I couldn't make this stuff up. Really.

So last night while out at the pub with some friends, London accused me of lying on this blog.

I was quite offended, to put it mildly.

It has since occurred to me, however, that just because he's the only one that said it doesn't mean he's the only one who's thinking it. So I'm on here now when I ought to be reading about the Flavian Amphitheater (a.k.a., the Colosseum) that yes, you're going to have to take my word for it, but every goddamn word I write here is a truth.

It's not just a matter of personal pride, though that is a substantial part of it. It's professional pride, too. As a young writer building an online platform, I have every reason to post the most engaging stories I can come up with--but they have to be true. If I let the Ranshous family motto ("Never let the truth get in the way of a good story") sway me into stretching the truth here, and a future employer (hopefully someone in the publishing industry) found out after s/he used my blog as an example of my writing--well, I can easily imagine getting into a lot of trouble for that.

So that's the logical explanation. But really, I would just--I could never lie on here. There's no point in making up stories. This is just as much for Future Me as it is for everyone else who's currently reading it, because I want to be able to scroll back through all these posts when I'm back in Santa Barbara and maybe just... disappear into the past for an hour or so.

And really, if I started making stuff up, there would be vampires and faeries munching on people. Anybody who knows me know that. :)

Monstrous Catch-Up #4

One week back; April 25, 2011
Original post can be found here.

So I’ve been back a week now. Still glad to be home (in Edinburgh), so much that I’m having trouble trying to get myself to plan the next adventure. (Which might be just as well, because I do have a few exams.)

Egypt is out, though. EAP (the program coordinating UC students’ study abroad) can’t stop me from going, but there’s still an advisory on the state department’s website and… god, I’m totally depressed and frustrated about it, but it just seems like a bad idea. I don’t want to go by myself.

(See? Experience really does help. I’m more sensible already.)

The next step, I suppose, is to see if I can make it over to Israel to meet a close writer friend. She’s an archaeology student, and she’s got a dig going on in June.

I haven’t finished uploading all the pictures from my camera to my computer, but once that happens, I’ll start posting my favorites. In the meantime, here are a few easy-to-share bullet points about my trip:

- Greek guys are skeevy, though less so on the islands. I’d be dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, completely non-provocative, and while walking around Athens middle-aged men in business suits—the kind that I’d always imagine have daughters about my age and should know better—would stare at me like I was a streetwalker.

- Being ogled pisses me off faster than stupidity.

- Don’t bother taking a Greek phrasebook to Greece. Everyone speaks English. Literally everyone. In almost two weeks there I learned two Greek words—there’s just no opportunity to learn.

- Don’t go to Greece by yourself. Not because it’s dangerous, because I don’t think I was ever in any danger even though I was alone so much, but because unless you can get to a beach (buses don’t run on the islands in the off season) and the weather is nice enough (it’s stormy in the off season) there’s really not much to do. Athens is overrated. The islands are pretty with some fantastic food, but they’re tiny. If you go by yourself (especially on the off season, when the islands are deserted), you won’t have anyone to talk to. Very, very boring.

- Delos, Naxos, and Delphi were the three redeeming places. Those were exactly what I was looking for. Ruins!

- Anyone with the faintest idea that you might have some money—whether it’s on your person or in a bank account twelve thousand miles away—will try to take it from you. Officials included. Travel agents on the average-sized and bigger islands not included.

- When leaving the Athenian airport by metro, you don’t need to buy a ticket. You DO for the ride to the airport. The fine—and they’re very careful about catching people—is about eighty euros, and I’m pretty certain they don’t check on the way out just to fine more people on the way in.

- Romania is way cooler than Greece. Even though Romanian airport security is a joke. A joke that results in a very, very long line. (Once I got to the front, though, and saw what was taking so long, it was actually kind of funny to watch seventy and eighty year old men and woman yell at the TSA people in Romanian.)

- Bran Castle is sadly unimpressive. And there is only one room devoted to Dracula. The rest is all about Queen Maria’s furniture collection from the interwar period.

