krakow: licking a salt statue. I know you're probably not supposed to, seeing as they're, whatever, history or something (not to mention probably enough people touch them its not so sanitary, but I'm not dead yet). So fuck it. It's crazy they look like granite or quartz, all sparkly and dark, but it's all salt!





Country 9: Bratislava, Slovakia
Headed down to Slovakia next on the night train. And sure, I'm not that keen on 6 couchette sleeper trains, but given the options, they are the best way to do it (other than 1st class, but who's got the money for that?!). Especially after night buses. But unfortunately I had to switch out at around 6am, so even though it was decent on comfort level, I didn't get that much sleep.
Got to my hostel, probably not the cheapest, but they had (not free as advertised, rather, included in the price of the room) transportation to the hostel. And sometimes the easy option is the one that gets taken, especially as I was too tired to be bothered. Of course, they didn't tell me until after I paid that the room wasn't available until 12. Oh goodie. Aside from that though, it was actually a pretty good hostel: the people were friendly, and really tried to help in every way they could. I even ended up getting a free ride to the airport, even though they usually only transport to the train station.

So, back to the check in: seeing as I didn't have any place to sleep at the moment, I wandered around the town. And it's so tiny! Tinier than anywhere else I think. And maybe it was the tiredness - sleepiness, but also travel weariness- but it was all uninspired and uninteresting. It looked enough like every other city I've been in through Central Europe. So after a bit of a wander, a small nap in a museum bathroom, and the least tastiest lunch I've had this trip, I headed back to my hostel. Had the requisite chat with my roomies, then promptly fell asleep for the next 5 hours.
I woke up in time for dinner at probably the most expensive place in town, which was accompanied by a long chat about glowing frisbees. I neither chose the dining establishment nor the topic of conversation.


But most of Bratislava was spent sleeping and talking to my boyfriend the Internet (because it was free). Somehow, I just couldn't drum up the interest to do anything else there.

So, I left the next day for Munich, and boy, what an adventure I didn't need to have!
As I said, I secured a free ride to the airport, so I started out feeling pretty good about it all... until I got to the counter and they said the flight was overbooked by 5 people. Chances of all 5 people (leaving room for me: standby passanger) on a (maybe) 150 person flight? Slim to nil, definitely.
Options:
1) take a bus to Vienna and try for the 1 o'clock flight. First hoping they would actually take my ticket, since it was supposed to fly from Bratislava. Second hoping to make it to Vienna on time, since it was already 11:15, but it takes an hour (yes, only an hour!!) to get there. I show up fairly late for flights on a routine basis, but a half hour before flight time is pushing it, particularly after 9/11.
2) wait for the flight in Bratislava, and, if I didn't make it, bus over to Vienna for the 5 o'clock.

I went with option 2, hoping against hope, but also with the idea that of the 5 people that were overbooked, even if one showed up, I might throw my lot in with them. And you know what? Every single person except for 1 standby passenger showed up for the flight. So with 4 other (rather pissed off, full paying) passengers, the airline had to taxi them over - and since there was room in the cab, at least (once again) I got a free ride to the Vienna airport.
Luckily they accepted my ticket, and I was able to check in. Phew, cause otherwise I'd have to bus back to Bratislava, spend the night, and try again in the morning. Unfortunately, that left me with 3 hours in Vienna... which is just slimly not enough time to make it worthwhile to go into the city and walk around. So guess what: more waiting!

But I finally got to Munich, met up with Nina, and settled in. Spent a night wandering the streets looking for a cool club, or a cool something to go to, but Sunday nights have never been known for crazy times.
Today, the plan was to go to the park, but it started raining. Guh. So maybe a small wander later, but it's nice enough just hanging out with friends and not doing anything too...

Recap...

Helsinki.
Pretty nice city actually. Still the only one I've been able to skate in actually, and I'm almost done with my trip! The open market was pretty good, even if the crafts bit was absolutely geared towards tourists. Got caught in service when I was visiting a church built into rocks, with this massive copper dome. Fairly amazing architecturally, and the service was almost alright anyway- I think not being able to understand Finnish, and just listening to the cadence of their melodic language makes church much more tolerable. I still left after the first break. Just a wander around the city, mostly.
I think maybe I enjoyed Helsinki more than the other Scandinavian places because the weather was better and the prices were cheaper. But then, I disliked Riga (next stop), which was cheap and sunny....

