...up in the Berkshires last weekend.
Not that W.A.S.P. (unfortunately). The kind indigenous to the Northeast, who swarm (har har) to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA, on summer weekends. With all the crowds gathered outdoors, eating and drinking in anticipation of the main event, it was kind of like tailgating for an LSU game.
Except it was the complete opposite.
To my utmost dismay, I left my ever-present camera in another state this weekend so I won't have it for my last week of excitement up north, which also greatly impedes my visual aids for blog posts. Good thing I have some photos saved on my laptop from bowling! I know: thrilling, right!?
So I went bowling twice on this trip, which is twice more than I've done in years. First I went with bffs Karin, Lioux, Ellen and Patty (can you believe the last two don't have blogs to link?) in New Jersey, which is statistically one of the top five states in which to bowl. (I made that up, but it's true.)
Picture it: Yesterday, a sunny August afternoon in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. To the uninitiated, the Pine Barrens is the desolate area of South Jersey where the Sopranos would go to dump bodies. To the initiated, the Pine Barrens is the notorious stomping grounds for the cloven hooves of the legendary Jersey Devil.
Leah and I were driving, lost, down another endless road identical to the last one, lined with pines, trying to find a place selling camping supplies (aka beer, fresh veggies, and charcoal), as "Sympathy for the Devil" played on the radio.
Leah said, "We're going to get killed tonight!"
Yep. With just the two of us, an empty campground, no dogs, and the lurking Jersey Devil, This was going to be the scariest camping since the windy mountaintop in Shenandoah Park last October. But as is often the case, we weren't even scared about the right thing.
(I know; it's an encore nobody asked for. No matter, I have the wheel on this blog.)
Unfortunate Looks Which Are Apparently Acceptable in Europe
Granted, there are many, many fashion disasters right here at home. But the ones in Europe are a little different, and a little more multicolored.
Posting the tales of my summer vacay has been taking longer than the vacation itself did, and is putting me into almost as much debt since I can't do paying work when I'm doing this, so I'm combining the last two stops in one (hopefully) brief post.
Interlude: Stopover in Paris
Somehow due to the f being a student my being a freelancer both of us having lived in super expensivo NYC for years and hence now having no savings to speak of general lack of good planning, by the time we had a six-hour layover in Paris, we were out of cash and our only functioning source of funds was a cash advance from my American Express card.
I know: that was really dumb.
Barcelona is a beautiful, breezy city by the sea. Our first view of town from the ship revealed old classic structures alongside modern buildings and sculptures.
One example of the local mix of old alongside new is this seating at a fantastic modern park built when Barcelona hosted the Olympics, with the antique tower in the background.
The sight of sleek modern high-rises from the port was unexpected. I'd bet the Barcelona sklyine is vastly different than it was just two decades ago. And somehow, through the magic of the internets, we had booked a room at a four-star hotel for about half its normal rate, and it was one of those sleek buildings on that skyline, right near the end of the trip when we needed it most.
We hugged our pal Kyle goodbye as we got into a cab, with the travelers' knowlege that we might never see him again, even though we planned to meet him at the rock show that night.
We accidentally got to the port for our ferry to Barcelona several hours early. The small hangar of shops and booths there, while offering a surprisingly luxurious restroom complete with my favorite European bathroom special feature, the bidet, otherwise did not bode well for the trip. Our waiting area contained the rogues' gallery of ruffians speaking in unidentifiable foreign tongues that one might expect to find loitering at port areas, including a stocky tattooed punk guy.
Since the breeze coming off the Mediterranean was gorgeous, we went outside to wait under a palm tree. As soon as we opened our mouths to speak, we were greeted by the punk-rock kid, who was eager to talk to fellow English speakers. Turns out, despite his bruiser appearance, our new friend Kyle was Canadian, i.e., harmless. He was 25 and traveling around on a Eurail pass, looking for a band to join. He was going to Barcelona just to see his friends' band Cancer Bats play. Before we made it onto the boat, we were fast traveling buddies, we'd agreed to attend the Cancer Bats show, and were planning to have a ridiculous time on the boat.
We were not disappointed.
I feared that Rome might be a little too fast-paced to enjoy: too much too do, too many other people trying to do it at the same time and doing it while zipping along on scooters in every direction. While that was more or less true, you just have to know what to focus on and what to filter out. We focused on eating, and filling the recovery spans between meals with sightseeing.
We rolled into town in the evening, and were finally greeted by summer weather. Aside from the slightly down-at-the-heels area around the train station, I was delighted to discover the city still looked exactly how it had in the classic movies, and just how it must have looked for centuries.
I had never been to Italy before this trip, but had always wanted to visit. I'd avoided it previously on purpose: I used to travel with groups of friends on the lowest possible budget. That meant hostels all the way, thirty- bucks-a-night style, and nothing too fancy as far as food went. I sensed that Italy demanded a little more from visitors' participation than simply gulping down a falafel for lunch. It also appeared from afar like a romantic destination, and going there with a rowdy group would be like trying to party with friends at a honeymoon resort.
So I'm really glad I waited to go with that special someone who was willing to co-rack up the extra debt necessary for us to eat our faces off in Italy.
From Holland, we took a train to Berlin.
I was still in my graffiti-tagged-arse jeans, which enabled me to blend right in with the other odd-clad Europeans on the train. I had been to several German cities, but never to Berlin. The f had been there before, but it was years ago, shortly after the wall fell. We'd both heard only good things about the city it had become in the decade-plus since then. Now it was time to see for ourselves.
