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Day 08 (France)

Woke up to all of Dan's housemates blasting really shitty Spanish music.

The weather is really shitty again today so we got this good idea that we should go to France. Just in case you were wondering it was shitty weather in France too. I forgot my socks, camera and book so I was kind of annoyed.

Mel was leaving for Barcelona so Dan, Lilly and I met her, Bob, Aaron, Airielle and Erick for Chinese food. Afterwards we all went to the Ondarra to have a few drinks and play chess. [hanging out] Some people went home early but Lilly and I walked over to Erick's apartment with Bob and Aaron.

Day 07 (Domingo)

The problem with Dawn's cave of a room is that it has absolutely no windows, you can't tell if it's 06:00 or 14:00. Lilly and I were laying there kind of dozing and she asks "Did you know it's 2pm?".
"Umm no I was waiting for Dawn to get up."
"She got up a while ago."
"Oh..."

So then we both got up and ate a bit of breakfast. It was raining so we weren't planning to do much, I started trying to catch up on this journal thing and composing some emails. Lilly cut off some of her hair. Dan came over and he and I went down to the internet cafe and I sent out emails and uploaded pictures of Dan's mullet. Mel and Aaron walked in and we started talking to them and decided to go get a video for later that night then meet everyone at a bar called Bukowski (named after Charles).

Got over there and the place was in the middle of a football party. It reminded me of going to Tacos Del Ray on a Sunday afternoon. Bukowski is one of the better bars I've been in, cheap beers, good music, the only down side is it's out of the way.

We all walked over to Airielle's apartment in the rain to watch Paris, Texas. Over all it was good but it was long (2:15) and very slow. Dan Lilly and I walked back to his house and went to sleep.

well since i've been here

well since i've been here i've watched dan go through the stages of the mullet. first he had a pretty cool pompador one, he cut it down to a scarry looking one, and then down to a basque seperatist mullet.

we've been doing quite a bit of drinking, the schedule goes something like this wake up between 12:00 and 14:00 walk around a bit, maybe do a little climbing or some erands, meet everyone at about 20:00 and get some food and beer or wine then go party till about 04:00. Get some sleep and repeat the next day, it's pretty great. oh yes i mentioned climbing, the cool thing about all this masonry is that you can climb on it and it makes a good traverse.

the thing that sucks about internet cafes is the people that come in. i'm sitting between one american girl telling another who's left on survior.

when every my brother charles and i are in a foriegn country we'll walk around trying to spot americans. you only are sure once you hear them talk so we won't say a thing and if we do it's as quite as we can.

below are the stages of dan's mullet

first the pompador, second the rat job, third the basque seperatist youth mullet.

the spaniards love it, but the rest of us think it looks ratty.

Day 06 (Saturday/Sabado)

Woke up really late about 13:00 got my first shower and need to leave to meet everyone who was going to be at Airielle's for pancakes.

Actually we enjoyed pancakes and potatoes, and Aaron made this strawberry stuff that went great on bread or on crackers. It turns out that Dawn "bottle breaking" Adams is in no trouble. Apparently the cops went and looked at it and decided that while no window was broken they should just fuck with her.

I finally got to play Tony Hawk Skate Pro on the PlayStation, and man is that a crack pipe you don't want to hit. I sat there for about an hour until we decided to go to the beach. It was nice, I sort of dozed off and on hoping I wouldn't end up with sunburn on my back.

Dan and I went to climb at this other spot on the coast. When you're climbing in the gym you see holds that look like someone made just because they'd be an interesting hold but would never exist in nature. This rock was just gorgeous and was covered with exactly that sort of hold. The landing was a sort of grim cement so it was hard to push yourself, but we toped out on one of the easier problems. We told everyone we'd meet them at the bouldering wall but wanted to get up there early to do a bit of the traverse.

The beer, wine and bagel chips (they go by a different name here) showed up and it was good, Bob even brought bean dip. I'd like to have a moment of silence for Bob's bean dip, it was wonderful and it's passing was great loss. Well spend some more time drinking, insert a stop or to at Bar Narrika, perhaps ending up at Etxekalte for a bit and you've got an idea how we passed the night.

