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Lokichilde East Bay, CA |
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Name:Dylan
Occupation:
Student, Legal Drug Dealer
Bad Taste:
Music: Harsh & Minimalist EBM, Neo-Classical, Electronic Ambient, Synth-Pop, Punk, Experimental, Tom Waits
Film: Experimental, Horror, Dark Comedy, Lynch, Jeunet, Gilliam, Kubrick, Coen Bros.
Art: Propaganda Art, Post-Modern, Surrealism, Dadaism, Futurism, Media Hacks.
Other Interests:
Philosophy (Scientific Realist/Non-Eliminative Materialist), Politics (Constitutional Centrist with Humanistic Tendencies), Writing, Reading(Current Book: Beginning Philosophy by Richard Double),Arguing Deductively.
AIM: Lokiulf
"I love mankind; it's people I can't stand"
- Charles Schultz
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| I DID IT!!!!!!!!! 2007-05-23 16:45:09 ET |
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I just sent out my last paper. I graduate Saturday.....FUCK YEAH!
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| Telephone Call From Ŭstanbul 2006-08-01 05:51:27 ET |
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Merherba Everyone!
We are currenty in Ýstanbul wýth my pops and our friend Emrah and have already
had experiences here to last us a lifetime. As Ý have not yet written about
our time in Ýtaly and Greece, Ý will save those stories for next time.
As Ý mentioned in the previous e-mail, we finally arrived in Venice after a
long train ride and a night in the train station. Expecting tourist hell,
Venice instead charmed us with its labrynth-like alleyways and canals where
you can get lost for hours without a care (best of all, no cars!). As we only
had a couple of days, we couldn't explore very much, but some of the
highlights included taking the 'bus' (a boat) down the Grand Canal to San
Marco Cathedral, checking out the Venetian mask stores and drinking cheap
Ýtalian wine at night in a square where all the young people hang out at night.
Our next stop was Florence, where we were met by the overpowering forces of
tourism that we had hoped to avoid. It was humid, stinky (far more than
Venice), and seemed more like a tourist trap than a real city. After spendýng
a couple hours in line, we went to the Uffuzi Gallery, which houses most of
the Rennaissance art in Florence. While it was amazing to see originals of
such pieces like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, the main thing Ý realized from
my experience is that I prefer modern art much more than Rennaissance art. To
me, Rennaissance art felt like all technique and no substance. Also, Ý
realized people really like painting that Jesus guy. We also visited the
Medici Chapel, which was beautiful, but also, Ý felt, illustrated the
dominance of the Church and the wealthy and the interplay between them at that time.
While things were a bit disappointing in Florence, there were some magical parts as well, such as watching a flight of bats hunting at dusk on a bridge over the Arno River, as well as hiding out in a neighborhood cafe's hidden back patio that was like an oasis, shaded by a canopy of grapevines and afforded some much needed peace and quiet. Also, we hiked up a hill to watch the city melt under a Tuscan sunset.
After Florence began our four day adventure to reach the isle of Lesvos in Greece, which consisted of one overnight train, two overnight ferries and a night in Athens. We discovered that ferrying is the most comfortable way tp travel. The combination of watching the beautiful sea, as well as having plenty of space to wander about and stretch out to sleep kept the journey from being too arduous. We also befriended a young Ŭtalian couple on one of the ferry rides through the universal card game, Uno.
Arriving in Lesvos, we took a bus ride through the twisting mountain roads to the town of Molyvos. Here we began our much needed vacation away from vacation. We found a campsite near town and set up camp for our stay. Ŭt ended up being the most relaxing part of our trip. The town was filled with friendly people and the tourism was integrated in a natural and comfortable way. The views had us pinching ourselves to make sure we weren't dreaming. There were rolling green hills and mountain peaks, panoramic views of the blue mediterranean, beautiful multi-colored pebble beaches and you could even see Turkey off in the distance. We didn't do much other than stroll around and lounge around on Mediterranean beaches where the water was as clear as glass. Saph enjoyed swimming nearly everyday and Ŭ even jumped in once. We're off to the pice Bazaar now so Ŭ must go.
Dylan and Saph
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| The Adventure Continues... 2006-07-17 09:20:57 ET |
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Buon Giorno Everyone!
I apologize for the lateness of this e-mail as I have either been too busy or too tired to write. We are just wrapping up Italy and I still have not written about Paris, a city I love and hate.
