The Poetist

Highlights:
Open air pet stores on Las Ramblas
Eduard
Flavia
the Barri Gótic
learning the history of Catalonia
museums being open from 8-11
La Sagrada Familia
the Parc Güell
an amazing croissant from the bakery around the corner (best in Barcelona)

Lowlights:
the rain on the second day
feeling nauseous for the greater part of the second day
vomiting at 30-45 minute intervals for 6-7 hours on the second day
having no energy on the 3rd day

Honorable Mention:
Starbucks, for being everywhere (notably quite near the Sagrada Familia), and for providing high-calorie frappuchinos, which come in handy when you’re on a liquid diet.

***
Among the animals being sold on Las Ramblas there weren’t just the normal cuties like kittens, rabbits, cockatiels and guinea pigs, there were more serious birds like roosters, and …pigeons. Yes, pigeons. Tim and I couldn’t understand who would pay money for them when you can get them off the street for free, but we decided that it must be a very lucrative trade. Everything you make off of it would be a profit. Whenever we saw pigeons after that we’d say oh – there’s an easy €10 right there! In fact, if I had been more enterprising, I bet I could have caught and sold enough pigeons to make up for the extra train ticket I had to buy for Amsterdam.

*
The history of Catalonia is quite interesting. Way back in the day Spain wasn’t Spain, there was Castille and Catalonia. Castille was backed by the French Bourbons, and Catalonia was backed by the Hapsburgs. The Castillians + Bourbons eventually won control, and the language and government of Castille became the language and government of Spain. Catalonia has remained Catalonia, but Catalan is not recognized as an official language in Spain. (I credit Eduard for teaching me everything I learned and just regurgitated)

*
Unfortunately, Barcelona wasn’t all sunshine and butterflies. In the late afternoon on the second day I started to feel very, very nauseous. At first I thought it was something I had at lunch, or perhaps the cookies dipped in sweet wine that we had for dessert. Then as the nausea grew stronger I thought maybe it was all the gluten I’d been having. Being on vacation, I decided that I would eat whatever I wanted. But then, walking down the Ramblas after seeing Eduard’s Barceloneta apartment, I nearly threw up in a trashcan on the sidewalk. And I thought to myself – in all my 24-odd years of eating gluten, it never once made me throw up.

Shortly thereafter (after we reached the hostel) I projectile vomited the entire contents of my stomach. I don’t know if you’ve ever projectile vomited – but it’s quite an experience. I felt my entire digestive system pull together, literally, to defy gravity. Everything contracted, as if I were encased in one huge abdominal corset, to push out the contents of my stomach with a force and velocity I had never seen. And it didn’t just come up and dribble out. It gushed out like my body had become a glorious fountain. Afterwards I sank to the floor, feeling spent like an empty casing. Unfortunately I had to return to the bathroom at somewhat regular intervals for the next 6-7 hours. I tried drinking water and shortly thereafter it all came up. For the most part though it was bile – that odd substance found at the bottom of the stomach; really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The next day was our last in Barcelona. I felt entirely sapped of energy, but around midday I rallied for our trip to La Sagrada Familia and the Parc Güell (both beautiful Gaudi creations). And bless Tim’s heart for being so patient with me and my snail’s pace as we made our way to these famous sites.

Highlights:

The Van Gogh museum
watching a bad movie (The Parking lot) in a random coffeeshop
the beautiful canals
the beautifully classic architecture
Anne Frank’s house
Dutch pancakes
coffeeshops

Lowlights:

losing €110 on my train ticket to Amsterdam
the unexpectedly cold weather
discovering that unsavory characters start appearing in the streets after 1am
being lost in Amsterdam after 1am
leaving a piece of clothing behind in the hostel
cold apple pie

***
The best thing about the Van Gogh museum was the letters. The exhibit was replete with letters written by the artist to his brother, and his artistic contemporaries. Given that there are so many artists that we memorize facts as about as children, I really enjoyed getting more perspective on Van Gogh through his personal letters.

***
I have to admit, the Amsterdam segment of my trip was colored by a train debacle that actually took place in Paris. My friend and I obviously bought our train tickets in advance of our trip, and arrived at the train station armed with our itinerary and confirmation numbers. The ticket agent, however, would only issue the ticket if presented with the same credit card that was used to purchase the ticket. Not wanting to use that particular card on my trip, I left it in San Francisco. Very much to my dismay, the station agent offered no other alternative. So we hopped onto my friend’s Blackberry.

