The Gainesville experience

My parents came to visit my sister and me for the weekend. I hadn’t seen them since the start of the semester two months ago, so it was nice. We had a good time going to some restaurants and doing some shopping. Usually, I’m the one who’s visiting them, but they like Gainesville. It’s a unique place.

Yesterday, I was walking through Turlington Plaza when a guy tried to get my attention. He was dressed like an extra in a biblical epic. I had seen him standing there many times before, and other UF students will probably know who I’m talking about. I wasn’t really sure what his deal was, but I was about to find out.

The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a British accent. Next, I realized he was a Krishna guy. I wanted to be on my way, so I let him say what he wanted to say and get it over with. He said he only talked to the smartest-looking people. And so he told me, a smart person, a little bit about why his Hare Krishna beliefs made so much sense.

He said that people place too much importance on their physical bodies, and that even though I’m a good-looking version of George Harrison, I won’t always be. He asked for a donation, and I couldn’t think of how to get myself out of giving him a dollar. In exchange, he gave me, now a smart and attractive person, a book on meditation that had interviews with George Harrison and John Lennon.

With that, I had a chance to continue on my way. If his religion is so great, couldn’t he have tried to win me over without schmoozing? In any case, I need to work on saying no.

Later, I missed my bus home and had to wait for the next one, which was, of course, late. It was dark by the time the bus arrived. I had already read most of the newspaper and done the crossword puzzle, so there wasn’t much to do on the bus except look out the windows. I couldn’t even do that because it was too dark, so I had to be content with listening to people.

During the ride, a guy started talking to the woman sitting next to me. He said he had been to one of her poetry readings on campus a few weeks before and wanted to compliment her on her work. She mentioned that she had one book out and was working on a second.

I was pretty sure that she was a particular woman I had read about several times in the newspaper, a local resident who had turned to a career as a poet to lift herself out of poverty. As soon as I struck up a conversation with her, I knew. She was missing some of her teeth, a detail I remembered from the articles. She had a pleasant demeanor.

I had wanted to buy a copy of her book ever since I had read about her, so I asked if she had any copies with her. As it happened, she did, so she signed one for me, and I gave her the money. Not long afterward, the bus reached my stop, so I thanked her and left.

Here’s a browsable map of London from 1868. (Via The Presurfer)

See the first cell phone, digital camera, digital music player, and more: World’s First Gadgets. (Via The Presurfer)

Homegoing

It’s that time of year again. Homecoming, a university holiday, was yesterday, so I had no classes (or work, since I work at the university). I took advantage of the opportunity to have some fun. As I said last weekend,

I’m going to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens with Andrea and friends on Thursday night. I haven’t been there since I was too short or wimpy to ride the brand-new Montu, and I’ve never been to a Halloween-type event at a theme park (omg omg omg so awesome how could you not ahve ever been).

So we set off on Thursday afternoon. Once we got to Tampa, we had dinner at Friday’s, where Andrea’s friend Billy met up with us. Next, we headed to Busch Gardens. It was dark by the time we got there.

For Howl-O-Scream, the rides that aren’t rollercoasters turn into haunted houses and the rides that are rollercoasters turn into rollercoasters at night. The haunted houses have different themes like haunted prison, haunted sorority house, haunted house, etc. I didn’t think they were too scary, but some people in line behind me begged to differ. A lot. But as long as you realize that people are going to be jumping out at you and screaming at every turn, you can prepare yourself for it. (Actually, they seemed to single out the people who looked like they would be scared the most; most of them didn’t jump out at me.)

Also, rollercoasters. I finally did ride Montu (and Kumba as well). The rollercoaster enthusiasts of us also wanted to go on SheiKra, but it would have taken an hour and a half to wait in the line, so we decided to go to some more haunted houses instead. Maybe next time. Rollercoasters are awesome at night.

The lines seemed to get longer and longer as the night went on; Andrea said it was much more crowded than it was when she went last year. At 00:30 (yeah), the park started closing, so we headed out. After parting ways with Billy, we headed to Andrea’s house in Lakeland, where we spent the night.

The next morning, we enjoyed some doughnuts (courtesy of Andrea’s parents) before setting off for Gainesville. The traffic in G-ville was terrible, probably due to the homecoming pep rally, Gator Growl, which was that night. I didn’t go, as usual, but at least they got a comedian I had heard of. Today’s football game is designated as the homecoming game, which doesn’t really mean anything (I think) except that we’re really supposed to win.

