I know what you all were thinking: That Alexander will NEVER COME TO ANYTHING. Nobody escapes Altkirch: he will live and die there, and I say good riddance. He’s a bastard anyway. I don’t know: I get the feeling he doesn’t respect me. I mean, it’s not anything quantifiable. He just seems kind of dismissive whenever he talks to me. Whatever, I don’t care. Have I ever told you about that time he took me to a dogfight? Christ it was awkward. I think if I had sex with him — just once — I could die happy.
Whoa, you’re nuts! And it’s not true about the Altkirch thing. I’ve been ditching Altkirch regularly for the past month and a half or so. I have begun spending weekends/some midweeks in Mulhouse, staying with other assistants. It’s awesome: if I have to leave really early to take the 7am train to work, I get to jump the fence around the building. (Seriously, this is kind of a dormitory for students, and its gate can’t be opened from the inside without a key. And the fence is about as tall as I am. I guess they used up the bureaucracy quota on making health insurance difficult to get, and didn’t have any resources left over for formulating or enforcing sensible fire codes). But anyway I like jumping fences. There’s something intrinsically life-affirming about it (give it a try).
Furthermore, I went to Prague this past vacation, instead of spending two weeks on an afternoon-is-for-baths/evening-is-for-sitting-on-the-sofa schedule. I met some Americans on the first day there, went to the State Opera with them (they had an extra ticket).
I think I understand the appeal of operettas. You can’t think of it like some kitchen sink drama, where you need to keep track of nuanced emotions and ambiguities. Operettas are about dozens of people standing on a platform in silly costumes, bellowing at the top of their lungs. It’s a spectacle like an action film: instead of explosions, you have screaming people. If you take a step back from it and try to see it outside the context of a cultural event, it’s absolutely mind-blowingly incredible. At the end of one of them was an honest to God cabaret scene, complete with an entire can-can production. I think I almost flipped out then and there.
So I hung out with these Americans (all exchange students somewhere in Germany, most of them Southerners, they were pretty cool) for like the three or so days they were there, and then spent the rest of the nine-day break on my own. Travelling alone (for me, I guess) is so much less expensive than travelling with people.
OTHER PEOPLE: Let’s go to this restaurant and eat traditional Czech cuisine at a reasonable price!
ME: Really? I was thinking we could eat dry muesli and, for protein, share a package of lunchmeat.
OTHER PEOPLE: I wonder where the closest tram is?
ME: We’ll save like a euro if we walk back to the hostel.
OTHER PEOPLE: Hey, we’re all going to chip in ten euro and pick up some coke from this hippie we met outside a supermarket.
ME: Guys, we could buy airplane glue for like two euro.
But yeah, it was interesting: it’s a beautiful city that has tons of beautiful buildings from many different eras. As would most other European cities, if it weren’t for war.
Have I told you guys how once I came home in the early evening and looked out the sliding door and saw a really bright moon? I was like, “That is the brightest, roundest, largest moon I have ever seen.” So I turned to my roommate and was like, “Look how beautiful the moon is today,” and she was like, “Oh yeah. Uh. Yeah.” And then I realized… it was actually the sun!
But I digress.
I got a free t-shirt in Prague! I guess it wasn’t actually free.
I spent a grumpy bus ride back to France. A group of teenagers were watching the Simpsons in some Slavic language on a portable electronic device. I had a seatmate and thus couldn’t sleep. Hell is other people… sitting next to me on a bus when I’m trying to sleep. And she didn’t buy me any malted milk balls either.
Oh, and that first conjecture about yours, about me being trapped in Altkirch forever, is actually possibly true. That little slow-news-day thing about that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland or somewhere? Well it’s pretty much thrown Europe into chaos — flights anywhere, of any kind, are dubious (it came right at the end of a holiday for the assistants, I saw firsthand how ridiculous it was). Just how am I going to get back to the US? GOOD QUESTION (though recently things have been quieting down). Here were my tentative travel plans:
1 May 10: Fly from Basel to Istanbul
15 May 10: Take the Caledonia, a passenger liner known for trafficking Eastern European sex workers, to Odessa, Ukraine.
15 May – 16 Jun 10: Make my way through the Ukraine, Poland, and maybe a bit of Germany, and make some time to chill out with the French family.
16 Jun 10: Fly home from Paris, by way of ICELAND, to New York, spending a day in Reykjavik or the hot springs or something.
August sometime: Moving into my flat in Boston (Incidentally, that is where I’ve decided to move after France. PARTY’S MOVING TO CAMBRIDGE, EVERYBODY ON THE BUS).
So unless plume levels continue at the low levels they’ve hit the last couple of days, I’m probably going to have a totally different vacation.
Take care! Tonight I’m eating haggis and drinking hot toddies.
Came to my senses & I chilled for a bit 