Turkey has surprisingly not turked me. I have not been cheated (too badly). I have not been pickpocketed by a sneaky brown youngster, nor have I been raped by a burly brown man. Istanbul, where I am right now, has thus far proved to be the most amazing city I have seen on this trip. This is probably because the Turks possess the one thing that neither the French, nor the Italians, nor the Greeks possess: a work ethic.
The Turks worked surprisingly hard at keeping their city clean. The French piss openly on their streets, the Italians sleep 22 hours a day, and most of Greece is under construction and dog/donkey shit. But the Turks have a legion of street sweepers that march up and down the sidewalks like the robots in I, Robot gathering up garbage. I swear to God. They are also the FRIENDLIEST people. The night we showed up, a taxi driver named Hussein The Jolly Kurd (he was a jolly Kurd) drove us around for an hour at 11pm at night trying to find us a cheap, quality hotel.
“My friends,” he bellowed in broken English, “You no want hostel. Hostel, 12 bed in one room. You sleep next to the Pakistani and the Indian. You Canadian, I like Canadian. I am Kurdish! Kurdish like Canadian! You are like my children! I show you good hotel, very cheap!” Lo and behold, this chuckling man drove us around, personally haggled for us with various hotel owners, checked the rooms for us, told us where all the good sites are, and finally found us a place 5 minutes walk from a Turkish steam bath, a movie theatre, a series of cheap restaurants, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofya, and the Archealogical Museum. He also swore that if we could not find a place, he would drag us back to his house, where we could spend the night. “You like my children! You come stay my place! Canadian, you like my children! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Also, the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is a giant Richmond night market, but thank God Almighty, with no Chinese people. I despise Chinese street vendors because they are sneakier than rattlesnakes and cheaper than Kieran’s sister. Once a Chinaman sees your money, it’s like making eye contact with a shark. Your money is still in your pocket, but you KNOW that in 3 minutes or less, it will be in theirs’. But these are Turks, and without tooting my own horn… the average brown man is NO MATCH AT ALL for the average yellow man at THE HAGGLING CONTEST. My entire race is made up of grocery store and laundromat owners. No one outcheaps us. NO ONE OUTCHEAPS US.
A true conversation:
Sean: My friend! How much for this (unnamed object)?
Turk: Ah, friend! This is beautiful thing. Very high quality. You from Japan?
Sean: Canada, Canada.
Turk: Ah, Canada! I like Canada, I give you good price. 120 lira. Very good price. I pack it for you.
Sean: No, 120? My friend, at the night market in Richmond, items like this, I can get three times as big for 100 dollars. You are trying to cheat me, friend! (A lira is roughly the same as a Can dollar) I will pay you 30 lira.
Turk: 30 lira! Impossible, impossible. Please, look at the quality. I give you 110 lira.
Sean: My friend, I will tell you a secret. The other guy over there, he offered me this same thing for 50 lira. (Nothing of the sort happened, I was lying my ass off.)
Turk: 50 lira! Allah, no, no… this is 120 lira. But I am generous man, I give you 100 lira.
Sean: My friend. I can go back to that other man, and I can have this for 50 lira. I turned him down. I will give you 35 lira.
Turk: 35 lira? No! Please, I am good price. You Canada, Canada, beautiful place. 85 lira.
Sean: Friend, I am a student. Student, I have no money. I eat eggs for every meal. I steal food from my friends when they are not looking. 35 lira is all I can give you.
Turk: You must help me, sir! Come, I give you special student price. 65 lira. No better! Whole bazaar, no better.
Sean: Friend, look at my shirt. This shirt cost 5 dollars. I’ve been wearing it for 4 days. I have no money. 45 lira.
Turk: 45 lira! Ok, ok. I am Kurdish. You know Kurd? I am good man, please. I have 12 children.
Sean: I can’t give you what I don’t have. This thing, it is for my father. (I say this to EVERY street vendor, no matter what I buy.) My father, I have not seen him in 8 months, please. For my father. 45 lira, I have no more. Look at my shirt.
Turk: Ya, allah, sir, ok, please. 55 lira. 55 lira.
Sean: Friend, I have no money. 45 lira. (Starts to walk away)
Turk: Sir, 50 lira! 50 lira!
Sean: (Walking away) I have to buy other things, I need money to take the bus, you know the bus. The bus in Turkey, very expensive…
Turk: Okay sir. Come, shake my hand, I give you 45 lira. 45 lira.