Anyway, I had a good time with Andrea and pals, and I’d be glad to go on some kind of trip like that again.

Here’s a funny letter (supposedly) from John F. Kennedy. (Via J-Walk Blog)

The BBC has an interesting article on Samuel Johnson’s influential dictionary of the English language.

The information superhighway

Once in a while, I post ridiculous things I wrote during the pre-World-of-Stuff days. Sometimes I’ve found them written on posters or in notebooks, but quite often, they’re sitting right here on my computer. My “documents” folder has tons of old things, some of which I don’t even remember writing.

In the year 2000 (as opposed to, you know, the color 2000 or something), my school, St. Elizabeth’s, still didn’t have a web site. This document, dated March 7, 2000, provides a solution that was apparently dreamed up by me.

Why
Saint Elizabeth
Needs a
Web Site.
|————————-//————————-|
An Essay by Jordon Kalilich, Fifth Grade.

I am tired of other private schools being on the Internet when we are just here, moping around. Highlands Christian and Pine Crest are leaving us in the e-dust. There are several items to consider before making a Web site for a school, and I will dicuss some of them below:

I. Convenience
A Web site is very convenient, especially for a school. Instead of having to phone the school and pay for the costs, one could log on to the Internet and find information there. Aside from saving money, it’s quick and memorizing long phone numbers is not needed.

II. Cost
Creating a Web site is usually free. There are Web sites that allow individuals and orginazations to create Web sites. One such service is at http://www.angelfire.com . To make a URL (Web site address) easier to remember, a domain name can be bought. Most domain services charge the first year free, the second year $70, and $35 each year thereafter. Of course, most schools wouldn’t have a hard time getting that money. One of the most popular domain name services is at http://www.register.com .

III. Advertising, Etc.
One cannot just make a Web site and expect a thousand people to come. Web sites need to advertise to be visited. One such Web site, http://www.safe-audit.com , works with banner ads and advertising. Search engines are another key to popularity. Registering on search engines will help boost any Web site’s visits, especially when you can register to 30 of them at one Web site. This can be done at http://www.addme.com .

IV. User-Friendliness
If one could name anything, it could be put on the Internet. Many things can be customized on a Web site. Using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), things that could be customized include, but not limited to: Font, text color, text size, background color, hyperlink colors, and things concerning images. A Web site with basic HTML tips is at http://www.htmlgoodies.com and http://www.htmlclinic.com .

That is why we need a Web site, how we can get one, and what we could do with it. Let this be brought to the attention of the principal, the staff, the student council, Ms. Ewing, and the entire student body. Thank you all and have a nice day.

I don’t remember ever delivering that address (if that’s what it was supposed to be). Eventually, the school did set up a web site. The URL was a third- or fourth-level domain name that was impossible to remember because it had nothing to do with the name of the school and, in fact, no apparent meaning at all. The site was also private; each family had to create an account and log in. It was not ideal.

And almost ten years after writing that, a lot has changed about the way people run personal web sites. We let Googlebot find our new web pages. CSS makes styling pages easier. theworldofstuff.com costs me $7.99 per year. And I hate advertising.

Nowadays, my old school has a new web site that uses a customized version of MediaWiki. And it’s open to the public, so I can see which of my teachers are still there! It’s kind of interesting to see how things have changed in the six years since I was a student there.

Thank you all and have a nice day.

The Katzenklavier is a theoretical musical instrument that’s a sort of piano with cats inside. Instead of strings, each hammer strikes a cat with a different tone of voice. It sounds like something out of a cartoon, but it was described in the 18th or 19th century by some guy who thought it would be a great way to cure people of ADD. You can’t make this stuff up! I wonder if anyone’s ever built one.

From mental_floss: 10 Secret Menu Items from restaurant chains around the US.

Bed

My new apartment came furnished, and my bedroom has a full-size bed. It’s been kind of hard to get used to. I’ve been sleeping in a twin-size bed for as long as I can remember, and I can’t imagine why a normal person would need or want a bed wide enough for two people. Well, I can, but still.

I have two pillows on my new bed, so there’s a potential for an ever-raging debate over which side I should sleep on. I’ve decided to sleep on the side of my nightstand when I have to wake up at a specific time in the morning and on the other side when I don’t. It makes a sort of sense. Still, I feel like I shouldn’t have to make that decision every night.

Also, every day without fail, I’ve made my bed upon waking up, which is something I never used to do. Is this the beginning of OCD?

