Happy New Year!

Well, I just arrived in Budapest for newyears (a day early to give myself a chance to rest up for the imminent partying =)  It's a bit late so I'll keep this short.  Let's see, Christmas in Ljubljana was nice and relaxing, Graz (the home town of Arnold -- it's not a tumor) was quaint, then I road with my new friends Carmen and Harry out to the mountains (hmm, I think they might have been the alps, but I guess just the baby alps or something) to stay a few nights at one of Harry's friends ski homes.  They cooked the best dinners (austrian goulasch and some onion steak roast) and after a rather crazy game of austrian spoons the first night we took it easy and played risk the second night.  Actually, Mathias taught me an austrian card game which is a bit like a variation (very varied that is) of Euker -- I won't bother explaining the rules now, but I think it was called schnapsen if anybody wants to google it...
Yesterday we went skiing -- so now I've skied (if you can call falling on your ass 10 times skiing).  I only went half way down once, but I got to know all the parts of the hill I hit very close up!  On some of the steep parts I made every attempt to slide down as far as I could head first after wiping out, just so I wouldn't have to attempt skiing it...  Ok, I'll admit I'm an awful skier -- a lot of you know that already, but this was not the best conditions for a novice. It hasn't snowed much this winter so the snow was all artificial and icy and the mountains are actual mountains unlike the hills we have in wisconsin... Someday I'll have to spend a few months in a nice hilly cold weather town and get my snow feet.
Anyway, as tempting as it was to stay in Austria with all the great people I met, something inside was nagging me to get back on the road and head on to Budapest before new years.  I'm here with some guys from Austin that I met in Beograd so I'm sure it'll be a good time. 
Boldog ey evet (happy new years)!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Vesel Božič from Ljubljana!  

Ok, I have to appologize to half of my slavic friends because I spent the last four days in Belgrade.  Close your eyes if you arent serbian when I say that I had a great time.  Never the less, it was also nice to leave.  I think I had a little too much smoke --  the hostel where I stayed, not to mention the train ride and everywhere else I went was just sooooo smoke filled.  Everybody seems to smoke there.  Even more than I remember in Germany from ten years ago... 

I was planning on going south towards greece for the holidays and then sailing up to turkey, but plans have changed -- well, if you can call that vague intent I had a plan.  Now Ill be taking the northern route through hungary and romania.  Good thing I didnt already tear those chapters out of my lonely planet... 

Anyway, I really cant write long now because Im writing from a hostel where Im not even staying...  Im spending xmas with a friend here in ljubljana and then Ill be moving on out toward budapest for New Years.

So merry xmas to all, and to all a good night.  Ho ho ho ho.  And happy new years too of course, but hopefully Ill check in again before then.

My first wifi connection in weeks...