The thing is, the guy still CLEARLY made a profit from me, despite the fact that it went from 120 to 45 lira- otherwise he would simply not have sold it to me. The conversation was also at least 4 times longer than that…. I just included the funniest lines…. most of it was very serious haggling with no giggles involved. Everyone I bought from made a profit from me. But at the same time, I paid about half or a third as much as an dumbfuck, drawling, slow-wit, tongue-tied American would have. Thank god for my Chinese blood: I used to think I had all the disadvantages of being Chinese and none of the advantages. Well, I still can’t drive, and I may be bad at Math, but I can outcheap the Brown Man.
Oh yes. The steam bath. The Turkish steam bath is something I recommend EVERYBODY try at least once. We showed up at this 300 year old Turkish bath place on a whim, and paid 20 lira to this Turkish chick at the reception, who studied American literature at Istanbul University and had the unsettling habit of winking at me. They gave me a towel that was resembled a dishcloth (and was not much bigger) and showed me and Kieran into this WEIRD room.
There was a big marble octogonal platform in the middle, which was heated from underneath. You lie flat out on it until you start moisturizing like a chicken in a pot. On the edges are stations where… and this is where culture started to fuck with me… big, hairy, sweating, round bellied, handlebar-mustached Turks would GIVE YOU A BATH. Yes, my friends. Not hot Turkish, bronze-skinned, raven-haired, dark-lashed chicks, but some of the most ferocious looking men I have ever seen.
Luckily, you have to PAY to get the bath and massage from these titans, and thank God I did not. Otherwise, they would surely have wrung my puny body like a towel. From what I saw them do to other men, they made them lie down, and then gave them the most INTENSE massage. Fingers forced into the forehead, palms crushing into the back, joints forced in ways that joints were not meant to be forced. Then they would grab a bar of soap and LATHER them up… and when you see a beefy Turk soap up the inner thighs of another beefy Turk, you will not know WHAT to do. Homophobia wrestles with the imperative to respect someone elses’ culture.
Anyway, you basically sit on the marble to you start sweating like an immigrant at an English exam. Then you soap up (still wearing your towel, thank God!) and dowse yourself with liberal amounts of hot water. Then, you dump huge amounts of ICY COLD water on your head. Then, ifyou like, you can do it all again, without the soap. It is the most RELAXING experience you will ever have.
But do not wear your contacts into the steam bath. They will condense with moisture and SLIDE INTO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD.
Okay, I am off to Cappadoccia tonight, which is an underground city… hundreds of underground caves stretching down 8 stories. It will be like the dwarves in LOTR… I can’t wait.
I am off! Lates.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Europe 2005: Shit Stairway
Santorini is a Greek island. It is one of those world famous, picturesque little places that are immortalized on postage stamps and postcards. It cost me 22 Euros to sail there by ferry, lured by the tourist guidebook on Greece’s advice. I now advise YOU, my friends, to avoid Santorini AT ALL COSTS, unless you are fabulously rich, fabulously stupid, or need to propose to some chick who likes purple sunsets.
There are 3 things of note on Santorini. (1) The volcano. (2) Oia. (3) Shit Stairway.
(1) The Volcano.
Santorini used to be a volcano. Way back in the day, the volcano did one of those things that volcanos are known to do: it blew its load. The entire volcanic isle sank into the sea, leaving a rim of high cliffs surrounding a crystal blue, glassy-surfaced bay. Smack in the centre of that lovely Aegean mirror, like a festering pimple on the surface of the sea, sits the remains of the volcano. It is a big, broad, black, blistered mound of steaming rocks; a pile of molten slag that looks like huge lumps of coal piled on top of each other. The whole volcano (or the remains thereof) looked like the remains of a giant campfire.
I paid 15 euros for a ferry to take me to that smoking hill of gravel, and when I got there, there was a Greek, sitting under a straw umbrella, holding his hand out for more cash so I could gain admission onto the volcano. ADMISSION?!? Admission for WHAT?!? I don’t have a freakin’ PH.D in volcanic geology, do I, Zorba? Why am I being forced to pay good money to ogle at an island covered with black lumps of crud that I could have pulled out of my fireplace back home?