At some point these Spaniards came running through the courtyard carpet and started playing fuck around games with each other. Dan convinced me to go pick up the carpet, I did a bit of running around with it then proceeded to pack it up on my backpack to take home. After carrying it around for a bit I became too big of a pain in the ass so I gave it to Bob. He then did his interpretation of Swan Lake, it really was inspiring to watch Bob leaping about like that, twirling and flapping his carpet covered wings.

Day 05

Woke up at Dawn's apt and really needed some coffee, Joe Lane has got me hooked totally hooked.

Dawn Lilly and I took the bus back to Dan's apt to get lunch at the macrobiotic restaurant, Dan's landlady owns. The macrobiotic school of thought has one bit of advice that I'm totally stoked on. You're supposed to chew each bite of food 100 times before swallowing it. I end up full before I finish my meal. Hopefully I'll remember to keep doing it.

We went over to the climbing store and looked at gear it's so unbelievably cheap. I got 5.10's top of the line shoe for $80, I wonder if my brother would like a crash pad... <grin>

Met up with some other people and grabbed some coffee on the way and walked up to the bouldering wall and Dan and I fucked around on it. It's a pretty nice traverse...

Went back to Dawn's house and made pasta, it was super good. Then the nightly circuit of the bars began.

On the way back may hem was in the air we'd been watching Spaniards doing stupid drunken stuff all night, I kicked a couple of broken bottles and then 20m from her apt Dawn starts screaming about the killing the whores and throws this bottle and then runs. Well the Spanish are scared shitless of the ETA setting off a bomb so they've got more undercover cops that you'd ever guess. As you can now imagine when she starts running and we follow they're going to grab her.

She lucked out and didn't get taken in, but other than that I'm not sure what will happen, if her program gets wind of it she'll get kicked out. That would be super crappy at this point because she's got two weeks left. Hopefully she'll just have to pay for the window some fine and leave it at that.

lilly is having a great

lilly is having a great time in spain

this image makes a great desktop background click on it to see the fullsize image.

i helped the guy at the internet cafe that dan frequents get his webcam going, you might be able to see me on it sometime.

Day 04 (San Sebastian)

In the interest of keeping Dan's landlady happy, and just because he really likes it, we went to her restaurant. The food was really good and it only cost 1200 pesetas. I've started figuring the prices of stuff in relation to the price of beer (approximately 350 pesetas). The Restaurante Macrbiotika lands right at about 3 beers, which is kind of expensive but as I said the food is very good.

Dan, Lilly and I packed up our stuff and went down to the beach. Lilly went off to make a phone call so we had her get some 40s and sat around watching the Italians on the beach play fuck-around games and enjoyed the fact that Spanish beaches are topless.

After getting a bit so sun we left to meet Airielle at her apartment. Dan went off to school and we went with Airielle to get some of my money changed. Initially I was planning to only bring about $200. My dad got all worried that I wasn't going to be able to get money off my various cards and started guilt tripping me to take more cash. Well it turns out that in fact you can get cash very easily from the ATMs and the exchange rate is much better. So if you learn anything from reading this just don't underestimate your Visa card. Oh and it was even more annoying because when I arrived changed some money at the airport, 185 pesetas to the dollar, at this place 175 to the dollar. Ouch.

With me getting raped by the moneychangers taken care of, we went off to get beer, wine and food for Mel's quote unquote birthday party. The plan was to watch the sunset, we walked up the Jesus Mountain and met up with a bunch of people and worked our way through most of the wine and beer and a bit of pot as well (it's sort of legal here). The sunset was totally unremarkable so at this point it was time for pinchos so we headed for the Bar Narrika.

After picking up some new 40s we walked down to the pier and sat and drank for a bit. The pier happens to be right next to Etxekalte, the club that all the kids here really like. Thursdays aren't that crowded so we went in and Dawn and I rocked out while most everyone else went home. Lilly sat down on the floor and went to sleep, when we found her there were a couple of Spaniards staring at her and a few bags and coats laying on top of her.

