Spain/Guatemala: Day 39

SAN SEBASTIAN/ANTIGUA

Let me describe the greatness of San Sebastian...A perfectly sized city (not too big, not too small) with a perfect mix of beautiful old style buildings and gorgeous park space. It´s right on the beach, which is always fun and relaxing, and in turn produces a generally life-loving citizenry. The airport nearby is too small to accommodate much traffic, so the tourism is kept to a minimum, and thus the natives don´t really get annoyed by the tourists that are there. It also contains the greatest church I´ve ever seen. And it´s part of Spain, which means siestas, lots of bars, and merry-making until the wee hours of the morning.

Alas, I no longer habitate this paradise. On Sunday I flew to Guatemala, an epically long and frustrating trip. I woke up at 4am local time in Madrid, flew to London, to Miami, to Guatemala City, had a 2.5 hour delay in Miami, and, after waiting for an hour in Guatemala for my suitcase,
found out that it hadn´t made it out of London. I didn´t go to bed that night until 11:30pm local time in Antigua, which was the equivalent of 7:30am the next day in Spain...27.5 hours after I had woke up. On top of all that, I still won´t actually have my suitcase in hand until later this evening.

Have you seen this "man?"

Supposedly, "the Gremlin" made a cameo appearance @ Ben and Cassie's house on Sunday night. As he ravaged through 87 2nd Place...he consumed many margaritas, figs, pizza, pig fat, and Israeli chocolate.

Authorities are still looking for this DANGEROUS giggling creature.

If you encounter him...call 1-800-STOMPER. Please approach with extreme caution!

And remember never feed him after midnight.

Joan Jett on the Pier THURSDAY

Come. Free. 6:30. Pier 54 at W. 14th St Hudson River Park. 917-710-5689.

Iloverockandrollputanotherdimeinthejukeboxbaby.

In need of phone

Fellow bloggers it appears I lost my phone on Saturday. This sucks. If you have an old verizon phone that you are no longer using I would love to borrow it for two months. Email me if this sounds like you. Also email me if you want to converse, get dinner, drink beer, play in sprinklers or otherwise spend time in each other's company.

A Jolly Good Fellow

SOL!

what up suckas

still alive, having a ball, though my liver may have suffered a bit over the past 2 weeks. i had a nice welcome back to my old town, slept on a bed made from reeds, got a turkey drunk (and then ate it), and now it's off to the beach.

the stories i'll save for another time, here's a couple pix though (i would upload more but the connection here is too damn slow)

peace friends

Adorable Cockroaches Free to Good Home!!!

I thought I would give you all first dibs since you are all such wonderful friends. Please follow this link for more details.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/pet/355935315.html

Actually, the posting has been flagged and removed. I guess craigslist doesn't have a sense of humor anymore. I did receive a few good comments though, which are copied after the posting.

"Dear Craigslisters,

I am looking for a responsible and loving person to adopt my sweet little babies. Well, they are not quite babies anymore, they are actually quite large (and fast!!), but it’s hard to believe that they have grown up so quickly!

I would absolutely keep them, but my live-in boyfriend is making me give them up. It was a hard choice.

I am really going to miss their shiny date colored peek-a-boo! appearances in the bathroom, waving their long spindly antennas and flexing their shellacked legs. I’m going to miss our rousing games of Chase the Cockroach through the kitchen, under the trash, into the bathroom, underneath the tub. Our apartment is going to feel mighty empty.

But, true love must prevail, and so the roaches must go.

Here are the details:
• 3 to 100 healthy one inch long beasties
• hard-wood floor colored (glistening reddish brown coats)
• nocturnal
• not picky about food (we find that they like pasta encrusted pans soaking in the sink the best, but it’s up to you)
• favorite housing structures include smelly shoes, holes around pipes, and dark cracks near sources of water (you must have at least one of these habitats in order to be considered)
• quiet, very friendly, but will get out of the way when you want them to

Really, they are the ideal pets, and I am not really sure why my boyfriend objects to them, his arguments make no sense to me (aren’t men silly?).

If you are interested, please reply by answering the following questions (I really want to find them the best home possible):
1) Do you regularly wash your dishes?
2) Do you have leaky plumbing?
3) Is your building old and full of nooks and crannies?
4) Do you like eating green beans from the can and then leaving the rest of the can on the counter?
5) Do you live alone and rarely have visitors?
6) Are you lonely?/
7) Do you need some persistent, unconquerable, loyal new friends with lustrous shells and a long, fascinating history?

Thanks!"