(2) Oia
Oia is a town, perched on a cliff that was created by the volcano sinking. If you have never seen a town hanging, and nearly spilling over, on the edge of a knife-like ridge that overlooks the ocean hundreds of feet below, it is a mighty impressive sight. Oia also has the craziest architecture that I have ever (and I mean EVER) laid eyes upon. They tend to be mostly white, but also PINK, BRIGHT YELLOW, BABY BLUE and TEAL. If you have never seen a baby blue house… Now, in North American, houses are laid out neatly in yards. Your yard and your driveway are obvious and well-defined. You can tell where your private property ends and your neighbour’s begins. Not in Oia.
Houses are tiny and built on top, under, beside, and often overlapping each other. Little domed, white-washed stone huts are nestled cosily into each others’ space; houses’s stairways overlap on the roofs of other houses, and doors and windows often seem randomly injected into the walls. Thin and winding lanes snake through this ridiculous, haphazard labyrinth of ridiculous, haphazard little shacks. The whole thing looks like a big, multicoloured, organic maze that will remind you of the last time you tripped out on mushrooms.
(3) Shit Stairway.
In order to get to the volcano, you have to get to the Old Port, which is at the bottom of the cliff. The Old Port is at the bottom of a long, winding staircase. There are 3 ways to get down: by the cable car, by foot, or by donkey. Kieran and I headed down by foot.
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. NOw, these donkeys are central to the tale. Greek donkeymasters will accost you at the top, yelling at you to pay 3.50 euros to go donkey-ridin’ to the bottom. You will turn them down, because as a starving student you do NOT have 3.5 fuckin’ euros to throw at Zorba. The Greek donkey master smiles and goes on his way. You don’t understand why.
Yet.
30 metres down the stairway, you realize that the Greeks, or possibly God, has played a cruel joke on you. You see, the DONKEYS that you had earlier rejected have to deposite their dinner somewhere. Yes, my friends. The donkeys shit ALL DOWN THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE STAIRWAY. Big, fresh, brown, steaming, fly-infested piles of donkey crap, sitting in your path like pylons on an ice-rink.
Basic lesson in economics: supply and demand. If the people want baseball bats, you build baseball bats. If the people want donkeys, you supply donkeys to carry them. But it is an extremely cruel twist of fate when the SUPPLY creates the DEMAND. You don’t need the donkeys, because as a sprightly youngster, you can walk. But because the donkeys, the unwanted supply, create BIG STEAMING TURDS TO WAYLAY YOU, you do NOT want to walk down. So, this creates DEMAND for the donkeys… demand for the previously unneeded supply. You are willing to shell 3.50 for a donkey to ride… when it was THE CAUSE OF YOUR RELUCTANCE TO WALK.
I went over turds, around turds, winded my way around thick, streaming rivulets of brown donkey piss, and basically swore the entire way down in every language I knew. I was wearing sandals, and if I had slipped and put my foot on the remains of Donkey’s Dinner, I swear that I would have tackled the next Greek I saw off his donkey, ripped his face off and wiped his ass with it.
I have now sworn a Holy Oath to take the next serious chance I have to kill every donkey and every donkey-owning Greek on Santorini. So help me God.
Okay, I’ll be in Turkey tomorrow. I don’t know what Turkey is like, and they may try to turk us. If I don’t arrive back home by June 3rd, that means the Turks have arrested me on false charges of pornography-smuggling, and I have likely died an excruciated death at the hands of big, beefy, sweating brown men. If will then be incumbent upon you, my friends, to avenge my death by killing at least 5 random Turks over the course of your lives. I thank you all.
There are 3 things of note on Santorini. (1) The volcano. (2) Oia. (3) Shit Stairway.
(1) The Volcano.
Santorini used to be a volcano. Way back in the day, the volcano did one of those things that volcanos are known to do: it blew its load. The entire volcanic isle sank into the sea, leaving a rim of high cliffs surrounding a crystal blue, glassy-surfaced bay. Smack in the centre of that lovely Aegean mirror, like a festering pimple on the surface of the sea, sits the remains of the volcano. It is a big, broad, black, blistered mound of steaming rocks; a pile of molten slag that looks like huge lumps of coal piled on top of each other. The whole volcano (or the remains thereof) looked like the remains of a giant campfire.
I paid 15 euros for a ferry to take me to that smoking hill of gravel, and when I got there, there was a Greek, sitting under a straw umbrella, holding his hand out for more cash so I could gain admission onto the volcano. ADMISSION?!? Admission for WHAT?!? I don’t have a freakin’ PH.D in volcanic geology, do I, Zorba? Why am I being forced to pay good money to ogle at an island covered with black lumps of crud that I could have pulled out of my fireplace back home?
