Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

Estoy enamorada de Barcelona. ¡Es una ciudad increíble!

I have fallen in love. And with whome? With Barcelona. From the minute I arrived, I have been in heaven. It was wonderful to arrive in Spain, get the passport stamp, get my baggage and launch into Spanish. Now, it was a bit surprising to see signs for the “sortida” rather than la “salida.” All of the signs here are in Catalan, and some of the shop keepers have spoken only Catalan. But otherwise, the Spaniards are surprisingly easy to understand, a million times easier than any carribeano o sudamericano.

My pensión, La Pensión Mari-Luz, is on a quiet street in the heart of the Barrio Gótic. You enter through an enormous gothic black door into a courtyard, and climb stone steps that snake up to the right and branch off in different directions. And my room has a balcony that looks out onto the street. The Spanish know how it´s done, how to beat the heat with cool stone courtyards.

The streets in the Barri are a maze of stone alleyways that wind among beautiful six and seven story buildings. They all have balconies with shuddered windows and cascading flowers. And vespas buz among the pedestrians. Motor scooters are the only thing that will fit down these narrow streets.

Across La Rambla there is a market that has been around for a hundred years or more. It´s enormous with stands of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, fish, wine, preserves, olives, fresh spices, the kind of unpackaged freshness you won´t find on any grocery store shelf.

And the Spanish themselves, or the Cataluñans, are friendly, respectful people. They are gorgeous people, on the whole probably the most attractive Europeans I´ve ever seen. They dress well, but without trying too terribly hard. They seem more laid back than the French about appearance. And they look entirely diverse from natural blondes to died blondes to brunettes, from white skin to dark skin. There are also a good number of Indians and muslims wearing colorful headscarves, some covering their entire face except their eyes.

And they´re not afraid to make a little noise. Out my window between the bursts of vespas rumbling by and the street cleaners with their hoses, I hear Barceloneans laughing and shouting to each other.

On a final note, men here are surprisingly respectful, well mostly.  When I ask them for directions, they act annoyed, but on the street I’ve recieved next to no harrassment of any kind, nor have I witnessed any.  I have, however, recieved the occasional suggestive “hola.”  But all in all, I feel safer in Barcelona than I do in New York City.  I will definitely be returning to this city as soon as possible.  Would six months be enough for me to learn Catalan and become fluent in Spanish?

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum!!! Love you!!!

Today, or yesterday by now, was a good day, at least on the surface. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great day, but as I wandered the beautiful streets of Paris, I had a million tiny mood swings and a few not-so-tiny ones. At about nine o’clock I left the room and headed for the metro. On my way out the gate, a woman sweeping leaves and petals said “bonjour.” A few blocks from the metro, a woman stopped me on the street with a question I could not understand. As I began to tell her that I do not, in fact, speak French, she waved me off and turned to a woman with a stroller approaching on my left. As I turned around, I could see the woman with the stroller pointing, giving directions. Less than 24 hours and someone has already asked me for directions.

I took the train to Cluny (which is at Notre Dame). And I wandered, over Ile de la Cite and stopped in a cafe for a crousant with orange juice and a caffe au lait. Now this orange juice was the real thing, fresh squeezed from fresh oranges. And the crousant, again was the real thing, and delicious. A woman began speaking in French and from her gestures I deciphered that she was headed into the cafe to use the bathroom and would I watch her things for her. “Oui.”

When I finished, I headed off in the direction I had seen several people come bearing shopping bags. Sure enough I hit a shopping district. I could easily blow my entire budget in Paris on clothes and food alone. But of course, I have three months ahead of me…

And it wasn’t long after that when I began feeling ugly. I imagined myself then with the bare minimum of make-up I usually wear, my complexion suffering from air travel and sleep deprevation, my hair in a messy bun. I felt self-conscious next to the women with their smooth dark hair, flawless complexions, and equally flawless clothing. I actually wanted to hide. Granted, I got no sign from anyone that I didn’t belong. No one showed any inkling that I was a loud, obnoxious American. I suppose my collared button-down and brown drawstring cargos helped. Americans often don’t know I’m American.

