Even Homeless People Need a Coffee Break; and Other Things I Learned on my Eurotrip

That Fateful Day - see bulletpoint #3

Oh hello, I’m back from my 2-month Eurotrip. Back to reality where money has to be made rather than spent on French wine, inflated museum admissions, and Croatian conditioner, the latter which I mistakenly used as shampoo for about 2 weeks. Feats accomplished:

• Accidently visited a male strip club/potential gay brothel in Rome
• Realized that sour cream does not compliment a day at the Croatian beach (should have gone with the container that said “Jogurt”
• Was homeless with a guy named Jeff for 22 hours in Croatia. He wasn’t homeless; we got separated from our two friends who had the address and directions to the apartment we rented. Though I write this now in good humor, let me just say that you would probably never want to get lost overnight in a foreign country while wearing a little black dress. That being said, here is the postcard that I wrote to my best friend while Jeff and I were taking a homeless coffee break.

Sunset over the Adriatic Sea - Photo by Me - For Actual Postcard Please Visit MyiPhoneDeletedHalfofMyEuropePictures.com

JUNE 12, 2010

The arrow that you see on the front of this postcard is where I slept this morning from 6 to 8am today. Yes, this means that June 11th, the day of my birth, was spent walking the streets of Zadar in Croatia (never go here) trying to find the location of the obscure

Aw, look how happy I was just hours before wanting to KILL MYSELF

“B&B” where we paid for 2 nights, without an address or street name, only the first name of the 62 year-old proprietor “Jozo” who we met at a bus station upon arrival in Zadar (don’t go here). The night began swimmingly with wine and bread and cheese, and I saw my first sunset over a sea — the Adriatic. Myself and a Canadian named Jeff left our 2 friends to use the banya, and that’s when we last saw them. However, our friends were kind enough to leave us our bottle of wine (minus half) and a pack of cigarettes, which would sustain us for the next 15 hours of wandering the city. We still haven’t found our friends. We don’t know where we’re sleeping tonight. I love you, wish I talked to you on my birthday. [Then I bought a phone card and called her]

• Decided I hate Croatians At Work:

Croatian Taxi Driver: “My shift, it is over. You must go. I will leave you here” [at a random neighborhood bar miles away from town]

Croatian Train Worker, Job Description Unknown: [Enters train compartment, mutters something in Croatian, I pull out my ticket and give it to her]. “Passport.” [Eyes close halfway in annoyance. I give her my passport.] “You must take off your shoes before you put on the seat.”  I completely agree. These chairs are nearly spotless, there are definitely no pen marks or mysterious streaks of brown crud embedded into the casino carpet -colored upholstery.

And any attempt to order a coffee from a Croatian Barista has been an absolute sham. The response to “espresso with cold milk” or “espresso with milk and ice” — even spoken in Italian — is always “No.” Is there a run on ice in Croatia?

"Really? Did you really just flip me the bird? And get down from there, don't even pretend like we're the same height, because we're not"

• Saw major French penis at a nude beach then bought some pretty perfume
• Rode the train through Tuscany listening to this Ludacris song
• Had an affair with Italian chips
• Decided against kidnapping a stray dog in Venice and naming him Ciao

Of course, while travelling I Found Myself blah blah blah — no, but mostly the trip emphasized something I had learned a couple years ago while travelling within the US. No matter where you go, everything is exactly the same. Whether you’re in Massachusetts, North Carolina, or Arizona, shopping plazas are the watering hole of suburbia, Walmart is always down the street and you’re never completely lost until you don’t hit a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts after 5 minutes of driving. It’s good to get the f–k out of the US every once in awhile, or at least once in a lifetime. I personally can’t wait to go back. :)

Manarola, one town in the Cinque Terre, Italy

Trevi Fountain, Rome

Hot Dog only 3,50 - Street Food in Paris

Cape d'Ail, my favorite beach in the South of France

Noli, a beach in Liguria Italy

Last Night at the Rodeo

In case I didn’t mention it, I’ve been in Texas this past week for spring break. I’m here in Dallas visiting my cousins, partly to get some sun, and partly to see if this is where I want to move to when I break out of the death grip that is college this May. So far I love it here. We visited Austin last weekend (more on that later), and spent the rest of the week in Dallas.

I feel that I’ve accomplished a lot this past week. First, I’ve realized that not everyone in Texas is fat. Austin is teeming with runners, and I actually have grown so accustomed to seeing thin people in Dallas that I do a double-take when someone larger walks by. Which I’m not sure is an accomplishment, but whatever. Second, I’ve forged a relationship with my cousin’s two cats — a major feat because the older one, Rascal, is apparently a punk ass bitch to most people. I feel special. Oh. Two accomplishments might not be “a lot” on paper, but it was in my mind. But onto the rodeo topic.

awkwardface.com

Being my last weekend in Texas, my cousin Laura bought us 2 tickets to the rodeo. This entailed using lots of hair spray, squeezing into tight flared jeans (which I haven’t done since I was 17), and layering on the eye makeup. I felt like we were going to an 8th grade dance.

