...or something - milano (like the cookies)

well, i have found a deal (3 hours for the price of 2!) here in milano, italy. so i have decided to stoop to the level of absolute piece of shit and send a mass email.

i'm also posting it in livejournal and myspace because i don't have some email addresses, and livejournal won't load to show them to me and myspace doesn't have them (wes, cora, chelsea, heather... some others who's addresses i stole off facebook and it's their school one and they probably don't check... it doesn't matter... "pass through as does the vanishing lightening and don't worry" - jack)

my first three weeks in greece were spent on the island of corfu, with strange manipulative people who made it hard to grow or change - wanting us (me and ullin from whales) to be sad stupid drones, doing their bidding all the time. (which he has been doing since august - yikes!!) i quickly grew bored and cold and stagnant. shoveling poo and pouring gross buckets of corn to mean disgusting pigs is not what i came to greece to do.
one night i got really sad, and the next morning a beautiful french woman appeared.
i liked christine right away. i could tell she wasn't going to stay more than a day. finally i gathered my nerve and timidly asked "can i come with you? just for a few days, to see how things work?"
she grinned. "of course!" i told marlena i was leaving and she got angry. "no, i don't think you can go today."
"um... well... i am..."
i quickly packed and we ran out the door as she yelled that we were crazy and stupid. sheesh. 3 weeks of work and no "thank you" or "let us give you a ride up the hill". they even drove by as we waited for the the bus.
bastards.
christine called a nother wwoofing place in greece, on the island of evia, and they said to call back saturday. we decided to head in that direction.
which would be east.

we stayed one night in an old hotel in corfu and the next day hopped a ferry to the mainland. christine paced the boat looking at the mountains and clouds. me - i just sat and watched the water get churned up white ruffley whipped behind us. when we got to igumunitsa we hopped a 7 hour bus to athens where an iraqi and two palestinians began following us around. i told them i was french since they all three have good reason to hate us, having to leave their homes and hang out jobless, in greece, thanks to the good ol' u.s. of a. we finally lost them (i think they really were just trying to help) when we found a shitty motel room with free porn on channel 1.
athens is a big piece of shit city. really dirty and overcrowded, the worst i've ever been in. i like big backwards cities though, where you see the best people at their worst and the worst people at their best and have to cut through the bullshit to see who's just mean cause they can't take the madness and who's just playin nice to take you for a buck.
but the next day we decided we'd had enough and first thing in the morning we hopped a bus to the coast and took a ferry to evia, where i fell in love. with the island, of course.
we found a beautiful room for only 12.50 each a night, complete with a kitchen and front balcony with a beautiful view of the ocean in front and the mountains in back. the woman kept bringing us little cakes and once a little plate of small fried fish, which really touched me for some reason, her standing there with that little plate so kind.
the next morning christine makes the call and they only want one of us. i send her, of course. it was at a meditation/yoga retreat type place, which is very much her thing, and i figured she'd done her job saving me from the horrible farm. we decide to stay two more nights anyway cause it's so beautiful and the room's so cheap and we make pasta and fried eggplant and omelettes and walk on the beach and i decide to go to spain.
and i decide to go by train. everything looks the same from 6,000 feet (or however high planes fly, 2,000?) and besides, i'm in no hurry. and i like trains. some seats face backwards which feels more like life. we can't see the future and the present flies by too quickly so we stare into the past most of the time.

so 6:00 monday morning i hug christine goodbye and hop the ferry back to rafina and bus to athens, where i change to train. ah yes. the 4 hours to patras flies by. i gleefully notice the toilet is just a hole, you can watch the tracks as you pee. :) we pass lotsa pretty little greek towns i wanta stop and visit and paint -
another day. the train rolls on.
it stops right near the port. superfast ferries - that's the one for me! speeding across the sea to two destinations in italy. i choose bari cause it's so damn close to cari. 58 euro - paid. two hours to kill. i walk around patras. there's a statue of a man thinking in a park and he's so funny and sad with graffiti all over his face and hands. i take his picture. then i find a little cafe by the port and buy a beer and an orange for 1 euro 50. i drink the beer with two cigarettes and save the orange for later.
15 hours to italy - wheee!!
the boat ride was pretty horrible. all in all an awful experience. there were some other backpackers from america but i was too scared to talk to them, i recieved word that the place in spain i really wanted to go to isn't taking wwoofers at this time (they're building a skate ramp. god damn. in marmori i'd seen a little boy on a board and i'd contemplated pushing him off and stealing it), and it was staffed with millions of lonely men who work every day for five months straight. one approached me in the dining room to ask if wanted to "make music" in his cabin.
i stifled a laugh. "yeah maybe."
he smiled a big weird creepy grin. "meet me here at 11."
the dining room was just below the morgue on my list of places i wanted to be at 11.
the guy however forgot to add "or i'll find you."
eleven o clock found me fast asleep in the discoteca - where i was awoken four fucking times by that piece of shit to see if i'd changed my mind and "did i want to go to his cabin now?" finally he fell asleep next to me - don't they have a policy against that? - and i snuck away first chance i got to the bar, to hide in a dark corner where the ocean gently rocked me into the best 8 hour sleep i've had since i left new york.
when the boat docks at 9 the next morning i positively run off of it. luckily the nice sleazy man who kept giving me free drinks (different one. i'm serious. there were 85 employees on that boat, probably all men, definitely all desperate) had told me what bus to take to the train station. terminals look the same everywhere.. big dome entrance with a round stern clock face proudly declaring the time for all to see.
i tell them i need to go to spain. they issue me a ticket to milano and i settle down in the small cafe with an espresso shot and pull out my map to see where milano is. my heart soars. by 7:00 tonight i'll be clear up the coast and ready to head west. i find binari (platform?) 3 and settle down to wait. roll a cigarette. decide maybe that night i'll find a cheap hotel and stay in italy. italy! i'm in italy! in all my haste i hadn't stopped to realize. on the boat i had begun to see the advantages of travelling with a friend and it hit me here again. i get so absorbed in getting from point a to point b and not getting my shit stolen and looking confident - like i have the slightest clue what i'm doing - that i forget to sit back and enjoy. life takes care of itself anyway.
italy is too foggy and i miss most of it. on the train i wonder if there's pot in spain and hafta laugh at myself cause it's only been a month. anyway i'm happy to go somewhere where i can communicate beyond "hello" "please" "yes" "no" "thank you" "goodbye".

i'm still hopin to stay the night in italy as the train rolls into the station. it's HUGE! people everywhere. i find information - mention my final destination is spain. they have trains straight through to barcelona that only leave monday, wednesday, and friday which makes me happy. i'd wanted to bypass france anyway (everyone told me they're arrogant and rude - especially to americans) and it's tuesday. they didn't know about hotels. i wandered out to the street eager to get a room and lose my pack on account of being alone lookin 12 years old and that big rucksack just shoutin "hello! i am a tourist!" my joy quickly went away when i went to the first hotel - 70 euros a night! i meandered down the road and found one for 50 which was still ridiculous but big people were starting to talk to me and it was night and i was getting scared. i dumped my stuff and went for chinese. it wasn's enough food but i really can't remember the last time i was full anyway. i contemplated going to mcdonals but decided to go back to my room and watch tv. then changed plans again and found an internet cafe.

so here i am. i think i've found a place to go when i get to spain but i don't even know if it's north or south. i figure i'll go to barcelona and figure things out from there. i'm just kickin it, marauding, being a little sad from missing everyone. hope things are bueno in the states. (necesito practicar!) i may drop another mass message if anybody bothered to read this monster. i'll figure it out with my non-existent psychic abilities.