It doesn’t always seem like people are most observant when you’re out and strolling about. Today, though, I was out for only a half-hour span and it seemed different. People were awake and paying attention. Perhaps it was the sunny weather; perhaps it was the full moon last night; perhaps it was THE FUCKING FINDING OF ALIEN DNA $@$@(*#@#&!!

In any case. I took a walk-read and began Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray, which will no doubt be a very quick and easy read. I am excited, as most of the books I have been reading as of late are quite challenging, or if not, are not of the particular type I like exactly. This book matches exactly my desires and writing style, kind of, and also had some topics which overlapped with a conversation we had last night at the Swahili house. The conversation was one of half doom and gloom, of what will happen when science and spirituality meet, should they meet, where technology is taking us, etc. Details I forget.

Anyway, back to today. The walk-read led me to a small section of seating outside of the nearby elementary school. There were four benches in a circle, I believe, but one was situated just perfectly for the sun to be shining directly upon me. It was, of course, my choice of seat. I read one chapter and then settled down into a meditation, thinking that no one would really pass, or if they did, that they had better things to pay attention to — since they would likely be joggers or families, and such. That was generally the case, though I spied — through closed eyes — a force that stopped on the sidewalk ahead of me. I felt him to be a photographer, and in fact, two seconds after that a shutter clicked twice. I thought of opening my eyes, to in a sense scare him, as I was not so deep in meditation that I failed to notice his presence, but I decided against it. Continuing the vibration felt more desirable. A few minutes later, another group of guys passed by and were speaking of meditation class. From the distance from which they were talking about meditation, it seemed that they had already be speaking about that topic, though I can’t be sure. Soon thereafter, I finished meditating, opened my eyes, and looked directly onto a house porch to my left — for no particular reason — and saw a photographer there. I am unsure whether it is the same photographer, as he was not trained on me at this point and I had not heard a shutter click since the original two. The initial shutter I had heard was one I considered unmistakably from a film camera; this man held a digital camera.

I went to the supermarket and returned. On my way back, while I was reading and walking, two men on a porch caught a glimpse of my bookmark, and one made a mention about how it was a BART ticket. This statement sunk in too late, as I was already passing the next house and bushes had already blocked my view of the observer, but I marveled! I marveled at how people were actually awake, actually paying attention…! It seems rare, it seems rare. It seems rare?

Troy bought me a pair of headphones as a present; they are the same ones that he mixes in the studio with. They are apparently not amazing, but I have not possessed headphones for quite some time now, and it was very sweet of him to buy them for me, simply for desiring to buy me a present, and I imagine, because I am a poor ass motherfucker. He had been speaking some time now of dropping a present upon me such as these; I had not expected it to actually happen. He has a good chance of getting a new job tomorrow, and he just sold his van today for 1.7k. It’s less than expected or desired, but it’s something, anyway.

I feel like a bit of a butthead the past few days, and I’ll have to apologize to him tonight. I am going through some emotional weirdnesses, but I think they’re tapering off. I just don’t want to be shitty about them. Meow. Mrawr. I’m trying to regulate a lot of contrasts between mind and spirit, I guess, and trying to figure out what the optimal amount of time we should spend together is. Because I can spend lots of time, but I get bummed sometimes when that is the case because I feel I am neglecting myself; yet, at the same time, those are times I want, and the main question in my heart at those times is what IS actually best for us? It’s hard to tell.

At least DJ Doc is awesome? I dunno, shit. I think I am done with this post, and generally glad to be getting back into the swing of writing regularly and all that. Time to paint my nails. Oh, right, and I took out my lip ring. I guess I’m aimed to grow up, just a tiny bit, just a fraction. Maybe? I dunno. Time to check be in on my job interview again tomorrow. This week begins the madness, tons of shows, tons of stuff, tons of shows!!

We have an infestation of little fucking moth ass bitches. It is amazingly obnoxious. I just killed three in, I want to say, the past hour? Punch them in the face want! Nick’s girlfriend Sasha said they were boll weevils. They are not boll weevils. They are definitely moths, or at least something related to moths. Some definitely worm-babied on my rice; I ate it anyway cause I kinda don’t care because that shit gets boiled anyway It is annoying as shit, though!!

If I don’t get the job this week, I may go to Hong Kong next month for Joe’s wedding, with a stopover in either China or Korea. I’m unsure. I want to leave and do not. But I can’t let free trips out of sight, now can I? That would be downright foolish.

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day seven: omaha.

(I am currently writing this from Gaia Italian Cafe in Lower East Side, Manhattan. Just the best fucking place, man, and right downstairs from where Jeanette lives. Wish I had found it earlier. I am soooooo into it…!!)

—

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.
—

OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Ohhhh so many days in Omaha. After a night out last night, woke up early to go to church. Wooooo! Not exactly my ideal type of church, but it was quite fun nonetheless. But a Monday mass is pretty much guaranteed to be mass with hardcore people, and as my previous trip to a weird Houston Catholic church also revealed…

This was the first time Rose had ever been to church, and man, I don’t know if Catholics just don’t want people to become Catholic or what, but the barrier to entry is set soooooooooo fucking high. It feels seriously that it is impossible for one to just simply jump into Catholicism. There’s not a goshdarn thing to jump into! They go to infinity from the get-go, rushing through just tons and tons of movements without anyone commanding anything, chanting lines here and there that mean Lord knows what; confusing, confusing, confusing!!! At least I still remember the Lord’s Prayer from my days in Catholic elementary school… woOoooOoooOoOo! :L

We went to St. Cecilia’s Church, which is huge, towering, and definitely not the type of church you see frequently in the United States. So it had that going for it. I would post some pictures that Rose took, but honestly, I’m so churched-out at this point in my life that particular church was not particularly all that interesting (it was alright, dude) that generally I am going to stamp a big fat “PASS!” on doing that shit. Boo-hoo-ring.

Let’s talk instead about the service itself, because that’s way more interesting. There were probably like 20 people at mass, with a priest dude who honestly seemed like he was totally a newb and didn’t entirely know WTF he was doing. Pretty sure he stumbled over his words a few times. Also, do they fucking take Communion at every mass? Cause if so, I didn’t know that, or didn’t remember that, and man dudes, that’s just kinda eating up the Lord Jeebus Christ a little too often, isn’t it? He doesn’t even taste that delicious in wafer form.

I refrained from taking Communion even though I’m baptized because I’m so very not into it and no longer feel the need to pretend. Well, that’s kind of a lie. When I went to Israel recently with my parents and a shit ton of the other parents from their church, I did in fact take Communion, though I only took the wine (or was it grape juice? Whatever…) and not the actual host. But that time it was mostly for the peer pressure reasons that led me to sign up to be baptized and to be remain sexually sacred until marriage back in high school… I was always the last one to do both! So… WHUTEVA! I remember there was one older girl in our church, Tammy, who refrained from doing the True Love Waits bullshit, and for sure, everyone whispered and wondered why she chose to make that decision. Judgmental churchgoers? NEVERRRRRR. I can’t say that I didn’t whisper and wonder because I’m quite sure I did or this wouldn’t even be on my mind or in my memory whatsoever, but… so it goes. It’s a natural repressed curiosity to wonder why someone else wouldn’t make the same ridiculous decision as you!