We drove to Mesquite, Texas, ended up at a dark, empty building (wrong night), and turned around and drove 50 minutes in the opposite direction. We ended up at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, where we paid $12 to see Billboard’s newest sweethearts, Micky and the Motorcars. After seeing several cowboy hats, 2-steppers, and a girl in a baby tee, we decided to check out the rest of Fort Worth. = Sup tumbleweeds. Really, if you can avoid the city, do so please.

All in all, thanks for sitting through my anticlimactic story. I’ll have more interesting things to write about at a later date, when I’m not salivating over a Boboli pizza cooking in my cousin’s oven.

“Demain, le Bubblegum pour tout!”

“A very hard word. MASSACHUSETTS!”

I’ve dreamt about visiting Paris since January of seventh grade, when my foreign language teacher stopped teaching us Spanish (hated it) and began teaching French. She pulled down a map of the country and pointed out les Alpes, le Seine, and le big yellow star which was Paris. The first French word I learned: le crayon. French for pencil, in case you didn’t know.

In my third year of college, I signed up for an extra class to brush up on my conversational French. I planned to spend that spring’s semester in Paris. Two weeks into the class I realized only one class at a French university would apply towards my degree… It didn’t make sense.

I’m 22 and I’m still dreaming about walking up to the giant glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. I want to see the city as the Impressionist painters saw it (and I’m sure if I take out my contacts I very well could). I want to nibble on a croissant in a cafe like Gene Kelly did in An American in Paris (disregarding the fact that it was a cafe inside a Hollywood movie studio). I want to think fondly of my cute old high school French teacher and hum “Aux Champs-Elysees” as I walk down l’Avenue. I want to look up at the Eiffel Tower and imagine I am Sarah Jessica Parker except NOT sad about being away from my closest friends. Really, I just want to walk down the adorable little streets and hear people speaking that intoxicating language and see them going about their fabulous European-Union daily lives.

Summer in the South

It took a buttload of willpower to walk away from the crashing 6 foot-high waves of Salter Path Beach in North Carolina. Every five steps, I would stop, take a picture, trudge ahead, stop, take a picture, trudge ahead… Finally I reached the dunes and put my sandals back on. Whoever this Salter guy is, I’d like to thank him via blog for his cool ‘path.’ The walk from the beach to the car is a wooden boardwalk overgrown with trees from a small forest.

Being from Massachusetts, going to the beach means hopping a cement wall to face murky, 2 foot-high waves with  temperatures that numb the toes after 60 seconds. The Southern friends that I went with really enjoyed making fun of my Oohs and Aahs.

Salter Path Beach is on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and it’s about 2 hours from where I’m living for the summer. If you haven’t heard, I’m at East Carolina University all summer for an internship. The first time someone threw the “Pirates” mascot gang sign at me, I thought they meant “limp dick.” (Just make a hook with your finger. You’ll see what I mean.)

The beaches in the South aren’t the only things that are in stark contrast to what we have in the North.

Here, they smile even when they don’t know you, they do things slower (which can get really irritating), and they have gas stations that sell fast food, called Sheetz. I’m probably going to avoid it. And most people here have never been up North. Someone even asked me if Boston was in New York. :)
Since I’ve been here, I’ve bodysurfed, tried on a lab coat, seen multiple palm tree farms, bought a hunting hat at “The Walmart,” found a beastly crushed spider on my heel, and smoked watermelon hookah. It’s not much,

but I have the whole summer ahead of me!

Hannah Mantana: The Major Motion Picture

Here’s the full 5-minute comedy my friends and I made for Campus Moviefest. We won the AT&T mobile phone award (for using their phone in the movie in a creative way) and they’re showing our movie this weekend at an awards show in NYC.

Hannah Mantana: THE MOVIE

My plans for this weekend? Filming a local-style commercial at Walmart w/ my girls Megan and Katie. (“Welcome ta Walmaht, here we have ill-fitting clothes and Rubbermaid containers” etc).

Yours forever,
Samantha

My Brief Stint at Boston University

!ATTENTION PROSPECTIVE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!

For the LOW LOW PRICE of $1000 a month, Boston University is NOW OFFERING housing at Warren Towers complete with–

• !!!A quiet study lounge set daily to the comfortable temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit!!!
• !!!Wireless that works almost 7% of the time!!!
• !!!80 degree dorm rooms!!!
• !!!Washing machines that will NEVER stop working mid-wash, 33% of the time!!!
• !!!Mail-room workers who will ONLY open up your mail and steal parental monetary gifts if the envelope is in the shape of a greeting card!!!
• !!!A guest policy which will generate pure appreciation for the absolute virtues of Hitler’s Nazi Germany!!!
• !!!A computer lab equipped with one printer that ONLY fails to work when you most need it!!!