But seriously, I guess it is nice to live in a reasonably clean-looking space. That’s a good attitude for me to have since I’ll have to keep this place reasonably clean.

39% of Americans want the government “to stay out of Medicare.” In other words, 39% of Americans don’t know that Medicare is a government program. It has a cheesy name, so what do they think it is? (Via J-Walk Blog)

Here are 21 Oddly Named Places and the Stories Behind Them. I live near the first one (Boca Raton, Florida). (Via J-Walk Blog)

Blue tape

During my freshman year, I was hanging out with some members of Gator Freethought after a meeting, and I mentioned my plan to start an Esperanto club. The president of Gator Freethought offered me a word of caution.

It’s a lot of work to start a club, he said. “There’s a lot of red tape.”

One thing that student organization presidents have to do is attend a training session at the beginning of each year. They mostly just go over the rules that you had to go over yourself to renew your club’s registration a week or two ago. But, in any case, there are a few morsels of new information.

As I found out at a training session on Wednesday, one of the new rules for this year is that organizations can bring “outside” food into meetings as long as it doesn’t have to be temperature controlled. Previously, clubs had to rely on the student union’s catering service for all their food needs. (Their pizza is the worst I’ve ever had, so that’s a welcome change.)

The woman explaining the new rules mentioned as an afterthought that we couldn’t bring non-Pepsi products to meetings.

Wait, what? Yeah. You should have heard the uproar in the room.

Apparently, since UF has a deal to sell Pepsi everywhere on campus and tout it as the official soft drink of the Gator Nation or whatever, student organizations—which, as the presenter stressed in another part of the program, are not part of the university—are bound by that sponsorship deal as well. Capitalism rears its ugly head, stifling consumer choice and common sense.

Where does it end? Are Coca-Cola’s Hi-C juice boxes out of the question? If I want to bring oatmeal to a meeting, does it have to be made by PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats? How much money is the university getting from this stupid deal, and could it be had without making personae non gratae out of those who have the good sense to spit in the face of its stifling provisions?

Since then, I’ve noticed that the ubiquitous Pepsi machines around campus say “Thanks for Choosing Pepsi.” Some choice we have, all right.

So, the university gives everybody some free web space. Not many people know about or take advantage of the offer because it’s not 1996 anymore, but I thought I’d put my own space to good use.

As viewed from a campus IP address (and forwarded to my screen by SSH tunneling):

And from off-campus:

A real ’50s instructional film: Dating: Do’s and Don’ts. It’s in color, too! (Part of the film is missing, hence the lack of an introduction.)

Famous films edited down to (about) five seconds: 5 Second Movies.

And finally, I know this site isn’t new, but I’ve never linked to it here before: Will It Blend?

The club scene

As I took a seat in one of my classes today, the guy next to me said, “World of Stuff?”

He explained that he’d been to this web site and wanted to freak me out by randomly mentioning it. I asked how he had heard of it, and he said he couldn’t remember, but he remembered my face, presumably from the About Me page.

I wish that happened more often. Thanks, random dude!

As this school year has been getting up to speed, student organizations that have been dormant over the summer are springing back to life. I’m active in several organizations, so this means exciting haps for me.

Yesterday, I handed out flyers for Get Carded on campus. Actually, we weren’t handing them out as much as going into dorms and putting them in residents’ boxes. Not the mailboxes, but they also have these, like… cubbies. Yeah. They have cubbies. It was weird going to campus on a Sunday and seeing people mulling around because for two years, I was mulling around with them. In fact, one of the dorms I went to was Hume Hall, the dorm where I lived for two years. From what I saw, it’s the same as it was a few months ago, when I last lived there.

Florida Free Culture, of which I’m now the secretary, is getting into full swing as well. There’s already been an organizational meeting, during which many events were planned or at least discussed. Coming up soon are the Student Organization Fair, at which FFC will be present, and Free Your PC, our signature event during which we install antivirus software and free software on students’ computers.

And then there’s my own club, the Esperanto Club. Ah, yes. I’m hoping to have an even better year than last year, which should be pretty easy. For our first meeting, Andy and I will be talking not only about Esperanto but also about how we used it throughout our epic trip to Europe this summer. If we can drum up enough publicity to attract people who’ll want to hear about our amazing story and this exciting language, this year will definitely be a success.

Here’s an awesome time-lapse video that tracks the sun around the sky for a week near one of the poles. (Via The Presurfer)

Peter over at Greatplay.net came up with a cool idea that I wish I’d thought of: a random featured article from Wikipedia.

