A long way to go for a pint

 Hey everybody,

Wow... it's been a while. A lot has happened the last few years but rather than bore you with the whole story I figured I'd call upon my old pal ChatGPT to help summarize it using the personality of a southern gentleman named "The Colonel."

Well now, gather ‘round, y’all, and let ol’ Colonel spin ya a yarn about Dave’s last couple o’ years—a stretch o’ time so full o’ twists and turns it’d make a Mississippi riverboat look like it’s sittin’ still. I do declare, it all kicked off with Dave hittin’ the big five-oh, and he didn’t let that milestone sneak by like a fox in the henhouse. No sir! He had a birthday shindig so grand, the echoes of laughter are probably still bouncin’ ‘round the rafters. Not long after, he moseyed down to Guatemala for his cousin Andrea’s wedding—a celebration finer than sweet tea on a summer porch—only to find himself in a showdown with a case of food poisoning so ferocious it near bout’ knocked him clean off his feet and left him with a hernia as a parting gift. What in tarnation, indeed!

But Dave’s tale ain’t all bellyaches and bedpans. Last year found him under the warm Thai sun, standin’ shoulder to shoulder with dear friends he’d made two decades prior when they built homes for tsunami survivors. It was a reunion of hearts and history, like findin’ a long-lost tune and hummin’ it in harmony once more. And this past year? Well now, suffice it to say, life’s winds done shifted mighty strong. Through a painful but mighty important change, Dave’s chartin’ a brand-new course, and wouldn’t ya know it, the horizon’s lookin’ brighter than sunrise on a rooster’s comb.

Why I do declare that ChatGPT did a mighty fine job with that summation!  Time for a mint julep!  But enough about that... let's get to the traveling.

As you may know I have a personal goal to travel to at least one new country every year and this year that country was Wales.  Why Wales you may ask?  First off, their flag has a fucking dragon on it!  That should be reason enough but in case you need more a) they have castles, b) the Welsh language is impenetrably weird yet strangely melodious, c) my buddy Mark, who lives in Liverpool, offered to play tour guide and d) my love for British beer is well-documented.  No finer libation has yet been created than a proper pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord.

The tour started in Liverpool:  Home of the Beatles, league champions Liverpool football club and scouse.  My buddy Rich flew out from Toronto and met up with us as well, and Mark took us on a whirlwind one-day tour of his home town.  We walked along Crosby beach to see a load of smoothed bricks from buildings bombed in World War II, a windmill farm out in the sea, and a bunch of naked iron statues of Antony Gormley.  We strolled along the Wirral promenade and stopped at a few of Mark's favorite pubs every couple of hours.  Ok maybe it was more like every hour.

The next day we drove to Ambleside in the Lake District for a couple of days of scenic hikes (and country pubs).  I first read about the Lake District in a book by Alain DeBotton that talked about it as a beautiful holiday destination and after visiting I have to concur.  There are loads of... well... lakes... in the district with multiple walking paths and roads linking the multiple villages in the region (there are 18 YHA hostels in the Lake District alone!).  With Ambleside as our base we hiked to Grasmere on the first day where we met up with Lee who had driven over from Derbyshire.  The walks are well-marked and not particularly strenuous and they take you along various hilltops with views of lakes wherever you go.    Rock walls and brambles surround you as you and occasionally you'll even find a small lake or pond on a hilltop all for yourself.  Mark took us to The Black Bull Inn in Coniston; one of his favorite pubs and home of the fantastic Bluebird Bitter.  The second day we hiked toward Langdale and ended up at the Old Dungeon Ghyll pub where I had a magical steak and ale pie.  We drove to Keswick to visit the Castlerigg stone circle: a neolithic megalith with fantastic views of the surrounding countryside.  Nowadays it seems like these views are mostly enjoyed by herds of sheep who like to leave lots of gifts for visitors making it impossible for you to leave with your shoes unscathed.  In two days we only managed to scratch the surface of the hikes and beautiful views you can experience in the Lake District.  I can see why it's such a popular destination and I can only imagine the nightmarish hellscape it turns into during high season with these tiny villages and one-lane roads.

We headed to Lee and Anna's place in Belper for the next couple of days and on the way I had a transcendent experience thanks to Gail's bakery in Buxton... namely the best sausage roll I've ever eaten. It was life-changing.  Juicy, crunchy, herb-filled.  It was the last sausage roll in the bakery so I can only believe it was my destiny to partake of its goodness.  I will long for this sausage roll in the years to come.  I ask you this my friends:  Is it better to have sausage rolled and lost, or never to have sausage rolled at all?