Saturday December 16, 2006
As much as I love germany, I do hate how hard it is to find an open wifi connection there. Even in the hostel I stayed at in frankfurt they had some kind of encription turned on. They gave me the passcode, but for whatever reason I couldn't get it to work on my palm tx. Sometimes it would be nice to have a real computer, but mostly I'm happy with what I have in my pocket.
So I'm in Salzburg right now. I didn't plan on staying, it was more of a town I was passing through because it was on the border of germany and I wanted to use they last of my german rail pass to get out of the country. Today I'll be hopping on a train down to ljubljana (the town I still haven't learned to pronounce). Its only taken me a few more days than I thought it would to get there though. My first night in Salzburg I met a group of australians who had spent the last year in different towns of austria on a highschool exchange program. This was about two minutes after checking into the hostel, and with no other plans I happily excepted their invitation to go out. I think it's a bit funny, because in Frankfut Ursel was complaining about all the young annoying people she kept meeting in Costa Rica. She said she realized she was getting old. Well, I don't feel like I'm there yet, because somehow I still feel completely at ease with 18 year olds... In the words of whats his name from dazed and confused (ok, I know his name, but can't spell it...) "I love highschool girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age". Of course that quote would at this point be utterly lost on them...
Yesterday I woke up, had some breakfast at the hostel, and debated whether to stick around another day or not. I was connecting to check my email and about to toss a coin to answer that question when a girl in the hall asked about my palm pilot. She seemed a little dazed and confused and we exchanged the usual pleasantries -- where are you from, how long have you been going, etc... She was from virginia and said she'd been woofing (woof -- working on organic farm) for a while in italy and now she was making her way to barcelona via frankfurt. At that point all I knew was I wanted to hear more. "Mind if I hang out with you today?" She accepted and I didn't need to flip that coin anymore...
About half way through the day I finally figured out who she reminded me of -- she talked just like an old friend from highschool (vicki K for those of you who actually went to school with me). It was interesting because we both shared the same absolute lack of direction and just spent the day wandering around getting lost. We did see the castle and some marienette puppet museum which was pretty interesting, but then we wandered around the weinachtsmarkt, and finally came up with the quest of searching for some yarn (It just so happened that she had a crochet hook on her and wanted to learn to crochet, and I happened to know how to crochet and was happy to teach her). So I spent my friday evening giving basic crochet lessons.
I know though, I've been bad and haven't mentioned anything since Frankfurt, and even that was just a short, hey there, I'm still alive. I did start to write something once or twice while I was on various trains moving around germany, but somehow I just wasn't really in the mood and after a few minutes either my battery died or I got lazy and gave up. I felt like whatever I was writing was boring, and if I didn't want to write it, they I wouldn't want to read it... Then one day on my train ride to potsdam I had the most unexpected feeling. I was sitting in my seat, staring out the window, bored, thinking, hmm, I suppose I could write something... Nah, not really in the mood. I could read (I'm reading a german translation of hitchikers guide to the galaxy and the restaurant at the end of the universe right now) but no, I was feeling a little bit too lazy for that too. I could sleep... No, not really tired. In the end I think I got up and went to the dining car to get a cup of coffee -- like I said, I wasn't tired, I was just bored and coffee seemed like a nice lazy distraction at the time. When I got back to my seat and thought about how absolutely lazy and unmotivated I'd become, I suddenly had the sensation I swore I'd never have -- I wanted to work! I wouldn't say I missed work, but I felt like I needed to do somthing that would engage my head, force me to concentrate and think a little bit. Even if only for a few weeks. So yes, it happened, and it only took three months -- I got to the point where I wanted to work...
I'll even admit I started to get a semblance of a feeling of homesickness when I was alone in frankfurt. I talked about it with shukdee yesterday because she said she was getting a similarly hard to describe feeling recently too. When I told her what I had decided it was, she thought it was a plausible explanation. It's december. It really has little to do with homesickness, but it's a bit of a sense of loneliness, or maybe more emptiness. But the more I thought about it, I realized it's just my usual december feeling -- the weather gets colder, people start to stay in doors, the clubs are a little bit emptier. Last year I was at a bar and noticed there were way more guys than girls. A friend said that it's always that way in chicago winters -- the girls don't go out because they'd rather stay in and cuddle -- of course the girls who do go out are on a mission to find a guy to stay at home and cuddle with... My problem with december is that I've noticed the last few years I've tended to meet some girl, fall head over heals for her, and then spend the next six months trying to get over her. I was hoping that traveling and staying in warmer weather would break that cycle... But then I made the mistake of spending december in Germany! So the lonely feeling I was getting was just my usual winter instinctual urge to nest... Of course realizing that doesn't make it feel any less real =)
Yesterday I told somebody about Descartes's fetish for cross eyed women.
I know that seems like quite a nonsequitor, but if you could see inside my mind that comment made complete sense at the time =)
As for my last two weeks in germany, I had a great time. I'm glad I ended up stranded an extra week waiting on my visa for India. For those of you who want the short version, after arriving in milan I went straight up to stuttgart and checked into a hostel in my old hometown. The next day I sent out a few last minute emails looking for anybody to hang out with. My new found friend in halle texted me back that they had to help a friend move, but she'd surely be happy to have another person help out (the friends name was janine and I ended up crashing on her floor in berlin a week later). Halle was great. I helped Janine move out, went to party at a club which was apparently an unoccupied building which had been "occupied" and rennovated into a party house, went to a class, painted and even played some ultimate frisbee. Then I was off to Tuebingen to visit an old friend. Jasmin decided to take Friday off to hang out with me (and mostly because she felt like she could really use the break). We did a little shopping (I bought a new hat beacuse I'd left mine in halle -- of course I found it again two days ago in my backpack), watched some german dvds, bought some used furniture, installed a washer and baced cookies. Sunday I showed up late at my aunts in Nuernberg for lunch and spent the day listening to stories about her early years in chicago (that may sound boring, but at this point she's one of my few remaining connections to my family history -- or at least the most vocal one so I'm always fascinated by the stories). Monday I headed upp to Frankfurt to get my visa but arrived to late and stayed in a hostel until Tuesday morning when I discovered I'd have to wait a whole week rather than a day... Ursel had just arrived back from costa rica so I spent the day hanging out with her and then left Wednesday to visit Franzi in Potsdam. Thursday I went to two classes -- methods of foriegn language instruction and math for kids -- I learned the difference between aufteilen and verteilen. I'm not sure we would distinguish between the two in english...
Franzi got a call in the moring asking if she could babysit that night. I said if she didn't I would because it was good money so she did and that meant I needed to make other plans for the night. I texted my friends in Halle and they said they were busy, but suggested I try Janine in Berlin -- she was available and said I was welcome to crash on her floor. She had the coolest place! She's staying in an apartment in berlin with three roommates. One has a huge dog and another has two rats -- I got a few pictures of one crawling around on my shoulder -- they were so cutet =) Her room was more like a walk in closet -- I'd say about 5 feet wide and maybe 12 long, but high ceilings so her bed is up in a loft. That left enough room on the floor for me to stretch out. The amazing part is that she only pays 50 euros a month for rent! Awesome =) Friday I headed over to Hanover to visit my friends Mark and Ursel again. I'd have to say the highlight was going to a sauna with Mark on Sunday -- I really needed a good cleaning and walked out of there squeaky clean =)
Monday I went up north to visit a cousin I haven't seen in over 10 years. It was fun to catch up and Tuesday I noticed my camera had finally expired so she and Christof took me shopping for a new one. Then it was back to frankfurt to pick up my passport and now Salzburg which I've already mentioned... So that's basically my germany experience. I should get going now though because my laundry is probably dry and my train leaves in an hour.
tschuss