Some of the comments:
"Please dont be offended but is this a serious add?? thanx." - GeeNius06

"very funny,LOL!" - LOUISCRETELLA

"Now THAT was funny!" - Beetlejuice918

"you piece of shit.you must be a fat ugly faggot nerd who got nothing betta 2 do than to sit at ur fuccin computer for 3 hours,writing all of that fuccin bullshit,for what? no 1 is going to laff.that is juss plain stupidity and you should fuccin get hit by a city bus and be dragged 15 feet under the fuccin wheel,while ur intestines squish out of your vagina and asshole.you already kno your fuccin 1sec joke will be flagged and taken down,and ur IP banned so you cant post anymore...idiot..die like your grandmother!!!!!"
- Tony Tone (k1ngt0ne@yahoo.com)

"Yeah, sure. I'll bet this is one of those Cameroon scams. You say "free," then you tell me you are in the Peace Corps? And it will be $300 wired to your account! I'm no dummy.LOL" - CAngelica
"You are an irresponsible person.You should GET RID OF THE BOYFRIEND!LOL" - CAngelica
"NEVER offer anything on CL for free!!! LOL" - CAngelica
"Do you require references??? LOL" - CAngelica
(all of CAngelica's comments were sent in separate emails)

Old Town on Saturday

Hey ya'll --

As Julie posted, she and I will be in New York this weekend--well, I'll be around for only Saturday night, but she'll be around all week. Our plan is to hit up the Old Town Tavern on 18th Street that evening. If you've got some drinking in you, swing by!! Be great to see you all--

Always,
Josh

Scroll Down

Because I started my last post a few days ago, it is dated June 13th even though I didn´t post it untill today. So just scroll down to see it. I hope I´m not boring you all with my dry accounts of where I´ve been, but this is the only way for me to feel connected to you guys.

Much better

I had to post something, anything really, to get that big-bellied dude off the top of the blog. So disturbing! Here's a cute pic of Josh I took last weekend in Spain.


Our pics from Krakow and Mallorca are up on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/96243091@N00/u11547

By the way, Josh and I return to New York next Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Josh leaves for North Carolina on Sunday, but I'll be around all week. Hope to see you all!

BelleBelly: An Effort To Blog All Things Belly

What defines a belly?

That is, what separates & distinguishes & elevates the concept from the more vulgar alternatives of the stomach, the gut, the spare-tire, the paunch, or worse the abdomen.

Something wonderful.

After all we have bellyshirts, bellybuttons, & bellydancing - not to mention jellybellys, beerbellies, & fun scandals involving porkbellies – and yet you’ll never hear someone interchange the concept for a semi-synonymous alternative. Any mention of “a stomachbutton”, “a paunchpiercing” or “a night of exotic gutdancing” signals either a weak attempt a poetry, a foreigner or some depraved form of aphasia.

A Few Beautiful Bellies


<---[pulp] fictional belly: a good woman knows how to grow a potbelly for her man.









the author's belly: currently at 43inchs around, compared to a waist that barely stretches 36inches when exhaling. --------------------->







<-----------Huddie Leadbetter: illustrating the natural progression from Leadbetter to Leadbest to Leadbelly









Anyway I’m not here to divine upon the word. Merely to celebrate it. And document it. As I head out on my roadtrip this summer I’m bringing a camera. And I hope to capture and blog as many unique and wonderful bellies as possible. Similarly I hope to capture the effects of exercise on my own prized belly: as it changes from beachball to beachfriendly. Be witness to the transformation!

Until then ciao.


**casus belli: no belly needs a justification; and accordingly neither does this post. But insofar as your curiosity is looking for an explanation, the idea for this was delivered headfirst from the boredom that is high school regents week. Somewhere in the middle of proctoring the Global History exam, looking at the long rows of shifty students, all madly bubbling multiple choice answers, I realized I hated my job. Hated it thoroughly for setting me up in the inherently adversarial semi-oppressive role of a test-administrator. It seemed nothing could be lower, fouler, and more at odds with the gorgeous summer day outside. Seconds after these thoughts left my head a young lady rose to hand in her exam. Long brown hair, sharp purposeful nose, an unusually straight spine - it seemed to me her whole being was proud to follow in the wake of her truly enormous watermelon-like belly. I stared in praise. Simultaneously a second very pregnant woman rose from the other side of the room. All of a sudden I had two wonderfully huge bellies walking toward me; it made sense; I loved my job; and I wanted to praise bellies.