GET IT NOW BEFORE IT’S

GONE
GONE
GONE!

I just found this in my old Livejournal, dated March 26th 2006. I’m so glad I peaced the fcuk out of that hellhole! :)

Next Year is DOOMED!

Here’s where I make fun of the classes I have to take next semester.

To find the probability that I will take 2 pencils, position them eye-width apart on the desk, then accelerate my head in a downward motion, I’ve signed up for a class called Statistics for Economics and Business.

Hm… I wonder how I will debit and credit the books for those golden parachutes and million dollar bonuses? I bet I’ll find out in Managerial Accounting!

Business Law. Isn’t that a contradiction?

For Sale: Poorly photoshopped white poster. Awkwardly positioned man not included.

So let me get this straight. I ring in the tee-shirt, take the money, put the money in the cash register, give you your change, put the tee-shirt in the bag, give you the bag — SLOW DOWN!!! I CAN’T HANDLE THIS! It’s just TOO MUCH! Looks like I need to take Sales Management.

Who am I? What is life? These questions, and many others, can* be answered in Fundamental Information Systems, a class so fundamental to life that it is saved until the last year of your optional college education.

*probably can’t

—

Tomorrow is the Campus Moviefest finale where Hannah mAntana: THE MOVIE will be shown to a whole bunch of college students. I’ll update on whether we’ve won big enough to be sent to NYC for the regional awards!

EDIT: We won the AT&T Mobile Phone award!

Hannah Mantana: THE MOVIE is being screened at the Northern Regional Finale in New York City on Saturday, May 2nd. Yay! The full movie will be posted on Campusmoviefest.com soon. I’ll post it on my blog when it is. :)

Shootin’ a Movie

You may have noticed a lack of me writing lately. I’ve been busy getting C’s in biology, interviewing for a fictional job, and shooting a movie with my friends for Campus Moviefest at my college. Here are some pictures; I’ll throw the movie on Youtube by Monday. I won’t tell you what it’s about yet so you might have to piece it together from the pictures…

Basically, they lent us an HD video camera, a MacBook Pro w/ iMovie and FinalCut (which is a mystery to me and I don’t intend to solve it), two new Samsung phones (which I’ve been using to buy ringtones, call people, and probably try to call my cousin in England), and a tripod. AND we can win prizes. They spoiled us. The movie can only be five minutes and we only get 6 days to complete it. Including editing. PHEW.

With all this excitement, I’ve pretty much blown off all my schoolwork, which is only Calculus problems – let’s face it, I go to a state school. It is what it is. :)

So I’ll post the full movie on Youtube by Sunday. Oh, it’s a comedy. Obviously.

Cheap-Ass Travel

If you have no money (like me), the best way to travel is to do resort work. Tons of resorts across the US and abroad need seasonal workers, and to attract us they offer sick benefits. At this job, we got to use powerboats for free and for as long as we wanted, we used wakeboards/waterskis/tubes/kayaks for free, we got a discount on the gas (which, split between 4 people ends up being $16 for an entire day of wakeboarding – basically free), and we got to go on tons of free employee trips to tourist spots. Oh, and housing was $50 a month, meals were Welfare-cheap, and they even gave us a free week on a houseboat if we finished out our contract. (I didn’t get to use mine because I live on the other side of the country.) This is the website that I and alot of other people have used to score jobs.

On that note, I’d like to begin showing off my next summer-job destination. Hopefully. They better love my application..

SUMMER 2009: THE NEXT FRONTIER

Washington state, you’re SO HOT right now. If I was a gentle but slow giant named Lennie and you were a mouse, I’d keep you in my pocket and stroke you. Don’t get the literary joke?:

I haven’t even BEEN to Washington, but the Internet is making it look so damn sexy. Lock the door, unzip your jeans, and check out this national park porn, sponsored by 1-800-RED-HOTT:

Her name is Olympic National Park. She loves stretching out naked on an empty beach.. with or without you. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

When Olympic National Park goes out with the girls, she’s fantasizing about you with your pants off. That’s her secret. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

She’s living three separate lives. No one knows. Hear her secrets when you Dial 9 now to talk to Olympic National Park.

Have you been a bad boy? Olympic National Park wants to teach you a lesson. A lesson you won’t forget. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

1-800-RED-HOTT

“Where local girls go wild”

Now that I’ve gotten you all hot and bothered, let’s talk about Presidents.

