The internet doesn´t grow on trees

Like i said. I´m in madrid and it´s raining. I bought tight pants. I am cold.

new blog, lots of blog

So i promised new blog and now that im sober here goes.

Patras-
I walk to the train station in Athens to take the train to Patras so I can take the ferry back to Italy. There a woman whom speaks neither greek or english keeps repeating Patras at me. She was Romanian decided to be my companion for the five hour train trip. She seemed really sad, and at two points started crying after telling me about her 3 year old daughter. I kept handing her little snacks, cheese, peanuts, and oranges. At the train switch in Kiato i handed her my knitting. of course she knew how to knit, she is romanian. I whip out a set of needles and some yarn and set her to work. We sat on the platform surrounded in a landscape of orange trees and knit together. At the station in Patras she disappeared. Patras had had a huge storm the night before and the electricity was still out in parts of the town. This included the grocery store i went to for dinner. There was most definatly a odor coming from the cheese case. The buisness class on the ferry, that is were the deck only passengers sleep, is on the 8th level and far from the real paying customers. I was one of three or four people in this giant room of airline seats. I picked out the best spot, behind the last row of seats where i couldnt be seen readily and went to sleep.

The train from Anacona to Bologna provided me with not only an outlet, but a conversation. The guy whose job it is to let the conductor know when it is safe to go, spoke great english. I told him about how my great aunts kid crashed a train. He told me his grandmother is 84 and owns a farm where there are no longer livestock, but that she is a woman that is a lot of power in a little package. He said i was the same.

In the train station in Bologna while waiting for the night train to Zurich i see a man embrodering. He doesnt seem able to tread the needle so i take it from him and tread it. I dont say please, he doesnt say thank you. There is no need.

Zurich was fantastic. A clean pretty city. I dropped in on a Stitch and Bitch this morning in a Starbucks. Both members that were there were ex-pats and talked about the language issue since german in this area has a spoken dialect and a written form that is different. I spent the day looking at churches. I seem to spend a lot of time in big fancy churches these days. Funny since i was raised in a belief system against this unnessisary fancyness.

Zurich, then a train ride to Munchen to my hostel. Munchen was a nice little city, full of hot dogs and bread rolls. I like both these things so no problem. I bought sock yarn. I am a sinner. The lord is my shepard i shall not want, until reinforcing yarn dyed in the matching jackard of the sock yarn gets involved. I dont need any more yarn. What really boogles the mind is the fact that i will spend nothing on food, i have been carrying around a tub of off brand Nutella and loaf of bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week now total cost 2 euro, but i can spend every crown i changed in prague and then go back to the atm and spend more on that last skein of yarn. I have a yarn problem. But this yarn was hand created at just this one store in Prague and nowhere else in the world. That makes it ok right.

Hellena was gone far out of her was to take the best care of me while staying with her in Prague. I could not ask for a better hostess. I want to bake her a chicken.

A man on the train gave me a postcard of a knitted condom.

new blog

I was going to post a new blog but instead i got drunk with one of Hellena§s Czech roommates.
I promise to post a new blog later.

Greece

I know, I know. It has been a hot min. Lets catch up. Came back from Romania, spent last week with Julie in Budapest. Had session with Hungarian knitting group. Ate dinner at Heather's. Saw "there will be blood" with Hungarian subtitles. Packed up my sleeping bag and left.

This brings us to Sat, when while some of you were still at the "Remember when we had parties" party, I was boarding a train to Vienna. And it turns out I took spring with me, but not to Vienna. Vienna had a big wind storm that blew me across streets like a sail boat with my huge pack.

Man this blogging stuff is hard.

Vienna, so wind storm. I couldn't find the imperial crypts, which is want i wanted to see, so i was cold and found the train station i was going out on. Then i sat in a boxing themed bar and read 'White Teeth' and ate hot dogs. Julie you were right about this book, i read it in three days and it was 500+ pages. My train to Bologna was late by two hours and full of italian teenage students going on a class trip. Understandably I didn't get much sleep.

Bologna in the morning was great. instead of getting off the train at 4:30 in the am, the late train put me in at about 7. I abandoned my pack and walked to the center of town and sat. i watched the balloon animal lady set up for the day, and watched old men debate about stuff i could'nt understand. You know Bologna is famous for the three t's, so the postcard i sent my parents said, "the two towers, tortilini, and tits" I only saw one of the three.

*Excerpt from Journal*

For two days i have hunted for oranges; through the closed streets of Bologna on Sunday, and after 5:30 in Patra. so after a dinner of crossant filled with cherry goo and cashews(i bought these at a drink stand with the last 2.50 euros in my pocket) i board the train for athens to see the whole way (while there is still light to see with) oranges on trees. And lemons. big fat lemons bending down limbs and petit bright orange oranges. why has no on picked all this fruit? i wanted to write on the ship but i could not. even in it's huge cruiseshipness it could never haven been big enough. not with 22 hours to kill (24 is what it took in reality, I believe there was a lateness factor) i just hope for the way back i'm on a ship with a better thought out name then "Ikarus Palace". it didn't make me feel great about the wear-with-all of the equipment. i wanted to write about the water color and how the ocean at home is not blue in color, not even as the base. Mid-Atlantic ocean water is green, green-black. as soon as i steeped off the train in Anacona, i was aware of the salt smell. not that it was really noticable but as an Aficionado of salt air smells, i was aware of it. a little fragment of home; the familiar feeling of salt air drying the sweat off my back.

So the print on my pack is called "Invisible", thus being green camo with the word 'invisible' printed in black periodically on it. Wearing it i am anything but invisible. How could you miss a tiny, hugely busted, lone girl with silver in her face being eclipsed by a 4 foot tall peice of invisible luggage. The ederly have offered me their seats on the bus. I figure the reason all the joints of my lower extremities hurt is because of this monstrasity. Yet, the more i think of it, i am glad for it's weight. it seems less likely to be stolen. There are no quick get-aways with an invisible 60 pounder.

Athens is a nice city, i went to the Acropolis up a hidden stairwell a old man pointed out to me in the hill side. i didn't go in the acropolis through, youve seen one pile of historical rocks, youve seen them all. I'm sure not the best attitude. I went to the market where people/tourists get robbed and ate ice cream. while in budapest i developed a coffee addiction, the cafe culture influanced me to drink more coffee than i had since seattle. But now my coffee addiction is being replaced with a ice cream addiction. It's the most calories i get in a day. Day two i went to the port to see the fish market and got stuck there because the metro workers went on strike for the afternoon. so i atempted to decifer the bus system, not so easy with you don't understand the alphabet. We learn roman numerals but not the greek letters. Day three i went to the beach, which took all morning to get to. long walk. lots of dogs everywhere. Tomorrow i go back to patras and get on a ferry back to italy, then up to zurich. There is a knitting group meeting, it just so happens, on sunday when i get there not to far from the train station. I hope to woo them with my knitted sock skills.

PS. on the ferry to greece this waiter in the bar asked me to drink wine with him in his cabin and brought me a free bottle of wine and snacks to my table. I drank it then sneaked back to the deck to sleep on the floor with the truckers. it was the better option mind you me.
When did i start saying things like mind you me?