blogging 101

101 posts!



"Directions
By car: Florence Scandicci exit: Follow the signs to Firenze Centro, reach the Victory Bridge and take the Viale Fratelli Rosselli. Then turn right and continue on Via il Prato. At the end of the Meadow Street, turn right on Via Curtatone. The hotel is on the left side of the road. From: Follow the signs to Firenze Centro, reaching the Piazzale della Porta al Prato and then take Via il Prato. At the end of the Meadow Street, turn right on Via Curtatone. The hotel is on the left side of the road. By train: Reach the station of Santa Maria Novella. Exit the station onto Via Alamanni towards Via Degli Orti Oricellari. Turn left onto Via Degli Orti Oricellari. After 250 meters you will find the junction with the road becomes Borgo Ognissanti and Via Curtatone. Continue on Via Curtatone. The hotel is on the left side of the road about ten feet after the intersection. By plane: The airport of Florence Peretola. Airport to the hotel by taxi or shuttle advantage of Florence - Santa Maria Novella station. In the case of using the shuttle then follow directions as if coming by train."



How wonderful wonderful it is to be printing bus tickets, searching for bargain hostels, google imaging potential sights again!




blue cheetahs for the win.

2 Power Poems, for blue cheetahs everywhere.

theresa kauer
my flower
I await the hour
to dance with you
our clothes askew
...drinking the brew
blue cheetah power :)

Lucy Kahn
du wundervoller Schwan
In Italien werden wir den unglaublichen Wahnsinn erleben,
uns auf den Vesuv erheben
und Menschen zum Lachen bewegen!
...Freude, Lebenslust und Abenteuer -
das ist wahre bc-Power

(Lucy Kahn
you are wonderful swan
In Italy, we will experience the incredible madness
to rise to the Vesuvius
and move people to laugh!
... joy, love of life and adventure -
this is true bc-Power)
Courtesy of Google Translate

language barriers

"Are you ready to order?"
Big blue eyes. Thirtyish, fourtyish, not yet an old man.
I order, I smile gaily as I normally do; I like waiters. He does not return my warmth.
On his way back, I decide he's british. A stuck up british waiter that meets my eyes directly as I am sitting on a comfortably tall stool.
The more often he comes, the more I get annoyed. Stupid accent. It's hard to understand him. My responses are not becoming more surly, however, but the opposite. Despite my annoyances, I am grinning more and speaking less in order to acquire the type of waiter-customer comradeship I am accustomed to.
He brings my last plate, spring rolls. I pick at them, they're not great. Eh.
Upon his return, he expresses anxiety over the remains of the king crab spring rolls. 'Do you usually not like king crab?' More underhanded snobbery? 'What didn't you like about it?' Truly, he's concerned. His big blue eyes are glinting, his largeish British nose level with my own face.
'It's fine,' I assure him, a little offset by the breach in his cool service. 'Wonderful,' I insist.
'Would you like coffee?' I shake my head.
'A cocktail? Sherry? Port? Wine? Tea?' The cheeky bugger. I like him at once, and I see my sly look reflected in his big eyes, if not his well composed face. The quiet funny ones, those are always the best. The sardonic British. He's not British though.
When he brings me my check, he flourishes a small shining red package at me as well.
'A fortune cookie,' he pronounces, both lightly reprimanding me for my minor consumptions and implying that I have never seen such a treat before.
I smile my sneaky gratitude, wait for him to turn, and open the cookie.

Flowers speak their own language.

german love i will give it to you

[Theresa Kauer]
7:45pm
es wird mega hammer toll bc!
(it will be totally super awesome girl!)

[You]
7:45pm
mega hammer toll
(totally super awesome)

[Theresa Kauer]
7:45pm
because live is wonderful, wonderful
have to go now & meet peter

[You]
7:46pm
tell him HALLO!!

[Theresa Kauer]
7:46pm
we will drink some vodka
i will

[You]
7:46pm
naturlich
(of course)

[Theresa Kauer]
7:46pm
have a nice evening over there!!

Gozo

We (tinny (pronounced teeny (she's a couchsurfer from china, I like her))) took a ferry from our small island to an even smaller island in the Mediterranean, called Gozo. It looked like a humble sprout floating in the sweet blue water, a little greener than the more inhabited island of Malta.

We stayed in an interesting, ridiculously giant house converted into a hostel, with caged exotic birds and a fireplace and a courtyard and tons and tons of Jesus paraphernalia.

It would have been pleasant if the house was better lit and some of the notices weren't so dog-eared, maybe the terrace would be rate magnificent if there hadn't been a small herd of unused wheelchairs leaning quietly to the side.

After we picked up some food in the market and made a quick trip to the backyard where they had their own organic orange trees, tinny mentioned me, as I sliced tomatoes in the kitchen, that it reminded her of The Shining.