While we were at church, Rose picked up this book when they were reading a verse from Ezra. She thought it was a Bible but it was not; it was some weird book with hymns but also occasional directives. Not really sure what it was. It certainly did amuse me, though, that the verse from Ezra they chose to display basically just talked about how people should donate money. But… of course…

Afterwards, we went to AVANZAAAAA! I was really excited to go to a Mexican supermarket buuuuuut Avanza (2900 Leavenworth St.) was just alright. Been to better ones, bitchez. But what they DID have was a huge cup of fresh flan, made with milk not cream, and I ate the shit out of that for breakfast. A huge cup of flan for like $2.00, for breakfast? TALK ABOUT HEAVEN! HEAVEN FOR A SUGARY FATASS SUCH AS MYSELF!!!!

Beyond that, we went to explore a few places because we had nothing particularly better to do… Starting with the arboreteum area. We actually found it because we got lost, but whatever. It actually cost money so we didn’t go in and ended up at this mini-park with old Union Pacific trains and such… (Omaha being a middle-of-the-country connection point for original trains; it was just about the only thing near where it was). The trains were KINDA interesting just because I had a recent stint being really interested in trains (they’re such aesthetically-pleasing things)… but that’s about it.

Then I guided us to a random downtown park (where Rose learned that the oldest restaurant in town was a Chinese restaurant, and wanted to go there later on…) but yeah. It was a really nice downtown waterfront park they had, and I did a brief, long-overdue meditation there. It was quite good, quite good.

Alright, I guess I will share a couple of my photos since… they exist… (but that’s the only reason).

Not gonna lie; this dude was pretty cool, and like the praying mantis, this was the closest I’ve ever been to a grasshopper and the first time I’ve ever really had the opportunity to study em! It should also be noted that this motherfucker was fucking huuuuuuuuuuuuge!!

A husk of a man.

Then we headed to that oldest Chinese restaurant Rose had seen. It is called King Fong Café (315 S 16th St) and honestly is apparently quite shitty but the history behind it is KINDA cool… it was one of the first places in the States to import these Chinese lantern things and looks very old-school, even with the restaurant being on the upper floor as opposed to the first floor. I don’t doubt it has history but the food is probably MEHHH, with a and super Americanized menu, but the lady was very nice and let Rose snap a whole buncha photographs even though they were closed for lunch. So that was nice. But the street it was on was this weird ass part of town that reminded me a bit of Seattle’s Pioneer Square, only there was nothing really going on and just a whole bunch of somewhat shady people hiding under somewhat shady trees, waiting for the bus or something. Ohhhh the sketchiness of bus malls.

Instead we went to Panda House (301 S. 16th St), where Rose got crab rangoons, and I can bet this place is way better. They defo had some legit crap on their menu, though none of that was ordered (and we had just missed the lunch specials by 3 minutes or something). Because we dilly-dallied a bit, we got a ticket for an expired parking meter, though. But tickets in Omaha are only $15.00…!!!

Randomly found another park downtown soon thereafter. This shit was really fucking cool. It had the most amazing pioneer bronze sculptures ever, which had apparently just been put in in 2009. The detail on them was INCREDIBLE. Seriously. It seemed like they were real. I wish you could see that the wagons had grains, the tools had bolts, the drapery was amazing… everything was just so godamn rad. Definitely one of the coolest parks I’ve been to ever, and I can totally rant and rave about this place, for suuuure.

So fucking epic.

Afterwards, went back home to meet up with Bill and then headed down south to go to the Mexican neighborhood, which, strangely enough, seemed perhaps one of the hippest parts of Omaha, and it was the place with all the thrift stores and such. It had a SHIT TON of restaurants, some of which are supposedly amazing, but because people wanted cheap margaritas, we ended up at a restaurant that was pretty much not good at all, and of course, I don’t drink margaritas. C’est la vie… (here is a pic of the not-so-amazing food, the boys, and the drinks)

Before we went to the restaurant, though, we did go to this place that sold gardening pots for like, the least amount of money ever… it was seriously kind of incredible how cheap this place was… you could buy huge ass ones – you know, those giant planters – for like $20.00 or something. Surely that place is a front! Apparently there are never workers in there! Anyway, these are total Mario boots!

Our horrible “band” photo…

Gotta buncha snacks from the International Bakery (5106 S 24th St.) afterwards, which is a Mexican bakery. Can’t complain. They had these particular cookies and were really dry, and we all know I love a fucking dry cookie. The drier the better. Which I was joking, but I’m notttttttt at all.

A mural from the Mexican part of Omaha, had you any doubts as to its existence or legitity (not a word, but it should be, maybe…)

That night, we met up with SC dude and went to their venue, The Slowdown (729 North 14th St.) and got a tour of it. I mean, honestly, meeting with dude and going to tour the SC stuff is basically the only reason we stayed in town the extra evening, so it is great that it actually lived up to expectations (not that I had any, really, but Rose did) and it was easily the coolest part of our Omaha experience, just cause Slowdown is such a cool space; they really, really put a lot of thought into it and you can tell that from just looking at their setup, their weekly specials, etc. There is, apparently, like a giant 20-foot television; they have room separators so they can cater to large or small shows; the green room is fucking huge and amazing, and with showers; they have beer specials when they don’t have shows that are like $2.00 for anything – domestic or international – that’s on tap, and they have shit like Newcastle on tap, lucky me; etc. etc. The place is just super solid, and visually looks appealing in that typical black-walled venue kinda way. And it’s all-ages, and I guess most good shows that come through town go through there (as they are one of perhaps two venues).

From here I will show Rose’s pics, as I didn’t take any… also learned some more about Nebraskans and football from Jason, which was no doubt interesting… he was talking about how he was in fact super into football when he was going to school in Lincoln, and that the seats there are teeny tiny and are on benches that are marked with spaces (as opposed to being individual seats), and that, as a result, if you have a fat person on either side of you (which, judging from a lot of what I saw of Nebraska, is wholly possible), there’s a good chance that you’d be standing for an entire game because you literally cannot sit. So that’s funny. Anyway. Pics.

[ABOVE] Inside their offices; [BELOW] Jason has a creepy clown thing on his door… it is pretty downright creepy…

Inside their record store… dude, that chair is seriously the most amazing fucking find. You can’t see all of the details, but it has like, a wooden tree trunk base, and is made of upholstered brown leather with tartan patterning? WHAT THE FUCK; IT’S SO COOL! Evidently Omaha is a bedrock of amazing vintage finds, because no one really gives a shit and there is so much of it. I promised I wouldn’t let out the secret. I think I just did…

But yeah, it was pretty cool to see their warehouse and attached store. Rose was like, “Why is there no dedication or commemoration to Conor Oberst in Omaha?!!!” and that’s a funny thought, in general. The closest thing was this wall in the SC record store that had a bunch of old tickets and memorabilia tacked up from the early days of Bright Eyes and other SC bands. I dunno. Amusing…

Anyway, that’s it. Beyond that, I went to bed after doing some work; Rose went out and had a night out on the town with a boy. Snore! Snarf!!

