in sum

During this trip (assuming my flight to Venice goes well), I have successfully visited Toledo, Salamanca, Paris, Granada, Segovia, Barcelona, (obviously) Madrid, and Venice. I think I can comfortably say that I have "been to Europe," or "been to Spain," at the very least. (Though I wish I could have visited Cordoba, Seville, Valencia, Pamplona, the Camino de Santiago. . . as in Japan, I take those things unfinished as insurance that I will have to come back.)

I feel . . . um. . . cultured? Ha. I feel delighted. It was a good summer. I'm happy to go home, but not in the way I was last summer, when I felt like I was popping out of a pressure cooker.

And I really love traveling. I suppose that seems silly to say, but often I wonder how much I really like certain things -- art museums, Shakespeare, long books of literature, fashion -- and how much I like the idea of liking what cultured people like. And while I won't deny there's an element of that striving-for-elegance quality fueling my interests, I also am becoming more and more sure of my own preferences. For instance -- gazpacho? I tried it. It's palatable but not my favorite. Spanish tortilla? Lead me to the feed trough (provided that I don't overcook it so the edges are rubbery. :P) Going out to eat late at night? I just feel exhausted the next day. Getting up early for sightseeing? Yes, I can commune with the pigeons and the elderly people buying bread.

Every so often when traveling a little nagging voice would pop up in my ear, muttering, "YOU'RE DOING THIS WRONG," when I bought lunch from a grocery store instead of sitting in a cafe or walked instead of taking the metro (which, given the price of the metro, invariably meant that I was buying a bottle of Diet Coke for every metro ride I didn't take) or went to the mainstream big-deal tourist attractions instead of the niche out-of-the-way museums. Or vice versa. Or asking why I chose to go to these cities and not these cities. Often the little voice would question my traveling, muttering about lazy Americans in jeans and Birkenstocks or jeans and tennis shoes. Couldn't I at least wear earrings? I could put my money belt under a skirt. This little voice kept insisting there was more to going to Europe than just transplanting American dorkiness on different soil -- I should try, on some level, to be European (or Spanish, rather), to live/eat/dress in the same way that people here have accustomed themselves to do.

And that, I really haven't done. Is that bad? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

---

On a totally unrelated note, after watching the Hellboy movies I found the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. comics online. I read them and I LOVE them. The character development is sadly a little lacking, but the plots are fantastical and totally engrossing.

---

Baby playing with newspaper!

movies

I have moved my base of operations from my room to the music room (room on the first floor that used to be the dining room; is now an all-purpose living room with couches and a piano) for now. I find it is more difficult (though still possible) to fall asleep down here, it's usually been less hot, and I find the noise and the company comforting.

An upside/downside to this is that the TV with cable is in the music room. I don't (no seriously, I don't) watch TV myself, but when others are down here, I am more than willing to be distracted (frequently) from my work by whichever movie is playing.

To that end, in the last five/six days whilst hanging out/working/chatting, I have seen all or a large part of the following movies:

Daria: Is It College Yet? (excellent. but then there is reason all of us liked this show in high school, even if we (by which I mean me) had to go to our (my) friend's house to watch it.)

Master and Commander* (EPIC. but I missed a lot because they all mumbled a lot.)

The Patriot (also pretty great. remember back before Mel Gibson kind of sucked? this movie is how the U.S. wants to remember its history.)

V for Vendetta (maybe a strategic 25% plus explanations of this one.) (this movie is actually identical to The Patriot in a lot of ways, but with more explosives and a female main character.)

Hellboy* (Guillermo del Toro is awesome! I've mentioned another film he directed -- El Espinazo del Diablo on this blog before. Also fun about the version we watch were the interludes before commercial breaks when they talked about how they achieved the special effects. Lots of CG, but also a lot of intricate mechanical bits and pieces and wonderful makeup, particularly for the costumes.)

Blade (TOO. MUCH. BLOOD.)

His Girl Friday (this was actually the one I checked out. This movie is all about Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell being snappy and justifying being horrible people by being newspapermen, and Cary Grant standing around doing the, "Look at me! I'm Cary Grant and I'm so tall and elegant!" bit.)

The Punisher (didn't mean to watch this one. I left for the apparently horrifically violent scene in the middle with "the Russian" and various piercings getting pulled out.)

* Movies I plan to find again and watch the parts I missed sometime.

I had seen precisely NONE of these movies before. I think I know now how it is that everyone in the world has seen more movies than me: They all have cable.

Also an episode of "World's Greatest Warriors" or somesuch on Spike TV, which consisted people shooting at targets with sixshooters, Winchester rifles, and Tommy guns, while grumbling in a manly fashion at each other. Oy.