Our week in Paris included some of the most amazing as well as challenging moments of our trip. One thing I had failed to mention in my previous e-mails is the amount of football (soccer for us Americans) I've watched. As an American, I could previously count the number of football matches I've watched on one hand. Being in Europe for the World Cup has been an amazing and enlightening experience. Fate led us to be in Paris for both France's semi-final victory as well as it's crushing defeat in the final. We watched both games in a little Greek bar in the Ménilmontant district, which is lined with bars and cafes. When France won the semi-finals the entire city went electric. Everyone running, singing, screaming, chanting, youths flying wildly up and down the crowded streets on motorcycles with backseat passengers waving the French flag, and even old grannies wearing French flag-dyed wigs dancing in the streets, drinking straight from the bottle. Sadly, the next game barely slipped through Les Bleus' fingers. Luckily, there were no riots, but the entire city sulked home with a collective "C'est La Vie".
The first night in the Greek bar led us to making some unexpected friends. Sharing a table with us was Manjula and Anwar, a young, recently married Indian couple. Manjula was born in India, but adopted and raised in Paris and is a professional Bharatnatyam dancer and Anwar, who has only lived in Paris for a year and a half is a classical Indian Musician from Rajasthan. We got to see Anwar's trio, The Anwar Khan Group perform (composed of him, his brother and his cousin) as well as enjoy a home-cooked Indian meal. They were so very kind to us! Although I believe Anwar got a little too excited when I informed him that my father used to manage Nikil Banerjee.
Some of the other highlights included a late night walk down the Seine, the Museé Rodin and Museé d'art Moderné and exploring the Montmarte district of Amelie fame. We also enjoyrf an amazing French dinner (I never knew a meal consisting of just cheese and vegetables could be so good) and talked culture and politics in a student bar in the Latin Quarter. And finally, getting stuck in Shakespeare and Co., an (in)famous English bookstore during a half-hour summer downpour was a blast.
If only Paris could have been only like that, it would have been perfect. I wanted to ignore the tales of Parisian rudeness as nothing more than the exaggerations of stereotypical American tourists. Armed with some humility as well as attempting to begin conversations with my rudimentary French, I still failed to pursuade Parisian service industry that I was nothing but another American tourist and should be treated as such. WHile it was nice to finally be in a country where the coffee is strong and tasty, much like everything else in Paris, it was obnoxiously expensive (4 for a double espresso if you sit down!). The most difficult part of Paris was escaping Paris. Our Misadventure of the Trains included three conflicting stories from three different ticket agents, a missed connection, being dropped off one stop short of our destination and one night's stay in the "lovely" Venice Mestre Station. At least our earlier visit to the graves of Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir helped put the futility of the experience in perspective.
Ciao!
Dylan and Saph
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| Travels pt. Deux 2006-07-07 05:55:46 ET |
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Bonjour Everyone!
We are currently enjoying our third day in Paris, which is nothing like I expected, for better and for worse. But before I get into that, I'll begin with our week in Amsterdam.
Flying into Eindhoven Airport, we had a 90 minute bus ride to Amsterdam. This is where we discovered that while the concept of an entirely flat country is fascinating, the reality of it is quite boring. As the ride had lulled us into a sense of monotony, being dropped dropped off at Amsterdam Centraal Station was like an ice-water wake-up. We stepped out from the flatland of clogs and windmills, into an old historic city that seemed as if it was taken over by the Lost Boys of Neverland after they had decided to stop growing up at age 20.
We spent the weeks (sans Saturday) in a tiny-roomed budget hotel where the stairs nearly required ice-picks to climb as all the old buildings are tall and narrow (for property tax purposes). The city itself was fascinating. It seemed to reflect what San Francisco would be like if it were a little more liberal (yes, it's possible) and outside of U.S. Federal Law. Seeing things like soft drug and prostituition decriminalization work speaks volumes about the ineffectiveness of our justice system. For example, since they started trating drug abuse as a public health problem as opposed to a criminal problem, the amount of junkies in Amsterdam dropped from about 10,000 to about 1,000. Also, one advatage of living in such a flat country, is Amsterdam has become a bicyclist's paradise. Bikes easily outnumber cars 5 to 1 and it's definately the best way to get around town.
It seemed we picked the right summer to visit as there was a special exhibition of Rembrandt and his contemporaries. The amount of detail and impeccable use of lighting in Rembrandt's work was both beautiful and eerie. It was great to see his work before moving on to the Van Gogh Museum, which provided an excellent contrast. While Rembrandt's Realism is unparalleled, Van Gogh proved that life is more spectacular and human when viewed through the lens of madness and passion. Our museum run was made much easier by the fact that earlier we had taken a free walking tour of the city, given by a green-haired tatooed and pierced ex-pat Canadian named Donald, which gave us a solid historical understanding of the city. I would suggest that anyone who comes through Amsterdam take this tour (www.newamsterdamtours.com).
So far in Paris, I love it and hate it, but I will tell you all about that in my next e-mail.
Au Revoir,
Dylan and Saph
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