***casus belli II: also obviously, I have been obsessed with my own belly for years now; so that whole pregnant girl thing was just a proximal cause.

Spain/Guatemala: Day 28

BARCELONA/BASEL/SAN SEBASTIAN

No pictures of San Sebastian yet, but WOW! This is an amazing city. My favorite out of the spanish cities that I´ve visited, and very high up in the rankings of cities I´ve visited anywhere. A brit I met in the school here made an interesting point that the reason this place isn´t completely overrun with tourists is that there aren´t any direct flights here from London. I absolutely recommend that everyone come here.

Barcelona wasn´t so impressive. Too much catalan, too much modern scultptures and architecture that don´t blend well with eachother or the rest of the city (though Gaudi is obviously incredible). But it is nice enough, and seems like it would be a fun place to live.

Basel was the bomb! Fantastic chocolate, as chronicled by Josh. It´s just a pleasant city all around. Not world class, but very classy. And whoever makes their way there in the future, you have to make the effort to take down a second tower of beer (which only costs about a third of the price of the first tower). Josh and I were just finishing the first tower when the place was closing, so get there early.

Oh, and so far I´m failing to live up to ¨The Natural¨ moniker in my attempts at learning how to surf. The first day, when there were no waves and we were just paddling around, I had to be towed back into shore by the instructors because the effort from the paddling destroyed me. It was pretty damned embarrassing. I´ve gotten much stronger since, but still haven´t been able to get myself up on a wave yet. It´s really hard.

And to give you all the full experience I´m having, check out the hair on the kid in the red.

CANDY: LIGHTS! CAMERA! CANDY! [Part IV in a series]

The candy blog returns! Enough planning posts and travel reports—it's time for some sweet, sweet minutiae!

A TRAVEL REPORT!

This actually isn't a report about my travels—it's about Joe "The Natural" Rosales' trip to Basel. Joe made the trip over from Spain last week, and we did some exploring of ol' Baselburg together. We enjoyed Scotch, ping-pong, a beer tower, Indian food, a Jasper Johns exhibit and (apropos to a candy blog) chocolate.

Here is the spread we put together Wednesday night: the purple box is a locally produced bar of milk chocolate. The green box is a Venezuelan bean (though Swiss made) dark chocolate—78% pure chocolate, if you're scoring at home. We got the latter because Joe said he liked dark chocolate; the former to balance out the intensity of the 78%er. Other options at the choco store we bought these at (Xocolatl) included Salt Chocolate, Masaman Chocolate, and Thai Red Curry Chocolate. I'd be happy to try any of these, but designer chocolate is expensive (Ben—grant application!?).

Anyway, the experience of eating these two bars was tremendous. The dark was intense but balanced nicely with an herb flavoring. The milk chocolate taste was more conventional but still delicious. Both paired perfectly with the raspberries and the milk. All in all, it was a new candy experience for me—more of a tasting than an eating, as it were. I can only hope that chocolate becomes the new wine, and every restaurant offers a long list of hand-crafted chocolates to choose from. (This would also offer a host of new opportunities for Raju to make his classic "stubborn yet whimsical" joke.)

So my foray into high end candy was interesting and gratifying—but for me candy will always be all about the 75 cent bar that you can get on any corner in New York. (Note: The chocolate bars Joe and I ate were slightly more than 75 cents. Like, twenty times more.) Further, if I'm going to overpay for candy, the place I'm happiest to do it is: THE MOVIES. In the spirit of the hoped-for wine list/chocolate list swap I mentioned above, here are some candy and movie "pairings" that I think all can enjoy.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER: GUMMY BEARS. Because they make you feel like a kid again, and what better way to enjoy a big ol' dumb Hollywood megavehicle than to hearken back to the days of endless summers and runs through the sprinkler.

FIRST DATE MOVIE: JUNIOR MINTS. Shows that you are there to have a good time, but also value your date's experience—in other words, that you're a sensitive lover. Ordering something like the big bag of Poppables on a first date could potentially send the wrong message—like, "Tonight is all about me, baby!"

"I'M HIGH" MOVIE: ANYTHING. Really, you can't go wrong when you are high and ordering candy. Everything works., from Sour Patch Kids to Peanut M&Ms. Some people think you can take it too far by ordering too much, but that has never been my experience. Like the time Ben and I bought three bags of Poppables when we saw House of Wax, lost one as the movie began, and didn't find it until ten minutes before the end. Did we decide, Hey, two bags was enough, let's save this one for later? Of course not.

[Sol stays hi-i-i-iiigh...]