We visited Eyam village which, in the 17th century, completely isolated itself in order to prevent spreading the bubonic plague.  We visited Nottingham, home of Robin Hood and the oldest pub in England (Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem from 1189).  We toured the Criminal Justice Museum where we beheld a mock 18th century trial, viewed some truly horrific implements of torture/imprisonment and wondered how the hell you provide each prisoner one pound of meat per day on the journey to Australia.  We enjoyed a fantastic pint of Landlord at the Six Barrel drafthouse.  And we, of course, engaged in only the highest levels of discourse including gems like "Enough with the ruins Mark... let's limit the culture to 5 minutes a day tops" or Lee's "Don't get in a fight if you aren't prepared to bite someone."

And now we come to Wales.  At least once a year Mark meets a crew of friends (Kristy, Jo, Sara, Isabel, Fran, Jo and Simon) that he knows from nursing and they pick a destination in the UK, rent a bunkhouse and spend a weekend hiking and hanging out.  Lucky for me they chose Wales this year and, more specifically, the Gower peninsula in the southwest.  Everyone brought food and drinks to share and couldn't be friendlier.  We hiked along the stark and scenic coastline of Rhossili beach and on the second day from Worm's head along the southern cliffs.  It's one of those "I'm at the end of the world" type locations where not only are you looking out to an endless ocean but you also know that there's nothing to the west until Ireland and southwest you'd have to go all the way to Cuba until you hit land.  The UK is extremely hiker-friendly with well-marked walking trails and a "right of way" system where even if the trails go through farmland they need to be maintained.  One important note about southwest Wales that I did not realize is that it has fairly severe weather swings.  I *thought* I was prepared for it, but when you're in a t-shirt under clear sky one minute then the next minute bucketfuls of rain are coming at you horizontally shortly followed by hail that can come as a shock.  It was like that scene from Caddyshack where Carl says "I'd keep playing. I don't think the heavy stuff is gonna come down for quite a while."  I finally understood why our bunkhouse had a "drying room."  

 

 

 

Despite only having known me for a couple of days, Jo was kind enough to let Mark and I stay at her house in Bristol after we left the Welsh coast.  Bristol feels like one of those cities that's very livable, with loads of street art and murals, architecture, history, a good restaurant/bar scene and university vibes.  We crossed the Clifton suspension bridge designed by Brunel, walked along the harborfront and saw the SS Great Britain also designed by Brunel, saw loads of street art, went in a church, drank beer and ate shwarma.  After Bristol we stopped at Ludlow which has a nice church and a good brewery but honestly we need to talk about the hot roast pork sandwich I got there.  It had to be easily a full pound of pork plus stuffing plus applesauce plus crackling.  I never thought it was possible to suffer from pork overload but I can tell you that I did not eat anything for the next 24 hours.  From Ludlow it was on to Shrewsbury for the night.

 

The next morning we were off to north Wales.  On the way we stopped to go for a hike up to the neolithic Wrekin hill fort.  The hike through the forest was long and steep, and at the end you really have to use your imagination because all you can see are dirt mounds.  It's a spectacular 360-degree view, though, and it's easy to understand why people from a few thousand years ago would have wanted to build a fort in that location.  Plus we needed at least some daily exercise to offset the pints.  From there we were back in Wales for a quick visit to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct which is a world heritage site.  My understanding is that it's one of the first major feats of civil engineering of the industrial age that involved building an acqueduct out of iron to create a waterway all across a valley.  When it was built it was used to transport goods but now the canal boats are mainly used for tours.  You can cross the acqueduct on foot and have amazing views of the surrounding valley, and you get a first-hand look at the kind of traffic jam that can happen when an acqueduct has only room for one canal boat.  