Day 03 (San Sebastian)

I woke up at around 10:00 with Dan walking around getting ready for school. He was telling us stuff we could do today, eat at the lady who owns the house's vegan restaurant 13:00-15:00, go to the beach. Then meet him at the McDonalds at 18:15. I promptly fell back a sleep till Lilly woke me up at 15:00, we're bumbed we missed out on lunch there.

We walked around and found a supermarket and bought some food then walked down to the surfer beach to eat it. We walked around some more and then met Dan. He was with Dawn Adams (another person from Galena High School), we all walked half way up the Jesus Mountain to the wall that Dan boulders on. We all tried traversing on it for a bit then walked back down.

Lilly and Dawn went over to Dawn's apartment and Dan and I went to the Internet cafe. Dan seems to think that the owner looks like my dad, I didn't see the similarity. He had a web cam that he was trying to get going. The shitty software he was using wouldn't work behind his proxy so I set him up a geocities account and got some different web cam software going. Those Spanish keyboards suck for trying to code HTML. Windows in Spanish was kind a weird, I realized how little I read the words.

We went back to Ariel's (that's not how you spell her name) apartment for dinner. Everyone brought food (some how it was all salad) and then we watched Goodfellas. I'd never seen the whole movie, every other gangster film seems like a tribute to or parody of it.

We all went over to the same bar as the night before to celebrate Mel's birthday. It was fun but unremarkable. On the way home I showed Lilly that the chips from the night before did in fact have Jamon mentioned clearly on the front.

New phrase I heard some Swedish girl say that I'm going to start using "It's no orgasm".

BikePacking

Packing

When you're transporting yourself and gear you need to travel light. Consider each item you pack carefully you're going hauling it a long way. Martin's checklist is a great place to start planning but don't feel that you have to bring everything. Do a couple of practice trips and see what you need.

• Don't pack excessive clothing (look for a future article to address minimalist clothing)
• The great thing about touring is you don't have to carry all your food with you, you can purchase it along the way.
• Make use of Zip-Lock and the plastic bags you get from the supermarket when you pack. They're a lifesaver if you find out that your water-proof bag isn't or some messy food items spills.

Picking a spot to camp

It should go without saying if you don't wait until it's dark it's much easier.

• Pick a spot that won't be a lake if it rains.�
• Look for someplace that's off the road enough that people can't see your tent, it helps prevent trouble. People aren't going to bother you if they don't see you, whether it's the owner of the vacant field, vandals, or the police. For the same reason pick a tent that isn't a bright color.
• Be respectful of whoever's land you're staying on. Practice zero impact camping, if you brought it with you take it with you.
• A big plus is something you can lock your bike to like a fence or tree.

Cooking Equipment I Carry

• Single cook pot with lid and pot lifter. The lid is important, Keep it on the pot whenever your cooking, less heat is lost saving you fuel.
• 3-cup resealable Rubbermaid container. The Rubbermaid container is very versatile; you can drink out of it, if you've got two people one can eat out of it while the other eats out of the pot, and you can store leftovers in it for the next meal.
• Lexan spoon. I don't bother with a fork because a spoon can eat anything a fork can (sometimes it takes just a little more effort).
• 2 32oz. Lexan Nalgene Bottles (the ones with the wide mouth). I like the wide mouth because as you stop to fill up water sometimes people will ask if you want some ice. Good luck fitting it into a regular bottle. It's also nice if you want to soak beans, or even just mix a drink mix in to overpower the taste of some gross water. A great way to sanitize these is to use the microwave at a 7-11, just make sure you keep an eye on it.
• 2 Liter Soda Bottle. This is great for water storage, not only is it lightweight but it's cheap and easy to replace. You don't have to worry about cleaning it, just get a new one every couple of weeks.

Cooking/Cleaning

Your not at home so you don't cook or clean like you're at home.

• Use a minimum of dishes, it's less stuff to clean.
• Once you've eaten use a piece of bread to wipe off all the extra food (the bachelor's sponge). Wipe it off good then put it way, next time you cook wait till the water's boiling and dip your spoon and cup/bowl to sterilize them.

