a Firenze and elsewhere

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 04 Jun 2001 03:34:00 +0000

Hello from my parents' basement, listening to Bill Hicks' Dangerous. My stomach is sort of churning with anticipation, excitement, and dread. I know my summer isn't going to be as interesting as the past five months, but hopefully it'll still be a good one. I'm calling Connie tomorrow, I wanna see her shaved head.

Earlier today Phil, Teresa, Tony, and I went to the aquarium for a short while before going to the airport. The flight was delayed, but uneventful. My sisters Joy and Kate, and my mom picked me up at the airport.

I guess this is the end of the journal, but I'm not sure. Here is a perhaps pertinent link. [This link no longer works but it connected to an Onion editorial called something like "There's More to Life Than Experiencing Its Varied Peoples and Cultures".]

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sun, 03 Jun 2001 06:03:00 +0000

Forgot to mention that I finished Close to the Knives and read all of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity on the way from Helsinki to Florence. In Florence I bought White Noise by Don DeLillo, which I'm reading now, and Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, both of which I've read once before but wanted to read again. I bought the latter two with the intention of sending them to Maddy, who is working on a ship in Alaska for the third straight summer.

We went to the MIT Museum, which had some interesting displays on robotics and artificial intelligence, and the work of a guy called Edgerton (forgot his first name), who is probably most famous for a photograph of an apple being pierced by a bullet.

We also walked along the Freedom Trail for a while, then went to the Chomsky lecture. It was on East Timor, and there was another speaker, Winston Rondo, from West Timorese organization to help East Timorese refugees. I was glad to go because I didn't know very much about the situation.

Then we went to the science museum to see Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure which chronicled the eponymous explorer's mission to the eponymous continent (he didn't get there, though). It was a good show.

Next post from the center of Ohio.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sat, 02 Jun 2001 15:27:00 +0000

I got to Boston yesterday at 4pm (10pm to me); Phil and his friend from college Tony, who's in town on business, picked me up at the airport. We lugged my junk on the T and back to Phil and Teresa's apartment and I think I strained something, although I'm proud I was able to stuff five months of things into two large bags and one small one. We went to a Brazilian restaurant and met Teresa there. I was exhausted, but determined to stay up at least till 10pm. We had some wine and watched "Monty Python's Life of Brian" which I had never seen. Then sleep, wonderful sleep.

Today we're going to see some museums, I guess, since it's raining and will be all day. Tonight we're going to a lecture by Noam Chomsky!

Tomorrow I fly to Columbus, and after that I don't really know what'll happen. This website will be updated, of course. But that really means the end of this trip and the end of this journal. We'll see what happens.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Thu, 31 May 2001 09:54:00 +0000

So, I'm back in Florence, much calmer. I'm staying with Jacob and Andreas again. Bryonie, a girl from SACI, is also staying there - she arrived yesterday too. Last night she, Andreas, and I went to a showing of SACI student films. We thought it was at SACI but it was actually on the other side of town, so we missed about 20 minutes, which included most of the films from the fall semester. But we saw all the spring semester ones (our fellow students) and it was quite enjoyable. It was at this big open-air club kinda thing, in a piazza between all these buildings, and they projected it on a big movie screen.

I'm about to go try and sell my guitar at a music store nearby. I hope they buy it. If not, I'm going to ship it home. Yikes.

Tomorrow I'm flying! Close to noon. I'm leaving with not much more stuff than I came with, mostly just a lot of extra books and artwork. I'll probably write another entry before I leave.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Tue, 29 May 2001 08:51:00 +0000

Shit. I'm in Berlin Ostbahnhoff, I lost my Eurailpass on the overnight train from Malm�, Sweden, so I had to pay for my ticket to M�nchen. I'm leaving soon. Here's what I wrote in my journal waiting in Malm�:

28 may 2001 20:01

So my last night in Helsinki I went to this festival in the park near the train station, where I planned to meet up with Topi after buying my ship ticket. I ran into Harri and his nice girlfriend � they're a cute couple � who were planning to meet Topi as well. Topi and Aleksi showed up, and we watched some musicians they know, but I left to look around on my own. On the second stage there was this great Finnish pop/rock band, but I'm not sure what their name was. They sang in Finnish, too. I only listened to a handful of songs, though, and walked away from the city center to the harbor, finished writing some postcards. I called Izu and met her back at the festival, along with her thirty million friends, including Jella ("It's a Lappish name"), whom I'd met before on Wednesday. The Skatellites were playing! They were good but it seemed over very quickly, maybe since the sun was still out when they finished, but then, it was about 9:30. I followed to this half indoor/outdoor club/bar where � get this � a Finnish reggae band was playing. They didn't start till midnight, but the show was actually quite good. They played for about an hour, then we left (I, Izu, and her fellow Swedish-speaking girlfriend). Izu went home, the girl and I met Topi, Jella, and Donnelly (?) by chance at a busstop, and we had all just missed the night bus. We decided to hike it the 45 minutes to where we were all going (save the girl whose name I can't remember � damn Finnish names). It was actually a relaxing end to a rather stressful night, and Jella and I had a nice, silly, stupid conversation while Topi and Donnelly were laughingly drunk. Going into Topi's friend's apartment building, we had an enlightening (to me) conversation. I had thought that all the times there were awkward , uncomfortable silences between us, Topi was bored with my being there or something. Turns out that he's like most Finnish people � most Scandenavians, maybe � in that he doesn't have to be blabbering about nothing to feel content in a social setting. And he's a pretty quiet guy anyway. I felt better about the whole week, actually.

