Blogs from United States, North America - page 6932

Aloha everyone! I hope that things are going well for you all. I am thinking of you all.....well...sometimes anyway. Just going to share a few things that I have been doing - I am not going to put every little detail or day down because that wont make you want to come and visit the places, it will just bore you! 24/05/05: On the day that I left for Hawaii someone asked me in the afternoon at what time I would arrive in Hawaii. I thought for a moment and found it very unusual saying "This morning". The 9 hr flight on a newish 747 was very pleasant and arriving in Honolulu in the morning of the night that I left Sydney was a little confusing. Now here is a question, if I stayed in the ... read more

This whole thing was written in the terminal of SFO waiting for the flight to Seoul / Incheon. It isn't all that interesting, but it is certainly representative of the kind of things that run through my mind when I'm under a lot of stress. I was listening to the Breeders' album, "Last Splash," which is an album I'd recommend to any one. Right now (June 9, 12:39 PM, Korea Time) I'm listening to the Distillers, "Sing Sing Death House," I think, sitting at a computer on a glass-topped counter in a PC-room in my hotel, smoking cigarettes and getting ready to run late for work. I haven't got any photos yet, because my phone is in Korean. I'll figure it out sooner or later. The following is, again, something you might not want to ... read more

I set my alarm for 01:00 (yes, A.M.) so I could call München to make a reservation for the Euraide bus tour of Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Wieskirche. My first-ever international phone call! It wasn't any different from making a domestic call. My home phone didn't light up or play special music to celebrate or anything. ;) I've come several full circles on bus tours catering to Americans... there was a lot to love about seeing Scotland that way, but there's no question that we ended up isolated from real people, real culture and authentic experiences. Being one of a gaggle of gawking, giggling tourists belched from one of a vast herd of lumbering buses at the appointed visitor centers and tchotchke shops doesn't feel in-country ... read more

Cinnabon. Taco Bell. Mandatory eavesdropping. Relatively humdrum traffic. Box stores. 7-second limit on staring. Lack of 15th-century farmhouses (well, 15th-century ANYTHING). WAAAAY different food. American keyboards. The annoying urge to compare everything to Italy. These are among the millions of aspects of my home country that are swamping me right now. I knew it would be a shock, but could never have imagined how foreign my birth country could seem to me. Or how much I could appreciate the little things. Like friendly shopkeepers, or walking by a crew of construction workers and realizing that the knee-jerk inward cringe I have developed in Italy has become relatively unnecessary. On the other hand, it was a testament to another habit I've cultivated (espresso) when I took a swallow of drip coffee and realized it was completely indistinguishable ... read more

Eu nao tenho voltado pra casa em quase dois anos e agora e dificil chamar isto de "casa". Mas e muito massa voltar pra casa de Mamae! E otimo ver tantos amigos e um pouco chato nao ter tempo pra ver todos. New york e completamente diferente, eu sai daqui em 2001 entao eu sou uma Novayorkina pre- 11 de setembro. A cidade e totalmente diferente agora. Tudo e muito mais caro mas ja que eu vim com Euros eu aproveito a queda do Dollar. New York ta uma loucura e eu vejo muitas coisas que eu nao gosto. As pessoas tao totalmente preocupadas com coisas que nao me importam mais, entao eu me sinto diferente, principalmente com a minha familia. Parece que todo mundo passou por uma lavagem cerebral. Nao sei como que eles conseguem ... read more