- The palace at Sinai is as impressive as Bran is unimpressive. (But wear warm clothing when you go up. It’s in the mountains and snowed in mid-April.)

-The ruined fortress at Rasov is also wonderful with beautiful, beautiful views of both the forest and the town. It’s so easy to turn your back on the town and imagine a sentry keeping an eye out for hordes rushing down the nearest hillside to attack the fortress.

- Brasov is the place to stay for half-day trips to the above places. The main square is supposedly where the Pied Piper emerged with all his stolen German children, and the Saxon population in Romania is supposedly descended from them.

- Jugendstube is the best hostel ever. They cook their guests breakfast every morning, and the first morning I was there I was awake for maybe twenty minutes before running out the door, but the woman who works there made me an omlette before I left! And on two separate days, when I came in during the middle of the day soaked to the bone and needing a nap, she made me tea. She doesn’t speak English, but the other two guys do.

- I know there’s a terribly horrifying movie made in the nineties about the Romanian sex trade (haven’t seen it), but I felt safer in Romania than I did in Greece. Everyone I met was totally respectful (even the beggars). Go ahead and go to Romania by yourself. You’ll meet all sorts of people.

- The forests out there are incredible. And scary. The trees are immense and even when a train goes through instead of around, it’s instantly darker in the carriage. It’s pretty easy to imagine the wolves and bears that are out there—even easier to imagine little red riding hood getting her face ripped off.

- Three words: corvig cu chocolata. Deeeaaaar gawd, they were the warmest, tastiest, most orgasmic chocolate treat I’ve ever had. Kind of like circular pretzels with their insides stuffed with melted chocolate that got all over the inside of my mouth. They took forever to eat, but were perfect for the dreary and cold weather.

- I would love to go back to Romania.

- I would not go back to Greece. Except maybe Delphi. If I could have a private plane drop me off in Delphi and pick me up there—or maybe if I just didn’t go by myself?—I would go back to Delphi. And maybe Naxos. And I do wish I’d gotten to see the Knossos palace on Crete.

- But Romania, I would happily go back to. Just not Bucharest, maybe. Everywhere else was awesome.

Monstrous Catch-Up #3

Leave home long time; April 17, 2011

Original post can be found here.

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Ta-daaa! I’ve had my first traveling-related epiphany!

Okay, it’s not actually travel related. But it stems from the travel and is more all-encompassingly-life-related. (It feels kind of silly, actually, because it’s one of those things that I definitely ought to have realized earlier.)

Traveling the way I have, by myself and randomly meeting people and talking to strangers (in a way I wouldn’t be if a friend had come with me)—it’s one of those states of being where everyone you have fun with (and everyone you don’t) disappears within a few days, max. I met a wonderful girl last night on a three hour train ride that I will never see again. She’s just—disappeared into the world.

So… it made me realize how important friends are. The people that are constantly in your life, the ones who aren’t going anywhere. The people you see every day and value their company, but maybe don’t necessarily share with anyone how much more dull life would be if they weren’t around.

Sooo—this is kind of awkward, even in print where you can’t necessarily see my awkwardness—I want everyone to know that I’m glad they’re my friend. Everyone I live with this year, everyone I’m going to live with next year, everyone who I’ve ever gone to lunch or hung out or gone out with on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night. Everyone I’ve ever shared any form of writing with. All my friends from high school, and everyone from my first two years at UCSB, and everyone who has been kind to me this year, regardless of how often we talk at this precise moment in time.

Sappy and sentimental? Yes. Will I be embarrassed if you bring this up next time I see you? Most definitely. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

(And if you make it awkward enough, you’ll probably even get a hug because I won’t know how else to respond.)

Monstrous Catch-Up #2

I hurt myself again :(
April 16, 2011
Original post can be found here.

I’m in Sighisoara, Romania (will be leaving in about forty minutes for Cluj-Napoca), which is Vlad the Impaler’s birthplace. I went into the restaurant they’ve set up in the house he was born in to see if it would be worthwhile, but decided it was too pricey. I made my way down two flights of stairs and only had about four steps left before I brained myself on the top of the door frame, then fell down those last four steps (smacking my lower back in the process. I’m going to be black and blue there).