(Side note: I am about to order what I think is an eggplant parmigiana sandwich from that place I said is amazing and I am totally stoked. And jealous that owner speaks Italian and Spanish fluently and owns such a cool place. I am also in major recipe-development mode and have been coming up with some ideas for things… and started practicing yesterday… so when I go home I am just going to be an insane baking fool! Imagine Chinese ingredients mixed with Latin American ingredients – that will about sum up what I’m going for…!!!!! STOKED!!!)

subconscious idiot/genius.

i’m listening to… emil & friends’ new album, lo & behold. first time listening. haven’t decided what i think yet. interesting, yes, but i really loved the ep and this i am this far not that amazingly stoked on. dude is obviously talented as all hell, though, and doing something interesting, and i’m sure his live show hella kills…

i just woke up with some ideas that compelled me to actually physically wake up and do shit. ughhhhh i am ridiculous. see below for email i just drafted to gina because… my subconscious is so ridiculous!!!!!

so
as usual my subconscious is simultaneously being a major idiot and genius. for some reason, in one of my four wake-up-with-ideas states-of-mind this morning, i woke up with some idea for you to rearrange your room. clearly you don’t need to do this but i thought i’d pass it on…

i was thinking that if you turned your bed 90′ from the way it is right now, your bed could be used as some kind of couch for movie-watching, and where all your records are right now could go at where the foot of your bed is right now. the projector could go next to one end of your bed (the far end). would make your room bigger and your bed more a couch.

why the fuck am i thinking about this shit?

also kinda had to just wake up because i just had an idea for an art piece i would do. ugh. what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkkk! in any case, think i’ll pitch that piece to place sometime… woo sugars and candies and caffeines! makes the brain crazy but very productive! it’s sunrise outside right now! the sky is nice and pink and purple. looks pretty dope…

arf. arf. arf.

how was the rest of your night?

also, were t_____’ friends annoying yesterday? he apologized for their presences and that they were obnoxious, though i personally didn’t especially notice at the time…??

vivian

last night, we had a mini-party at our place that went til pretty late — like 2am or something — because rose and maddy are leaving. and cause i’m leaving for a month, a week from now. which is crazy!!! here’s the description originally posted for that party, although we didn’t end up bedazzling anything! i did manage to bust out the crazy shirt from camboria that lenny’s mom bought me, though, cause it is a hella bedazzled shirt with “burberry” written onto it in glittery rhinestones. pretty amazing…

hello fine ladies and gentleman residing in the greater portland area!!! if it would behoove you to join us for this eve of festive gathering and camaraderie, you would be very much a delightful and welcome addition.

vivian and rose shall be departing on a month-long cross-country road trip, beginning the 13th of september — which will culminate in rose “peacin out dis bitch whut whut”.

similarly, maddy shall also be “peacin out dis beeeeeyotcccccch!!!!!!!!!!!!” on the 11th of september, though her route will take her throughout the southwest and back to minnesota.

to celebrate their life growths, we iz sayin bai with potluck n dranx and steez. come by and hang oos.

OH YEAH AND BRING A PIECE OF CLOTHING N LEZ BEDAZZLE SUM SHIT. (YES, THERE IS A BEDAZZLER.)

BLING BLINGIN ENCOURAGED. THERE WILL BE STREAMERS, EVEN!

holla dolla. herndy verndy.

i also finally got robby and matt to meet, which i am particularly stoked about, since they both really like math and shapes, and are two human beings who i respect artistically to the utmost degree. both of their websites, respectively: robbykraft.com and mattleavitt.com (see also: interview with matt on redefine)

as i am currently sitting outside on our patio — it is 6:28am — i am being harassed by our local neighbor cat, aka (by shawn) scruffy cat. scruffy cat always wants the love and is totally cute as fuck, and i would be way more open to her hanging out and climbing all over me if someone would just cut her claws. she’s constantly scratching the shit out of me without meaning to, i’m sure, because she’s totally cuddly and all love. c’est la vie. man, troy has all the animals!! he has like three animals that are constantly running into his room because his door doesn’t latch. but that’s neither here nor there… just needed to say… it’s been quite a while since i’ve regularly associated with animals. it’s kind of nice.

might sublet prince rama’s apartment with rose, if they’re into it, and then i’d have a place in bedstuy in brooklyn, next to pratt, and that’d be hella rule. i think i’m going to have my apartment subletted too, so i would actually be saving money on rent and would have a dope part of brooklyn to live in (one i actually wanna explore, and really wanted to explore last time). this trip is coming together rad… all of a sudden a bunch of people popped out of the woodwork — acquaintances and such — who are contacts in detroit. also, a street photographer gave me a list of abandonments in detroit to check out, and was super glad to share. i’m excited as all hell. i haven’t taken photography for quite a minute because frankly, i just haven’t been giving a shit (seriously, that trip to vietnam turned me off on photography so hard even though i had some good images from that set)… but hopefully this time will bring me back to liking photography in the same way that i liked it when all-you-can-jet was going on a few years prior.

(side note: as of just now i’ve just added a new category to my sidebar: subconscious)

it was in a recent conversation that i discussed with rose that intuitive me knew “better” than reality me. she was skeptical about that and said it was dangerous, but i said it hasn’t proved me wrong yet. and it hasn’t, man. subconscious me has the BEST fucking ideas. meditative states and the spaces between sleep and wake are where i get the best ideas, easily, because waking me is way not that profound all the time. haha.

aaron and i had a conversation last week about that concept, as well, where aaron was talking about how maybe the fourth dimension was a connected interwoven “sense of everything being one”, which is interesting because i’m reading the tao of physics and i happened to pick it up again that day that aaron and i hung out, and in it it was simultaneously talking about how the fourth dimension for physicists was space-time, where time is on one continuum that is constantly flowing and constantly happening at once, and how for mystics, it is a “place” devoid of space and time, but is nonetheless moving forward. that same concept came up in conversation with troy and andrew last night, where troy was talking about how creation is what is constantly moving us forward in time — creation both in terms of human creation and universe creation — and it is something i intuitively feel. i lately had a conversation with andrew, after watching a documentary about the mayan interpretation of 2012, about what might potentially happen in 2012, should something actually happen. what i was talking about was a “balance” of sorts, because that’s what the mayans feel will happen, essentially, where an intuitive female power will start taking influence again, and the “western” mode of rational thought will stop being as dominating and important. i mean, if you look at the state of the world right now, it seems perhaps possible that the current trend of western hyper-logical thinking isn’t necessarily working on a global scale. and in terms of musical creations and artistic tendencies, there is definitely a return to less structured, intuition-based spontaneous creation without forethought. there is also a return to primalism of sorts. will all of this culminate at the end of 2012 into this insanely crazy shift of mental proportions? i dunno. it sounds crazy to believe that something might actually happen, but i feel it. but then again, this is what andrew said that his parents in the ’60s felt… that things seemed ever so crystal-clear to them and they thought, “if only everyone could get it and see things as we do…” but no one ever got it. but i dunno. that’s why i think 2011 is so bloody important and why there are many an idea in my head of things i need to accomplish by the end of the year (first and foremost being my book) because i feel they are important, particularly in this time, right here, right now. god, it feels crazy to feel that way. well anyway, back to what i was talking about. i was talking to andrew about 2012 being a potential shift in balance, and that that would perhaps lead to a small group of people who are intuitive and logically-minded to pave the way for positive change (like our group of friends right now… this is another thing that was recently touched upon… when we were at helsing junction, gina was reading a joseph campbell book, talking about cultural monads, and essentially, how, through the artist and music, we can make great cultural change because they are the ones who touch culture at large… and essentially, gina and i are doing this to some degree right now, along with many other people…) … … in response to this, andrew’s thought was… “if everyone becomes good, doesn’t that destroy the balance of all things?” and while i agree with that theoretically, i tried to give the example that although there is always the presence of good and evil in everyone’s lives, it is, after the existence of those things, a choice for one to figure out which route they would take in their own lives. the same set of circumstances thrust upon different people would yield different results. one might spiral downwards while another floats to the top. that kind of forward momentum is something that undeniably exists — the third aspect of what would otherwise be a duality. the third aspect is what makes the change, whatever that third aspect is. whether it be choice, or creation, or some kind of otherwise undefined forward-propelling momentum. (WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT GHHAHFHHHHHHGAHHHHH!)

