Monday, February 23, 2009

How I spent my weekend


I didn't post Friday because I was away this weekend.

You know, sometimes you look at the note from a substitute and you can just tell they are a complete idiot. People, don't become a sub unless you have some balls. "I am not accustomed to students rifling through a teacher's desk" he says.

Neither am I. Why the fuck was he letting them do that?

Anyway, After I was sick that one day, which is why I took a sick day of course, I got well just in time to go to San Francisco. My absence from school is in no way affiliated with my trip, Mr. Principal.

Anyway, some people like to make big elaborate plans and itineraries and such when they travel. They like everything to be smooth and organized and chaos free.

Not me. I usually make hotel reservations just to make sure I get the best deal and then go from there. There's always one or two things I'd like to do, but nothing on a set schedule. When I visited Paris for the first time I just walked to what I could see. I'd see something interesting in the distance and then I'd walk until I got there to see what it was. Note to anyone who plans to do this: The Eiffel Tower is visible from several miles away. You should probably take the Metro or you might end up crawling back to your hotel room.

Don't tell my mom, but I've stayed in some real crack dens because of the fly-by-night planning method. Once, Ex Boyfriend and I stayed in the nastiest, cheapest motel in town where actual drug dealers were doing business in the room below. The hotel manager was so happy to have us that he gave us a giant candle thingee to take home at the end of our stay, although I spent the entire drive back pondering the possibility that it was actually a bomb and the hotel manager was a terrorist using us to blow up the infidel-filled Los Angeles. This is probably why I write action movies.

In San Francisco The Beefcake and I wanted to do two things: Go to Alcatraz and walk on the bridge. Now Alcatraz was awesome because The Beefcake has some pull in certain things, and we got to see parts of the island the rest of the visitors did not get to see. We are in a lot of people's vacation photos, I'm sure. So that went well and I learned a lot of things.

But the bridge - ah, the bridge. First we couldn't figure out the bus routes because they're not as well marked as one would hope. They have much better public transportation in San Fran than LA, but much less information about where that transportation is going. But that's okay because every single person we met there was nice. It was kind of weird. I've never been to a place where people were so goddamn friendly.

Anyway so we finally found the bridge at 6:45 and as we started to walk across it a loud, disembodied and angry female voice yelled out "Those two people going on the bridge, you need to turn around. You are not allowed on the bridge at this hour."

So we turned around after our scolding and pondered what to do next, and while we were pondering the disembodied voice basically told us to go fuck our mothers. Actually, she said if we had a problem with it we could call somebody and they could explain to us how to fuck our mothers. Actually, that's not what she said but it was kind of like that. We were just looking at the bridge and wishing we could cross it; we weren't planning the mutiny of which we were suspected.

Apparently they close the bridge at 6:30 so people won't jump off at night. Jumping off during the day is preferred.

After we left the hotel the next morning we drove over to the bridge to walk it in the day time, but then the rains came. It was like living in a fucking rain forest with the rain and the more rain and the goddamn windy rain. And we were like "Fuck a poncho," and I remembered when I was standing in front of my apartment with an umbrella and Beefcake was like "We don't need that," and made me put it back. Even though it took up no space in the car.

That dude is weird.

We walked about a fourth of the way down the bridge before we turned around and came back. Sheets of water fell right off the bridge over the swarm of ducks that was partying in the rain. My swede coat is no longer the same shade of brown. My socks were soaked through and the hood on my sweatshirt was still wet when we arrived in LA 9 hours later.

But that's what stories are made of. Sure, we could have gotten there on a sunny day and walked across the bridge and back, but then that's all there would be to it. "Did you go on the bridge?" people would ask, and we would say "Yes, it was nice." But now we can say "Yes, dammit, and we got soaked and scolded and couldn't see shit because it was all wet everywhere. And there were ducks."

That's actually why I travel, I think. So I can see the crack dens and the rain-soaked bridges and get lost in the middle of nowhere and explore the world around me in a way that will give me stories to tell.

3 comments:

  1. I agree, some minor problems in one's vacations at least gives interesting stories to tell.

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  2. The way you vacation is the way I lived the better part of my adult life. Which is how I ended up living in an anarchist squat in Prague married to an alcoholic sociopathic black-belt magician, working as a chef. Among other things. It sucked, and it was really cool.

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  3. "That's actually why I travel, I think. So I can see the crack dens and the rain-soaked bridges and get lost in the middle of nowhere and explore the world around me in a way that will give me stories to tell."

    Me, too. That's my approach to life in general, in fact.

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