The next day, we went to the festival again, but I just got some food and watched some Spanish language band with Topi for a short while. They weren't on a stage, just the ground, and a really, really drunk guy very close by was stealing the show. This was 3:30pm. He was falling down, sticking his long tongue out, grinning like an idiot. He looked kind of demonic. At one point beer was spraying out of one of his punctured beer cans like a fountain, and he was laughing and splashing in it. I felt sorry for the band, but I couldn't help laughing.

It was here I said goodbye to Topi and went to the harbor to get on my boat. The ride was uneventful, as was the train ride from Stockholm to Malm�, whence I'm writing in anticipation of my overnight train to Berlin.

On the train in the bunk next to me I met a Japanese girl who studied in Sweden for a year and had just begun traveling Europe by train. She was nice. And I'm still kind of pissed about my Eurailpass.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sun, 27 May 2001 11:49:00 +0000

Leaving on a ship in a few hours. A presto...

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sat, 26 May 2001 10:48:00 +0000

Still in Helsinki. I've been having such a good time, doing very little. Wednesday (the day we used Topi's cousin Jaco's sauna), Topi, Harri (the singer in Topi's band), and I went to the contemporary art museum for sumo wrestling matches between Finnish artists. It was held in the theater inside (the place was full), with the brightly lit stage at the bottom of the audience seating which was on a tall slant. The contenders were dressed in those funny sumo fat-suits. They would fight (the object is to throw the other person out of the ring, to get three points), then a panel of art critics and artists would judge who won by discussing it and then voting on it. The announcer, Topi told me, is a famous sports announcer, and made a lot of analogies to sports history, and was very funny. Of course, I couldn't understand a thing anyone was saying. I might have enjoyed it more if I knew Finnish, but it was still a good time. We didn't stay too long, only about an hour, to see two matches, which was enough.

Immediately afterwards we went to meet a bunch of Topi's fellow art students on one of the nearby islands for a picnic, which consisted mostly of a lot of beer and a little food. Some of the islands were used as fortifications by the Swedish when Finland belonged to them, to defend from attackers, so their are still big walls and buildings from that time. Anyway, I think there were about fifteen people in all; it was rather overwhelming. They were kind in that they spoke to me quite a bit in English. They were playing some word games. We hung out for about an hour or so, and then most of them left to take the boat back to the mainland. Harri, Topi, myself, and another guy whose name I can't remember but was really cool, stayed where we were and finished our drinks. I was rather drunk by that point. We all walked back to where the boat leaves, and everyone else was still waiting there because there wasn't another boat until that time. So we all got on the same boat and headed back, and went to a bar. I didn't have anything else to drink there but some other people did. It was a lot of fun sitting around and talking with people. This girl I was sitting next to, Izu, saw me writing in my little notebook, and decided to write me a finnish/english dictionary since I knew so little. It was mostly swear words, but it's still useful because now I keep hearing them everywhere I go. Izu is one of the 6% of Finns whose first language is Swedish; she also lived in Italy for four years when she was younger and so speaks Italian, so it was cool to talk to her a little bit in Italian. Any drunkenness in me was gone by the time we left the bar at 3 or so. We took the night bus back to Topi's place.

The next day we went to free outdoor concert a little out of the city. There were half a dozen bands, but none of them were very good. They were all Finnish, but most of them sang in English. Topi, Aleksi, his friend Lela, her friend, and I were there. We left in the late afternoon and I don't remember what we did, probably just hung out at Aleksi's apartment and listened to that horrible metal music that Topi and all his friends love for some reason. We hung out with Lela and her friend later that evening, at their place and at a bar, but I didn't drink anything. We spent the night at Aleksi's place because we had to take a cab and it was closer.

Yesterday Topi and I went to the contemporary art museum to see the actual galleries. There was some pretty cool stuff - most of it was by Finnish artists from the 1950s to the present. Topi left before I did to rehearse with his new band, so I met him a few hours later. That was all we did that day.

Today I'm going to meet Topi and maybe some other people at an outdoor festival in a park near the train station. I booked my place on the ship to Stockholm for tomorrow afternoon, so I'll arrive at 9:30am on Monday. I've figured out the train schedules and if all goes according to plan, I'll be in Florence on Wednesday morning, which gives me almost two whole days to prepare to leave. (!!!)

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Wed, 23 May 2001 10:13:00 +0000

I'm typing from Topi's cousin's computer (I can't recall his name...). Topi met me at the internet cafe and we've been hanging out for the last couple days. We're staying at his friend's place. I finally got to do laundry.

Yesterday we went to an art museum that had a show on Carl Barks, a Disney cartoonist who created all the duck characters; some Icelandic artist named Err� who uses comics imagery, and who didn't really impress me; and another show of Sophie Calle! They only had one photography/documentation piece, on old Communist sculpture and icons in East Germany, as well as the film Double Blind, of which I watched about 20 or 30 minutes. It's about a roadtrip across America she takes with an American guy she's never met, and they each have cameras to document each other.