other than that, jeff was talking to me last night about how a lot of writers who are nobodies, such as i, and him, get friends to act as publisher, and that these friends will support one another. publisher would basically be… your friend prints your book and backs your product because they feel it is important, and it’s less vain than publishing your own shit and trying to push it on other people. but the problem is my thing is fairly lengthy and i don’t exactly want a chapbook… i want a nicely bound actual book. we’ll see. perfect-bound shit is pricey shit, after all. and i know that some people publish through lulu.com but i haven’t properly researched that just yet.

anyway. lastly. i wanna share a small selection of photographs from helsing junction that rose recently sent me from our trip that past weekend, cause they are nice. if anything, traveling with rose for the next month is going to result in one million thousand photographs! holy hell!

oh, and, generally speaking, i’ve been loving on this song so hard (see my review)

OH YEAH and. last edit for the morning as it just hit 7:00am… and i should go back to taking a nap since i went to bed at 2:30am and shit…

THEY RECENTLY DISCOVERED A DIAMOND PLANET THE SIZE OF JUPITER!!!

i found out about it from troy through this time magazine article but funnily enough i just realized this one person is following me on wordpress (thx mang) and he wrote a pretty in-depth post about it, if you wanna check it out here.

in other news, my “tags” for each individual post are getting more and more “out there” with every entry… haha.

siem reap, cambodia, day two.

september 26th, 2010.
taking josh’s notes and expounding on them, again… lazy.

Woke at 4:30 and biked out to Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise, but it was obscured by clouds

we were also late. the bike ride was quick, though, because we were relatively hauling ass, trying to get there in time. we still failed. ah, well. angkor wat isn’t frankly that cool anyway. this is not to say the complex is not fucking awesome. i’m only talking angkor wat — the main temple. it does have some cool bas-reliefs, though.

there were also monkeys… you know how i feel about monkeys… monkeys can do no wrong. monkeys make girls and boys happy. monkeys, monkeys, monkeys. especially if they’re sniffing butts…

josh was a newb and fell sucker to an expensive-ass breakfast and this horrible effing hat. well, he bought a different one, but his fucking, melted, basically, in one day of heat, humidity, and biking. SO FAIL.

cool bridge showing creation myths.

loveth the mossy water float.

biking like a champ. model style.

Biked to Bayon and explored the temple there. It was a temple with many faces

when we first got to bayon, it was raining. it was AMAZING. made it my favorite, although the beauty was not captured in these photos below, and ta keo later beat out bayon as my favorite temple. so it goes.

Next went to Preah Khan and was given an interesting tour by a local who asked for 10 bucks. We gave him 3.50.

but that’s pretty much because we literally didn’t have any money. high-maintenance whore!

garuda, my favorite bird-man!!!!!!! mythical! yeah!

ganesh, all cute and shit at preah khan!

preah khan had hindu and buddhist features. really interesting. the difference can be seen in the legs of the figures and their prayer postures. some buddhas were carved out of the walls (chopped out, really) and they were sometimes replaced with hindu-postured prayer-fools.

Biked to Ta Keo which is the really tall temple with very high and steep steps.

almost didn’t go into it. were getting templed out. glad we did…

Next was Ta Prohm which was a temple over run by trees that grew directly on the sandstone structure, sometimes holding the buildings together with it’s roots.

this is the “tomb raider” temple. everyone digs it so much. i thought it was alright after our awesome preah khan tour…

the old trees WERE cool, though…

i took this spider shot a MILLION TIMES. what was annoying is every shot i would take, someone else would be there, waiting to copy it. and i just thought. man, there’s no way you’d typically want to take this shot (the one below here)… you’re only taking it because i am. no one takes crappy shots like this. i mean, not no one, but barely anyone appreciates this kinda crap… kinda obnoxious.

After Ta Prohm, biked 13 km to Angkor Wat and another 10 or so back to town. My ass hurts from biking on a teeny tiny bike with a teeny tiny, barely padded seat. Dropped of bikes in front of a store and took a tuk tuk to the Old Market for some cheap eats and then took another tuk tuk to the bus station to get my bus ticket back to HCMC.

josh complained a LOT about his ass hurting. i guess his bike was really small, but c’mon, you were a marine, fool! he also took SO MANY SHOWERS. like, literally, three a day. he was definitely the diva between us. i was just a dirty slob (as usual). we also met a guy — an engineering student — on the way back to our hostel from the grounds. i gave him my phone number so we could go watch the sunset on bakhaeng hill the next day, but he never called! stOod up!!!!

After, went back to town and got a Dr. Fish foot pedicure and an oil massage, once again from a guy. I think it’s because Vivian was there I keep getting guys as masseuses. Whatever, better for me I suppose.

josh paid for this massage cause i was getting broke, and he wanted an oil massage but didn’t want to get one by hisself. the place was slightly seedy-seeming, and it was really unrelaxing because it felt like the chick was fucking KICKING!! MY!! ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and also……… there were these really godamn loud people in the main entrance room who kept asking the workers shit like whether they had boyfriends or not, and i expected them to be super shady dudes when we went out, but it was like two dudes and a chick, generally well-vibed, although the main dude (a belgian who spoke english — the other ones were russian and didn’t) did give me some weird looks. but he was generally friendly and just asking basic questions about whether the massage was good or not. still, though. it was really, really, really non-relaxing.

phnom penh, cambodia, day two.

josh’s notes, from which i will expound, cause i’m lazy. i just ate a buncha chocolate. feel kinda sick. whatever.

september 24th, 2010.

Observation: Phnom is more modern than HCMC and very much more westernized. Prices are the same as in the US for most items.

yeah it seemed more expensive.

started off by going to the main palace or something or whatever. it was nice, although there was some special procession or something going on, so a lot of it was cut off from public visits. bummer dummer mummer! but it’s fine. got our fill. one place had this really amazing music playing, with female dancers and stuff… the music was great. but we were roped off from really being able to see, unfortunately… bummer. dummer. mummer.

people thought i was positively crazy with taking photographs of this ornamental gate… c’mon, shit is cool. man, i’m fat (side note).

next up, we went to the killing fields. the tuk-tuk driver we’d met the previous day, john, brought us. here he is! he said that he worked for a non-profit as a driver before the economy turned bad, and he had to turn to tuk-tuk driving to fix it.

The Killing Fields is a stark and horrifying monument to the depravity of mankind. At tall tower in the middle of the grounds dominates the scene. Upon further inspection, it is shown to be filled with hundreds of skulls and bones that were all that remained of the victims of the Khmer Rouges bloody cleansing. Millions of Cambodian intellects, upper class, foreigners and peasants alike were systematically slaughtered in the most brutal ways, in order to save bullets used in the battle against the Vietnamese. It was sobering to see that mankind is capable of such depravity.

yeah. we suck ass… photos from the killing fields, below:

the compound the killing fields was in was really quite nice. park-like. nice.

pretty yummy meal, though i’m pissed we ate it because it was in a touristy area. josh’s fault for asking the driver if there was anything to eat nearby before we got out of the tourist place. it was decently priced, though, because the driver basically told them we wanted cheap eats. it was still more expensive than like, the $0.50 we paid for some meals later…

this kid kept coming out of this building, waving “bye” at nobody, going back in, coming back out, repeat.