I just sat there for a while with my hands on my head and my eyes squeezed shut, kind of praying that no one would ask if I was all right but at the same time praying someone would. Then after ten or fifteen seconds I opened my eyes and spotted an old, old woman with a brown headkerchief staring at me with pretty open sympathy.

I fled. Didn’t know what else to do.

Spent the whole walk to find food rubbing my back and wondering if I’d hit myself hard enough for another concussion. There’s no blood, and I’m not dizzy, so probably not.

But goddamn, it hurt. I feel like Vlad would have approved of the parting gesture his stupid house handed me.

Monstrous Catch-Up #1

I have been sort of keeping up with the travel blogging. ...Just not so much copying it over onto this blog. I do have one that I remember to update regularly (I even posted a few times while in Greece and Romania) with completely identical content, which can be found here on Tumblr.

In the meantime, I'm going to play catchup. Each copy/paste'd catchup will also have a link to the original post on my other blog and labeled with the original posting date. If it's still confusing, I refer you to the above link.

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Naxos --> Iraklia --> Paros; April 7, 2011
Original post can be found here.

I did laundry today. In the bathtub. Rub-a-dub-dub. I’m kind of exorbitantly proud. Went out, found TIDE at the supermarket—I couldn’t even find Tide in Edinburgh! Although I’m sure it’s there and I just didn’t look hard enough because I waited until it was dire—and did a few different loads in the bathtub. I’ve got less than a load of clothes to do, but those fantastically stretchy jeans I got for xmas are still bleeding blue all over the place. I’ve got interestingly-colored thighs. =P

Tried and failed at cooking on the hotplate. Smoke everywhere, but I opened all the windows and the double doors to the balcony and I don’t think there was an alarm, so it was okay. Planning on trying again for dinner. Going to try again (with a different method) for dinner.

I’m on Paros at the moment. I had a whole should-I-go-to-Santorini-or-Crete thing while I was on Naxos (which I loved) that kind of blew up. The port on Crete that I wanted to go to was called Iraklion/Heraklion/+some other spelling, so I bought a ticket to go to Iraklia. Figured it was the other spelling that wasn’t listed in my guidebook. The ferry left at midnight, arrived at 1:30 am, and I figured I’d be fine.

Iraklia is NOT Crete. Not by a long shot. And there was only one person I could find out there at the port who spoke English—a middle-aged guy who came to Iraklia for the summer months to work as a bartender at this bar he owns, so he showed up early to make it presentable—and so I hopped into the back of an old rusty red pickup with him because the cab was full of other old guys and a woman who was picking everyone up. The guy said that the woman had rooms to rent—actually, he kept asking, “HOW did you end up out here? Why are you here??” And I kept talking about the Minoan Palace at Knossos, but eventually figured out that we were talking about two very different islands. (“This isn’t Crete, is it?” Very vehement negative. I throw my head back and start laughing, already totally exhausted, notice the stars are very bright and pretty.) He said there was a boat off the island the next morning at 7:10 (it ended up being at 8) and one on Saturday afternoon, which is after the point I want to be back in Athens.

It was overall super nerve-wracking. The woman stopped at the rooms she was renting and I dropped off my stuff and then the guy said I could come up to his bar and he’d show me on a map where Iraklia is.

I didn’t realize how sketch that could be until the woman dropped us off at his place. =/ And then I started worrying about whether he expected, ahem, anything in return, which is when he let me use his computer and I posted on my dad’s facebook wall and didn’t know how alarmist to sound, but if anything happened I wanted someone to know which island I ended up on.

Anyway. Getting kicked off the internet, I’ll finish this story later.

———————————————————

After the guy pulled up google maps and let me on to facebook, he walked me to the street and pointed me in the direction of the room I’d hired. I made it back easily enough—it was about two blocks away—and crawled into bed in my clothes and without even pulling out my ponytail, slept for two and a half hours and was up before the sun to catch the ferry outta town.