If someone told you they couldn’t send e-mail to people over 500 miles away, would you say they were crazy? That’s probably what this one guy thought when he was confronted with just that problem. Find out how the case of the 500-mile e-mail was solved.

Nine days and five hours away

I had a little get-together for my birthday on Friday night. It was also a sort of coming-home party. I got to see some friends I hadn’t seen in a year or two and also some friends I hadn’t seen in a day or two. I got a slideshow going of all the pictures I had taken in Europe. It would have taken four and a half hours to complete, but everyone (including myself) left long before it could finish. The fun moved to TJ’s house. That’s where the fun usually is. I’ve also been there several times since to spend the night. I wish I could do that during the school year, but alas, college is five hours away.

I usually do a good job of following the news, but while I was in Europe for two months, I was basically living under a rock. I found out that Michael Jackson died, but that was about it. (That was the night we spent in Pisa. It was late, and Andy was outside the hotel room, making calls on our computer. I was channel surfing [we actually had a TV] and saw that Thriller was playing. When it was over, I saw “Michael Jackson 1958-2009″ on the screen. I couldn’t believe it, so I flipped to some other channels, including the BBC and CNN, which were all over the story. When Andy came back, I told him the news and jokingly asked if he had heard of Michael Jackson. The day before, I had found out that Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett had died; Andy had never heard of either of them.) (Oh, and I also found out that Billy Mays died. I wasn’t completely cut off from the world.)

But when I came back, I learned that the government was providing cash for clunkers, that Microsoft had rebranded its search engine, and that there was a new reality show called Police Women of Broward County. As a citizen of Broward County, Florida, I thought it would be interesting to see how the area would be represented. I actually watched an episode. The show is every bit as horrible as it sounds. As a show that showcases crime, it’s inherently unflattering to the region, and I can only wonder what went through the heads of the BSO brass when they decided to try to give our county a bad reputation across America.

When I upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu in April, an annoying new bug/feature was that the operating system would only check for non-critical updates once a week irrespective of my preference to check daily. Or something like that. I was gone from my computer for two months, okay? Anyway, the official fix didn’t do anything (or maybe it did but I didn’t get any non-critical updates after that). The instructions I found here seemed to do the trick. In short: sudo chmod ugo+x /etc/cron.daily/apt, followed by the official fix (gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false). Of course!!

The New York Times has a lengthy article about The Beatles: Rock Band, which comes out next month. If you’re particularly interested in The Beatles or Rock Band, have a read. (Annoying registration possibly required; use BugMeNot.) (Via waxy.org)

This is what the Internet is all about: Cats That Look Like Hitler.

Here’s the true and exciting story of the little-known State of Franklin. (Via The Presurfer)

Into the world came a new feeling

After sending my last post through the tubes, I went to see Gerda Disappeared, a recent video adaptation of Claude Piron’s classic adventure that starts with simple words and gets more complex with each chapter. Apparently my new friend Katja had tipped off the organizers of the Summer Esperanto Study that it was my birthday, so they presented me with a T-shirt and a round of applause. I was glad to get the T-shirt for free because I almost bought it in the bookshop earlier that day. The video was unbearably long and stupendously cheesy, but it would probably be useful for beginners.

Katja’s and my rooms were next to each other, and they had a common balcony. Katja had been saying throughout the day that she wanted to spend some time there. After the video, it was late, so we made our way upstairs. She borrowed a lighter from someone, but it wasn’t for smoking. She had candles.

We took a couple of chairs out to the balcony. Katja set the candles on a sort of ashtray-like thing that looked like a table. She also brought out juice and cookies. Her roommate joined us for some food and drink but then went to bed.

It was late; it was dark and quiet. Stars twinkled above the darkened trees. The city lights of Modra flickered in the distance. Further away shone Bratislava. All was calm around us. Silence… then, magic. It was the best birthday present.

On Tuesday, we went on an excursion to a castle called Smolenice. Castles are usually old, but this one was mostly from the 20th century. We actually didn’t get to see very much of it because it’s apparently used as the headquarters of some scientific organization. The highlight was going up to the tower and seeing the town all around.

For the second part of the excursion, we went to a cave called Driny. We had to walk through the woods a bit to get there, but it was worth it. The cave was cool… literally!!! It looked a bit like every other cave I’ve been to, but that was all right because I enjoy chillin’ with stalactites and stalagmites (or ‘tites and ‘mites if you want to sound hip). I didn’t take too many pictures inside the cave because the tour guide said we would have to pay for the privilege. Lame.