(2) Oia
Oia is a town, perched on a cliff that was created by the volcano sinking. If you have never seen a town hanging, and nearly spilling over, on the edge of a knife-like ridge that overlooks the ocean hundreds of feet below, it is a mighty impressive sight. Oia also has the craziest architecture that I have ever (and I mean EVER) laid eyes upon. They tend to be mostly white, but also PINK, BRIGHT YELLOW, BABY BLUE and TEAL. If you have never seen a baby blue house… Now, in North American, houses are laid out neatly in yards. Your yard and your driveway are obvious and well-defined. You can tell where your private property ends and your neighbour’s begins. Not in Oia.
Houses are tiny and built on top, under, beside, and often overlapping each other. Little domed, white-washed stone huts are nestled cosily into each others’ space; houses’s stairways overlap on the roofs of other houses, and doors and windows often seem randomly injected into the walls. Thin and winding lanes snake through this ridiculous, haphazard labyrinth of ridiculous, haphazard little shacks. The whole thing looks like a big, multicoloured, organic maze that will remind you of the last time you tripped out on mushrooms.
(3) Shit Stairway.
In order to get to the volcano, you have to get to the Old Port, which is at the bottom of the cliff. The Old Port is at the bottom of a long, winding staircase. There are 3 ways to get down: by the cable car, by foot, or by donkey. Kieran and I headed down by foot.
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. NOw, these donkeys are central to the tale. Greek donkeymasters will accost you at the top, yelling at you to pay 3.50 euros to go donkey-ridin’ to the bottom. You will turn them down, because as a starving student you do NOT have 3.5 fuckin’ euros to throw at Zorba. The Greek donkey master smiles and goes on his way. You don’t understand why.
Yet.
30 metres down the stairway, you realize that the Greeks, or possibly God, has played a cruel joke on you. You see, the DONKEYS that you had earlier rejected have to deposite their dinner somewhere. Yes, my friends. The donkeys shit ALL DOWN THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE STAIRWAY. Big, fresh, brown, steaming, fly-infested piles of donkey crap, sitting in your path like pylons on an ice-rink.
Basic lesson in economics: supply and demand. If the people want baseball bats, you build baseball bats. If the people want donkeys, you supply donkeys to carry them. But it is an extremely cruel twist of fate when the SUPPLY creates the DEMAND. You don’t need the donkeys, because as a sprightly youngster, you can walk. But because the donkeys, the unwanted supply, create BIG STEAMING TURDS TO WAYLAY YOU, you do NOT want to walk down. So, this creates DEMAND for the donkeys… demand for the previously unneeded supply. You are willing to shell 3.50 for a donkey to ride… when it was THE CAUSE OF YOUR RELUCTANCE TO WALK.
I went over turds, around turds, winded my way around thick, streaming rivulets of brown donkey piss, and basically swore the entire way down in every language I knew. I was wearing sandals, and if I had slipped and put my foot on the remains of Donkey’s Dinner, I swear that I would have tackled the next Greek I saw off his donkey, ripped his face off and wiped his ass with it.
I have now sworn a Holy Oath to take the next serious chance I have to kill every donkey and every donkey-owning Greek on Santorini. So help me God.
Okay, I’ll be in Turkey tomorrow. I don’t know what Turkey is like, and they may try to turk us. If I don’t arrive back home by June 3rd, that means the Turks have arrested me on false charges of pornography-smuggling, and I have likely died an excruciated death at the hands of big, beefy, sweating brown men. If will then be incumbent upon you, my friends, to avenge my death by killing at least 5 random Turks over the course of your lives. I thank you all.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Europe 2005: Athens and Delphi
Athens is a filthy industrial slum. I’m not exaggerating, nor am I bitter, even though I stepped in a big, steaming pile of Athenian dog crap yesterday. The truth is that while places like Paris and Rome are dirty in their own urban way, they are filled with opulent palaces and classical ruins, and have an age-old, historical feel; the fading stones and greying walls are charming and fill you with a sense of respect.
Not so for Athens. Athens, whatever you may think, is a very modern city. In the early 1800’s, when Greece became independent (in the modern sense) Athens had 4,000 people. It was a fishing village. So all the buildings in Athens, which have been built since, are very modern, very dirty, and very industrial. Athens is a filthy industrial slum.