Last night I hung out with Topi and his friends, which was weird because for a while I didn't talk to anybody, and I of course couldn't understand their conversation. But I met some of the guys in Topi's old metal band, they all speak English well. We went to a karoake bar and they made me sing a song. I did Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and felt ashamed for ruining such a classic. Topi did "Mambo No. 5" with a lot of screaming and antics.

Like I said, we're at Topi's cousin's house. We just used their sauna about an hour ago � it was intense. I feel very refreshed now.

We're going to see some castle on a nearby island, then a wrestling match between the contemporary artists of Finland at the art museum.

I think I'm leaving in a couple days.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 21 May 2001 10:33:00 +0000

paper journal

20 may 2001 9:23am (on a train bound for Stockholm)

In Vienna I didn't do terribly much. I went to the Kunsthistorisches museum, the museum of fine arts. I saw a lot of paintings that I'd studied in my High Renaissance class among other things. There was also a special show of El Greco paintings. I spent a few hours in the museum, then walked around for a couple of hours in the city center. The main street by the central square was filled with people. I sat and drew a picture of Haas Haus, whose significance I didn't know other than that it was an interesting modern building. A couple people sitting next to me complimented me on the drawing, I think, but I can't be sure because they were speaking in German. I met Shaughnessy for dinner - I had bratwurst with sauerkraut and potatoes - then we walked around for a bit. The next morning we had breakfast (coffee and ice cream, went to the train station and I took off for Prague, while she stayed. The trip to Prague was about five hours, and I didn't arrive till early evening. I didn't have a place to stay reserved ahead, so I just took an offer for a room in somebody's apartment. It was a lady who spoke German very well (I assume) but little English. I finished off Brave New World and went to sleep. The next morning I went and found a hostel that was about a third of the price, for that night.

So I wanted to explore Prague, but it was rainy and miserable that day. The first thing I did after dropping my things at the hostel was go to a tea house, which turned out to be the highlight of my day. I had fruit tea called jizn� avoce; it was delicious. It cost less than a dollar for a teapot full.

After that I took the Metro a few places, looked at some church and the main boulevard extending from the museum. I went into some cd stores. I noticed they have a lot of computer stores and casinos there for some reason. I saw a great building that I think was designed by...

19:52 (on a ship)

... Frank Gehry (designer of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao as well as our little Center for the Visual Arts). I returned to the hostel rather early, had a beer at its bar, then went out and had dinner. I went to sleep with the intention of waking up early and seeing some more sights if the weather were nice, but I slept in (the weather was nicer). I went downtown, took some pictures of some more interesting buildings, head some announcer speaking rapidly in Italian at some marathon organization, then headed for the train station.

The train to Berlin took about six hours. I found a non-reserved seat after a little searching and was along in a booth for about two hours until two Canadians figured out they could have seats too. One was Quebecois and also a French citizen, the other was Canadian as well as Polish. They each had two passports. We got into a discussion (the third or fourth time for me on this trip) about Canadian politics and the French language; the "language police", who require all signs in Quebec to be in French first and 50% larger than the English. I don't know why it keeps coming up. We talked about where we were traveling, and we figured out the best way for me to get to Helsinki: take an overnight train that night to Stockhom, then take a ship from Stockholm to Helsinki. I'm doing just that. I bummed around the Berlin station for four hours, got far into Close to the Knives, ran into some more Americans (it's great to just talk to people, no matter how briefly), and took off at 11pm.

I woke up at 3:30am and looked out the window and thought I saw snow on the ground, but I think I was mistaken. We had stopped because they were our train on a boat to cross the Baltic Sea and get to Malm� in the south of Sweden, where we arrived at 8. At 9, on an awesome X2000 train, I was off for Stockholm. The landscape was absolutely gorgeous, with a perfect blue sky and rich green plains and forests. Sitting by me were a Swedish girl about my age and two men from Tanzania. They were speaking Swahili to each other for a short while when she surprised them by speaking to them in their own language! They started a conversation then in English and Swahili. I met them eventually as well. The girl, Klara, is a singer and fell in love with a Swahili dance troupe that visited Sweden two years ago; she subsequently went to Tanzania as a guest of theirs, and as their singer, and learned some Swahili. That's my understanding of it. Of the Tanzanian guys (didn't get their names), the one who spoke much more is an architect. I showed them my sketchbook since I had it out and told them what I do. I would have liked to talk to Klara longer, but she got off halfway there.

I arrived in Stockholm, a magnificent-looking city, at a quarter to 2, and promptly got a reservation on the 5 o'clock ship to Helsinki. It seemed too easy. I took the bus to the dock, took some pictures as I boarded, and have been hanging around ever since. I was up on the deck for an hour or so. At first I was excited, but the more I wander the more it just seems like a casino. My roommates include an Indian and a scared-looking guy who apparently speaks no English. I think he's Finnish. 20:29

No, he was Swedish.