On Wednesday, I didn’t go to class in the morning because I wanted to sleep in. I needed to pay for upcoming excursions, but I didn’t have much cash handy. After dinner, Katja and I took a walk into town, which took about 45 minutes. As we reached the town square, it was getting very dark, and I realized why. There was a huge storm coming.

After I got some money from an ATM, we bought some ice cream. Then it started to rain, so we took refuge in a bus shelter. Well, Katja didn’t mind the rain, but I did. I was worried that we would be stranded. So

awweee jordan did u kiss in the rain??? No. Don’t interrupt me.

So I decided to start looking for a bus that could whisk us away. Actually, Katja didn’t want to get on the buses that passed by because she was enjoying the show. There was some lightning and a little rain. Then, as the clock tower chimed, all the lights went out everywhere. They came back on eventually, and the storm subsided. We decided to walk back.

There were street lights along much of the road but not all of it. At one point we were going uphill with no lights. I could hardly see. It felt like something out of a dream. Once we were almost there, it started raining again. I went to bed not long after that.

On Thursday, we went on an excursion to a castle called Devin. This one was on the outskirts of Bratislava, at the confluence of the Danube and some other river. (I don’t have much online time, so I can’t do fact checking, okay?) It actually was a genuinely old castle that was largely destroyed by Napoleon (the rascal) and not rebuilt.

After the castle, we checked out the old part of the city, which was situated on the blue Danube.

There were lots of narrow and/or pedestrian streets. The main landmark was a church.

It was nice to walk around, but it was also a little tiring, especially because we had to wait a while for our bus to come back.

That evening was International Evening, where participants could share details their respective cultures. It was essentially an informal talent show with mostly musical acts. Andy gave a piano accompaniment for some guy on a traditional song from somewhere, and then, to represent our dear United States, he did a jazz number on his own. The evening went on for quite a while, so Katja and I left early.

On Friday, there was an all-day excursion to Vienna. It was also Katja’s last day (she had to take a train from Vienna), so we wanted to make it a good one.

The highlight of the morning was our trip to the Esperanto Museum, which I totally didn’t know existed.

It showcased a small part of the Austrian National Library’s collection on Esperanto and other constructed languages. Besides interactive exhibits about the history and structure of the language, there were old posters for Esperanto congresses, copies of the book that introduced Esperanto to the world, and some products with Esperanto names. (Ever heard of Movado watches? The name is Esperanto for “movement”—i.e., the Esperanto movement—and about half of their models still have Esperanto names.)

The museum, while tiny, doesn’t treat Esperanto as a curiosity; it keeps Esperanto-speaking visitors in mind. The text accompanying the exhibits was in German, Esperanto, and English; brochures were available in Esperanto; and one of the guys who worked there spoke to us in Esperanto.

Since we couldn’t all fit in the Esperanto Museum at once, half of the group went upstairs to the Globe Museum, which was larger and actually kind of interesting.

After a cafeteria-type lunch at some cafeteria-type restaurant, Katja and I split from the group (don’t worry, it was okay) so we could do some stuff on our own. First, she needed to go to the train station to get her tickets out of town. Then we were pretty much free to wander around for a couple of hours. We went to the park at City Hall, where I had enjoyed Indian food and beer with Andy and his relative a week before. After that, we strolled back toward Schwedenplatz, where the bus would be waiting.

We arrived there early, so we had enough time to kiss on the banks of the Danube. Then we went to the bus so Katja could get her things and we could say goodbye with one last kiss. Just like that, my week-long dream was over. The ride back to Slovakia was quiet.

That evening, the Summer Esperanto Study came to an official end. We sat in the candlelit cafeteria and sang some songs. Afterward, there was some crazy fun and dancing, but I went to bed early again. I had had some long days.

On Saturday, the people who were left said their goodbyes, and the lucky few of us who were going to the 65th International Youth Congress of Esperanto (IJK) hopped into their cars or a chartered van. Six hours later, we were in the city of Liberec, which, while in the Czech Republic, is not near Prague, which you’re going to tell me is a wonderful city.

At the IJK, Andy and I met up with Matthieu, who we stayed with while we were in Paris. Then we went to get dinner. During the meal, I realized that this was a high-profile Esperanto event and wondered which famous names might be there. Just then, a man came to our table and greeted us in English and then in Esperanto. I didn’t recognize him, but he introduced himself as Chuck Smith. I was ecstatic; he’s perhaps best known as the founder of the Esperanto Wikipedia. He said he had read my blog post about my visit to Croatia and was looking forward to getting to know us.