But despite this feeling of wanting to hide, I sat in the open in a park and watched children play on a statue, and then I began to sweat. And a wave of fatigue washed over me. My legs turned into jelly as I stood and began to walk. I needed food. So crossing through the Louvre entirely by accident, and crossing a bridge, I found a Brasserie. As I entered, a waiter began speaking to me in rapid French, asking me questions. I could tell he was making a joke, but I had no idea about what. So I told him I don’t know French.

“You speak English?”

“Yeah.”
“One person?”

“Yes.”

And the rest of the wait staff broke into laughter.

I shrank further inside, having no idea what they were saying or why they were laughing. But I sat quietly at a table that looked out onto the street. I could see in a mirror that I had a serious expression, but I couldn’t make it go away. And I sat sweating.

The waiter brought me the menu, and returned to take my order in Franglish. And then he came back a third time, this time bringing a fellow waitress along. She wore a pink polo shirt and her head was shaved, but she was cute in her way. She told me (also in Franglish) that she was the translator and after lengthy conversation in French on their part, which I only partly understood to be something about complication and language, the woman came out with it… “He wanted to say, we weren’t laughing at you. We were laughing because we think he has bad English.”

I felt better then, still self conscious, but at least he had picked up on my discomfort and in a way had apologized. And in the past two days, I have found every French person I’ve come across to be respectful, helpful, friendly. And only about three of them have spoken English. Granted, I haven’t mentioned to a single one that I’m American, nor does the fact that I speak English necessarily imply that I’m from an English speaking nation. So far they have even gone out of their way to help me. Now of course, my accented French (which is relatively minorly so compared to many Americans) baffles many French people. When I ask where the metro is, or where la gare is, they ponder the word, turning it over and over out loud as they determine what I must be asking.

As I wondered the streets across the Seine from the Eiffell Tower (which was smaller than I expected… not an insult, just an observation), thunder began to rumble, the sky grew dark, and rain began to fall. And I needed to find the metro. I stopped in what seemed like a small department store and as I asked a woman in the jewerly section where the metro is, and as she turned the word over on her tongue, and began to spout directions to my blank face, a girl standing by asked me if I spoke English. When she couldn’t come up with the English word for “left,” she ran outside, into the rain to point me to the station and ask her mother to help translate.

I am impressed.

Bonjour. I am in Paris, or well a suburb of Paris at least. A haze hangs over this city. It’s a bronzy haze that blurs the sun and the boundaries between clouds. Paris so far is as I expected Paris to be. The people speak French, they look French, the buildings look French, and many of the cars are Peugeots. I did not expect that haze, however. It reminds me eerily of Bangkok and my environmentalist’s nightmare. New Zealand’s pristine, Pacific-filtered air has spoiled me for life. But at least in Paris, unlike in Bangkok, I’m not alone; I have a friend here.

I just woke up from my first few hours of sleep since EST 8am yesterday. I woke up to see the open window with its black iron banister, perfect for leaning out to watch the street below. Dogs barking and lawnmowers in the distance, birds and children coming home from school on the quiet street outside with its beautifully full and flowering trees–these are beautiful sounds, the breeze a beautiful sensation on the skin, and the trees will continue to be wonderful as long as this Claritin continues pulsing through my veins.

I’m homesick. I’ll admit it. Mostly I miss the routine I’d developed in NYC, and of course a few specific people in my life. But that was all about to change anyway since the semester was over. Mostly I’m just exhausted, and when I’m exhausted my emotions become their own; there is little I can say to change them. I feel unsure, my confidence is wagging at the moment, if that’s the expression.