Well, I'm typing this in an internet cafe in Helsinki. I've been here a few hours now. I didn't have time to notify Topi exactly when I was coming in the past couple days of traveling. Hopefully he'll get my message soon and we can meet up. The rest of the boat ride was uneventful, I watched the sunset from the deck at around 9:30pm, then went to bed. The ship arrived at 9am.

I wandered a little in Helsinki as it rained and I found this cafe. What to do now...

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Fri, 18 May 2001 15:04:00 +0000

from paper journal. forgive repetition.

14 may 2001 11:16pm

i'm writing from the hostel common room in budapest. i smoked a cigarette that the funny reception girl rolled. it wasn't anything special though.

couple days ago i finished girlfriend in a coma and was kind of disappointed by the end, which seemed a little too fanatical, or evangelical.

16 may 2001 12:35

so ok, what i did in budapest. the first night (friday) i was in a hotel, then i moved to a cheaper hostel in the center of town. i went there with a german guy who was in my dorm at the hotel, then i went and saw some sights.

friday i saw heroes' square and the park, and a little of st. stephen's basilica. saturday i walked up Gell�rt Hill just on the other side of the Danube, in Buda. On Castle Hill nearby is a museum of five wing, so I went to the contemporary art museum there. It was great. They had some special exhibits � one was a room full of strange towers made of all kinds of trinkets. When you approached one, a motion detector sensed you, turned on the tower and a light above it. Each one made a different, bizarre sound. Another exhibit was a retrospective of Sophie Calle, on whom I did a small project last fall. On Saturday I also went to the fine arts museum which had older stuff from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

That day I was going to try to take an overnight train to Berlin, but I got stuck way out of town trying to see Statue Park, a collection of old Communist statues that used to be in the city, and I thought I had more time than I actually did. Or wait... maybe that was Sunday... yeah it was.

Anyway, that night, Sunday, I actually met some people at the hostel, and most of them were really cool. In my dorm room were two women from Australia � there are always Australians � and I was feeling exhausted from the day and missing the train to Berlin. They got me a couple beers and said I should join everybody downstairs in the common room, so I did, and it was fun. There were two guys from New Zealand (Greg and Aaron), a guy from South Africa (Burton), a girl from Quebec, (Marie-Eve), a really annoying, talkative guy from western Canada, and two Serbs, a guy and a girl (Vladimir and, I think, Sonja). I stayed up really late talking and listening; eventually it got down to Vlad, Greg, Burton and I, and we drank a ton of this cheap beer but didn't even get drunk because it was so spread out over time and I guess it hardly had any alcohol. I was fascinated by everything Vlad was saying; he's from Yugoslavia and was talking about how he can't travel like the rest of us simply because of where he was born. Hungary is one of the few countries he can travel to without needing a visa, which is nearly impossible to get for him. I kept writing down all these things he was saying because I had never heard a first person account about Yugoslavian life.

Marie-Eve and Shaughnessy (whom I met the next day) both want to visit Vlad in Yugoslavia now; they just need an invitation to the country to obtain a visa. Maybe someday I'll visit there too. Meanwhile, I really want to keep in touch.

Monday I just wanted to go to one of the public baths, so I went with Marie-Eve, Aaron, and Shaughnessy. It was very relaxing, being in 38�C pools. I tried a 70� sauna, too, which was intense.

Yesterday (Tuesday 15th) Shaughnessy and I came to Vienna, where I'm writing from right now. We arrived in the late afternoon, so we just went to a recommended bar/restaurant and had some good food, Austrian beer, and chocolate cake. The coolest thing was a cd they were playing by a guy called Max Raabe. He does mostly covers I guess, but he sings in this weird falsetto voice with techno rhythms and a horn section behind him. I really want to buy it, it's so bad in a way.

I'm about to head out to see some sights. I'll be here tonight also, and then I'm leaving for Prague.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Fri, 18 May 2001 10:43:00 +0000

I have some stuff to post from my paper journal, but I don't have time write now. I'm writing from Prague, I arrived here last night after two nights in Vienna. Will write again soon, hopefully!

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Fri, 11 May 2001 20:49:00 +0000

Ok, it's late in the week - Friday, right? - but I'm finally back on the tracks. For two nights I was in a hotel in Florence. Maddy came in on Tuesday night and it was delightful to see her again. It seemed like it had been longer than two weeks since I'd seen her. She stayed at Jacob and Andreas' house (who have replaced Topi with a new roommate, a French girl named Stephanie who just came from working in Barcelona for a year and a half). The next night (Wednesday night) I stayed there as well, and left some of my stuff there because I'll be staying there again right before I leave for the US on June 1st. Wednesday Maddy and I went around shopping for various things we needed. I bought three books to read during my trip: Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz.

I said my second goodbye to Maddy, the last one before I'll see her in the States because she's going home on Sunday. I took an overnight to Vienna, got there this morning, and hopped on a 3-hour train to Budapest, whence I'm typing this e-mail. On the Vienna train in my sleeping car there were a Polish woman, her German boyfriend, and a Romanian man. When I arrived, they were speaking English to each other because it was their only common language. A little while later, two brothers from Mississippi arrived, and the Romanian was overwhelmed by the American presence. I tried not to be too exclusive in my conversation, but you can just say so much more to people who speak your own language... not that these guys had many interesting things to say.