 

Conwy Castle

Our destination was Conwy for a couple of nights but before arriving there we had to stop in Llangollen to sample the culinary delight of the Welsh Oggie.  Apparently there is a rivalry between the Oggie and the Cornish Pastie, but the winner in this contest is my stomach.  Flaky pastry filled with wild game and potatoes... there is no way that can go wrong.  From there we stayed a couple of nights in Conwy where there is a world heritage castle that was built by Edward the first (the bad guy from Braveheart!) during his conquest of Wales.  The castle is in remarkably good shape and you can walk along its walls and scale the towers.  It's positioned strategically right on a river so the only way to siege it is by boat or through the main barbican.  Even though it cost a fortune to build, it didn't see much use by Edward or subsequent kings.  We drove up near Mt. Snowdon and had a pint in an in where Edmund Hillary stayed when he was training to climb Mt. Everest.  We visited the Bryn Celli Du neolithic burial mound.  Mark once again pointed out sites of "pivotal battles" which was a recurring theme during the trip, though to be fair all battles are pivotal to the loser.  Honestly Conwy would've been worth a visit just for pints at the Albion Inn where they serve Purple Moose on cask heh heh.

And now we come to Man Camp. Mark made me change my flight just so I wouldn't miss out on this yearly gathering of reprobates and degenerates.  This may surprise some of you that have met Mark... you think he's kind, generous, innocent... well nothing could be further from the truth.  It's well known among our tight friend circle that Mark may, in fact, be a serial killer.  When Mark bought his new station wagon one of his mates asked him if it had good drainage.  Now you understand why I had to sleep with one eye open the entire trip.  But back to Man Camp.  I think it was curiosity that made me agree to stay because all I knew was the title and Mark was really evasive about everything else.  I asked him who was going to be there and he said Elvis, Bertie, Johnny Cash and The Captain among others.  Every once in a while he'd throw out some ominous anecdote about shenanigans that had occurred at previous Man Camps which brought to mind visions of sweaty drunk, shirtless men unleashing primal screams so I had to be clear with Mark:  No circle jerks.  We can hang out in a square, or a triangle, a parallelogram or shit even a rhombus but if I see anyone starting to form a circle I'm making for the hills.

 

It turns out my concerns were unwarranted.  We met the crew at Ironbridge which is known for (duh) an iron bridge that was one of the heralds of the beginning of the industrial revolution.  A few of the fellas were already cracking open cans of Stella at 10am but we walked it off over the next 6 hours and 11 miles.  It was a beautiful hike through forest, up hillsides and along farmland.  The guys couldn't have been friendlier or more quick-witted.  The afternoon turned into an evening at the pub with just a bunch of middle-aged guys drinking beer and bonding over pop culture references and music from the 80s and 90s.  I did hear that Johnny Cash threw up in the car the next morning though so the legend of Man Camp continues!

 

Which brings me to the end of my trip.  What can I say about Mark?  I hope everyone realizes that I don't really think he's a serial killer (at least that's what I'm going to tell the judge if I'm ever called as a witness).  He drove us across 1200 miles in western England and Wales on a journey that he planned himself.  Mark's knowledge of British history and archaeology gave life and color to every site we visited. He incorporated me into two of his friend groups.  I never felt bored or annoyed, and we could easily have conversations for hours or even slip into comfortable silence for a while (like Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega).  I'm lucky to have him as a friend.

A few postscripts:

• We drove over 1200 miles
• We averaged over 8 miles walking per day
• We averaged 5-6 pints per day
• Why do so many British women dye their hair that burgundy color?  No one could give me an answer.
• British food gets a bad rap.  You can survive on beer and baked goods no problem.

A Sunday Roast for all of you

Here's a link to the photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/tAKGkAGAgf3yfgXi9 

 

Take 'er easy,

Dave 

Halfway Home

Hey everybody,

It's hard to believe that it's already halfway through the course and I'm going to be back home in just over a month.  I don't have much on the adventurous or interesting side to tell you, unless you want to hear about the various metabolic pathways for brewer's yeast or how to design a HACCP plan for your brewery.  We've been neck deep in course work other than the weekly placements we have working at an actual professional brewery, though when I use the word "professional" it can be applied very loosely to some of these outfits.  It gives me hope, though, because if some of these clowns can produce and sell beer then why can't I?

I did get a two week mid-course break during which I took the opportunity to satisfy my mandatory "One new country visited per year" rule by taking a bus to Edinburgh, Scotland.  Edinburgh is a small, beautiful, and eminently walkable city.  The weather was pretty crappy and rainy during my two days there so I ended up creating my own brew tour of the city.  I did make it up to the top of Arthur's Seat, a hill that was formed from an extinct volcano and has excellent panoramic views of the city.  Other than that, I did the usual touristy stuff like walk around the castle and have a burger.  I tried to get some haggis, but wherever I went that had it on the menu said that they were out of it.  I went down to London for a few days to hang out with my niece (I hope you like baby pictures) and then back up to Belper in Derbyshire for a reunion with Lee, Anna, Mark and Richard.  We try to get together at least once a year for a few days that in retrospect none of us will remember.

