Tag: travel stories

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business personal

Pretty Card

No one else to send it to

So it appears that none of the postcards I sent was received by the people to whom I sent it. I honestly wrote everyone that sent me an address.

I then gave them all to the two clerks at the Hotel New York in Rotterdam and had them mail it – they ran my Amex.

Bastards.

When I’m in a better place, I’ll ask you to resend me your addys and I’ll send you an NYC postcard.

Him: (pointing to this card) There’s just an address on this one, sir.
Me: It’s for someone that doesn’t know I still think of her. But I thought she’d like it.
Him: Doesn’t she know your handwriting?
Me: Oddly enough, no.
Him: (politely) It’s a pretty card, perhaps you can send it to someone else?
Me: (laughing) I’ve no one else to send it to.

Was locked outta my apartment for four hours yesterday, which was just plain awful. However, I did see GES yesterday for a 45-minute coffeebreak.

That was rather nice.

Location: 19:00 yest, in an office wondering what I’ve done
Mood: determined
Music: The day’s still ashes and wine

Categories
personal

Exactly two years in spite of the misery

Life is sweet, despite of the misery

My mom bought me sushi today. Pity sushi from my mother. This is what it’s come to.

One Dragon Roll, one Shrimp Tempura Roll, one Spicy Tuna Roll.

Pity Sushi. The next best thing to Third Date, It’s Late, Do You Wanna Crash At My Pad, Sushi.

———-

Forgot to mention that when I arrived in Munich, the customs officer took my passport and asked me if I had been in Germany before. I nodded so he flipped through it.

Then he looked up at me and asked, Is today a special day for you?

No, I said, not particularly. Why?

Because you came here exactly two years ago. I thought maybe you had an anniversary here. I didn’t believe him so he showed me. It was true: October 5th, 2005 and October 5th, 2007.

What a coincidence.

Was that really two years ago that I went to Berlin with my ex? We’ve been split up for that long? I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t.

Ah, what does it matter? Life is sweet, in spite of the misery.

Location: 12PM yest., having an enormous salad on my couch
Mood: slightly hopeful
Music: Wanna hide from the vicious world outside But don’t

Categories
personal

Globetrotting Pt. II

Trip to Europe: Rotterdam to Dover, to London, to Munich, to Innsbruck

Another long and weird day. Someone from my past is knocking on my door. He’s everything I hate about myself but he and I have a history so here we are again.

Sorry so cryptic, I’m making some changes – dunno if for better or worse. I’ll let you know soon. I always do.

But back to the trip:

20071004
Skipped all the meetings and went to the New York Hotel in Rotterdam. There I wrote postcards and had a $6 glass of water and listened to someone saying, goodbye my almost lover as I wrote my friends and family.

I picked up the pretty postcard above and thought it was a bit sad I had no one to send it to.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

I’ll be in Dover tomorrow.

20071005
Arrived in Dover, England this morning where we left the ship. The guy that screwed up with the six hour trip to Bruges also screwed us for our Dover trip. We didn’t have to get up until 9AM but we woke at 4AM on his suggestion. Man!

At least I got to see the white cliffs at dawn. Went over London Stansted for an EasyJet flight to Munich.

Lemme just say that any airline with the word “Easy” in it is bound not to be. We ended up queuing for almost an hour.

Arrived in Munich that night where the Hotel Apollo said they lost our room but put us in Hotel Mirabell instead. Hmmmm…

Started drinking at 7PM at Oktoberfest where I met this bunch of people. Fun. I may have kissed a girl from Chicago and/or Australia – I don’t remember.

Its so hard to see clearly.

 

20071006
Woke up at 8AM to start drinking. Yes, 8AM. That’s how they do it there. They don’t mess around. Here’s the town walking to get hammered at 7:45AM.

We met up with some US soldiers and then a whole bunch of different people. Called it a day at 3PM. It was when I shot this video.

When to the hotel, passed out. We went to the Augustiner Großgaststätten to eat dinner.