I arrived in Budapest at about 1. A guy approached me (and others) on the train about places to stay, gave me a free map. I was wary, of course, but they drove me to a cheap but nice hotel and there's no scam at all. I hung out in my dorm room for a little while until a guy from California, who was on his way out, came in and talked to me for a little while. There's a German guy in our room as well, but I haven't met him as of press time. So after the guy left, I just sat there thinking about what to do in Budapest. It was raining at that point, so I lay down and read Girlfriend in a Coma, which I'd started on the train. I'm quite drawn in by it, so I didn't get started looking around the city till late afternoon. I took the Metro over to Heroes' Square, built sometime around 1896, the 1000th anniversary of Budapest. There's some grand sculpture there, and I'm going back tomorrow to see the fine art museum. Nearby is a castle surrounded by a lake. It was beautiful, and I completely forgot my camera. I might have to go back there too. There's also an enormous park in that area, and it was so pleasant and beautiful and sunny (it had stopped raining hours ago, and all evidence of the rain had vanished) that I could hardly stand it. I saw a lot of things: children playing, old men playing cards and chess, lovers loving, skateboarders falling down. I spent a couple hours just looking around.

I hopped on the Metro again and got off at the basilica of Budapest (St. Peter's, I think). It was enormous, but I didn't really look at it for long. I just went to this restaurant and had dinner, then got on the Metro again to head back for the hotel. And now here I am.

It's different without someone always there to talk to. I'm not the kind of person to just go up and chat with people and hang out with them, but hopefully the opportunity will arise that I'll be able to do things other than by myself. But being by myself is fine as well.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Fri, 11 May 2001 20:48:00 +0000

paper journal, pardon the later repetition.

9 may 2001 3:40am

didn't do much today but walk around the city and feel depressed. i took a nap in the middle of the day, did my laundry. at the laundromat were two old american guys traveling; they needed help getting the token machine to work. one was from columbus (german village) and the other louisiana.

maddy's in town, too. she came in on a train this evening. i waited at the station for a while but must have missed her as she got off the train. i started toward jacob and andreas' place, where she's staying tonight, and found her on the way there. we took her stuff over there, sat and talked with the guys for a while. their new roommate, replacing topi, is a french girl who just previously lived in barcelona. maddy had been in england with emilie, who still has six more weeks of school.

i took maddy out to dinner and we talked about our respective adventures since we last saw each other. she's going to try to change her flight from the 15th to today (the 9th), but i'm skeptical that it will work, so she might be in florence for several more days. i'm hoping to leave for vienna very soon, and continue up to finland to see topi. i'd like to go just because probably not many people visit there.

tonight i finished the man in the high castle by philip k. dick, which i bought yesterday at the airport to read while i waited for the bus back to town. i'm still digesting it, but it was excellent. last night i also finished primo levi's the drowned and the saved. i need to buy another book to bring with me on the trip.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 07 May 2001 17:54:00 +0000

This is from my paper journal.

28 apr 01 Vernon, France

Monday night we stayed at Topi (and Jakob and Andreas)'s place {here we cooked up some of our pasta with these beans that Jakob was very enthusiastic about and recommended highly. He studies Aikido (sp?) in Florence), then Tuesday we roughly went off to Venice, not having much idea what to do but leave for Paris overnight, the next night. We got to Venice around 9, checked into the hotel and then went for a swell dinner. The next day we walked around the city for a while, saw San Marco ... the only place we went inside, I think, was the Accademia art museum, which had a lot of the Venetian paintings that Shannon and I studied this semester. It was election day (April 25). I hurriedly sent an aerogram off to Mr. Elloian, my printmaking professor, before we got on the overnight train to Paris. It was a nice train, French, and the porters spoke Frence and Italian (and English). The one who helped us to our seats (beds), since our car somehow didn't exist, was very kind and made a joke about Agatha Christie writing a story about the murdered car.

We arrived in Paris around 9 in the morning, walked around with our packs. I was rather frightened by the language barrier ?I nervously bought a telecarte so we could call a hotel, then we walked around till we found it. That was about 11... we also looked at the Louvre (the outside ?the queue was quite long) and what we found out later was not the arc de triomphe but some other arch. We didn't do much else that day but have lunch. We just ordered the first two things on the menu: jambon de Paris and some salami thing, and I didn't know how to say 'water' so I got a Coke. I found out later that water is 'eau' and I still don't know how to pronounce that. The waiter gave me a funny look when I was trying to pronounce things, like I was babbling nonsense. I guess I was. We checked e-mail at...

29 apr 01 4:44pm

... a really nice, cheap, huge internet caf? We got to sleep at about 2am, but woke up before 9 to get to the Louvre. While Shannon held a place in the queue I called my friend Connie's mom, Leigh, who lives outside of Paris with her Frence husband. She works in Paris so we planned to meet her for lunch after seeing the Louvre. We got into it for free because the workers were on strike; admission was free for two days. It was impressive, of course, seeing all those famous works - Gericault's giant paintings, Leonards's smaller ones, etc. We took about 3 1/2 hours, but didn't look at everything. We were late to meet Leigh, but nonetheless she took us out to lunch on a boat-restaurant nearby, where we had a surprisingly filling meal of salad, fish, and a tart for dessert.