It’s eight euros for a ferry to Naxos, which is what I’d paid to get from Naxos to Iraklia, but that morning some old douchebag charged me 28 euros and I paid it before realizing he was just pulling one over on me. I was so pissed for so many hours, but I spent the day telling myself not to cry over spilt milk. (It helped after I counted my money and realized that as long as I don’t pay too much for housing once I get back to Athens, I’ll have more than enough money to last me until Romania.)

So I bought a ticket to Naxos, got on the boat and decided I wasn’t going to get off at Naxos. I’d already been there, and although I liked it and probably wouldn’t mind going back, why ruin it by doing everything there and then ending up totally bored?

So I got off at the next island after Naxos, which is Paros. I got a very, very nice room for 15 euros, dropped off my stuff, grabbed a snack off a roadside stand, and wandered through town to go to two different cheap and not entirely impressive but worthwhile museums. Then I went back to the room, took a bath (another room with a bathtub!!) and went to bed at 4 pm. Woke up around 9-ish, spent some time going over my Romania guidebook, then went back to sleep at 11 and slept until 8. (I felt better after that.)

So I didn’t make it to the ancient marble quarry today, which would have been slightly difficult to get to, but I did do laundry. I’m now totally bored. =/ Off to Athens tomorrow.

I haven’t tasted ouzo, but a woman whose restaurant I ate at in Syros let me sniff some. I want to say it smells like… sambucca? Well, it smells like long nights, bad decisions and babysitting peers, at any rate. =P

I’m so glad for facebook. Yesterday when I logged on (before sleeping, it should be noted) to let everyone know I was alive and well, both Oak Park and Canada were on. They made me feel better. Oak Park showed me a hysterical dark comedy short film he found and my Canadian friend talked to me about our vampire story plots. :) :) Honestly, next to the fourteen hours of sleep, that was the best remedy to the spiteful distrust I’d suddenly accquired of the world.

I love my flatmates.

I think the only thing none of us love is the kitchen. Which, I’m beginning to see, will never be clean. It just won’t be. Time to accept it and move on (hopefully without any charges).

I got out of the shower tonight after rinsing out hair dye and the mirror was fogged up. Someone had written on it “you are beautiful” with their finger, so it only shows up—well, basically only after showers. I’ve got a pretty good idea of who it was, but the fact that someone I live with likes the rest of us enough to do something so thoughtful and kind-hearted makes me happy like I’ve just gotten a hug.

I wrote “so are YOU!” with a heart next to underneath the message. :)

I’m leaving in about six hours for the train station. I’m not done packing, and I just remembered there are about nine in-depth questions I was supposed to answer and send to my Roman World TA. Oops.

It’ll get done, though. And then I’ll sleep until I get into King’s Cross in London and get someone to take my picture at platform 9 3/4.

And yes, I’m taking a train down to London specifically to get a picture at platform 9 3/4. I’m not even a huge Harry Potter fan anymore, but skipping out on that feels like it might be blasphemy.

My Wild & Crazy St. Paddy's Day, 2011

(NOTE: this post went up on my other blog on March 17, 2011. I forgot to copy/paste it over here. Sorry! :) )

Made it to Dublin! The hotel isn’t quiiite what I’d hoped for—there’s no bathtub and the shower door doesn’t close. I have literally never spilled so much water during a shower in my life. And I can’t find the pool. I’m kind of worried about its existence.

There were so many half-drunk groups of Americans on the plane ride over. With giant hats from a Dr. Suess story and green, white and orange feather boas. These guys were dressed for a night out. Cue facepalm.

I pulled out a book and ignored them. Sometimes I think I might be better at that than is healthy.

Confession: I am sick again. So it’s definitely effecting my patience and endurance. This weekend by myself in a party city is going to be all about chilling out and recovering. The crunch-time stress will be there when I go home to Edinburgh.