Coming full circle -- again...

Well, Im in Frankfurt again and writing this from a friends place.  I dont really want to spend a lot of time here so Ill be keeping it short.  Sorry that I havent written in a while, I actually started to write something on the train twice, but kind of gave up after a short while because I just wasnt feeling particularly inspired to write...  That and I was tired.  And I felt more like writing in german than english...

This is my third time in Frankfurt -- this is where I started, this is where I passed through after my circle around the baltic and before my circle around western europe, and this is where Ive ended up coming back to to pick up my visa for india.  Too bad I didnt take the time to get it in the States -- It turns out if you dont live here it takes a week rather than a day and costs twice as much...  So I wasnt planning on spending the next week in germany, but then again I wasnt planning anything.  Still, Germany seems to have had other plans for me so Ill be sticking around a bit.  I have to say Ive had a great time here so far.  Last week I helped somebody move (one of my favorite pasttimes as many of you know), painted, played ultimate frisbee, went to a class at the university (all of those were in halle), then installed a washing machine, watched a small menge of movies, baked biscotti and helped a friend buy and transport some chairs (those were all in Tuebingen).  Tomorrow Ill be headed back toward the east to visit another friend, but I havent figured out any plans after that. 

Ill do my best one of these days to work up the energy to actually write something I myself would find skatterbrained enough to enjoy reading, but for now I guess youll just have to settle with the quick comment that I am in fact still alive.