Country 6: Riga, Latvia
My first memory of Latvia is actually not from being in Latvia, but from being in Berkeley for a MUN conference. It was quite funny because the school representing Latvia hadn't done proper research, and decided to play it up and be the class clown about it. And then voting time came, and they decided to play devil's advocate and vote for us to go into voting bloc. It was amusing, but that might have been only because we'd had 3 days of conference already, and by then even the stupidest jokes are funny. And then again, it was amusing because we didn't actually end up going into voting bloc, at which point perhaps we would have murdered them.
Anyway, now I've been there. And now I can report: People there = not nice!
Now, understand that my bag is quite heavy, and quite large. It's probably about 1/2 my size and weight. So you figure, alright, if you're going to charge extra on the bus into the city, maybe you charge half the price. Or at worst, the same price. Nope. It costed two of me! Not that it was a huge amount to begin with, but being ripped off is never amusing. It's not even like they helped me carry it or anything. Harrumph!
Better yet, I booked into a hostel, where they ran out of room. Just plain ran out despite booking! So they said, oh, no problem, we'll walk you to this other hostel, it's not far, promise. 20 minutes later with a 24kg bag on my back- and mind, Riga isn't that large at all, but this is across the city, hardly 'not far' - we arrive at the hostel. That doesn't have a kitchen, isn't as close to center, and has more beds per room for the same price. Mrr. Pride and a resistance to being ripped off pushed me to shoulder up and keep looking. I think I saw about half of the entire city with my bag on my shoulder actually.
Finally found a decent one, about 4 weary, backbreaking hours from when I landed, with no help from any of the places I stopped into. Huzzuh!
And tale number 3 of why I didn't like Riga: while I was trying to exchange money, I mistook the selling rate for the buying rate, of course not realizing it until they handed me the money. Nearly highway robbery too, in fact! And she just wouldn't give me my money back, until after about 5 minutes of arguing with her I shoved the exchange back at her, and she threw my money back at me in a huff. My mistake, yes, but one realized before I had actually agreed to the exchange!
It seemed to be the general attitude of the city, fairly Soviet in their way of thinking about foreigners I guess. The city itself, minus the people, was quite nice though. As long as I didn't really have to deal with anyone, it was pretty peaceful.







Doesn't that sound shitty? But it's true. And always, it's the people that make the experience worth it - or not, in this case. But you can ignore all that in photos, so maybe that is why I took so many there.

And then my first bus ride on this trip. I would have opted for almost anything other than a bus, but there really weren't any other options beyond massively more expensive flights!

Country 7: Vilnius, Lithuania.
Good weather actually follwed me here too, in fact its still with me. But here, the people were really friendly and easy going about everything! I got to my hostel, and they settled me in my sparse (other than the billiards table!), but very spacious room, and didn't even ask about payment. Also, while they could have crammed everyone who was staying there together into one room to cut down on cleaning, I ended up in the room by myself. Though even if I hadn't been, 4 beds in a roughly 20'x20' room is a far cry from Western European hostels, where would easily be about 20 bunkbeds.
Met my first USC alum this trip as well. I was never very school prideful or anything, but its still a common ground, and you latch onto anything when you meet a fellow traveller. Even a common language is enough sometimes.
But it was fun. We were able to chat about things like Chanos or Bovard, and not have to explain exactly what we meant.

Also, did you know, Lithuanians apparently LOVE Zappa. There is a tiny little park, not even on the tourist trail, that has a bust and mural of Frank Zappa!




Country 8: Poland
2nd bus trip, oh what a shit ride! An 8 hour sleepless night on an uncomfortable bus later, I landed in Warsaw. I might take this moment to note also, that we crossed the border about half way through our journey, at about 1am, which was just about when I started to drift off. Normally I prefer trains, but in the Baltics, that's imposible. They simply don't run. So - bus to Warsaw... which, I think, was a mistake- I should have taken the bus straight to Krakow instead.
I only stayed in Warsaw long enough to find out a) no one would break a 10zl bill (I tried for about 40 minutes) for me so I could use the luggage lockers and subsequently b) to figure out the quickest way out of there. Which unfortunately was either by bus in an hour, by train in 4 hours, or double the price in an hour. So another bus ride it was! 5 more hours and a lovely thunderstorm later: Krakow!
Another city I did quite a bit of walking with a backpack on my shoulders. But then, this time it was my fault for not having booked.
Settled down into quite a nice hostel actually. They were also really lax about payment - "oh don't worry, you can pay it when you leave." Pretty amazing, the amount of trust they have in random strangers. All the staff was really friendly, there was free laundry!, they organized tours to Auschwitz-Birkenau as well as the salt mines, and they were really cheap at less than $10 a night!
And the city! There's this sense of living history there, and bits of green park all over the place filled with friendly people. The sights are amazing, but I'd also be just as content to sit at a cafe all day long and peoplewatch...

Krakow rocks!