My Aer Lingus flight to Dublin where I changed planes to Paris was nice and fairly uneventful. On the flight were mostly Irish people. And as Mum suspected it was the first time I was on a plane full of people who “looked like me,” but it was odd. I don’t just look “Irish;” I look like a mix of everything that I am, so I didn’t fit in. In fact, on that plane, I had no idea where I fit. But many of the other people on the flight looked Irish, and sounded Irish, and carried Irish passports. I can’t remember the last time I was on such a homogenous flight, maybe on my way back from Seoul when everyone on the plane and their mother was Korean.

During the flight, I chatted with the man sitting next to me. He came to NYC from Ireland 10 years ago, and now has dual citizenship, something I didn’t know was possible, especially coming that direction. We discussed everything from travel, to the city, to politics. We remarked on the fact that the sun never quite set outside the airplane window. A rainbow haze had followed us below the wingtip from about Nova Scotia until we were just off the Irish coast when we had the luck of watching an orange sun rise over the Emerald Isle. An hour later, I left Dublin.

After I arrived in Paris, I spoke French for the first time since I was 9. Full sentences have been popping up from some hidden place in the recesses of my brain; strings of sounds have been surfacing without meaning. But I can understand people.

“Bonjour, Monseuir,” I said to the nice looking man who collected the carts outside the airport. “Do you speak English?”

“Non.” He shrugged apologetically.

“Eh… ?La gare?”

(In French) “Oh, you want to go to the train station?”

“Si, eh… oui.”

(in French) “You take the bus number 2.”

“Merci.”

And later at the train station, after I had figured out where I needed to go and how to use the ticket machines, I discovered they did not accept my credit card. But the man behind the counter at the end of the long line had a smile on his face when I said, “bonjour” and asked for a ticket to zone 1. And finally, as Kara introduced me to the family who’s shower she shares, I understood… “This is my friend, Andrea. She only speaks English. She’s visiting from New York.” I only speak two languages, but it would seem I understand three.

Now I’m showered, partially rested, and ready to start exploring when Kara gets back from school. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can find a language school where I can get a private French lesson or two if I can afford it, and we’ll see how much I remember from those disgustingly-early morning French classes I took in the fifth grade.

Au revoir.

It hasn’t hit me yet that in two weeks I will be arriving in Paris. I know it’s true, but only superficially. I can only imagine, but can’t grasp that I will be homeless for 4 months (possibly longer if I can’t find a place to live in NYC right away). I have to admit that as this trip approaches, the little piece of me that knows the truth has turned into the whining child not wanting to leave the birthday party just yet. (It’s the best analogy I can come up with at the moment). That part of me feels comfortable here, settled into a routine. It’s something that doesn’t happen too often. But I go to bed at one when I’m tired and wake up at eight without fail to the sunlight streaming through the blinds. It’s comfortable; the child doesn’t want it to change.

One more metaphor, I don’t like it when my feet are cold and wet, and that’s what this child fears, cold, wet feet. Irrational fears are springing up… what if the plane crashes, what if the airline loses my luggage, what if my backpack is stolen? I don’t know Italian, or Turkish or Arabic! I’ve never had these fears before; where have they come from? What happened to that need for travel like it were food? The past few weeks, I’ve managed to feel something I had felt only while traveling, the feeling of living in the present tense, the tomorrow that comes in no more than 24 hours. It’s a wonderful feeling. I suppose I don’t want to disrupt it with change. But then there’s a smaller part of me, just waking up to the smell of adventure. That part says it can only get better. That part is the part that is truly living in the present, and it is wise enough to know that when my flight lands in Paris, I will be jumping in my seat, craning my neck to see out the window. And so it begins, the period of excitement and terror in anticipation. I am about to embark on my third big trip alone. Whew.

Around 2:30 this afternoon, I left my room with the intention of going to the park to sit and read at the fountain.  But it hit me that today, 77 degrees, it was too beautiful even for Washington Square Park.  Central Park, I decided and headed for the subway.  As I turned onto Lafayette, I realized, I had a place I still needed to go, so I went.  Coney Island was beautiful today.  In the April sunshine, it was far more inviting than it was on that cold March evening.