Another confession: I didn’t actually make it into the city centre tonight. I know, shame on me. St. Paddy’s Day! In Dublin! Ireland! And I missed it! Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!

Not. The city’s official festival lasts until Sunday night, and since tomorrow’s Friday, I figure the chances for green beer and crazy-people watching will only increase. Instead, I went for a walk. Found the bus stop I’ll need tomorrow, and a grocery store where I can pop in and get a croissant, or something, for breakfast. (There’s a kettle in the room! I get my morning tea! :) Although it’s labeled “Irish Breakfast Tea.” Would it really kill them to just call it “English Breakfast Tea,” like the rest of the world does?)

I rather enjoyed myself today, anyway. The flight went smoother than I’d hoped for (despite the half hour delay) and I didn’t mind the wait for the shuttle to the hotel. The air was chilled and crisp, but not unbearable. The moon is almost full, and it was silhouetted by clouds in that way that shows up in movies like The Wolfman or basically any other movie that takes place in Scotland/England/Ireland but is more rare at home.

Oh, and I had a silly American girl moment. :) I couldn’t figure out which shuttle/bus to get on, so the second guy I asked called me “love” (“luv”?) as he corrected me. He was older than my parents and had a comb-over, but it made me think of a girl I used to ride the bus with in high school. She went to London one summer with her parents and went out walking by herself, and a couple of construction guys started razzing her a bit. “Hey, luv—d’you think he’s sexy?” She was too embarrassed to answer, so she just kind of blushed and shrugged. The guy cackled and turned to his friend. “She doesn’t think you’re sexy!”

She said it was a highlight of her life so far. Being called “luv” by an English guy. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t good looking—it was something to check off the bucket list!

That’s kind of what I’m banking on this weekend being. Something to check off the bucket list. St. Paddy’s Day in Dublin. I’m going to see the sights, have half a pint of green beer (I’m on antibiotics and not really a beer person, besides) and enjoy my exorbitantly priced and normally-outfitted hotel room.

Scattered

I'll try to get some pictures of Dublin up in the next day or two--probably Friday, if it happens at all--but there's a lot going on this week. A few friends from back home were kind enough to point out that even in print, over facebook, I sound like I've gone absolutely mental. Swan dive off the deep end, that's me! :)

I, like everyone else this week, has an essay with a looming due date. I'm lucky I've only got one left (finished the first one ahead of schedule, thank god, because I can't seem to stay focused long enough to get this second one done).

I think a lot of my insanity is just nerves. I'm going to be on my own--really, honestly as on my own as it will probably ever, ever get--for almost a month starting three days.

The mere thought makes me want to dive for chocolate.

I'm not done planning. I haven't booked a return. I've got a train ticket to London, a plane ticket to Athens--hostels booked for both, thank you, papa, for helping with the London one--and I booked a plane ticket from Athens to Bucharest today during lecture. (I couldn't pay attention to the boring, soft-spoken woman who wouldn't use the goddamned microphone, so I figured I might as well get something done.)

I can't figure out a route from the Bucharest airport to the Gara du Nord (the train station at the center of the city). I don't have any idea how much it'll cost to get from Bucharest to Brasov, don't have any idea where I'll stay once I get there, or even where to go from Brasov. My main goal in Romania, though, is to see Vlad's castle. That can't be too hard to find, right? I mean, how many tourists do you think go through Transylvania and don't want to see that thing?

Probably most importantly, though, I haven't figured out how to get back.

I could be stranded in Transylvania.

Hmm. (At least I bought a phrasebook yesterday?)

As much as I adore learning about Alexander the Great, and reading books and articles about him--he was a fascinating guy. Absolutely never someone I would want to meet or hang out with, but completely capable of bending the entirety of the known world to his will through sheer force of personality.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy reading and learning about him, I don't want to write this essay. I want to read my Greece and Romania guidebooks! Why does that feel like too much to ask?!

If you see me this week, I could use a hug. A real one. Like, a bear hug.

Planning, planning.