Now we're down to the stretch run and I'm trying to focus in like a laser beam.  This is difficult since we are each producing approximately 25 liters of beer per week, most of which ends up back at our dorm.  It's gotten to the point where we're giving bottles away to the security staff.  Here are the pics...

Halfway Home

Take 'er easy,

Dave

Beer School

Hey everybody,

I'm in beer school.  In England.  When I say this out loud it makes me realize how awesome that is.  For the next 10 weeks, I'm going to be studying how to make beer, interning in a brewery, making my own beer and maybe even getting to sell it to some local pubs.  I'm on the Diploma in Brewing Technology course at Brewlab.  No, the other one... in Sunderland.

Around January or February I was actively brewing with a group of home brewers in San Francisco called Brewlab, sending out inquiries to a bunch of brewing schools in the U.S. and in Europe and everyone is telling me that they don't have any availability until 2014 (UC Davis said 2015 at the earliest).  So I'm working part-time and taking some classes and generally trying to figure out what I'm gonna do when I get this email from one of the schools in the UK saying they'd had a cancellation and would I be interested in signing up for the summer 2013 course.  I love British ales.  My work contract ends just before the school's start date.  The school is called Brewlab.  Too... much... serendipity.  Besides, I knew I had to come to England to see my newborn niece Alice.

Of course, summer is a relative term in England.  It's the season where it's slightly less shitty.  I've been here almost two weeks and I've gotten about 6 hours of sun, which I consider above average.  My previous experience had all been around the south, mostly London with a bit of Liverpool and Derby sprinkled in, so when I told my friends that I was going to be spending the summer in the northeast in Sunderland the reaction was universal bewilderment.  One of my English buddies wrote me that, "If you like to shag ugly, illiterate, indecipherable fat birds then it's the perfect place for you."  That sounds like something that should be printed on the cover of the Sunderland tourist brochure.  And when the British are making fun of a people for being ugly, I mean... wow.  Now that I've been here a couple of weeks I can tell you that everything they said was terrifyingly correct.  An incredible percentage of women here enjoy spray tans, which when combined with mascara applied with a paintbrush, neck tattoos, and an apparent disdain for exercise, should give you a typical picture of one of these orange horrors.  The guys aren't much better, with a large contingent of bald mouth-breathers sporting blurry forearm tattoos and wearing England football jerseys.

Okay, all the things I just said are really superficial and snarky (though probably not unfair), I admit that, so let me just say that almost everyone has been incredibly nice and has gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.  The most difficult bit has been getting used to the accent in the northeast, which in Sunderland is Mackem, closely related but not to be confused with the Geordie accent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhHLmhchLrU) in Newcastle which is about 20 miles away.  A couple of the guys on the course are English and they warned us never to confuse the two and that under no circumstances should we EVER tell anyone in Sunderland that we are fans of the Newcastle football club unless "we want our face kicked in."  Everything in Sunderland shuts down at 6 o'clock except, mercifully, the pubs, so I've been in cask-conditioned ale heaven since my first day in town.

What else?  There are 12 dudes in the class (no women, so you can imagine how quickly things have degenerated), 6 from the U.S., 4 from England, and one each from Norway and Latvia.  A couple of the guys are from Newcastle so they've been giving us the low-down on places to hang out, which has been great, and Newcastle is much nicer and livelier than Sunderland and only about a half hour away on the metro.  We're all living in one building in the university dorms, which is weird, but I have my own room which makes it an upgrade over my usual travel accommodations.  Our head instructor Arthur is a northeast native with 30 years of experience in the brewing industry from micro to big ones like San Miguel, Heineken and Newcastle.  He's a soft-spoken beer encyclopedia with an incredibly dry sense of humor.  I asked him if he'd ever had an accident at one of his breweries where someone fell into one of those giant industrial fermenters and he said only once where a guy committed suicide by jumping in and drowning in the beer.  They didn't discover him until after he'd gone through a few batches in the fermenter, including caustic and acid cleaning. So Arthur says the only difference with those batches is that they had a bit of extra body to them.