First stop was Nathan’s for a frank with saurkraut, and then on to the beach.  I stopped off at the boardwalk to sit and eat my frankfurter, but no sooner had I sat down than my peaceful independence was assaulted by a tourist.

“It’s a beautiful beach isn’t it?  This is my first time here.”  He crouched next to me.  Dressed in a footballer jersey, he seemed eerily remniscent of a certain Chilean I met last summer, who was impossible go get rid of.  “Are you from New York?”

I nodded,  twisting my hair behind me so it wouldn’t blow in my face.

“Are you from Coney Island?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?” he asked as I took an enormous bite out of the frank that occupied my mouth for several seconds.

He laughed, and I didn’t know what to do, so I did the rudest thing.  I pulled out my book and began to read, blowing him off entirely.

He didn’t say anything else, but hovered for a bit, pacing between the railing and the bench where I was sitting.  He walked away, and I sat feeling guilty, wondering if rejection kharma would come back to bite me later.

A few pages later, I’d finished eating, so I was ready for the beach.  I walked across the powdery sand to the water.  I sat on a rock to remove my shoes and walked on under a pier through the water so cold it seemed to burn my feet.  Children’s pants were soaked to the seat as they ran from the small waves crashing around them.  I sat myself on the damp sand and closed my eyes, letting the wind mess my hair and blow sand at my legs.

At about 5, I walked toward my shadow.  The wind blew the soft sand in ghostly rivers around me.  I found the rocks again where a couple of parents were snapping shots of their daughter with her bucket and shovel.  I put my shoes back on and walked slowly across the sand, back to the boardwalk.

I rode the F train back towards the city, my foot resting on the pole in front of me.  As is usual in New York City, almost no one on the train was speaking English.  The two men who took a seat across from me were no exception.  From Avenue P to Jay Street, I wondered to myself what language they were speaking.  Hebrew, it seemed.  Could they be Israeli?  The one looked almost Indian.

We crossed the river into Manhattan, and one of them, with a beard stood up, holding his camera in front of him.

“Do you mind?  We’re tourists from Israel.  We were wondering if we could take your picture?  We think you’re very beautiful.  It’s alright if you don’t want us to.”

“Um.”  My picture?  I thought he was going to ask me to take their picture.  “S-sure.”

He took my picture, probably of me blushing, and I went back to my fake sleep.  I had been wondering why he’d taken his camera out and turned it on.  I need to learn more languages so I can tell when people are talking about me.

It was all I could do not to laugh when he caught my eye as I stood to get off the train at 2nd Ave.  I love travelling alone.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Claire, my grandmother’s minister’s daughter who I was playing host to for two days while she visited the city. She has quite a few travel stories of her own, which are far more exciting than any I can remember having, such as missing a flight from San Fran to Albequerque, hopping on a plane to Denver, renting a car with another stranded passenger, and driving to Santa Fe overnight, arriving just in time for her friend’s graduation.

I rode up to Penn Station with her and saw her off. At about 5:30, I hopped back on the A train and headed toward W4th Street, but when the train pulled into the station, I was too comfortable sitting there, sideways, my feet stretched out in front of me, the rocking train lulling me into meditation. I started to wonder what would happen if this particular train went on forever. What would happen if the track was endless, if I could just sit there comfortably, half-conscious for the rest of my life.

We passed Canal St station, and I decided, it had been too long since the last and only time I’ve been to Coney Island. I decided it would be just as nice to squish along the beach, sand leaking into my shoes, as it would be to ride the train forever. And since trains don’t go on forever, I got off at Jay Street to catch the F Coney Island Bound. That train seemed to go on forever. The sun began to set over the brownstones and cemeteries, and the clouds became feathers.

The air that blew in the car when the doors opened at each stop chilled me through my sweater. Darkness fell just before I arrived at the end of the line. I got off, my arms hugging my chest. I strode towards the beach. Every storefront was closed behind a metal gate. Streets were empty except a few tired people waiting for a bus.