Between our rickety little beds, shining on the wall was a caricature of the virgin Mary, of which I am certain could have been litten up at some point, like a Halloween ornament, but uncomical.

Gozo was peaceful, which translates to dead.

Although I have to admit, I'm enjoying my European reprieve more than a normal angsty American teen should. The Hungarians are teaching me all about living in the Now, the Baha'i faith, and eating vegetables. I'm learning Hungarian to speak o the baby, who has the biggest bluest eyes in the whole wide world.

Drum drum drum

That's the bass vibrating this internet cafe, courtesy of the Saturday night jams in the club on the floor above me.
Bum bum bum bum
That's me, listening to this (St Vincent) instead and trying to finish my last minute applications that I procrastinated so hard on. I'm using the headphones I bought from my most recent fave internet cafe whose server crashed today, of all days.

Lucky for me there's a six hour time difference.
sooo I get to pull an all-nighter, armed with my Supergreen (a juice detox drink the Hungarians provided for me, I'll explain later, it's good healthy stuff though) and a spare cashmere sweater in case I need to take a 2 hour nap in a safe hotel lobby I am already cozy with.
Also, I grabbed two apples from my (increasingly healthy) store of food, my shelf, from our kitchen.
Also, I thrifted some gum from my plastic bag of miscellaneous items that I first attained from the first stop on my trip, New York. I remember, actually, asking my brother if he had a spare plastic bag. It's well-crinkled and reads in green plastic, The Garden.

What I'm trying to say is, they should recruit me for the girl scouts.



Other things to keep me procrastinating









see more of the young and fabulousness
HERE!!

slimy

I took a long run yesterday, but it was more of a run/walk, (due to possible shinsplits (I loathe stretching)) and I ended up in a suburb away from the touristy area, and wandered down a dark a dusty path and ended at the bay.
The ocean sucked and pleaded with the rocky land, and I wanted to sit and watch, to ruminate, to grow.
On my way, I plodded past a parked car. Zero signs of activity, which I took to mean two things: mobsters disposing of a body in the ocean, or passionate smelly teeangers locked in eachothers arms and oblvious to running girls.
So there I sat, balanced on my rocky purchase, listening to the crash crush rush of the ever present water, the tugging give and take of the night, trying to push aside worries of A. getting shot in the back by Maltese mobsters B. intruding on some private make out spot the locals know of.

Eventually, they drove off, and I circled my way back home.

Rubbish bin

On researching London;


"Ways for Americans to get on in London:

Ask a guide why the castle was built so close to the railway.
Ask English people if they know the Queen.
Tell people how "quaint" you think everything is.
Complain about the portion sizes.
Tell people how much bigger and better things are in the States.
Buy a "Cream Tea" and put the cream in the tea.

Seriously tho', I'm sure you will be fine!!
Rick Johnson


  Sun May 14

I should warn you, don't under any circumstances ever smile. People in London will instantly be able to identify you as either foreign or insane. "

squeeze

Birthday cake sneakily snuck in by little sleepy yoga masters while I read and brooded in my fantastic ill-lit (why are my rooms always ill-lit?) abode.

cries of surprise, supplies of sugar highs and we all compromise, little sweet soft slices of quiet melting cake cream.

Karin gave me her steady smile as I thanked her, and then as I cut the cake for the guests, she came behind me with a mother hug squeeze.

That moment, it meant more to me than 30 cakes could. I don't know if we've shared any/much physical contact in the past few weeks, but there she was, with a loving several-second hug. I appreciate them soo much.



OTHER NEWS

went out with a waiter, bought running shoes, watched a thunderstorm, drank on the rooftop.

Aquatic

I met a girl that had gone to university in my old town.
I was writing my high school's name down for College Apps (which will be the death of me) and she echoes it back to me, reflectively. It was so sweet to talk to someone who knew what I was talking about. She dressed the way people I grew up with dressed, and so on. She grew up in a neighboring, bigger city.
It got me homesick!
I thought I had pushed through the childish clinginess, but meeting with her boiled lightweight details to the foamy surface.

Pop, remember the smell as the sunlight fell longingly on the secondhand rug.
Pop, remember the song you were obsessed with, going too fast in the 20mph school zone because it was almost 5pm anyways.
Pop, the cute co op cashier you always embarrassed yourself in front of.
Pop, baths at 3 in the morning with the giant bathtub.
Pop, summer flower scents as you haul the laundry basket to the basement wash center.
Pop, eating strawberries beneath the elm with the outside blanket and a book
Pop, the neighbors who were so so sweet
Pop, the sweaty, labored dancing at school dance events





New Years was the rooftop with sweet local wine and off-tempo fireworks