Wednesday, May 03, 2006

...and so it begins.

I'm off to Europe.

Sweet ride to the airport...sun was shining, birds were barking...and I was getting the hell out of NY.

I was misled to believe that I had been put in business class. It was mobbed on the plane. I was extremely unhappy for about seven hours. I did, however, drink my weight in white zinfandel and watch some movie with Jennifer Aniston in it. This is me being Wesley Snipes Passenger 57 mad (which I haven't actually seen, but I'm assuming that he's pretty pissed.)

So, in all the commotion of boarding the plane (several people were on the wrong flight..? How, in this, the golden age of airport security does one get on the wrong flight? And what does one do when you end up in Switzerland when you purchased a ticket to Belize. Really. Re-goddamn-diculous.) As I was moaning, in the commotion of boarding the plane, the guy sitting next to me literally drops this book in my lap as he dumps his belongings onto the seat next to me.

The title alone conjures up images of speculums and weird growths and all things vaginally incorrect, but you should have seen the diagrams inside. I mean, fair enough, you're a doctor and you're trying to catch up on the latest in deformed womanhood, but this guy was pouring over the book, highlighting as he went along, even through the in-flight meal. I tried to get a few shots of me looking disapprovingly in his direction, but to no avail.
And then I was cavorting with the Swiss, who were less than happy to let me into their country without any sort of visa or working papers. I think they just tired of my presence and let me through.

Here's a towel:

Where's the hotel?
Shot, really. Seven in the morning, and no sleep makes Lucas something something...

I looked all over for the bed, thinking that this was a couch, but then I realized that I'm in Europe where people sunbathe nude and sleep on tiny ass beds.

When in Rome, I suppose...

My hotel did have a balcony, though...

I am back in the land of bizarre food in tubes and gross, unheard of flavors of chips.

I took a walk, bought some cheese and sat in a park that was maintained by schoolchildren. They even had this massive vegetable garden, it was amazing. Today the show was at a place called "Aktion Halle." I realized that as we pulled up that I had been there a few years ago. It was, unfortunately, the site of one of the worst 24-hour stomach viruses that anyone has ever had, much less me. It was nice to recall all the trash cans and flower beds that I puked in on the way to the bathroom all day long. That aside, it is a weird little compound on the tip of lake Zurich, and today the weather was beautiful.

You can see the peaks of the Swiss Alps in the distance. It was enough to make you overlook the nude men doing yoga outside the bus. I didn't take pictures.

I feel like there was more, but I'm so jetlagged and confused right now. My body doesn't know when to eat or sleep or do much of anything other than drop things and bash it's head into the underside of tables. Iain says "I don't know if it's New York or New Year," or "I don't know if I need a shit or a haircut." Throw caution to the wind and have one of each....

I'm off to Paris tomorrow...