The Acropolis is pretty cool, but like everything else in this country, it was under reconstruction, with big steel girders and scaffolds jutting out of the marble and looking just god-awful. But it didn’t detract at all from the coolness of the experience. The Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike (Nike, besides being the name of a multinational corporation of sports-whores, means “Victory”) and some other buildings were build on this tall plateau, over 100 metres up, overlooking the city. It was ringed with walls, and really made me wonder how an invading army could possibly have taken the Acropolis. It’s like attacking a castle with 100 metre tall walls.
Yesterday we hit Delphi. Now, Delphi is just another ruin strewn field, and all ruins start looking the same after 3-4 weeks. (Back in the day, it was a place sacred to Apollo where an Oracle would sit and give out prophecies. She would sit in a cavern where the vapours would get her HIIIIIIIGH and give her whacked-out hallucinations.) Anyway, overlooking Delphi were a series of tall heights… sheer rock faces that shot a good long distance into the air. 80 metres, maybe? 100? Maybe higher. Anyway, despite a a big sign near the rock face that said “DO NOT PASS”, we decided to climb up it.
Going up was fun… doing a hike on trails is nonsense compared to ripping your shins to shit going nearly vertical through nettles and thorns and what have you. We were were also scampering up the mountain in full view of tourists, and more importantly, security guards. One started yelling at us when we were 50 ft up, so we just booked it as fast as we could, and after a while, being a typically lazy Greek, he stopped caring and went back to his felafel.
I have great photos on the top. But going down had some pants-shitting moments. At one point, we hit a sheer drop. No hand holds; smooth rock going down 20-30 ft. We decided to rope it down, having stolen some rope from our last hostel. Now, scrambling down a rock face holding on to a rope that probably served as a clothsline was a fun experience; at one point, the rope gave out and I fell about a foot before the rope became taut again; I found out later that it had snagged on a branch. At the time, I thought the rope had snapped completely, and that I was going to plummet down, hit Kieran, and then plummet some more to paralysis or death. But it was all good.
Anyway, we are now on Santorini, where I will go watch the sunset over a sunken volcano.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Europe 2005: The Pink Palace
The Pink Palace is a hostel on Corfu in Greece. It is clearly made by Americans for Americans, and the girl who gave us the first-night tour of the place looked like a native Greek but spoke with an unmistakable Southern twang that sounded like a wonky guitar. It is painted… yes, you guessed it… hot pink. It has 800 beds, a club, kayaks, ATVs, a flying-boat (which is exactly what it sounds like… a boat with wings, not a sea-plane), and a rickety barge festooned with pirate flags called the Booze Cruise.
On the ferry to Corfu, our group of 5 guys had met up with a couple of Canadian girls from Manitoba. Kieran desperately wanted to have sex with either of them (possibly both, and maybe at the same time) so he invited them to come with us. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Wonky Guitar Girl, told the rules, and given a shot of something called Ouzo.
Ouzo is, in the immortal words of blogger Tucker Max, “distilled from the urine of Lucifer himself”. It is the Greek version of vodka, a clear liquid that smells like gas and tastes like perfume. When I swallowed it, the damn thing burned a trail of hellfire down my gullet and into my bowels. The shock of taking that paint thinner down my throat was akin to being slapped in the Adam’s apple by a ping-pong paddle. I do not recommend the Ouzo. It will put a giant dent in your brain.
I went kayaking that day, and I won’t describe kayaking, because kayaking is far too fun to express in words. It’s like cocaine or butt-sex… you really just have to try it for yourself.
But I will describe ATVing. An ATV is a quad, a 4 wheeled a mechanical monster that steers like a bike but bucks and roars and generally fills me with the fear of God. This was a small-scale model ATV- nothing like the iron bisons they use in the bush or on farms. But I was still scared witless. We went up steep hills. We went down steep hills. We rolled across Corfu on gravel paths with ruts so deep it could have tipped my ATV, with slanted rocks that could propel you off the cliffs we were driving along.
Now, I have never driven an ATV. Moreover, I am Chinese (I cannot drive). Combine this with two other factors: (1) My ineptitude with all large pieces of machinery (2) My fear of all large pieces of machinery, and the first 10 minutes of rocketing up a narrow mountain trail at 30 km an hour loosened my bowels significantly.