After lunch we figured out that taking the Metro is a much faster way of getting around...

1 may 01

... The third day in Paris we took a train out to Vernon and then a bus to Giverny, to see Monet's garden and house full of Japanese prints. The water lilies were kind of gross and dirty, but it was nice to see the beautiful flowers. We got back to Paris in time to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower around sunset. We saw Paris by night from the top. Here's where we ran into a problem, because I'd told Leigh that we would call her at around 11 once we got to the end of this one Metro line, but the train had stopped running by the time we got to it. There was a lot of running around in the subway, and we called Leigh and she told us to take the night bus... anyway, we made it to her place around 3am. But we slept well, and the next day we took off for Marseilles...

4 may 01

Marseilles is on the southern coast of France, so it took about five or six hours to get ther. We didn't have seats either, because we had no reservations. Anyway, a funny thing that happened was that when we got off the train, we saw John, a guy who went to SACI with us. He was meeting a friend there. Shannon and I were trying to get to nearby Aix-en-Provence, but a all the hotels there were full, we ended up staying in Marseilles at the hotel right next door to John's. The city seemed kind of scuzzy, so we didn't really feel like doing anything but hide out in our hotel and plan what to do the next day. We went to a little market and bought some stuff for sanwiches (probably our third meal of french [?] salami sandwiches in France, but they're very good) and some Madeleines (I'm sending the package to Maddy). The clerk was very nice and spoke English. First, she asked if we were from England, then when we told where we were from she said it was her dream to go to America. It was kind of nice to hear that, but I'm not sure why she would want to go, necessarily. But I hope she makes it if it'll make her happy. A really interesting thing about being in Europe is meeting people who have never been to the U.S. and don't even want to go. It's refreshing.

The hotel clerk didn't speak any English but got by ok. The room was surprisingly cheap. The next day we got out of there and went to Aix, which was a refreshing change, as it seemed very clean and pleasant. It's a popular college town, apparently, and so has a lot of young poeple and the energy that goes wih them. We first went to the Fondation Vasarely, a building designed by Victor Vasarely in the 70s, some of whose works are found in the gallery inside. He's an op-artist who did some interesting things with geometric and color patterns, and layers of transparency, to put it in a simple way. There was also an exhibit there on some futuristic kinds of architecture, but I can't recall any of the artists' names. A lot of city designs and forms that reminded me of anthills or underground ant colonies. Space-age stuff.

We also took a bus out to see a recreation of Cezanne's studio and the surrounding woods. Actually, maybe it was really his studio; I hadn't realized the he worked in Aix, but one can see the landscapes from his paintings in that area.

We took a train back from Marseilles, and then got on a night train for Barcelona. Somehow we missed a connection ?actually, our train split in two directions...

5 may 01

?so we (and a lot of other tired travelers) had to backtrack a couple towns and catch another train. We'd left Marseilles at 1am and arrived in Barcelona at 1pm. I soon found out that the first language in Barcelona is Catal?, which as far as I can tell is close to Spanish but sort of mixed with French and Italian. Most of the signs are in both Catal? and Spanish, and sometimes English.

7 may 01

On the train I'd been trying to remember important Spanish verbs and their conjugations. Although I haven't written much about it here, I'm nearly endlessly fascinated with languages, if in a sense that's not very practical. I think it bugged Shannon after a while for me to constantly point out what some sign said, or talk about how to say certain things, or compare and contrast languages. I know I got sick of me doing it. When it comes down to it, in any language but English I cannot really communicate well at all. Shannon's second language is American Sign Language; she's never studied anything else. It's fun because she's taught me a number of words, a few of which I can remember. Anyway, in Barcelona, I just spoke English whenever I was able to, which was often.

We made a reservation at a hostel from the train station, took the Metro to the nearest stop, and got rather lost trying to find it. We stopped at an incredibly cheap internet place and got directions from them as well. So we found it off the Ramblas, the main drag with shady characters, street performers and vendors. They have those people that wear costumes as if they were a sphynx or marionette, and they move if you throw money in their box in front of their pedestal, just like in Florence. Shannon and I were walking by one with a cane and after we had passedm Shannon saw him as he tapped my shoulder with the cane.

The internet clerk and all the signs at the hostels warned about pickpockets and thieves of all kinds, but it didn't seem any more dangerous than any other place. You'd have to be pretty oblivious not to realize when some stranger is trying to get something from you.

The hostel we stayed at was very nice and we ended up staying for four nights. The first day in Barcelona we didn't do much. Because of the long train ride we didn't get there till almost 2, and we didn't get to the hostel till about 5, and we hadn't had much sleep. I think that night we had falafel at this place where you put on your own ingredients.