S-21 was a museum dedicated to the school turned interrogation and detention center. It was run by a Khmer named Dung, who is one of the surviving members of the Khmer Rouge’s leadership and one of the only ones to admit such atrocities occurred. I’m amazed that after all these years, the captured members still haven’t completed their trials. There were many pictures there of the victims that passed through S-21 on their way to the killing fields. Many were small children, infants, even mothers with babies. It was very depressing, but we need reminders of what we are capable of in order to prevent it from happening again. Those who forget are doomed to repeat the past.

some photos from that. this place was pretty amazing and well-worth a visit:

a prisoner.

The Russian market actually has nothing Russian about it. Instead it is filled to the brim with touristy shops and souvenirs. I spent a pretty penny snapping up cheap trinkets to take home. I could probably have bargained more, but it was all in good fun and a few cents is going to make less of an impact on me than on the indigenous.

yeah, i didn’t do that, but i did buy a couple presents…

Ate at rumerg and had fried tarantula

apparently i got confused and wrote about this the previous day. don’t care to change this. oops. oh wait, i just realized what we did the night before for dinner. we went to eat thai noodle house (boat noodle) with some friends of vincent moon’s — local cambodian filmmaker kids. it was fun and stuff, but we never saw them again really.

Massage for 5 bucks, one whole hour

we found a particularly good place that really wasn’t at all shady, which was pretty impressive! my foot massage was $4. mostly it was a good way for her to scratch my bug bites… my feet were really fucking disgusting that evening. no lie. (note to self: why did i just pound all those chocolate chips…)

Rubies wine bar where we waited for British expats that never showed. Being late must be fashionable in this region.

yes, this happened.

Roach flinging

there was a roach in our dorm room. it was running all over the place and i was trying to catch it in this snack box (dehydrated seasoned broccoli snack! so good!) and josh fucking tried to be a man and instead of catching it, like a proper man, he threw it at me! i was like, “WHAT THE FUCK?? SERIOUSLY??” and we couldn’t find it for a while. that motherfucker.

recap central: cash only road trip, day three: flagstaff, roden crater, holbrook (route 66), albuquerque.

monday, march 15th, 2010.
ah. yes. so the hotel we stayed in the previous night was a super 8 in flagstaff. i told the boys about super 8′s, because i learned from touring with nurses that super 8′s are pretty cheap. here’s my note on the topic, from our cash only road trip blog:

Currently we are in the parking lot of a super 8 in flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff is 7,000 feet above sea level. We were gonna camp tonight but after staying last night in Yuma (a much warmer place) and kind of freeZing we decided to splurge this pleasant evening and do this motel shit. Currently Kevin is, in ze words of tim, “casing the joint”. We are seeing how much it costs for two people and hopefully sneaking in the other two. Cash only! We almost booboo’d and almost forgot about the no-credit-card-usage-at-gas-stations action’ but we pulled through. Flagstaff is, based on our scientific town rating system, a 40 horse town (or so- it gets harder to estimate horses at these larger horse towns). Here are some other horse-by-horse breakdowns of where we have been:

ARIZONA
Yuma – 3 horse town
Quartzite – 1 horse town
Jerome – we didn’t scientifically discuss this one but I’m personally hypothesiZing it is a 1 horser?

Anyway, since we have been on this toad trip- or road trip- the name of this here tour hath changed just a wee smidgen. New title is kinda similar to: Cash Only: Diners, Dive Bars, And Yard Sales (No Trackbacks, Plus Playing Pool At Every Bar We Go To).

yes, we rate towns based on how many horse towns they were, aka, what their population was probably like. nyce.

the main goal of the day was to see the roden crater, which is a project by james turrell. he does tricks with light and had dug out the center of this crater to make a giant, expensive ass art installation. architecture nerd loves, what can i say? this thing was in the middle of nowhere and we only had a vague gps coordinate to find it with — no google maps or anything, and most of those roads weren’t on the map anyway. so it was quite the fucking adventure on dirty backroads and things. we were there for a very long time, trying to find different routes to get into the compound, but they were all a massive failure. ah, well.

but before we get into that… tim’s piss art!

we climbed up this one hill to see if we could get a better look at where this place was, because we couldn’t find it after driving around a while. the dudes were like, “it’s going to take all day to climb up that thing!” when it was like, short as fuck. i was like, nah, dudes. and we drove up halfway and walked up the other way. it was pretty exhausting because we were all horribly out of shape, but i have to say, koury and kevin were in even worse shape than i. so score. i’m only half out of shape, or something.

nonetheless, it was pretty entertaining, and there were plenty of photo opps…

there was also some snow for snowball fights…

“booyakasha!”

he’s spitting snow!

reindeer-chic.

when we finally got to the top, and took some obligatory photos, of course, we saw a hump that we thought might’ve been the place. we headed over there… and we passed tons of cows on the way… it was like a fucking cow safari!

but no dice. the actual place was fenced up like crazy. apparently, kevin’s friend had snuck in years before and camped in the place, but they’ve since upped security. that was like five years ago or something, anyway.

wigwam motel on route 66, in holbrook, arizona. did i mention arizona’s the shit? yeah, arizona’s the shit.

so many photo shoots…

action shot!

check out this beaut.

more weird shit on route 66…

pow wow trading post! route 66!

we rolled through dairy queen, because dairy queen is prevalent as fuck in the southwest. nyyyyyce. it’s the best. it’s the fucking best! dairy queen is nostalgic as a motherfucker for me.

we finally got to new mexico, and it was like, as soon as we crossed the border from the lawless land of arizona (no cops at all) into the crazy anal land of new mexico, we saw shit tons of cops. shit tons! like, eight in a small span of time, i swear. i should mention i’d hinted to tim that he should toss his weed before we headed into arizona because cops were anal there… in retrospect, i think i meant new mexico. i’d heard of bands getting busted there. not in arizona, probably. ah, woops.

not that new mexico is ugly or anything…

finally ended up in albuquerque (what a fucking doozie to spell). we drove straight through to there, and let’s just say… albuquerque — or is it new mexico? — is a weird ass place. we rolled through at like, 10:00pm looking for some shit to eat, and everything was practically closed! it was pretty insane. there was only one restaurant that was open, apparently, in the whole main downtown area. like, seriously, waddafack?

we ate at some italian place and it was uhh okay, but we’d just eaten italian the previous night.

we tried to go to some bar like half an hour out of town, which had been ranked in esquire and shit, but we got there and it was closed. albu-quer-que is a death trap.

then we went to this bar where some bitches wuz playin. they’s name was the royal heist. they were from southern california and were on their way to sxsw as well. funnily enough, we just posted our review of their album this evening. they were alright.

look how pure these boys are.

and cut! where did we stay this evening? at some motel somewhere. i don’t know where. h00 karez.

oh wait, it just dawned on me. we didn’t fucking sleep that night!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more to commmmmmmmmme.

recap central: cash only road trip, day two: yuma, jerome.

sunday, march 14th, 2010.