Other than that, I've been making myself at home and expect to gain about 10-15 pounds thanks to real ales and Sunday roast.  The northeastern coast is supposed to be beautiful and from what I've seen so far that holds true.  I expect to make quite a few day trips on the weekends so hopefully I'll have some nicer pictures for you going forward.  Here are some pics which admittedly are mostly beer porn...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nsHpa2vGuWjhNaxu9

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Stefano's Wedding and El Masturbador

Pictures here though there aren't many....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/i2HXmECtkzypB177A

I think my first mistake was that I forgot both my Giants hat and my Raiders jersey when I was packing my stuff. I never travel anywhere without at least one of them.

So I get to London and manage to ascertain exactly how the preparations are going. No reception booked. No tux. No wedding rings. This is 5 days before the wedding. Ah... of course. At least Stefano's predictable. Anyway, after dinner we went to this bar called Corum to arrange for the reception, which was negotiated by yours truly. The night ended back home with Stefano, taking advantage of my weakened state, beating me with my laptop while I was trying to pass out. Typical first day.

At this point, I'd like to take some time to explain the shower facilities in Stefano's house. Actually, it's not even a shower. It's a garden hose attached to the hot and cold water faucets. I'm attaching a picture so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. I had better facilities in Thailand. "The Tube" quickly achieved legendary status among the houseguests. So that afternoon I went out with Stefano and Caterina to pick out their wedding rings. Did you know that the best man is supposed to pay for the rings? I wasn't aware of this but apparently it's an Italian tradition. Luckily, Stefano and Caterina decided to take it easy on me and we went around the Lewisham area looking for wedding rings at pawn shops.
They were really specific about wanting a matched set of three interlocking rings. I'm thinking that there's no way in hell we're going to find something that esoteric wandering through pawn shops in the London version of the Tenderloin. Well, lo and behold, at the 4th place we entered we found a matching wedding set that actually fit both of them. Weird.

So the next day Stefano, his buddy Michele and I go to pick out a tux on Oxford street. Stefano tried on this gray three-piece that with his crazed haircut made him look like a mutated hobbit during Bilbo's party scene in the first Lord of the Rings. So the guy asks him when he needs it and Stefano says in three days. The guy basically laughed at us and said the only thing he could give us by that time was a charcoal gray suit, which is what we ended up getting. At this point, Ste turns to me and says "Could you spot me for the tux? I'll pay you back after the wedding." Okay, there's no way in hell that I'm going to take his wedding money, so let's chalk another one up to travel expenses. Too bad I couldn't expense it to Keynote, like that time George and I took Stefano out to a 200-quid sushi dinner. Heh heh.

So on sunday after dinner we all headed out to a dance club, which was pretty cool. Once again, much drinking occurred. We're hanging out at the bar and I decided to take my camera out of my man purse and snap a couple of shots. As I was putting it back, I noticed this couple looking at me. I put the bag closer to my leg. I turned away to talk to Stefano for a couple of seconds, and when I turned back my bag was gone along with the couple. Fucking hell. I went to the front to talk to the bouncers. They said I'd come to the right place, that there'd already been another theft, and that they had a bead on the thieves. I waited out front for about 15 minutes and then saw as some of the bouncers were escorting the couple I'd seen earlier to another room. I grabbed one of them and said I recognized the girl as the one who'd been near me when my shit got pilfered. They told me to hold tight since they'd called the cops. A minute later they said I could pick up my bag with the coat check girl downstairs. I went down to get it and the girl gave me the bag... minus my camera and cell phone. The guy who stole it had that stuff on him and they're holding onto it until the cops come. Anyhow, the cops finally come around and the coat check girl comes up to the bar to get me and bring me down to this other room. I'm there with this other chick who had her wallet stolen and across the room is the couple being interrogated by the cops. She was really fired up and kept looking over at the couple and yelling shit like "You're getting what you deserve"
and "You're not laughing now, are ya?" Turns out the couple is Italian (of course). The English cops are being total hardasses when they're interrogating them and the girl just breaks down and starts crying up a storm. Very dramatic. Anyhow, I'm down there two and a half hours between identifying shit, waiting, and giving a statement. They ask to hold on to the cell phone and camera for evidence in case they need to go to trial, I say ok because I want them to get nailed for this. By the time I get out it's 4 am and everyone's gone. I get home about 5 o'clock and everyone's still awake. When I walk in the house everyone starts high-fiving me and patting me on the back. They said they saw some chick (the coat check girl) come up, point to me, and take me with her so they thought I was off banging her. That would've been legendary, just having some chick point to you and take you home. What am I, Hugh Hefner? That shit doesn't happen in real life. Instead I was hanging out with some fat English cop.