The second day we went right away to the Museu Picasso, which contains a lot of early works as well as his renditions of Velazquez's Las Meninas. Then we went to take a tour of the Palau G?ll, a palace in the city designed for a wealthy family by architect Antoni Gaud? of whom I'd never heard before, but after seeing this place I've become quite a fan. He lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s and worked in a modernist style and was a strictly loyal catalunyan. He was run over by a trolley in 1926 outside the Sagrada Familia church, which he designed and lived next to. He worked on it for something like thirty years, and we visited it right after the Palau. It's incredible, Apparently its four gigantic towers on the east end are famous, but I'm kind of glad I hadn't heard of it so I could experience it completely new. It's still under construction and probably will be until after I'm an old man. The giant, oddly-shaped pillars, the arches ?it's marvelous to see. The museum below it is extensive and interesting too.

Finally, we spent the end of the day (this was Wednesday, I guess) at Parc G?ll, also designed by Gaud? It was multi-leveled, going up this hill, overlooking the city. The central pavillion is bordered by a serpentine ceramic bench; it's supported by enormous columns from below. On the way back to the hostel we stopped by Casa Mil? aka La Pedreda, a Gaud?designed apartment building that Shannon says goes "whoosh" while making a curving motion with her hands. It's got a weird twisting shape, indeed. We ate at (oop ?my choice) a Chicago pizza place. It was good though, and we had sangr? with the vegetarian pizza. Our quest for tapas would be satisfied eventually.

The next day we took it easy, just going to the train station to check on getting back to Florence. We'd abandoned any plans to go on to Sevilla because of a lack of time. We did some more e-mailing. The big even that night was dinner at Els Quatre Gats, an old restaurant that Picasso liked and designed the menu for. We waited in the front area for ten or fifteen minutes ?it was very busy ?and weren't that impressed. Where was the live music, as advertised in Let's Go? But soon enough they took us to the main dining area and we were in awe of the large, main floor filled with happy diners. We were brought up to a balcony area that overlooked the entire room, and this is where we ate. A pianist played on the other side of the room, strangely, a lot of American pop songs. The waiter was very kind. We got water and a bottle of Chardonnay. Now, I don't know anything about wine, but this the best I'd ever tasted. I took a sip and I couldn't stop praising it. Shannon was very amused. For the first course, Shannon had fish soup and I a plate of eight or ten different kinds of cheese ?delicious. Second, we shared a big plate of mixed vegetables. Finally, I had a T-bone steak and potatoes and Shannon had shoulder of lamb. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. Oh, if I could only have it again! The only thing that could beat it is probably my mom's cream of broccoli soup.

The next day, we again didn't do very much. We hung out by the beach for a little while, picked up rocks. Shannon collected a rock from almost every place we visited. The water was of a beautiful color that I can't exactly describe, so I won't try. We had dinner at a restaurant called La Fonda, and it was very good. I'll spare you the details for once.

Saturday we said goodbye to Barcelona and headed for Figueres, where there is a museum dedicated to Salvador Dal? I'd previously seen only a few famous works of his, so it was interesting to see. It was, of course, pretty crazy. We finally had tapas that afternoon, which turned out to be little plates of various vegetables and meat, each in a different sauce.

From Figueres we went on to Cerbere (France) and continued on a long night and day back to Florence. We arrived in the afternoon, got a hotel, and that night went for the last time to a restaurant near where I used to live, by the central market.

This morning we got up early, got Shannon's stuff from school and took a cab to the airport, in a rush nonetheless because the cabs were busy today. We said goodbye ?she's going back to St. Paul, Minnesota, where she goes to school, for about a week, then back home to tiny Arlington, Iowa. I'm not sure when I'll see her again.

I'm writing from my hotel room in Florence. I guess I'll be saying "I" a lot more now; it's strange, now that I probably won't be seeing any familiar faces for a while, once I leave here again. Apparently Maddy is coming from England back to Florence tomorrow to fly back home, so hopefully I'll see her again before she leaves. Then, I'm da solo.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 07 May 2001 12:21:00 +0000

I forgot to mention a couple interesting things that happened before Shannon and I left on our trip. There was a dinner for all the SACI students at school, and then a mini film festival from the students in film classes. A lot of them were incredibly entertaining, especially Topi's, and all the ones starring Anders.

Actually, I guess that's all I wanted to mention.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:14:00 +0000

I'm in Paris on a strange keyboard. Shannon and I stayed one night in Venice, spent the next day there (we mostly just walked around and went to the Accademia museum), then took an overnight train to here. We arrived this morning and actually have had a pretty lazy day. I think we're going to meet with my friend Connie's mom, who works here, tomorrow, as well as see the Louvre and perhaps that big tower.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 23 Apr 2001 13:30:00 +0000

I've packed up everything and put it in the basement of the school, and I turned in my keys. The last was spent having a very entertaining dinner at home, featuring Mike doing nearly all his characters and a "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" sing-along with Topi on guitar, followed by a frantic cleaning session. I slept for only three hours, actually, from 1-4. I packed, wiped, swept, and mopped from 4am to about 10:30am. Alyssa left for the airport at 5:30am, Mike at 9:30. They're both going straight home. Maddy and Lesley are going to Cinqueterra today - I said goodbye to Maddy after taking my stuff to school at about noon (I missed Lesley somehow). It was strange seeing them go one by one, and it will be a while before I see them again, if ever. I've been collecting addresses for the past two weeks - I've just been surprised the whole semester about how nice everyone here is, how easy it was for everyone to become friends.