Except I never get to meet locals. I keep meeting tons of travelers, but where are the locals?
Still rock though.
I'll get back to Helsinki later. Promise. Not that there's that much to tell. It's been fairly tame since Copenhagen, sadly.

there's nowhere a weary man can lay him down

Country 1 revisited: Norway
I actally started my trip with Norway (well, Belgium actually, but I only spent about 5 hours in Antwerpen, so I'll just count Norway as Country 1), cruising the fjords with my parents. It was a beautiful, mountainousness cleaving through the blinding sunlight, nothing but gold for a week, and little diamonds or maybe just tears flowing down from the sun.



yes, maybe even a 7 layer sky, Lauren.
But Oslo, I didn't like Oslo. Maybe because it was grey, maybe because it was expensive. Probably. So after only a few museums, I moved on.

Country 3: Sweden
Stockholm was... boring. I slept on a ship the second night because the hostel building was full. That was a hassle since I had to set my bed again, and the cool factor wasn't even there since I had just spent two weeks on a boat with my parents.
Mostly we just wandered around Gamle Stan (Old Town) and various other bits. It's actually quite small, so we saw most of it in just an evening.



The next day we went to the Vasamuseet, which houses this incredible ship - that sank on its maiden voyage. This ancient craft, this beautiful and soaring vessel meant for the sea, yet now locked in a dark and dry building, having never fulfilled it's purpose. It's odd that its so celebrated, for failing so thoroughly at it's intended purpose. Of course, historians prize it because it's remarkably well preserved, probably the best from that time period. But still. The lesson is: Fail and you will get a museum built for you.

We went out later that night, but it was a little dull. Everyone looked the same - blonde and blue eyed.
Tired of the gloom and of the Scandic uniformity, I headed south for Tallinn in the morning...

Country 4: Estonia
Tallinn is also small, but there is a contented feel to it. There's a sort of peacefulness, all ġreen and castly. Actually, that's only Old Town, the rest of it is a lot more cosmopolitan, like any other city. They've even got a 24 hour mall. That is one up on even Los Angeles!
I think though, perhaps part of the charm of Tallinn was that I got to stay below a strip joint. Odder yet than staying on a boat, though I can't say that I really noticed it much, other than the whispered gossip in my room that first night.
It was definitely a nice rambling exploratory type of a town.



The next leg of my journey was a ferry to Helsinki. Of course I've been on boats before, but this ferry was not quite what I expected. I had mostly chosen the ferry because it was quicker than flying. I had expected it to be fairly similar to perhaps the ferry to Catalina: a long seated wait, with the possibility of seasickness. I suppose though, that it was a lot more like a cruise than I had been expecting. It was like I wasn't even travelling. There were restaurants and entertainment and cafes! It was even more pleasant than taking a train. I just wish they had ferries from Helsinki to Riga, but I already had my plane tickets.

Country 5: Finland
I finally got into my groove in Helsinki. From Copenhagen onwards, I had been feeling a bit at odds with the travelling lifestyle. But whether it was acclimation time, or simply disinterest in Scandinavia, I couldn't immerse myself in the experience. However, Helsinki got me. I even got to skate there, because it wasn't rainy, and it wasn't cobbled. The storm drains, these diveted 1½ half-pipes, crosswise to traffic in the sidewalk to keep the rain going the right way off the sidewalk, were a pain, but manageable in the end.
By the way: Aaron from Stockhom (who probably isn't reading this anyway, but just in case) you're so so wrong about that hostel! Sodexho was absolutely fantastic! Of course, I was going to listen to your advice and go somewhere else, but it was the closest to the port I ferried into, and plus, it was close to the bus station where I had to go to pick up the shuttle to the airport. Convenience will beat out advice from someone whose taste I don't fully trust every time. Well. Actually, so will many things.
But this hostel was probably one of the top ones at which I've stayed. The bed wasn't fantastic (they rarely are) and the elevator was cramped (I mostly took the stairs anyway). But there was a beautiful balcony in my room and the breakfast buffet was HUGE! I'm used to maybe 2 pieces of bread and coffee or tea. Maybe juice if you're lucky. But this place had a large variety of food, different types of juice, different types of coffee from one of those machines, hell it even had amaretto syrup!! How much better can you get?!


I promise I'll catch up eventually, but for now I'm out of time...

Oslo. Yes

A little cloudy, but no rain, which makes me happy enough.
Today was Vigeland Park, Nasjonalmuseet, Astrup-Fearnley... I heard stuff using binaural technology too, at A-F. It was pretty cool, how the audio can move around you even though its just in a pair of headphones. Phasing, man, crazy stuff! I guess I'm a little surprised I haven't heard it before, especially being in the major I am in, but it was pretty realistic.
Stockholm tomorrow.
...Another day another city...

I'm leaving tomorrow.

I had hot dogs for dinner yesterday! It's the first time I've had hotdogs in ages. But they were good, and they were in good company. Festival friends!
When I first got to Copenhagen, I didn't think I'd miss it very much, but now I think I will. But hey, there's always Roskilde 2005!