the day started out with us in yuma. this is what i woke up to, and while i was still sleepy in the frigidness, it was way too beautiful to not want to capture with my camera. i woke up quite a bit earlier than the boys and just kind of hiked up to the top of this nearby mini hill which was all compacted sand. it was really fascinating because i’d never studied terrain like that in-depth before. it was also extremely quiet — no one else in the campgrounds was up yet — and i saw some road runners. the sound of birds chirping, of bugs flying… the calmness… it was really, really calming and great as the sun poured in slowly. i slept the evening in the car. it was pretty cold and really uncomfortable, so i didn’t sleep that well. later, we found out that tim had borrowed kevin’s sleeping bag liner thing which was paper thin, but he didn’t sleep IN it… he slept on it. or something weird like that. pretty funny.

good morning, kev.

good morning, tim.

good morning, koury.

some of the terrain.

first thing on the agenda: to find a diner to eat breakfast at! we ended up at penny’s diner (1731 south sunridge dr., yuma). it’s a pretty nice diner and you can’t really miss it from the outside, because it’s like, all metal! it’s not hot inside like i was wondering about guess they knew what was up with insulationz.

here are the pictures lifted from our cash only blog. these are koury’s iphone photos of our food…

kevin’s biscuits and gravy.

koury’s something gnarly with gravy.

my english muffin with awesome hash browns with peppers and onions (a non-ghetto picture, cause bish, it was my food!).

the conclusion was that tim’s meal “lost”.

churreh paiiii!

random pit stop.

we had kevin’s digital camera set up on the dash. he had a canon sd-something, which he had hacked so that it could take time-lapse photography. so the window needed to be at least somewhat clean.

another random pit stop. “don’t scare them away!” koury said, as i walked closer to the sheep. i scared them away — i did. i didn’t know that sheep actually do behave stereotypically like sheep — as in, like fucking idiots. they’re so stupid, and they’ll follow each other in their stupidity! one moved and the whole herd moved away with their back to us. ughhh!

it was sunday, so it was fairly hard to find yard sales, but we had to try. we picked up some local rag and attempted to find a yard sale and found one. took a really bumpy route to get there, and it was a little ways out of town, but we made it. here’s the thing i typed on kevin’s iphone while on bumpy road (taken from our blog):

hi there – this is the highest tech roadtrip ever. Currently we are on a dirt road- Kevin has named it 4326- one mile from a yard sale we found in a local print publication in Yuma. I am posting a real text post- barring intense cat sickness- i mean car sickness- because these joker boys just post pics with their fancy iPhones. They don’t talky talk. Paula Abdul is breaking it down on tim’s car, tiffany, ‘s radio. We spent a good hour setting up our tents in the dark last night in the dark. We ate greasy food at penny’s diner this morning. We went to salton sea and Bombay beach last night. No myths- there are beaches made up of pretty much mashed up fish bones and scales- all dried up, poopy, grey and crusty. There was also a dead pelican that had its wings fallen off. But it’s not all bad news. Shit ton of live pelicans- dozens and dozens really (and it’s a weird sight to see that many live pelicans in the wild, believe me) and we went to the ski inn (see previous posts) where Anthony bourdaine had been – and the people were amazingly nice. Shot pool, bought some fish assholes, and tim boogied down with Ray Davis? An old black guy who could barely talk he was sp drunk, but he definitely looooved music and could most definitely pop and lock in his day. Anyway. Too much typing. Until next time. My lack of iPhone and wifi renders me useless for pics. So I shalt useth ze words instead. Happy living.

here’s the ad that showed what was up with the yard sale, from tim’s iphone.

the couple (eddie and gigi — koury’s pic) used to live in northern california and were christians. they said they used to “have fun” before they were christian (no sex or drugs, the lady said, even though i doubt that, considering they were in rock bands). they were mostly very nice but had basically moved to arizona to get away from hypocritical religious folk. well, well. i found some disney records that were way cool as well as this crazy golden rain coat thing that was way too big, but it was funny, and like, $1, so i bought it. i got rid of it somewhere in texas, by putting it on top of a trash can… hopefully someone else got a kick out of it. it was way good later on in the road trip, but certainly not piece of material to keep for a long period of time (although… thinking back now, i really should have kept it and had jennie turn it into a fucking dope cyber dress or something. but oh well… no foresight at the time — just too many things to carry…). anyway, of course this christian couple pulled the, “oh, are you christian? no? i hope you find god,” crap. she asked kevin if he was religious, and he politely lied and said that he was no longer practicing. i just said no, pretty much. cuz whatever. i don’t need people telling me i need religion, necessarily. we left after a REALLY long time because they were very kind and friendly.

random photo shoot on a military cannon in yuma. this is koury’s photo.

i think on the way to this place, we stopped by a leather shop, which was pretty fucking gnarly. they had like… fox heads. just the skin and fur on the heads… and i asked the people who worked there what people used that shit for, and they said, “oh, everything,” like putting it on shoulders of jackets and on belts and stuff. gag and a half.

we stopped by this random town (gladden, arizona) and went to the bar there, called ree’s outback, because it claimed to have shitty service and food, and that would make it a dive, right? unfortunately, it was the super opposite. the chick who worked there was waaaaaaaaay nice and i think maybe a little intimidated by the boys. there was also a dude sitting at the bar, and he seemed like a “sleeper,” the boys said, as in, a guy who wouldn’t talk to us or really be interested in talking to us. actually, they were quite wrong. like all of the other elderly men we would pass on our travels, he talked to me first. i don’t remember what he began talking to me about first exactly, but it was something inane, no doubt. he then went on to talk about how much he hates southern california — which i can relate to, no doubt… and i’m not sure what else he said. his name was gary. his face was hairy.

they did have this leet ass popcorn machine, though.

the inside of this place. it’s pretty damn cute.

chairs at a random pit stop.

random pit stop: cactus-style!

we passed by these cactuses forever, and finally i just couldn’t take it anymore. i just fucking HAD to take pictures of them. the way the sun was shining on them was way too beautiful not to. we were totally in a rush to get through sedona during sunset, but it was impossible. so, unfortunately, though i have now driven through sedona, i still haven’t seen it. at all. gotta go to arizona again… i rather love the southwest.

yeah!

double yeah!!!!!! maybe with a capital YEAH!

finally, after sundown and massive driving, we got to jerome, arizona. jerome, arizona, is where maynard james keegan of tool lives. no joke. should it be published? well, it doesn’t really matter, cause hardcore tool fans probably already know that. it was publicized, i guess, in a video (hell, i just checked wikipedia, and it’s written on there, so it’s all good) about his wine company — yes, he has a wine company…

we went to this really fucking amazing italian restaurant. this was their bruschetta. a horrible picture, but whatever. it was amazing food. the owner talked to us for a long time because he used to be involved in the music industry. he didn’t tell us who he was and basically said he went to jerome to hide out, but if he wasn’t a big fat liar, he definitely has worked with some huge music-industry names. he seems legit, for sure. and his restaurant is brilliant… so freaking delicious. then we had some amazing pizza, and it was all amazing! such cool elderly people we met in arizona!

after that, we went to the spirit room, which was down the street. and played pool. of course. it would have been nice to stay longer in jerome, but alas. we had schedules to keep to (and we ran late… really late).

brilliant.

koury was watching me take photographs and said he learned things from my style of shooting. which is interesting. not sure what that meant, exactly.

tim being a super creeper. but i love this photo…

we got a hotel that night. splurged! it was just way too cold in the high desert to camp outside, and we didn’t have a campground slotted, so we drove around for a while trying to find one. there was one we stopped at, and kevin ran out, and there was this HUGE neon sign that turned off when he went and knocked on the door. like, not even slyly. they just straight turned off this huge neon sign exactly when kevin knocked. horrible.