So, Shannon and I are here until tomorrow, when we leave for Venice. Topi offered for us to stay at his place tonight, since we had to move out of our apartments, so we took him up on it. We'll be in Venice for most of the day, and then we'll take an overnight train to Paris (I've heard it's a bad idea to take overnight trains, just for security purposes, but this is the best way to do things, I think). Then south, but we might be in Paris for a few days.

I messed up though - I accidentally turned off my cell phone and I don't know the pin number to turn it on again. I never memorized it and I think the paper on which it was written has been thrown away in the cleaning process. I'm going back to the place I bought it to see if they can help me, but I'm sort of afraid that they won't be able to. I might be stuck without a phone after all.

I'm in travel mode now. I can't wait to get going - everything feels different.

ps. who's the person from australia who keeps visiting this blog? i'm curious - write me if you want to.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:43:00 +0000

Oh no! Frank Black's trailer with all his gear was stolen while on their American tour! They'll have to cancel the rest of their tour dates now, so I guess I wouldn't be able to see him even if I were in Columbus, after all.

Had my drawing critique Monday and my Italian final today. Both were fine. Friday is the big High Renaissance final.

I have to plan where I'm going!!! First we take Venezia, then ... Paris?

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:41:00 +0000

Arrgh! They Might Be Giants will be playing in Columbus May 3. Hopefully, though, I will be seeing someplace cool like Paris or Nice.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 11:28:00 +0000

Joey Ramone died.

I'm leaving Florence in a week and I'm not sure for where.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:11:00 +0000

Today's Easter. There was a parade and then fireworks this morning outside the Duomo, but I slept in and missed it. I caught part of the Mass inside. There was an American choir group there. Tourists are out in force.

Something on my mind: I've witnessed three accidents in the past few weeks. First, I was on a bus and just happened to look out the window and see a guy on a motorino skid on the wet ground and fall down, and the bike fell on his leg. People went over to help him (it looked like his leg was broken), but the crazy thing was that he had to call an ambulance for himself on his cell phone. Last week, I was walking down the street that connects to mine and heard a thump, and I turned around, walked back a little and saw that Billy, who lives in my apartment building, had been hit by a car while riding a bicycle. He wasn't hit hard (he wasn't injured), but the driver was yelling at him like it was Billy's fault. The guy was satisfied only because his fender wasn't damaged. Finally, yesterday I was out walking and I heard a scream, and when I walked around the corner to a major street, there were a bunch of people milling around the side of the street. An old woman had been injured somehow, and people were holding her, but I'm not sure how bad it was. ... I guess this was a kind of morbid thing to write about, but I'd been thinking about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sat, 14 Apr 2001 12:28:00 +0000

Thursday Shannon and I went to Trattoria Mario, which is only open for lunch and which I'd heard was amazingly good, but I'd never been. I don't think they spoke any English there, but we got by ok. It was packed. We had this soup of some kind, beans and vegetables, it was incredible. So if you're ever in Florence, go there.

Later that night we went to Za-Za, a nicer restaurant, seated again next to an Italian at the same table. Last night I went there again with my housemates minus Leslie. Mike got a kilo steak (L. 59.000) and I got a filetto, which is a filet steak, I guess. I also had raviolli tartufo (I think it was called) which had this delicious sauce. Maddy and Alyssa had soup and spaghetti, respectively. Man, that was a good dinner. Except I think the steak made me a little sick since I'm not used to eating red meat. Hope I don't go mad either.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Fri, 13 Apr 2001 15:36:00 +0000

so um, forgot to mention some stuff. On Sunday Mike was dancing in front of the Uffizi with Gina, and started doing some pretty elaborate jumps, and consequently came down really hard on his ankle and sprained it. I thought he was joking at first, but it turns out he wasn't and I had to get him some ice from a nearby restaurant. The polizia saw him lying on the ground there, and they called us a cab. Gina and I got him some ibuprofin and a wrap; the next day I took him to the hospital. I still struggled with some Italian, but the nurses and the doctor understood me well enough and I them. They put his foot in a cast and said he couldn't take it off for 15 days, which is the day after we leave (the 24th).

Another thing: last weekend a girl at the Syracuse Univ. program died suspiciously, falling out of her window in the middle of the night. The newspaper called it a suicide, but I'm not sure that it was. I heard about it because I take my silkscreen class at a studio apart from SACI, where the instructor also teaches Syracuse people.

I have to sell my guitar, pack things to send away, get ready to travel. I'm sort of worried about it all.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Wed, 11 Apr 2001 14:59:00 +0000

crunch time. paper on caravaggio to be written, a million drawings to be drawn, stuff to pack. i haven't even been to fiesole yet! panic sets in.

noreply@blogger.com (Bryce) — Sun, 08 Apr 2001 11:35:00 +0000

I recovered really quickly from being sick and feel fine now.

I don't know really what to say. The semester's almost over and I feel like there are some things I never did and should have. But I also feel that I could just live anywhere and still be the same person - I could live without seeing the Duomo everyday or the trees in my front yard in Columbus. On the other hand, maybe the reason I haven't changed very much is because I'm around Americans and I still just do mostly American things. Maybe I'll feel different about everything in a month, when I get back to the States from traveling around Europe.