GOING SOLO: TWIZZLERS. When you're at the movies alone, you don't want to order a candy you'll get sick of. Eating an entire bag of Reese's Pieces by yourself is not only a little depressing, but also by the end, the Pieces will inevitably taste like pure butter. Putting away a bag of Twizzlers on your own, though, is socially acceptable and won't dilute their taste (because they have no taste).

SUBTITLED FOREIGN FILM: A SLICE OF TART. Just kidding—but why is that the Angelica and Lincoln Plaza and other high-end indie movie theatres sell baked goods? [Answer: Because they're snobby, and think you're snobby, too.]

And so ends this posting. Julie and I have been ravaged by Spanish food poisoning—Joe, avoid Majorcan Potato Salad. Love to you all—

back in the bique

hey folks

i'm here, i'm alive, and shit is crazy. the weather is great, the streets of maputo are crowded and dirty, and bit by bit my old mozambique self is re-awakening. so far i've just been hanging out in maputo, tomorrow i'm heading up the coast to my old town and also to the beach. here's a couple of pix for your enjoyment but i didn't take them (i forgot the wire to hook up the camera in the apartment where i'm staying).

much love

joãozinho

Bike To The Beach, Camp Like Crazy People

This is my attempt to put the laboring back in Labor Day. I want to organize a ride from Prospect Park to the Montauk Lighthouse to conclude summer. And I want you to come. Why? Cause it'll be fun. If you're on the fence, think of it as blogger Teambuilding. Actually don't think of it like that. Think of it as chance to hang out while doing something sweaty. Or perhaps merely an unusual way to spend Labor Day. Anyway I've pulled together a couple of decent routes [with us covering anywhere from 60 to 120 miles per day] and would be happy to pull together a few more depending on who's interested and what our perceived abilities are. Ideally I see us leaving early Saturday morning September 1st and returning exhausted two days later on the Monday holiday - with at least some of the intervening time spent eating lobster rolls, drinking beer, and soothing our pissed off perinea in the sand.

Those unable/unwilling/unbikefriendly enough to join are encouraged to meet up with us in Montauk via the train. At the very least it could be an excuse to head to the beach together.

The Blow-Up

More ups to Li'l Alex Even: White Rabbits are an 8.1 "recommended" on Pitchfork today.

Well deserved, boyos.

I wanted to thank everyone that came out and showed support for the NYC Athletics today.
We lost a tough game today by the score of 7-6. We showed a lot of fight and fought back from a 7 - run deficit. We were close in the bottom of the 9th inning...getting the bases loaded...but couldn't bring home the tying run. A controversial call cost us the game. C'est la vie!

Our schedule can be found here: SCHEDULE

Please feel free to check out any of our games in the coming future.
Thank you for your SUPPORT! Go A's!

Stanton Social

Hey guys, not sure if anyone has plans tonight, or if everyone is just taking it easy, but I'm going for drinks with some friends from law school at Stanton Social (99 Stanton St--between Ludlow and Orchard Sts) and then Stanton Public. Come on by.

reminder.... Sol's game on Sun

don't forget... but call me before you leave if it looks like rain

Spain/Guatemala: Day 13

NERJA

Today is my last day in Nerja. Spending two weeks here has provided me with another data point on the down side of travelling to new places...the more places you go, especially if you´re going to spend any significant amount of time there, the more places that you´ll develop some sort of attachment to, and ultimately feel frustrated by not being able to constantly go back to. Such is the case for me with Nerja, and probably the rest of what I´m going to see of Spain. Nerja´s not even a particularly magnificent place, but the one thing it is, without a doubt, is comfortable. The longer I´ve been here, the more blah the food and the wine have become (I think I happened to get 2 particularly tasty glasses
of wine when I first got here, because what I´ve had since has not excited me nearly as much). The british tourists are omnipresent and consistently disgusting (the Brits must love pizza, because there are an incredible amount of restaurants here claiming to be pizzerias....all miserable to the last). But the beaches, the climiate, and the general lifestyle are pretty amazing (and the asthetic quality of the naked flesh on the beaches has improved considerably since last week).


Included here are some more pictures from around Nerja. The school had a class one day where we made paella. There was also another day where we played volleyball on the beach, and I would just like to point out that there are 8 people here this week from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and I kicked all their asses at volleyball. I think I inspired a certain degree of awe in one of the girl cadets, and I think one of the guy cadets wishes he could be my sidekick.

Anyway, tomorrow I´m taking a bus to Malaga, and then a train to Barcelona....always a little closer to home.