Oh, yes. I crashed twice. The first time, I braked, the ATV slid, and I hit a rock cliff. I am EXTREMELY glad I hit the rock cliff, because on the other side of the road, there was a steep precipice leading into the Mediterranean Ocean. The left wheel went wonky for the rest of the trip, the left mirror snapped off upon impact, and I flew off, hit the rock face with my shoulder, then bounced back down into my seat, sacking myself tremendously.
The point, other than to make you think “Sean, that dumbass. What an idiot.” is that I had to pay 75 Euros for damages to the ATV. What a TAX. But I ain’t mad. I will simply take a dump on my pillow before I leave, which incidentally, is today.
Greece is a lovely place, and I cannot wait to check out some of the islands. The views are spectacular, and I never really tire of looking out over a lush green landscape out upon the sea, which really makes the Georgia Strait look like an industrial dumping pond. We are headed for Athens tonight.
Anyway, I hope you are all doing well, or as well as you can. Mike, the game ended in a 0-0 tie, but the fans were amazing. Non-stop singing for 90 minutes, flags, banners, and when you see 30,000 people clad in blue do the ROman salute at the same time, you will nearly wet yourself.
ANyway, I am off. Cheers and farewell.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Europe 2005: Foreigners and the Vatican
When I first started on this journey, I swore that I would immerse myself in the cultures of the countries I visited, learn new words and eat new foods, and try to be an honorary Italian, or Frenchman, or Greek, and learn as much from my hosts as I was sure they would be willing to impart.
This has since turned out to be a vain hope on my part.
When you look like a foreigner, the locals take a vindictive pleasure in treating you as one. They KNOW that you have just come to their casa, and that you have no idea what in the hell is going on. Hordes of people just like you show up, in droves of millions, from May to August, and to the average European, you are about as faceless as a Jew in a Nazi camp.
Basically, you are a wallet with legs. There is no more or less to you than that, and any humanity that you THINK you possess is lost when you realize that that the fat man at the Gelateria only smiles and warbles out “CIAO!” at you because he is trying to coerce you into buying his overpriced gelato, and that the security at all the tourist sites tell you the sites close earlier than they really do because they just want the tourists to leave sooner.
It is becoming increasingly annoying to look at the faked smiles on the faces of the Italian vendors and cops and store owners… they aren’t in any way happy to see you. You are not an eager, enthusiastic traveller seeking to plump the culture he visits to these people. They don’t want to give you advice about what to see, they don’t want to teach you new words, they don’t want to give you anecdotes about the history of landmarks, and they don’t want to have a decent and meaningful conversation with anyone as MEANINGLESS as a foreigner. They want you to come in, and they will inwardly cringe as you butcher the word “Buongiorno!” and they will fake a big fat wop grin as you shell out far more Euros than the product is worth. They know they are cheating you, and they know that you know you are being cheated, and they know that you know that you are a foreigner and must submit to all the ridiculous practices of Italians, who, by the way, have a work ethic that hovers between laziness and pure, unadulterated imcompetence.
They KNOW that you are a mere North American lost in a European’s world, and they DELIGHT in making you realize it. It has been during this trip that I have given up any dreams I once had of travelling for the rest of my life. You will NEVER be accepted by the locals. They hate you, but they take your money and smile as they CHEAT you. They herd you through their museums, which have no real meaning to them except as spectacles for which they may tax the unwary and stupidly enthusiastic foreigner. You walk through, they take your money, and then they do the same thing to the guy behind you. As you leave, they ask you to tell your friends about ITALIA, so that you, my friends, can also come to this country and get TAXED by greasy Italians for looking at architecture and churches that they didn’t even build.
SInce I realized this, I have basically turned from a travelling foreigner into a foreign traveller. I don’t say anything in Italian anymore. I DELIGHT in responding in flat accented Canadian English to anyone who talks to me in Italian. I refuse to have small talk with the locals. When I see pizza that is too expensive, I tell the fat man behind the counter that his pizza is overpriced and that he is trying to screw me… then I leave. I make fun of Italians to their faces, and they don’t understand a word. I do this because I know they do the same thing to me before and after I enter their eating establishment, which my buds and I have termed “Taxerias” because all they do is tax tourists who don’t know that everything is priced over twice what it is actually worth.
Despite the fact that I am a PAWN, I am still having the time of my life. The Vatican was utterly amazing… we took over a hundred photos. It was the Versailles of the Catholic world, opulent and extravagant beyond my ability to describe… an incredible structure of marble and blue and gold, filled with frescoes and murals on the domes of Heaven and the angels, and huge marble carvings of the most important Catholic saits. The background behind the altar was this RIDICULOUS and ORNATE gold and black marble carving of four bishops holding up a chair, which was covered with fleur de lis and angels and what have you, and above it was a stained glass window with a dove, and surrounding it were rays of light of carved gold, with fat little cherubim circling the whole thing and blowing on trumpets.
But I have definitely changed the way I travel. Everyone sees me as a foreigner, and I now damned well act like it. I shall be in Rome for the next 3 days, then its on to Pompei, then on to to Greece.
The journey continues…
Hope you all are doing well. Write back if you have time, I think of you all more than you know. I read Nick’s thing when I can, and Amber throws emails at me too. Anyway, can someone tell me what’s happening on the OC?
I’m going back to getting taxed.
Laters
This has since turned out to be a vain hope on my part.
When you look like a foreigner, the locals take a vindictive pleasure in treating you as one. They KNOW that you have just come to their casa, and that you have no idea what in the hell is going on. Hordes of people just like you show up, in droves of millions, from May to August, and to the average European, you are about as faceless as a Jew in a Nazi camp.
Basically, you are a wallet with legs. There is no more or less to you than that, and any humanity that you THINK you possess is lost when you realize that that the fat man at the Gelateria only smiles and warbles out “CIAO!” at you because he is trying to coerce you into buying his overpriced gelato, and that the security at all the tourist sites tell you the sites close earlier than they really do because they just want the tourists to leave sooner.
It is becoming increasingly annoying to look at the faked smiles on the faces of the Italian vendors and cops and store owners… they aren’t in any way happy to see you. You are not an eager, enthusiastic traveller seeking to plump the culture he visits to these people. They don’t want to give you advice about what to see, they don’t want to teach you new words, they don’t want to give you anecdotes about the history of landmarks, and they don’t want to have a decent and meaningful conversation with anyone as MEANINGLESS as a foreigner. They want you to come in, and they will inwardly cringe as you butcher the word “Buongiorno!” and they will fake a big fat wop grin as you shell out far more Euros than the product is worth. They know they are cheating you, and they know that you know you are being cheated, and they know that you know that you are a foreigner and must submit to all the ridiculous practices of Italians, who, by the way, have a work ethic that hovers between laziness and pure, unadulterated imcompetence.
They KNOW that you are a mere North American lost in a European’s world, and they DELIGHT in making you realize it. It has been during this trip that I have given up any dreams I once had of travelling for the rest of my life. You will NEVER be accepted by the locals. They hate you, but they take your money and smile as they CHEAT you. They herd you through their museums, which have no real meaning to them except as spectacles for which they may tax the unwary and stupidly enthusiastic foreigner. You walk through, they take your money, and then they do the same thing to the guy behind you. As you leave, they ask you to tell your friends about ITALIA, so that you, my friends, can also come to this country and get TAXED by greasy Italians for looking at architecture and churches that they didn’t even build.
SInce I realized this, I have basically turned from a travelling foreigner into a foreign traveller. I don’t say anything in Italian anymore. I DELIGHT in responding in flat accented Canadian English to anyone who talks to me in Italian. I refuse to have small talk with the locals. When I see pizza that is too expensive, I tell the fat man behind the counter that his pizza is overpriced and that he is trying to screw me… then I leave. I make fun of Italians to their faces, and they don’t understand a word. I do this because I know they do the same thing to me before and after I enter their eating establishment, which my buds and I have termed “Taxerias” because all they do is tax tourists who don’t know that everything is priced over twice what it is actually worth.
Despite the fact that I am a PAWN, I am still having the time of my life. The Vatican was utterly amazing… we took over a hundred photos. It was the Versailles of the Catholic world, opulent and extravagant beyond my ability to describe… an incredible structure of marble and blue and gold, filled with frescoes and murals on the domes of Heaven and the angels, and huge marble carvings of the most important Catholic saits. The background behind the altar was this RIDICULOUS and ORNATE gold and black marble carving of four bishops holding up a chair, which was covered with fleur de lis and angels and what have you, and above it was a stained glass window with a dove, and surrounding it were rays of light of carved gold, with fat little cherubim circling the whole thing and blowing on trumpets.
But I have definitely changed the way I travel. Everyone sees me as a foreigner, and I now damned well act like it. I shall be in Rome for the next 3 days, then its on to Pompei, then on to to Greece.
The journey continues…
Hope you all are doing well. Write back if you have time, I think of you all more than you know. I read Nick’s thing when I can, and Amber throws emails at me too. Anyway, can someone tell me what’s happening on the OC?
I’m going back to getting taxed.
Laters
Saturday, May 7, 2005
Europe 2005: The First Travel Post Ever
Buongiorno!!!!!!!!!
I have realized something very profound. No matter where you go in the world, the bums, black people, and homosexuals NEVER change. The bums still play instuments outside liquor stores and train stations (although in Europe the instrument of choice appears to be the accordion), the gays are still flamboyantly multicoloured, and the black people still smell bad and try to sell you shit that you really don’t need.
I have wound my way from Paris to Nice to Pisa, and arrived in Florence last night. In case you don’t know, Florence is a bastion of the Renaissance and the home city of the Medici family (the historical Kennedys of Europe) and my political idol, Niccolo Machiavelli. You know how on every couple of days back home, something cool will happen and you’ll say, “That TOTALLY made my day.” Events like that happen to me about 30 times every day, and I’ve barely had one sensory overload or doubled over from laughing at some companion’s joke when the next one hits.
I’ve drunk bottles of $3 wine on the Pont du Arts in Paris, rocked out on my Ipod while exploring the Palace of Versailles, smoked hashish in a hostel in Nice that used to be a monastery, nearly keeled over from awe at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Arc of Triumph, gotten drunk with people from Australia to Northern California to Israel, ridden the Paris metro to exhaustion, sat 20 feet away from the Mediterranean crashing on the rocks on the Tuscan coast at a MAGNIFICENT coastal town (s) called Cinque Terre (take the girl you’re going to marry here to propose, lads), laughed myself stupid at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, seen so many architectural masterpieces that they are starting to blend together, and have basically lived 5 days for every hour I’ve been here since I set foot on this continent and realized that not a single street has a sign and every car is an Echo Hatchback.
Eric, Kieran and Liam are hilarious people and the four of us enjoy a strange group dynamic that allows us to laugh at almost everything that happens. The boys are all trying very hard to get laid; Eric is restraining himself because his Jewish girlfriend will p0wn him if he cheats. Liam is 1 for 1, he nailed a fellow traveller from PEI… Kieran has had no luck and will kill me if I reveal how many girls have shot him down. It is incredibly gratifying to have planned this trip for 4 years and then one days step off the plane and realize you are in fucking Paris.
So now I am in Italy, and an interesting ride it has been. Italian is the most intense language; it is musical and zestfully eloquent when used in everyday convo, but APPALING and IRRITATING when screeched out by a little fat wop child. Italian men all look like they just stepped out of a pizza parlor or a budget underwear commercial, and I swear that EVERY motherfucking house in Italy has red tiles, peeling yellow wall paint, and green shutters on the windows. And every dog is about the size of my foot, but takes dumps the size of my arm. Not to mention the fact that NO ONE CLEANS UP AFTER. (Watch your step, dude.) But they have every gelato flavour known to man, and you seriously cannot complain about a country where it is easier and cheaper to get wine than clean water.
In two days, I shall be in Venice, and I think that my utter awe at seeing a city built on water will be tempered by the presence of uncounted hordes of tourists, who apparently outnumber the locals. And hordes of tourists means only one thing: black people. Black people like to go to the places where rich white men congregate, so they can sell them shit they really don’t need. I swear to God that there is nothing quite as unwelcome or as untrustworthy in all the world as a black man trying to sell you a fake Rolex.
Anyway, I am MO tired from having had to wake up at 630am this morning to see Michelangelo’s David (who by the way, is 3 times as tall as a normal man but has the tiniest dick) and the Chapel of the Medicis (hey, Gavin… Lorenzo is buried with his brother in this not-very-impressive marble tomb… they would not let us take pictures) so I think that I shall go crash.
Cheers to you all and see you in a wee bit. Gavin, call my blasted mother and tell her where I am; she apparently cannot respond to emails.
Sean
PS: European women are pretty hot. But they have a sense of fashion that is too outlandish to be attractive. Some of them wear skirts over baggy pants and pink ballet shoes, and on their faces are perched sunglasses that make aviators look tiny. Parisian women are hideous. If you ever go to France, you won’t stay for the women.
PPS: Pass this along to anyone who I’ve missed out.
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