we ended up at a pretty nice hotel and kevin and i went in first and snuck the others in. it worked beautifully! and it was nice to have some creature comforts, considering none of us had slept all that well the previous night. but it was only just beginning… i don’t remember what city we ended up in for the night, unfortunately. generally pretty sure we booked it to flagstaff. yeah, that’s where we were. i think?

tim sleeping.

here’s tim’s diatribe on the two types of elderly people we met in arizona and how they’re different. not my sentiments, at all, but interesting nonetheless.

and check out this hilarious quote from koury.

recap central: cash only road trip, day one: palm springs, salton sea, yuma.

i’m listening to… led zeppelin.

this is so super late but i feel inspired to recap. so i shall.

friday, march 12th, 2010.
so i flew into los angeles and tim picked me up from the airport. a real life face put to a real life internet name! hoorah! i stayed over at their place where there were a buncha people over as well as henry. was nice to see henry again, of course!

saturday, march 13th, 2010.
the next morning was pretty hectic and involved going to the nearby market to pick up some food and fixins for ourselves, then kevin, then koury, and then heading out. but before then… dress up… and this should be noted: cash only road trip blog!

to bring a cane or not to bring a cane?

i’d slept with tim’s sleeping bag the previous night, so he rolled it up and forgot to bring it with on the trip. w0000pz.

we began doing this thing, suggested by kevin, called “hunter, ranger, bear” and it was basically like “rock, paper, scissors,” but with more movement. whoever won got shotgun… here’s kevin and koury going at it, hardcore.

i think kevin won. i can’t remember. and these hand-motions aren’t really telling me cause they’re both bears right now!

crappy pre-trip photo (from koury’s iphone).

tim had these horribly awesome goggles…

one of our many side-of-the-road photo shoots… since koury’s a photographer and all. there was no shortage, my friends. no shortage.

our first photo stop. this is koury’s pic. i’m so fucking short compared to these tall ass studs.

first stop was in palm springs, where tim’s friend was having a birthday party. it was positively homosexual.

kevin with awesome bear hat…

the birthday candles are actually cigarettes or something

kablam, photo shoots all day every day! highest-tech road trip ever!

one of the girls had a waterproof camera and she threw it in the pool to prove it. didn’t even know those things existed…

balls, kevin broke his glasses!

the birthday boy’s name was cameron cash. how appropriate for our road trip, which was entitled “cash only”!

next stop, salton sea… at sunset. it would have been really nice had we gotten there earlier, but what can you do. at least it was beautiful. it was also fishy-smelling… and there was also an unhealthy overabundance of pelicans. like, what the fuck. you don’t usually see pelicans in such huge fucking numbers.

oh, right, this is why it’s smelling fishy. look at the “sand” below the fish… it’s completely comprised of fish scales. like, seriously, waddafack.

oh and bird. how about dying, deceased bird mangled by the elements and eaten by probably other birds? awesome.

moar ded burd. lub me sum ded burd.

koury.

i’m pretty classy. i like to pick up dried dead fish with sticks.

this is like, a disintegrated building on the waterfront or something. not sure how that went down.

love the fish corpses. love them. could have photographed them a million times over, but limited time and such… need to go back to salton sea, man. need to go back.

what a happy little car family.

chillin at the ski inn. there were certainly some characters here… particularly this old black dude who really knew how to get down and had the funniest motherfucking laugh EVER. high-pitched and hilarious.

our first time shooting pool at a bar, but not the last time. just the beginning of what would be — shooting pool at every bar we ever went to.

cute little bar cups.

kevin rackin ‘em up!

a beautiful, beautiful window. <3

moi. i left that jacket at home in california. really should have brought it with me.

tim getting down with some old school jamz. see juke box. he danced with that one black dude i was talking about, who was so cute and totally looked like he could boogie down really well at some point in his life. the bartender lady was also a real sweetheart. highly recommend this place if you’re rolling through.

this bar is pretty fucking sexy, you must admit. pretty much the most happenin’ place around for miles. anthony bourdain came here; he sat on the right side of that there bar.

still beautiful.

tim be smokin some shiet.

fish assholes were benefits for local firefighters.

we signed a dolla dolla bill. a lot of people did. but because we were ridiculous and blogged everything on the cash only wordpress, we had to photograph it. like this photograph of tim photographing it.

this is NOT the result of his photographing it, but it might as well be pretty much.

hea be da final dolla bill.

outside the mother bitch.

we were going to camp on the beach, but we didn’t want to sleep and wake up to the stinky smell of rotting fish and get disgusting fish gills all up in our shit. so we spoiled ourselves and went to search for food, firstly, because we hadn’t really eaten for a while. ended up at this mexican joint, with live music (in another casino-type room we couldn’t actually go to) and it had the weirdest television show on.

tim and koury giving each other the look of love.

alright, so we drove around for a while and ended up driving to motherfucking yuma. wow i cuss like a sailor. anyway. we drove around for a little bit more while IN yuma and totally randomly found this campsite. free! yes! free campsites rule! buuuut. it was kinda hard to set up right there in the middle of the night. none of the tents were mine, and there weren’t enough flashlights, so i didn’t really help, but these boys did a fine good job.

woo, thus concludes day one.

recap central: turkey, day eight: aspendos / konya.

thursday, april 30th, 2010.
First stop of the day: the Roman theatre in Aspendos! Only it was re-built and didn’t have 100% Roman characteristics. It was pretty big… not a huge stop, but it was very intact.

The highlight of that for me was probably:
1) Ant carrying a dead bee!

2) An entire class of kids chatting with me! Turkish kids are extremely adorable and very, very friendly. They will talk to anyone and everyone. They were very, very cute.

Lunch stop on the way to Konya! There was a proper restaurant, but there was also these pancakes, called gozleme, being sold out of a tent. I mentioned gozleme previously; it is sold on road sides throughout Turkey, and is a really cheap, delicious crepe-like pancake. The particular one we got here was like 4 lira and had cheese and potato in it (you could mix-and-match cheese, meat, and potato).

When we finally got to Konya (I think it was a long drive), we went to the Qu’ran School. I thought it was literally a Qu’ran School, but it was not. It was an old relic of a building that USED to be a Koran school. It was pretty nice, though. Lots of neat architecture:

Next was Mevlana’s Mausoleum. Mevlana was the founder of the Dervish order, and he’s a well-revered guy. It was a really radical building; photos weren’t allowed in it, but it was eye candy everywhere. A bit overwhelming, really. In the last room, there were a bunch of hand-illustrated Korans… inspiring, inspiring, inspiring!

We stayed in Konya that night, at this weird ass RiXor hotel. It was vastly surrounded by tons and tons of new constructions – mostly apartment buildings. Its entrance revolving door had a print of a whirling dervish guy on it. Hahahahaha. It was a very strange hotel that was absolutely humongous!

Over dinner, my parents complained a huge amount about the dinner that was served and the live percussion-based music; we were sitting fairly far away from the music so really what you could hear was the beat, but yeah. Whine, whine, whine. They also complained because the previous hotel in Antalya had –amazing- service (too amazing where it wrapped around to non-amazing, I’d say, because they were constantly taking stuff away that you were still eating) and RiXor was packed full-up with people and the service was mediocre. In fact, when they cleared our plates, they didn’t take them anywhere; they just moved the plates to the table right next to us. Haha. Pretty lazy, but whatever, man.