Hygiene type stuff

Since a good portion of your trip will be going through civilization you really need to keep yourself clean.�

• It's amazing what you can do with a washcloth and a bar of Lever 2000 soap in a restroom, of course be respectful of the proprietors and other customers.
• When in the middle of nowhere you can use your pot to haul water away from the creek/river/lake (sunscreen, bug spray and soap are all more polluting than you'd guess). Wet your washcloth and then rub on a little soap, lather up and then rise. Feel free to practice in you're bath tub ;)

When answering nature's call:

• Conserve toilet paper just use enough to keep your hands clean when you're cleaning-up.
• Be responsible, dig a six inch cat hole to crap in, and you take your used TP with you and put it into your trash bag. The crap will be gone long before the TP starts to break down.
• Make sure you wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap when you're done. It only helps keep you from getting sick
• Flatten your roll of toilet paper and keep it in a Ziploc bag, it's definitely one thing you don't want getting wet.

Breaking down camp

It's all about getting an early start The mornings are the best time to ride, generally you've got till 10 or 11am before the wind starts to pick up and it's much more pleasant to ride before the day really heats up. One way to speed up your departure is to pack up at night, stow everything you don't need to sleep. When you wake up roll up your sleeping bag, take down the tent pack them both up and hit the road. Don't eat till you've got 15 miles behind you and you can make the most of the mornings.

Miscellaneous Stuff

• Bring a notepad, you'll have all kinds of stuff to write down, people you meet's addresses, things you'd like to have next time, directions, etc.
• Think about taking a bike lock. If it's the keyed kind make sure you have at least 3 keys. The 1st on your person, the 2nd as a back-up in your bag, and the 3rd left with your support person back at home (that way if you loose the other two they can FedEx it to you).

Suggested Reading:

Beyond Backpacking : Guide to Lightweight Hiking by Ray Jardine

Day 02 (Still traveling)

God I'm about ready to turn a round and rip that bandana of the head of that freaking 10 year old. Tray goes down bang! Tray goes up bang! Pull up on seat. Repeat.

Going through customs sucked. I got in the wrong line, I watched 30 or 40 people walk through the other lines while I waited. Then I spent another 15 minutes finding the metro (hauling the box with the bike in it) and then got off at the wrong stop causing me to have to try to force my way back on (with that humongous box) to the next train. By the time I found the place to buy tickets for the bus I was 15 minutes late for the 09:00 bus that Dan wanted me to catch. I tried to call him but I can't figure out the phones.

My 4000 pesta bus ticket is for 11:00 so I've got some time to type. I'm thinking about unpacking the bike and going up to street level to look around. Hauling the bike by itself is no problem it's just this box that's a pain.

Couple of notes:

• Everyone on the subway reads, I tried to take a picture of it but I'm not sure how it'll turn out.
• There are a large number of these swarthy Spaniards that look disturbingly like brad from a distance.
• My three years of public school Spanish are coming back to me nicely.

I couldn't stay awake on the bus ride, even though they showed a movie with Penelope Cruz (and there were several topless scenes), I slept for most of the 5 hour ride. Dan met me right as I got off the bus, his fucking pompadour was fucking disgusting.

We unpacked the folding bike and I rode with him over to his house. He's living with this nice lady and her daughter. I guess the daughter speaks English, but the mother speaks about as much English as I do Spanish.

We woke Lilly up walked down to the store and some 40s and took them over to the "world's worst half pipe". Sitting around drinking took it back to the day.

Dan left to go to school and Lilly and I ended up walking around trying to find some menthol cigarettes. She swore she'd seen tobacco store but just couldn't remember quite where. We wandered around in the now drizzling rain looking for one. I was supper hungry by this point and just wanted a sandwich.

We started wandering around the old part of the city looking for the tobacco shop and kept running into people that Lilly either knew, Regan and Stephanie, or had already met, Eric at the Internet Cafe. Eric, was very helpful in finding a place to buy Lilly's cigarettes.

With that taken care of we started off to find the English bar Lilly had seen earlier. More wandering ensued and after some Basque kids tried to sell us hash we found the bar. It was super-expensive and the beers tasted, as Lilly put it, "like blood", we didn't stay long.