A couple of days later is the big wedding. The best part of the morning of the wedding was that 7 people (Stefano, Caterina, Anna, Michele, Bruno, Letizia, and me) not only had to share one bathroom, but washing up with the tube takes about 3 times as long as a normal shower. You have to get in some kind of prone position in the bathtub, rinse yourself off, soap yourself up, repeat, etc. Plus, the low water pressure makes your hair turn out all goofy after you wash it, kind of like that Seinfeld episode with the low flow showerheads where Kramer's hair is all flat. Awesome. The ladies especially loved the tube. Still, we managed to get to the site early and have a couple of pints at the pub across the street. The ceremony itself was great. The justice of the peace was formal and professional, but not cold. There were about 40-50 people there, Stefano was choking up, there were surprise notes from his friends, it was really nice. Afterward we hit the pub across the street for a couple of hours, then around 5 we headed over to Corum for the reception. The way we had negotiated, Stefano said he wanted to spend a total of 500 quid. So we figured about half on food and half on wine. Then he says how about 200 on food and 300 on wine? Then, a couple of minutes later he says how about 150 on food and 350 on wine? We had lots of bottles of wine and some crackers and hors d'oeuvres, so everyone was really lit. It's always fun to throw back a few glasses of wine with the elder Bresci. Plus I spent some quality time talking to Caterina's stepdad who is a Freudian psychoanalyst. Free therapy is great, especially when you're drunk. Anyhow, at about 1:30 a bunch of cabs came to take us home. Us and about 30 other people (not including the parents and family). That was great... 40 chain-smoking Italians partying it up in your house. I passed out in an upstairs bedroom with the door closed and woke up in the middle of the night coughing from the amount of smoke in my room. It was like I was on the set of Backdraft. That's my brother goddammit!!! You burned him Stephen!!!

The next day everyone who came into town for the wedding left and that evening Alex flew into town to hang out for three days. She'd never been to the UK before so I was going to be her tour guide for the London part of the trip. I didn't mention this earlier but I managed to get my old company Keynote to subsidize my trip by agreeing to do some server installations for them in London and Paris. The next day I manage to perform a server installation in the exciting town of St. Albans, lock myself out of Stefano's cell phone by trying to guess what his PIN code is since he didn't tell me (what the hell is a PUK code?), lose Alex with no way for her to get a hold of me, then finally find Alex. The day after we wake up to no power in the house which means, of course, a cold shower. Actually, it was a cold tube, which was even better. Turns out nobody paid the electric bill. I had to go down and recharge the power card at the local minimarket. We decide to take it easy just took the bus around London (I showed Alex where I got my nose pierced in Camden Town, we walked around the center, she had a rancid iced latte, etc.) and met up with her friend Roy later on in the evening for dinner and drinks. Between the dodgy Indian food and the rancid latte I think London left quite an impression on Alex.

Alex left with Roy on Saturday to tour around England and I sealed myself up in Stefano's house for the next 4 days. I hadn't gone to bed before 3 am since I arrived, which was 10 days ago. I was still waiting for word from Keynote on whether or not I'd be able to go to Paris because they hadn't shipped the servers yet. I was still trying to get a hold of the supervising officer so I could get my camera and cell phone back, which finally happened on Wednesday... a week and a half after the incident.

Stefano and Caterina returned on Wednesday after a well-rested, tanned week in Sardegna. They had 5 days to find a place to live before getting kicked out of the house. Stefano was explaining to me how he was just going to stay in his place until they found another one. He actually used the word "squat" which was cool if only for the fact that he said it with a thick Italian accent. I thought the last time anyone squatted was in Oklahoma in the 1870s. Anyway, I finally got the ok from Keynote that the servers would arrive in Paris on time so I booked my trip to leave on Friday. I called a hostel near the Louvre to try to book a bed for four nights, but let me explain something about my French-speaking abilities. You know when you go down to Fisherman's Wharf and some hapless Japanese tourist asks you for directions? Then you start talking to him and he gets this glazed-over look in his eyes as he's futilely trying to comprehend what you're saying. Then he tries to repeat what you told him and comes up with something like "then you... make left... at pancake... then go... then stop at dishwasher, yes?"
So you spend the next 10 minutes trying to help this guy and wondering if it's just a language problem or if maybe you should start looking for his guardian because he's a foreign retard. Well, that Japanese guy is me, except with French. So at the end of the phone conversation I could only hope I had a reservation and didn't order a pizza or donate an organ or something.