We embarked on hotel exploration after dinner. It was a weird place. Huge, like I said. Conference rooms and shops on the main level (where I had a conversation with a blonde-haired, green-eyed worker in one of the shops who kept talking about my lip piercing). Went swimming afterwards in a huge pool. Only… there was a Jacuzzi connected to the pool, but it wasn’t hot! Most disappointing. There were a shit to of people in that pool.

While we were swimming, a Japanese lady slipped and fell. Lot of people wen to go help her. For a long time, she was just sitting her and there, in random places, as she was directed… but she just kept smiling in her bath towel and had this silly look on her face. She seemed okay. But eventually (after moving seating positions to three different places), she ended up in a stretcher and an ambulance came (this was like, an hour later, after we were done swimming). One of the workers there – who we assumed was a Chinese-imported masseuse – is the first Asian we see in Turkey… first and only, really – and he speaks Turkish!

recap central: turkey, day seven: pergamon / antalya.

wednesday, april 29th, 2010.
Woke up super early and went swimming before our wakeup call, and it pooped us out for the rest of the day, haha.

We woke up the next day and headed to Pergamon. By today, I was still pissed about last night and feeling kinda sick or whatever, and frankly, I was super tired of ruins. I really did not give a fuck. Til the animals.

There was a little turtle on the road, which Al pointed out. I’m SO glad no one crunched it! The turtle walked off the road and was coming to me. Awwwww. I moved him off to the side of the road. I was soooo happy. That turtle made me quite happy. And I spent the rest of the time there trying to find animals – of which there were a lot. I was totally out of it and completely not in the mood to look at more ruins. So instead, I went animal-hunting. And it turned out good.

So many aminals!

That day was kinda a blur because I was so tired and they were completely unspectacular ruins compared to Ephesus. And I was not in the mood, as I mentioned.

We ate lunch at a somewhat fancier restaurant that was more for locals. It was a pizza place; I didn’t feel like eating an entire pizza, so I just ate the free side dishes, of which there were a lot. There was some spice there – this black, kinda spicy kinda nutty spice – that Auntie Ruby really liked, so she asked our waiter what it was and they just gave her a bag of it.

After lunch, Sherry and I went to walk around; there was a nearby DVD/CD store and a market. I got some Swedish film for 1 lira or something – just for fun. When we got back to the restaurant to use the restroom, the parental had purchased some Turkish ice cream and we ate that for the first time. It’s interesting and much thicker than normal ice cream. The texture is great; the taste is pretty usual, I’d say.

We went to the Archeology Museum that exhibited a lot of the findings from Pergamon. It wasn’t a very big museum, but there were some pretty neat statues and stuff. I wasn’t terribly super into it, though. Before we went in, there was a whole bus of schoolchildren. Schoolchildren there wear these bright blue outfits. Al affectionately labeled the students as “Smurfs”; he would constantly say, “The Smurfs are coming!” Anyway, I was wearing a blue zip-up top the same day in almost the same shade, so I went over to blend in with them. Haha. Apparently, Lanny gave all the kids American pennies. Woo!

Some shots of stuff in the museum.

Mr. Ed.

Evil eye spoon!

Awesome Arabic calligraphy!

After the museum, the bus dropped off the people who wanted to take a walking tour in the city center, and we walked back to the hotel. Other people just went straight back to the hotel. It was a pretty fun walk – nothing super notable other than this one guy who walked after us, babbling fake-Asian language to us that sounded not even close to any kind of Asian language. It was like speaking in tongues or something; it was completely non-reminiscent of any language I’ve ever heard. Gross! Not sure what he was doing!

Al got us a bit lost on our walk, but whatever. We passed this square (like the one we passed on the waterfront in Antalya) where there were a shit ton of skaters. Good shit. Why don’t we have more open squares for people to socialize on? Seems like such a simple community-building thing.

That evening was buffet as usual, and then a really epic pool night. After dinner, Sherry and I went to the business center to do some work because there was free internet there. The parentals found a pool table that was open, so we joined them after doing some work. There wasn’t really anyone else trying to play, though, so we ended up playing a few games with them and then just played a zillion million thousand games by ourselves. In total, Sherry and I played four HOURS of pool.

While we were playing with our parents, this guy came and watched and was just smiling goofily. We later found out his name was Achmet and he was a Turkish guy studying university in Antalya. We couldn’t really speak with him cause he didn’t really speak English, but then one of the hotel workers heard us bumming around there and being really weird and loud and it wasn’t particularly busy in the hotel that night, so he came and talked to us and served as translator for a bit. He said he was going to come back and play with us, but mentioned that he was kinda professional. I didn’t really take him super seriously… til later. In any case, Achmet wanted to play with us, so I played him first. Except he was wearing sOo much cologne it made me pretty sick. I was losing to him, too, much to the surprise of all parties involved – possibly except to Achmet – because he played pool like a totally narb. He just kinda hit the ball as hard as possible all the time. So dramatic! So actually, I was losing pretty bad, but then he made the 8-ball into the wrong pocket and was totally celebrating and thought he won even though he lost. I just let it go and let him play Sherry. When Emitz (worker guy) came back to check on us, I told him the situation and from there on it was slated that I’d play the next match with Emitz, and whoever won between Sherry and Achmet would play the winner of the game between Emitz and I. Sherry won the game between Emitz and Achmet. Anyway, when Emitz (worker guy) translated for us the guy’s name, and the guy said his name was Achmet, Emitz was like, “Oh, man, just like everyone else,” or something. Emitz was really, really funny…

So I played him, and he made in all of his balls except for 3 (including 8-ball) on the first break ~__~ He was definitely pretty good. Luckily, I got in like 5 in a row, too, so it was fairly close… cept then he demolished me in one turn, and it was the fastest pool game ever. After that, he played Sherry, but he kept acting like she as handicapped and didn’t know how to play pool, and was trying to teach her… only he kept moving the ball so that she would get an easy shot instead of just telling her where to hit harder shots. It got kind of irritating for Sherry, I’m sure; I was getting irritated just kind of watching! He was good, but still!
Oh yeah, it was funny, because he was working upstairs in the bar / front desk and he told us to call him when we wanted him to come. His number on the tele was like 654 or something, and he would say stuf like, “Call me! You know my number!” purely in jest. Or he would call us from the top of the stairs while looking down at us and tell us to pick up the phone. He was quite funny. When he played the two games with us, someone called him and required him to get back to work, so he kept asking if we wanted free drinks or anything, but we said nah. He ended up sending us two cappuccinos anyway. I don’t think I’ve drunken too many cappuccinos ever!! He wrote our first initial in the foam; for Sherry’s name, he wrote an ____, and for mine, he wrote a W… hehehe! He thought it was Wivian! Or maybe even Wiwian! Wiwian’s my evil twin… like Wario!

Later on, he came to talk to us again and asked if we wanted any cocktails. He ended up giving Sherry a free drink he made, calls Angels And Demons (or something). It was blue and melony! It had rum and whiskey! It took second place in some contest, but he said that second place winners are never remembered anyone, so it’s pointless. I actually really liked it.

When we left – and I don’t remember this – Sherry said he said, “Maybe we’ll meet again… in our dreams.” Haha. He wanted us to go out with him at 1 in the morning, after he got off work, but we declined. Good ol’ Amitz. We had to get up ass early the next morning, anyway.