We decided to call Dan "I'm paying for this call by the minute" Gingold to ask where the restaurant that he and Lilly had gotten a vegan sandwich at was. Lilly talked to him and found out when and where we'd be meeting later but forgot to ask about the restaurant.

She went back into the internet cafe and asked Eric where it was. Once we got there I mustered my three years of Spanish and tried to figure out how to order a sandwich (bocadillo) with no meat, cheese or sour cream. We ended up with a mystery sandwich, I'm not sure what it was but it had mayonnaise on it so Lilly wasn't stoked.

Dan had told us to meet him at the McDonalds at 18:15 so we headed over there. We met this girl Mel who was from Boston who'd been here last semester and back visiting. Soon some other kids in the program showed up, I met Aaron from Ohio, Katie from who knows where and Bob and Airielle from Boise, Idaho.

We went over to Airielle's apartment to have some wine and beer. Lilly and Katie starting drinking the little bottles from this flavored alcohol tasters set. Apparently they brought them with them when we went to the Caledonian [Bar] because when the bar maid found them she started screaming about how in Espa�a you don't do that, I tried to explain that in Los Estados Unidos you don't do that either but she didn't really want to hear it.

Day 01 (Traveling)

Waiting at the airport in Reno to leave I ran into Steve Martens who I knew from Galena. He was there meeting his roomate who was comming in on my plane. I talked to him and his other roomate for about an hour since my plane was a half hour late.

Slept the whole way to DFW probably for the best. ended up having to cough up $10 for breakfast at the airport, that hurt. I forgot to order vegetarian meals on the plane so I've been staring at chicken at every meal.

I'm stuck on the flight from JFK to MAD with a bunch of swarthy Itallians and Spainards. I don't think any of them value showering or deodorant. Not that I really do either but if I'd known I wouldn't have showered before I left. At least the kid behind me quit kicking my seat. Oh wait I spoke too soon, it's a long flight.

sam philips set me up

sam philips set me up with a mailing list for my ride with brad this summer. tomorrow night (monday morning technically) i leave to go visit dan in san sebastion spain. i've got most of my stuff together, still need to go buy batteries for my palm vii and some shaving stuff.

have i mentioned how much i like style sheets? i'm having style sheet appreciation week, so if you run into me and i don't mention them there's probably something wrong.

change that what's been distracting

change that what's been distracting me up above to mention the acid in the back of the freezer. well it's not distracting me anymore. and boy do i feel like shit.

i' ve got to go get the folding bike boxed up to take to spain. with 3 connections between here and there there is plenty of opportunity to drop it.

i can't remember does dave torch live here?

drugs

consumers union (the people who put out consumers report) did a big piece on drugs back in 1972. what's so cool is how they discuss all drug including caffeine and nicotine in a historical context. hopefully when i get some more time i'll be able to read the entire thing.

here's a link dan gingold

i really want to readscats lady's bookMoney "Mistress Anal" Fucks the sucking World "Mistress Anal" Go Around: One "Suck my tits dry" Investor Plows "Bust-a-Cunt" Her Cash "Sniff-my-Ass" Through the banging Global "Bick Cock" Economy, from Brooklyn to Bangkok and Back. the titty fucking interview masturbats you realize how wonderful the unclefucking current system is.

i really want to read

i got an email from

pbs is in for a fight with the new digital tv. i guess future pledge drives will last twice as long.

no news is good news.

brad and i picked a date to leave on our ride (then decided that maybe we could meet erin in chicargo).

my brother had tried to tell me this joke one time but completely fucked it up. don't ever ask him to tell it to you.

in the last two weeks i've hung out with both donny lee and aaron day. two people i haven't really seen since high school. i'm supposed to go with both them and josh smithson to a bar tonite or sometime.

if you're trying to do anything with style sheets check out richinstyle.com. similarly if you're doing anything at all html related htmlhelp.com is great.

oh boy i'm not so

oh boy i'm not so sad that i'm not dating anyone after this.

broke down and got a rock sport membership today. no more 5 dollar climbing days.

went down to bishop with

went down to bishop with my rock climbing class over the weekend. i had a great time bouldering, it's the first time i've been out on real rock so my fingers got torn up. the people i went down with were all cool i'd be happy to go hang out with any of them again.