Box two is packed

So I haven’t had any emails or takers on my apartment for August and September but I am still packing up some of my things so that whoever lives here would not be tempted to pilfer too much of my stuff.   But the beauty is, I love “stuff” but I wouldn’t be that bummed if almost all of my stuff got stolen.  The only things that I don’t want to have to deal with having been stolen would be my laptop and/or external harddrive and my wallet and perhaps my passport, cell phone.  I love a lot of my cowboy shirts and my good pillow but it’s amazing that almost everything I have is not a prized possession, or rather maybe it is but I’m able to let it go at a moment’s notice.  That has been one of the best things about my life, the ability to not need everything.  Living/travelling with a backpack can really help you realize that things are only crucial while you have them.  They aren’t when they aren’t with me.

Box two, mostly books and clothes so far, has been packed.

Hiking the Argentine Trail

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_us/us_sc_governor_where

Crazy Boss Frog Governor Mark “I’m not black” Sanford, the guy who wants his state’s schools to disintegrate because he’s afraid of the future deficits has spent the past 5-6 days AWOL.  Aides said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, what soon became  a new euphemism for the scandalicious perversity du jour.  Whoring around?  Drug binge? Botox? Religious pilgrimmage?  And how the hell doesn’t your wife know where you are?  The state of South Carolina, god bless it’s secessionist arrogance, has not had an elected leader for a few business days.

It’s amazing, such a story.  At first, I didn’t really care about the Sanford missing thing as it bubbled up monday morning.  He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail, aides tell us.  Now he was seen flying back to Atlanta airport from a flight returning from… Buenos Aires?  You gotta be shitting me.

When asked what he was doing there, “driving along the coast” was his answer.

What?  Now I’m intrigued about this story.  What the hell was he doing there?

Exhibition and aftermath

Before the exhibition

Alex at the piano, a chill vibe but a great time

Che say geiz ain't geil, buy buy!

First one in almost 2 years

I have a photo exhibition tonight, my first in nearly 2 years.  It all started in may 2005 and since then I have had about 15 exhibitions in Germany, Holland, Peru, Argentina, California and Montenegro.  There will also be a buddy of mine playing piano and singing and I am looking forward to having a good time tonight.

I’ll try and update ya more and upload some photos tomorrow or Monday.

8 years ago today

June 16, 2001 — I landed in London, my first time to Europe.  It was overwhelming, with the masses of people behind barricades trying to see loved ones coming off my plane, pre 9/11 world.  I went to a pub with a perfectly ridiculous English pub name like the Camel and the Leaf or something.  I couldn’t really sleep at the hostel and at 4am I was sort of wandering around the station but there were no trains for hours so I took a taxi to the main train station with the fast trains to the continent.

I was on the very first train of the day, like 5:56am or something and remember coming out of the darkness with nothing but green pastures on both sides as we whizzed by.  I arrived at Paris Gare d’ Nord and while in the metro trying to figure out how to say “I would like an apple” in French, I watched two guys pickpocket another guy and when the victim turned to catch one of the guys, he turned out to be the guy who didn’t have the wallet anymore.  That guy was running down the other direction and was gone.  Welcome to Europe, I thought and grabbed my oversize backpack more tightly.

8 years later, I have visited 40 more countries.  London is actually one of the cities I have visited the most, like 5-6 times along with Amsterdam and Basel and Cologne as well.  The next new country I’m going to visit?  To be honest, this is one of the first times in awhile I didn’t know which new country I would go to but I’ll be in the States all summer but I don’t have tooOoooo much work for the next 2 weeks so I could do a daytrip to Liechtenstein.  It’s 4hours each way but it’d be a shame to not get that and Luxembourg which are “just around the corner”.

Grapes in the Black Forest outside my window

Those are grapes growing in the Black Forest.

Schnitzel und schupfnudeln

a simple man lunch of schnitzel already breaded, schupfnudeln with a red pepper and mushroom sauce.

my first class didn’t happen but i was there.

i did some writing in The Newropean and finished that particular journal.

i made a new t-shirt that i hopefully will wear at the exhibition on saturday and it says Bobbele.

i had a class with 3 retired ladies in a large department store that could go bankrupt at any time. at first we talked of incontinence.

i went to the supermarket to buy said man food.

i went jogging while listening to a new crowes show from june 4 2009 biloxi.

showered, cooked and listening to howard stern.

1:04pm

Art in Basel

From the Van Gogh exhibition in Basel

Another Van Gogh in Switzerland

At Art Basel, the largest modern art exhibition every year!

Do you like your balls spiked as well?

A few Israel photos

A mosaic in Nazareth contributed by the Vatican

Where Jesus was supposedly baptised, about 5km from Jordan

In nothern Israel, the village where Kabbala was founded, a place called Tsfat

Just a few hundred meters from the holiest place on earth, an arm breaks

The Temple Mount and the Western Wall behind me, Jerusalem

The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Palestine

He had never seen a digital photo of himself

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, the holiest site in Christendom

Israel in 10 glimpses

10)My cousin picking me up at 12:30am on Shabbat and driving me an hour and a half home, taking me in, feeding me, driving my ass around to Daliyah-al Carmel, Nazareth, Tiberius, Tsfat, Akko, Rosh Haqra and Jerusalem, being my tour guide and companion up until Howard broke his arm while overlooking what is arguably the holiest site in the world the Temple Mount.  Thanks for everything.

9)The folk dancing on the beach, like 50 plus people dancing relatively complex unique dances in concentric circles that were tiled onto the promenade at the beach in Haifa.

8)My first meal, in the Druye village of Daliyah-al Carmel, with suddenly a dozen small plates on the table and people taking what they want from each of them and homemade lemonade.

7)The sunset on the Papa Andreu restaurant in Jerusalem, a full hour plus writing postcards with a view of the Temple Mount and Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, 3 of the holiest sites in the world.

6)Touching the Western Wall, with 2000 years of tumultous hope and despair and god and prayers.

5)The hummus lunch in Jaffa with an amazing lemon-pepper sauce for the pita bread, the loud waiter and the packed atmosphere.

4)The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  The oldest continuously used church in the world, since 325AD or so, so much aura there it was surreal.

3)The book The Haj by Leon Uris about Israel coming to be at the Palestinian Refugee camps after the war of independence of 1948.  It added so much to my trip.

2)Actually travelling into the West Bank.  I was probably safe but it was so much to take in and hot and disorienting.

1)Surviving.  That is always the first aim of any journey.

Pictures coming in the next day or two!