Well, that cooking spree didn't last long. I tried. Still sort of trying. Mostly I can't be bothered to spend so much time preparing food. I've got stuff that has to be done and stuff I'd like to waste time on. :)

I've been trying like mad to plan out my spring break plans. (It's not technically "spring break"--apparently that's another Americanism. It's just the three weeks between the end of lectures and the beginning of exams. So: spring break.) Originally I was thinking a weekend in London (British museum and an international friendly between Brazil and Scotland!), followed by a flight to Athens and a week island hopping in Greece, then a few days in Istanbul, then a few more days--maybe as many as five or six--in Romania (Transylvania--and yes, I fully intend on visiting the castle Vlad the Impaler may or may not have ever visited, and if he did it was only for a night or two), then an incredibly cheap flight to Paris and a train to Normandy/Mont Saint Michel, then home to Edinburgh. Three, almost four weeks.

I've been doing research, though, and the more I read about Istanbul the more hesitant I am to go all by my lonesome. The travel guides make it sound like it would be the equivalent to going to Tijuana by myself (which I would never do). It's unfortunate, because I desperately want to go. I'd also like to see some of the rest of Turkey, though, so if I do cut Istanbul out of this trip, that's all it would be--cutting it out of this trip. There's nothing to stop me from going back in the future.

What to do with my three or four extra days, though? I could maybe spend some more time in France. My French would improve, and that always makes me happy when I pick up more of a foreign language. (French is the only one I can construct broken sentences in. The rest are just phrases I've memorized from books, or single words I've picked up from friends and flatmates.) Or I could go visit Stonehenge/Nottingham/York/the Scottish highlands. It's something I definitely ought to do, but it feels like cheating myself out of an adventure.

It's not that it wouldn't be fun to see the rest of the UK. It's more just that I already speak English.

In the meantime, it's a struggle to keep up with schoolwork. I think I'm just being lazy. It's not that I don't care about the material, because for pretty much the first time this year, I do care about the stuff we're learning about. (Philip II, Alexander III (the Great), and the Ptolemaic dynasty!! Hellenistic Egypt! And murders and emperors and conniving sons and mothers in imperial Rome, and the books in Scottish lit are fantastic. Sunset Song, by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Go read it.)

I'm definitely just being lazy. I don't want to read a textbook. I want to read a historical fiction account of how Ptolemy I Soter held onto his throne. Stories are easier to digest and memorize than sterile facts.

Next Thursday, though, I'll be abandoning all responsibilities for three days. I'm flying to Dublin (by myself) and staying in a fantastic hotel with a real bed and an indoor pool (by myself) for St. Patrick's Day. :)

Oh, and there will be sightseeing as well. And a parade and a festival. But there will also be an accessible swimming pool. And a real hotel room. (Everything cheaper was already booked, but I think I'll survive the weekend luxury. Somehow.)

I wish I had a fun book to read. Something adorably fantastic and girly would be nice. I'm in one of those moods for sugar in my fiction. No more of this gritty unhappiness nonsense in Lanark, which needs to be read by Tuesday morning for Scottish Lit.

Hm. Scatterbrained? Yes, definitely. There's a lot going on, and even more to avoid working on, at the moment.

Real food!

I have started cooking again. Like, recipes and healthy stuff. Last night I made... well, I'm not exactly what it was supposed to be, but it turned into chicken and pasta in an olive oily/white wine sauce. With lots and lots of garlic. Probably more garlic than there should have been, but it was so tasty.

My hand is nearly better. It looks almost normal in natural light, though it still looks a little freaky under a lamp. Or indoors. I can hold a pen and almost write normally again, though not nearly well enough to take notes yet. The skin has recovered enough that I can reach into my pocket without scraping it off and bleeding all over the place (happened twice. Once was at dinner when my flatmate and I were handling the check. Blood. Everywhere. Not pretty.)

I've got a bit more patience with fire alarms these days. Even the ones at 10:30 PM. Less so with the ones at 3 and 9 AM. If my sleep is going to be interrupted, there had better be an honest to god fire.

(There hasn't been. I'm special.)