It only makes sense that my boy Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the mastermind behind National Olympic Park. FACT: He was my favorite US President ever since I did a paper on him in the eleventh grade. You tha man, FDR. (IMO, Obama should ditch the $900 billion-dollar tax rebate crap and do what FDR did after the Depression – create a bunch of jobs with conservation projects.) <– That wasn’t very Escapist of me and I do apologize. Ish.

Lake Quinault Lodge is the place I hope to get a job at. They offer hiking, kayaking, fishing, and apparently the rest comes easy. Kind of like your mom.

I’ve also applied at Stehekin Landing Resort in Washington (equally sexy), Sequoia/Kings Canyon in Fresno, California, and I did a general application for all Aramark resorts including the one pictured above. Lake Tahoe would be my second choice. A couple friends of mine worked there and loved it.

To be blunt, remaining in Massachusetts over the summer pretty much guarantees unemployment. So I’m escaping. :) <–shameless plug

Inauguration: You 1.8 million think you’re sooooo cool

Watching the Inauguration parade in DC

Videos are sprinkled throughout. (Let’s face it, Interneter. I know you. You’re going to ignore the text and go straight to my videos. I’m okay with that. I wrote this mainly for myself and for Jenn Berry, who’s in England, and made this trip happen for me.)

Premier Bus Lines deposited us onto the mean streets of DC at 5:30 in the morning. (By “Premier” they must mean “Comparable to sitting on a moonbounce while children are jumping”). The sky was black, the moon was thumbnail-like, and the Capitol dome was brightly looming in the distance. It was the first and last time I would see a government monument. http://www.myspace.com/suspensefulmusic

Vendors scampered about arranging their Obama hand-puppets and Obama air fresheners (“They smell like change, 3 dollars”) on tables. Normal people were out too, alot of them; it was kind of like a vampire movie. Mental note: write screenplay for Political Interview with the Vampire, starring Denzel Washington as Barack Obama and Danny DeVito as Anderson Cooper.

Jenn, I REALLY regret not buying you this

We got breakfast at the Hyatt Hotel. Coincidently, out of 100 tables, we sat at the table the college freshmen behind us on the bus had sat.

Me: “Which one of you decided to eat Doritos at 2 o’clock in the morning?” [The three freshmen look at eachother]

College Freshmen #1: “Me”

Me: “FUCKKKK YOUUUUUUU”

We walked away to get coffee and I said to Greg ‘That’s not an awkward breakfast or anything.” Greg’s eye twitched a little so I know he heard me and laughed on the inside. He was pretty much asleep still. Hey thanks, Premier Bus Lines! Anytime I want my boyfriend turned into a shell of his former self, I’ll call you.

We had our awkward breakfast and went outside to test out personal space boundaries for about 2 and a half hours, eventually rounded a corner, and ended up at the same place we started.

I’d like to give props for the creativity that others exhibited for trying to move through the giant, lovable, masses of Obamafans:

1. Lady holding up a plastic police badge: “POLICE, I got a sick lady with me, let me through”

2. Crowd: “MOVE – THAT – BUS”

3. Southern old lady jamming her Prohibited-Item walker into peoples’ backs (if it was my back I would have been REALLY MAD! but ultimately would have DONE NOTHING! as you may have learned from my old people entry.)

Hours later, a cop told us that they stopped letting people into the Mall, due to “a water main break” which immediately sounded like code for “Bomb threat: time to shit pants”. We found an Irish bar with 10 TVs (shout-out to The Irish Channel) where we gathered with other people who didn’t get into the ceremony. Even people with tickets were there. Today, a little sentence in USA Today (jinxyouowemeasoda!) explained that the Purple Ticket gate was never opened because Barry down at Metal Detector Deliveries R Us delivered to “Mashmington, DC” by accident.

We drove 11 hours to get there, to watch it all happen on TV. Whatevs, even the 1.8 million people who got into the actual ceremony ended up watching it on TV (see below), but in the arctic cold (as CNN said, “Temperature in DC: 25 degrees, feels like 11,” to which I remarked “Where do they come up with that measurement?” and some big black guy laughed.)

A picture of a picture of a picture.. wait I think I just blew your mind

I talked to people from San Diego, West Virginia, North Carolina, and heard the legend of The People That Came from Ethiopia (What? I know..) This was the reason I wanted to come to DC most. I wanted to experience history alongside the other people who dropped everything to come out there and be a part of it all.

And besides seeing the Reverend Al Sharpton, I even saw Brink…

Editorialists, bloggers, and comic strip artists can satire the SHIT out of the nation’s optimism towards Obama’s presidency. Why not put on some black eyeliner, line up your Taking Back Sunday albums, and make a cozy spot in the corner to cry in? Don’t forget to Twitter about how life sucks every half hour.

Please excuse my cold sore:

DVD Extras

DC’s Reaction to Bush during the Inauguration:

DC’s “Chinatown” . . I think they were hinting at something: