east

when i met with my friends, they had rented a car and surprised me with it. which is the most amazing thing, because, frankly, i am a bit tired of train travel after the transib, and ive never had possession of a car in a foreign country. it is amazing, we can leave whenever we want and go to places way off the tourist circuit. we drove to bratislava after a few days in prague, finally escaping the massive crowds. then we drove to budapest. you have to drive fast, people come up behind you and don't slow down, you have to get out of the way. then all of a sudden there will be a speed trap and a bunch of cars will get busted. not us though, because we are too scared and drive under the insanely high speed limit. today i saw a wild parrot in the park in the center of town, then had possibly the best gyro i have ever had in my life. the hostel is small and the people are nice, we played drinking jenga til four in the morning with a girl who works here last night, which in retrospect was a terrible idea, but a memory nonetheless.

praha

so i was on a plane again, for an entire day. i'm an official jet setter now, and it feels good to be certified. i am now in prague, which is better than i remembered it. the charles bridge smells like hops from the brewery thats near and cake from the bakeries around. i found an english bookstore today and promptly spent a weeks worth of money on books. i bought some hot wine and nursed it on a bench overlooking the river while i watched giant white swans swoop their necks around like a pack of brontosaurus with the little gulls harassing them. its a touristy place, the hordes are somewhate unbearable especially near the castle, i think i've been in multiple pictures that i'm unaware of because people take them in the oddest places. i'm meeting my friends tonight, we have an apartment rented near the river.

the scratch

sorry for the delay. a lot has happened over the past few weeks, and ive been around the world so to speak. i got word that i would have an interview with the grad school i applied to, so i decided to come back and do it in person. i changed my ticket so and came back early to san francisco. first i went to visit a very good friend whom i havent seen in four years. the last time i saw him i had just dropped him off at highway 101 in washington. he now lives in the north of south france. i went to a party where people harrassed me about hippies, nirvana, and other essential american icons. we rode bikes to the lake, and ate endless baguettes and cheese. it was a small town with no other tourists and it felt like the most authentic experience id had traveling in a while. got to watch some society of the spectacle which thoroughly warped my mind for a few days, then said goodbye to allen after promising to not let four years pass again. then i flew to SFO, my watch broke and on my layover in DC i almost missed my plane because i thought it was five thirty for four hours. then i came to stay with CC near alamo square. my friend leroy suprised me and we spent these last few days together walking around, though his foot is busted so we couldn't walk much. i think the interview went alright, im nervous about it and wish that i knew that i was going to get in, ill write more about the actual interview later, it was hard. now i'm going to the airport to continue jet setting. i'm flying back to prague then going around east europe, slovakia slovenia croatia, then flying out of istanbul in april. everyone write me please i miss and love you all.

eric

rush

spent some time in moscow, met two amazing new friends, who showed us around the city for a while and let us sleep on their floor. she is a screenwriter and he is a director/writer and so forth. they took us around to places that tourists hardly frequent. it was incredibly nice to have them show us around, because russian is usually the only thing spoken, or written, and cyrillic is not my game. i took me forever to finally figure out the metro stops. the metro itself is this massive tendon like structure of the city, with line after line, the cars are so crowded you can't move your arms. a train comes every minute. the hallways are adorned with chandeliers and statues of lenin and other archetyple ruskies. after moscow we took a train to st. petersburg which has very little face control if you can find the cool bars. we eventually met some girls who showed us where to look. but before that we ended up in a club,that we realized to late, was for teenagers. they were all drinking and making out, which was odd. there was a dance off competition that i watched. after i saw one of the kids who won it walk by me I deduced that he was probably not even thirteen yet. slept on a floor of house of eight people and three rooms. then caught the train with exactly one minute to spare, back to moscow, (we had to sprint to the platform). i bid my transib companions farewell and now i am in vienna, rather lonely, despite the fact i am in a hostel with a bar and thirty obstreperous travelers drinking in it. i'll just read borges, and maybe shave my beard .i'm not feeling sociable.

moscow

the hostel of residence is full of unique characters such as the roomate who sits in bed all day and types things on his strange electronic device giggling to himself, he is a veritable creep doctor. there is the large german who talks to you incessantly, and a russian who gave ben an unsolicited massage then explained to him the importance of timothy leary. moscow is full of unbearably beautiful women, but i don't speak russian so i have no way of communicating my adoration to them. in red square their is a man with a monkey dressed up like a child and a giant golden eagle. people give him money to make the eagle flap its wings. thats all for now,

trainsliteration

oh to be off the train, yet i still haven't loosed its remnants from my system. i still catch myself rocking about at times like a consistently did for ninety six hours of my life. i succesfully broke my record for travel distance in one swoop. the last was three days spent on a greyhound bus from portland to new orleans, this was four days from ulanbataar to moscow. at one point we found ourselves in the dining cart(see picture) and we were soon surrounded by amicable but persuasive russians and mongolians. they bought bottle after bottle of vodka. i didn't keep track of how many times we shot a drink, but it was plenty. after a while i was cheersing to ghengis khan too the delight of the mongolians, who gave me mongolian money and ordered me two beers at once. eventually i escaped, after four more shots coupled with that feeling of danger i knew i had to dissapear if was going to survive the train. the next day i spent attempting to keep care of the hangover and vowed never to go into the dining cart again. someone stole our own personal cache of vodka from our cabin while we were out, which was just as well, we suspected our sneaky neighbor. now i am in moscow, i am told the police will fine you for bueracratic reasons, i spent the day walking around and attempting to look very serious and russian so as not to be stopped, it worked well enough. they have face control here at the bars and clubs, meaning, you are not allowed to go in if you are unnatractive, unkempt, or don't appear rich. we got denied a few places and given a rather dubious table in a bad part of a sports bar. its alright i still find myself attractive enough, even if the russian bouncers don't

train living