First, I tried logging into my account to get the information, but then we remembered that online bank accounts rarely display your full account number – and even if it had, I would need the expiration date too. We then got the idea to call one of my roommates in San Francisco (even though it was 1am) and have him read off the card information to me. Unfortunately I had left my cellphone in Dublin (my phone couldn’t even keep time in Europe), but I knew I could get my roommates’ numbers from Facebook! My friend pulled Facebook up on his BB… and I realized that I didn’t know my password – without a QWERTY keyboard, at least. Just for the record – I have a *very* secure password – it’s a combination of letters, numbers, AND symbols. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember the particular symbols, just where they were on the keyboard. I had one last option – I called MasterCard. But MasterCard, in case you didn’t know, doesn’t have 24 hour service. So there I was – I had tried every option I could think of and we were running out of time. About 5 minutes before the train departed I decided that if I wanted to continue my trip I would have to buy a new ticket. With hindsight (which is always 20/20), I realized I had had one more option – I could have spoken to the agent in French. It’s been my experience in France that if you’re speaking English, a person won’t try to help you – keyword, try. As it was, the agent first spoke to me in English and I answered in-kind.

I’m going to write a letter to SNCF (en français, of course), to try and get my money back. It’s ridiculous that they made me buy a second train ticket when I had clearly already paid for the first one. I doubt I’ll get anything more than a credit towards another ticket, but that would at least be something.
*
And so I entered Amsterdam smarting over the €110 hit my vacation budget had just taken, but the wonder and craziness of Amsterdam helped me forget.

I’m excited to finally have this blog off the ground! Please check it out at:
http://fashionistalabsanfrancisco.wordpress.com/

Thanks

I woke up this morning, dreaming a dream that I knew wouldn’t come true. I was half-asleep, and so it was half by choice that I dreamed it.

I was content knowing the limits of my dream; I’ve already learned what not to ask for. I knew I could never live it.

But wakefulness and reality pushed their way into my dream, trespassed into my sacred ground. Denied me even my dream.

And still I’m a dreamer. I look at what isn’t and I dream of what could be. I see what will never be and I claim that for my desire. And that’s what I hold on to, the most impossible.

Such is the life of a dreamer, and my dreams. I choose what I cannot have; and I dream it anyway.

In preparation for moving to the west coast I unpacked and delved through boxes and boxes of things that I hadn’t seen in 1.5 – 5 years.  Some of the things I came across made me feel like I had opened a time capsule of who I was when I was younger.  Here are a few things I came across…

This one made me laugh – One of my former email aliases was mmmchocolate007.

I uncovered a notebook with three pages in sequence that looked like this:

1^st page: Dear Graham

2^nd page: Dear Graham

3^rd page: Dear Graham,  

                        No!

I vaguely remember the afternoon when my friend and I drafted responses to Graham, although as I remember it was pre-emptive; I don’t think he had actually asked me anything.  But it’s good to be prepared, I suppose, even way back in the 6^th grade. 

In another notebook I found an entry on Feb 14, 1995 that included these predictions for 2005:

Future #1: “I’m not in love.  I get paid a lot of money part-time.  I’m 21.  I’m going to Baryshnikov’s School of Dancing – New York.  I plan to be a professional Dancer.  I work as Advising Chief-Editor at the Times.  I plan to dance for 10 years then become President.  You only have to be 33.

Future #2:  “I’m 21.  I’m married.  I’m happily married to Christian Bale.  I have triplet girls.  Very identical!  The birth was almost tragic.  All three tried to get out at the same time.  Fortunately we got it straightened out.  … We live in Beverly Hills and Staten Island.  We are very busy, Christian is still acting.  I now work at Baryshnikov’s School of Dance – Manhattan.  I also work as a librarian in the Bronx.  We also have had many successful years on Wall Street, etc.  We also travel to Greenwich Village.”

Well, 2005 was 3 years ago and I’m still not married to Christian Bale.  I should have been more on the ball when parts of Batman Begins were filmed in downtown Chicago.  And speaking of cities, I obviously didn’t know anything about New York City.  I was 11, and still 100% a Cali girl.  Since I have so many friends in NYC hopefully I’ll take that Greenwich Village vacation soon. 

Chicago.  Tokyo.  Chapel Hill.  Des Moines!  Most people wouldn’t be excited to go to Iowa in December, unless you follow politics and understand that it is one of the most important states, the “ground zero” if you will, in the months leading up to the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.  It doesn’t matter if you go blue or go red, Iowa is where the nitty gritty plays out; and Iowa is where I’m going.

Earlier this week I had the great surprise, honor and pleasure of being offered a job with the Edwards campaign in Iowa starting December 1, leading up to the Iowa caucuses Jan 3.  I accepted, and will begin in a matter of minutes as my dad and I drive the national campaign manager’s minivan to Des Moines.  Roadtrip aside, I’m excited to be part of the campaign, to have a chance to be directly involved in a cause I really believe in… but I’m also terrified.  This is real, this is high stakes.  This is serious.  So I’m going to do my best.  I’m going to try not to F it up.  Most of all, I’m going to try to keep it classy on the campaign trail!

It’s 4:30 am and I’m reading the Freakonomics blog at the New York Times. The topic of October 9th (posted by Steven Levitt) was a girl who supposedly placed an ad on Craigslist.com, asking how a young, beautiful woman (who is not from New York) finds a man who makes at least $5,000,000/year (keeping in mind that, as she says, $1,000,000/year is a middle class income in New York City). She asks why she she’s plain women with rich men, and where/how she can meet these men. An economist replied, explaining that his money would “appreciate,” while her beauty would “depreciate.” So for the rich man, it makes more sense for him to lease (date), not buy (marry).

You should check out her ad, the response from an economist, and all the comments at the blog’s readers are adding. This is probably quite nerdy of me, but I find the economic discussion of dating and marriage to be funny and interesting. Some comments:

• 35.

  October 9th,
  2007
  5:24 pm

  “I’m not from New York”

  That much is apparent. Two things:

  1. No, you’re not classy.

  2. “Sex in the City” was not a documentary. Perhaps they changed the channel lineup on your cable system and put TBS where the Discovery or National Geographic channel had been.

  — Posted by J

• 80.

  October 11th,
  2007
  8:22 pm

  Steven,

  It is my theory that hot women marry economists for the same reason hot high-ranking PR women consistently marry the head of development in tech companies.

  Smart girls who are physically attractive (”Smart Hot Girl”) get plenty of offers, but they understand that they have two assets: looks and brains, and they want to be valued for both. Therefore, Smart Hot Girl is open to relatively less attractive men with serious intellectual interests to ensure that she is not selling herself short. Lets face it: a geek can barely tolerate being around a bimbo, never mind seriously date or marry one because he needs to be able to talk about his work/interests with her — the very things that make him a geek.

  (Many Hot Smart Girls don’t start out being open to dating geeks. It often takes a failed relationship with an attractive man, after which she feels cheap and used and doesn’t know whether she can trust another one.)

  I’ve seen smart/beautiful women learn all about subjects that they had no prior interest in – economics, marketing theory, Star Wars (my own wife went so far as to turn herself into a database/web programmer) just so that they can be valued for their intellect, a slower depreciating asset than their looks. But when the geek considers Hot Smart Girl’s looks, he does so with an undertone of astonishment at his good fortune that he even got looks as part of the package deal (evidenced by your post above). As a bonus, since our geek’s girl has looks well above his own, even though Hot Smart Girl’s looks will fade over time, the depreciation curve is flatter and (spousal) appreciation curve lasts longer: no matter what she looks like over time, she’s still probably prettier than he expected to get.

  — Posted by lucky geek

Vacuum packing is the way of the future – I’m absolutely convinced!

After putting myself on daytime house arrest I finally began packing today.  I successfully divided my clothes into three categories – those I will throw out; those I will ship to the U.S. via seamail (6 weeks); and those that I want to pack.  Making those decisions was a much more useful step than I initially realized.  After that I took the 6-week-seamail clothes and put them into what could be described as a large, industrial strength ziplock bag.  I closed it up save one small hole, and then I vacuumed away!  It was incredible to watch – the bag slowly crinkled and space seemed to disappear, like Wicked Witch of the West, slowly melting before Dorothy.  Completely amazing.  Absolutely brilliant.  I’m actually vaguely looking forward to packing my suitcase ’cause it means I get to do another vacuum-pack bag.  Vaguely, mind you, vaguely.