In spite of my language difficulties I managed to enjoy what is in my opinion one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Paris should really be seen by night to truly appreciate it. I don't think there's any other city that's lights up its monuments and historic buildings in a more striking fashion. Plus it always seems like there's something going on. Saturday night I was just wandering around and ended up hanging out at some kind of salsa dancing competition that was happening on the banks of the Seine. Sunday there was a very moving pictorial display outside the Jardin du Luxembourg commemorating the liberation of France at the end of WWII. Oh, and let me suggest that if you ever do go see pictures of wartime Paris that you don't follow it up by going to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I almost threw myself into the Seine.

Sunday night I get back to the hostel just looking to relax because I have to get up early in the morning to do an installation for Keynote. So it's about 11 and I'm just chilling out on my bunk reading my book when a new guy comes into the room and introduces himself. He's a dancer from Spain who's studying at some academy an hour and a half outside Paris and is in town for a week's vacation. He goes off to take a shower. I continue reading on my bunk. When he comes back he towels himself off and flops onto his bunk, buck naked. I'm thinking, okay, well, we're in Europe. So he's just hanging out, and I'm reading my book trying not to look over. Still, I can see out of the corner of my eye that this guy's not going to put any pants on. Eventually I shut off the light and try to get some sleep. About a half hour goes by and I can't sleep. At this point, I start to hear some... sounds. At first I think I must be mistaken, but after about 30 seconds there's no doubt what's going on in the
bunk below mine to my right. Okay, I'm not sure what to do here. I start
kind of shuffling and rustling, but that doesn't seem to stop this guy. Honestly, the thing I wanted to do most was just laugh out loud, but I decided to play it cool and try to wait it out. Well, this guy must be some kind of Spanish champion because he was going on for a while. Finally he decides to give it a rest right before the third bunkmate comes in. So after the third guy goes to bed I figure I'm safe. A few minutes pass by and I think no way this guy's going to start up again with two other guys in the room right? Wrong. So I'm wondering if the other guy's going to say anything or what, but it sounds like he's asleep. Anyhow, eventually he lets up and I get to sleep.

The next morning I'm having breakfast and the third roommate comes up to talk to me. He's French so he's speaking to me in somewhat broken English. He says "you know that new guy in our bunk? He was naked when I came in last night." I say yeah. Then he says "I think he was..." And he makes a gesture which transcends language, race and culture... the universal wanking gesture. And I laughed and said yeah, I'm pretty sure he was. Then he says "That's disgusting... I'm moving rooms!" Now, I could've moved rooms too, but I figured a) I'm leaving tomorrow and b) I'm meeting up with Luiz tonight so I'll probably be out late. So I leave and do my final installation and meet up with Luiz that evening at Les Deux Magots in front of the Eglise St. Germain. It's a famous cafe where Sartre and De Beauvoir hung out, which of course means my espresso cost 5 euros. We wandered around the Latin Quarter and ended up having an excellent dinner at someplace that Luiz had read about in Cool Restaurants Paris. Then we wandered down to the Pantheon, around the Seine, in front of Notre Dame, and in the area of Marais. Luiz spent most of the night trying to convince me to change my flight and get a one-way ticket back to San Francisco so I could hang out with him for a week in Paris.

I got back to the hostel around 2:30. I opened the door to my room and found all the lights on, The Spanish Wanker lying under a sheet wide awake with his glasses on, and the entire room smelling of Aloe Vera. I had no idea what to make of this scene so I quickly jumped up on my bunk, shut off the lights, and tried to sleep. It was just me and him. I decided that if he started up again I was going to tell him to take it to the toilet. It was like some kind of perverted showdown. Every time I heard him rustling or turning over I expected him to go for it. He never went at it, but I didn't get any sleep.

Now I'm back home, trying to recover from the flu that Roca brought me back from Brazil. I think I'm going to stay put for a while.

As always, the dude abides. From home.
Dave