 

20071007
Him: Wanna drink more or let our livers take a rest?
Me: Rest. Please.

We rented a BMW 1 (yes, they exist) and drove down to Neuschwanstein Castle and some other castles. There’re all over the damn place.

And man, those mountain roads are TWISTY! We drove through a %!#$% mountain for several minutes. Driving them in the dark was both terrifying and fun. Sorta like living in NYC.

We then decided to drive two hours to Innsbruck in Austria for dinner at the Elferhaus and had a cup of coffee at Cafe Kroell for an hour. On the way back, Mississippi, shes callin my name.

20071008
Drove to Munich in the dark with only 35Km left of gas in the gas tank. It’s funny now. Wasn’t then.

Slept for three hours at the Mövenpick Hotel München – the room was absolutely gorgeous but totally not worth it because we were there for grand total of four hours. We should have slept at the airport. Oh well…

Woke up thinking another aerorplane, another sunny place (I’m lucky I know) but I wanna go home. We then made our way to the Munich airport to Belgium then the US.

So now I’m back.
Location: 8PM, driving in circles in LIC
Mood: tired
Music: see the words in italics above

Categories
personal

Globetrotting Pt. I

Trip to Europe: New York to Paris, to Nates, to Bruges

Couldn’t even begin to tell you about the day I had. I’ll tell you in two weeks. Promise.

For now, my trip:

20070928
Packed this morning but Jim forgot to confirm our ride. So I took the train to 34th and 7th Ave, where, like a $10 hooker, I stood on the corner to wait for a shiny silver car to pick me up.

For international flights you gotta be checked in at least an hour before the plane departs. We were scheduled for 5:55. We arrived at 4:53. After some well handled pleading, we got in. We went to the clubroom where I had a scotch (no good rum available).

We hopped on the plane and I listened to Good Souls as the plane leveled off.

20070929
Arriving in Charles de Gaule, we took the train to Nates where a driver picked us up and took us to the Hotel Hermitage in La Boule, France. It was a beautiful yet vapid place – the food was surprisingly mediocre – the hamburger I had there was one of the worst I’ve ever had it cost $40.

Was certain it’d come with a massage at that price but I was wrong.

Walking on the beach, I took the picture of a happy couple above and thought, Someday…

20070930
Cocktail parties, meet and greets, nothing of substance.

Jim and I went over to the local town where we had a plate of seafood. It was also ok; about 50% snails and not our cup of tea. I had five snails, Jim had four. Not terrible, not great.

Man, these French like to smoke. Meanwhile, the waitresses are smoking. Huh.

I wanted to tell her, “Use me, abuse me, make me write bad checks” but then I remembered I don’t speak French. So, instead we made the international symbol of check please by scribbling in the air.

Walking down the beach, I felt the cool wind in my hair.

20071001
Grabbed a ride to Nates to catch a plane to the Netherlands. There we hopped on board a private jet where the stewardesses were all dressed in the sexiest damn outfits I’ve ever seen.

Some killer food on the plane – better than most of the meals I have at home (though that’s scant surprise).

We then took a bus to our ship as I heard a blue jean baby sing.

20071002
On ship with a balcony and view. It’s where I took this video. Meetings, food, sun. Drank way too much. Got hit on by a bunch of gay guys. Great.

Not a single girl of my type in the group so I snuck out and chatted with the cute matre’d from one of the ship restaurants, Alexandra. I told her to ring me if she was ever in my town and she said she would.

I thought that I don’t wanna be walked on just before I fell asleep.

20071003
Went to Bruges, Belgium from the Netherlands to have lunch at the Half Moon Brewery. It was interesting, the food and beer was topnotch BUT it totally wasn’t worth the three hours it took to get there and the three hours it took to get back.

The ship set sail for Rotterdam (above pic in the lobby of the New York Hotel there) and I heard someone say that everyone’s taken everything they can. I don’t think that’s true. I hope that’s not true.

More tomorrow.

Location: 3PM, staring at several Glocks in Queens
Mood: indescribable
Music: see the words in italics above

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