I could smell the ocean. How much I missed the surge of salty energy that pulses through me when I stand on a beach in the moonlight. But something in me told me to stop walking, to turn around, to go back to the main street where the crowd of strangers shifted their weight on the opposite corner.

I walked quickly back, but I resisted the voice. The street stretched onward toward the Aquarium, I knew. I paced a block, passing under an overhang where a clownish voice told me to come on in and ride my ass off on the bumper cars. The lights were all out. The voice went on, laughing.

The next street was dark. A lone figure wavered back and forth along the sidewalk in the distance. For a quick second I resented being female. The beach would have to wait for another day.

So the university I attend, New York University, has been ranked America’s number one dream college for the second year in a row by Princeton Review.  I suppose I would have to say I can see why.  For anyone considering it or considering study abroad here at NYU, some things to be aware of…

It’s dormitory housing (which was at one time guaranteed) is the nicest of just about any American college.  The simple fact that we get our own bathroom rather than having to share one down the hall is enough to make you forget about the roaches and rodents that occasionally move in next door. As often as the bureaucracy makes me want to scream, if you know how, you can always manipulate the system to your advantage.  Know the loopholes, know the weak points, don’t give up, and you’re set. 

The food the university serves is plain and simple, shit on a plate, but then again, what American college dining hall doesn’t serve shit for dinner?  I managed to gain the freshman fifteen (pounds) when I first came to NYU not because I was some lazy pig who drank too much, but because I felt guilty if I didn’t fill up when I was spending approximately $8/meal.  Get to know the city, and you can live on less than $5/day for food, good food.   

So yes, the best part about NYU, and the part that makes it so appealing (and rightfully so) is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.  The main “campus,” which isn’t really a campus, but a cluster of buildings around Washington Square Park, happens to be the part of the city with the most life–The Village.  You got the West Village, the East Village, SoHo, NoHo, Chinatown, Little Italy, all within walking distance, nightlife, good eats, culture, job and internship opportunities galore.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, it’s a good school with a good reputation, and is rapidly becoming highly selective, already letting in fewer than 30% of applicants.

So now some things that aren’t so great: 

NYU is one of, if not the, most expensive university in the United States, and it happens to be in one of the most expensive areas of the world.  With tuition approximately US$15,000 per semester, plus expenses, plus room and board, plus transportation, plus books, I’m amazed I can afford it at all.  My bill for this semester, just tuition and my dorm room was over $22,000.  Furthermore, NYU is notorious for being stingy on financial aid.  This is largely because the university’s trillion dollar assets are almost all invested in its properties, and very little of it is really fluid.  And this is also, because our government under the Bush administration is slashing funding for education (I received about a $4,000 cut in my financial aid package between last year and this year in federally subsidized loans and work study.  It may shrink another $3,000 next year while tuition and housing costs continue to rise).   

Another downside about the university, which has largely been criticized following the string of suicides last year by jumping (we got lots of tall buildings), is a lack of community.  It can be surprisingly difficult to meet people.  With little in terms of community building, such as clubs or athletics, you can easily find yourself feeling lost.  One reason I came to NYU was the anonymity aspect, and yet I occasionally find myself feeling lonely.

But overall, if you asked me whether or not I’m satisfied with NYU and glad I gave up a $20,000 scholarship to another school to come here, I would have to say yes.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the wilds that are Manhattan have just been relieved of one more of its wild creatures.  A coyote was captured in Central Park yesterday after a two day chase that involved a heroic leap (on the part of the coyote) over an 8-foot fence.  He was finally brought down with a tranquilizer gun.  Apparently he’d been in the park for about a week, and had been eating ducks, not that the park could use any fewer ducks.

Now, just last week, I was reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine about how coyotes have begun to infiltrate urban habitats.  They’re clever buggers, that’s for sure.  Since their competition the wolf was all but wiped out by hunters and farmers, the coyote population has skyrocketed.  Originating in the western states, they have now moved into just about every major landmass in the US except Long Island.  Not that they haven’t tried.  One was spotted trying to swim to Long Island.

So what better place to live than Central Park?  It’s prime real estate!  Unfortunately, for this coyote, there seems to be descrimination against his species.  I suppose it’s only fair.  He is a predator after all.  We don’t want him eating the chihauhaus that roam the streets in women’s handbags.  Although I’m sure he wouldn’t do that; coyotes aren’t very aggressive towards humans, at least no where near as aggressive as other humans.

Even so, he’s awaiting transport to the woods in upstate New York where they’re planning to release him.  I wish they’d give me a ride up there too; I could use a vacation from this city.

Mum rode the Chinatown bus up to NYC on Friday.  We headed up to MoMA to see the Edvard Munch exhibit since the museum is free to visitors on Fridays.  After that we headed over to 2nd Ave between 51st and 52nd Sts to see if we could get into a pub, but by this point (it was about 7pm) the street was flooded with tourists. 

I stopped at a corner as I pulled out my cell phone.  But I stopped a little too close to one of the pubs and two boys decked out in green with stupid green hats with shamrocks you wish you were wearing skooped my mother and I up in a group hug.  We stood there for a minute or two, the boys belting out some tune, before I realized, ok, Mum isn’t gonna do anything, so.  I pulled out of this group hug and it broke up. 

The boys started in on me, “Look at that smile!  Where are you from?”

“I’m from here.”

“Where?”

“Here, New York.”

“She is, did you hear that, she’s from New Yooook, New Yooook!”

“I’m an Arizonian!”

“A what?”

“An Arizonian.”

“Ah, ok I need to make a phone call.”

“Wait, you gonna get my number too?”

Mum and I slipped around the corner and I made my call.  As I was talking to my friend (a friend I met in New Zealand in fact), I heard a funny sound coming from one of the phone booths on the corner.  And then I noticed a small river coming from the corner of the phone booth, and in front of the river, a man with his back to us.  I moved away laughing and fairly incapable of talking on the phone.  My mum soon noticed and the look on her face was brilliant.

By the time I had finished my call, the man was still relieving himself, and a cop stood nonchalantly waiting behind him.  The man noticed the cop, picked up the telephone receiver,  and turned around.  Mum and I staid to watch three other cops stroll up to the corner nonchalantly as the four of them surrounded the man who swaggered like he might think there were eight cops surrounding him.  A little girl walked by holding her father’s hand.

“You see that?  That little girl has to walk in your pee” the first cop said.

The light changed and Mum and I didn’t stay to watch the man arrested.  We were distracted by men in kilts and Scotland T-shirts hailing cabs (wrong holiday, mate).  Tartan Week is next month, April 1-8 (and you better believe I’ll be celebrating my Scotish ancestry).

Mum and I took the subway downtown where I feel a million times more comfortable since it’s my part of the city.  We roamed around on 2nd Ave between 9th and 7th until we found a place to get dinner and laugh about our two minutes on the corner of 2nd Ave and 51st St. Virage was the name of the restaurant and it was delicioso mediterranean cuisine.

It’s funny how you can have such an adventure in your home town.  I’ve been living in NYC for two years and still have not been to Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and Friday was my first time in MoMA.  I take this city for granted.

I feel like a little kid today, and I would just like to say,

HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY, everybody!

It’s wonderful to be descended from so many groups, I get to celebrate all the holidays! Corned beef and cabbage for me tonight! (And maybe a few dozen pints?) I’m gonna celebrate like a true Irish American, ha.
I would also like to share something I found online:

apparently in 2003, there were 33.7 million residents of Irish descent living in the US… compare that to the 3.8 million population of Ireland. 10X, baby!
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03ff04.html

WEAR THE GREEN! SHOW THE PRIDE!