At the official opening of the IJK, a local choir sang some traditional songs, including some in Esperanto (for which they had to read the words).

There were also a lot of opening remarks by various people in charge of the event. The theme of this year’s IJK is freedom (liberec’ happens to be the Esperanto word for freedom), and the fact that we were in a formerly authoritarian country did not go unnoticed. (Ironically, at least to me, next year’s IJK will be in Cuba.)

It was late, so I decided to get the key for our room. But it turned out that Andy and I weren’t assigned to the same room even though we requested it. I was a bit peeved at first, but then I came around to the idea that maybe we should start seeing other people. So after spending some time in the 8th-floor bar drinking unbelievably cheap but good Czech beer with SES friends, I went to meet my roommate and hit the hay.

On Sunday, I woke up and decided that the morning program didn’t look very interesting. Not having Internet access, I, um, wrote most of this. (How meta.) After lunch, Andy and I attended a course on how to teach Esperanto. Since we spent the last school year teaching Esperanto for our club, I thought it would be a good idea to learn how it should really be done. The lecture lasted three hours, but it’s only the beginning. Using what we’ve learned, we have to design a lesson plan and teach a group of beginners.

After that, I attended a lecture in keeping with the theme of freedom; it was about OpenStreetMap, which I might just start using now.

In the evening, a local band played a show in a club-like place that’s right nearby on the grounds of this university or wherever we are. I got a cheap beer and enjoyed an hour of loud rock ‘n’ roll (probably in Czech, but who could tell?). They did say “hello,” “thank you,” and “goodbye” in Esperanto.

After that, they finally got Internet access working in the lobby of our building, but my computer lost the connection and couldn’t find it again, even after rebooting.

This morning, I attended lectures on the following subjects: farming and all the doom and gloom that go with that subject, the Esperanto movement in Africa, and a new news site in Esperanto. After lunch, I decided to chill and write, um, the rest of this.

Someone I met yesterday told me it was strange that Esperanto was “only” my second language (rather than, say, my third or fourth). I knew that Esperantists tend to be interested in learning languages (or, to put it humorously, Esperantists are the people who need Esperanto the least), but I had no idea how right she was. There’s an event going on right now where people chat with each other, but they’re not allowed to use Esperanto or their native languages. I can’t participate unless I want to trot out a little stutterin’ high school Spanish. ¡Qué va!

Tomorrow is the big excursion day. I’m going on the all-day excursion to Prague, which I’ve heard is a wonderful city from just about everyone I’ve ever met. Don’t disappoint me, Prague!

Nine in the afternoon

Once, I had a friend named Laura. We went to school together. Then, she moved to Seville, Spain. We exchanged a few letters, but they soon stopped.

A few months ago, Laura contacted me through MySpace, and we caught up on things. I told her that I’d be going to Europe in the summer and asked if I could meet up with her.

On Sunday, I took a high-speed train from Madrid to Seville. As you might have been able to guess, it was pretty fast. Laura was waiting for me at the station. I hadn’t seen her in 12 years.

We took a bus to her house; they’ve been building a subway system in the city, but it’s not close to being finished, so people get around by bus. Her place is pretty nice. She lives with her mom and her sister (who currently isn’t there) and their six cats.

One of the first things I did at her house was drink lots of Coca-Cola. I had been guzzling it all weekend, surpassing the 2-liter mark (not including Pepsi). Laura said she’s heard of Americans who visit and can’t stop drinking Coke. I didn’t think I had noticed a difference between Coke with corn syrup and Coke with sugar, but apparently I don’t get tired of the latter as easily.

I was also hungry, so I made myself some small sandwiches. They had an interesting meat that tasted like a cross between bologna and pepperoni. I would call it bolepperoni.

Laura got out her yearbook from second grade, and we shared stories that we remembered about the people in our class. I told her what the ones I’ve been in contact with were doing now. Laura’s mom had some stories from back in the day as well.

Later, Laura and I went out to look for a good place to eat down by the river. By this time, it was about 11 o’clock at night. The Spaniards usually don’t eat dinner till late at night, but since it was Sunday, not a lot of places were open. We got a couple of hot dogs and then went to an ice cream shop, which was actually hoppin’.

I was tired. We had walked around a lot, to be sure, but I think weeks of walking have caught up with me. Plus, the days go late in Spain. They wake up late, have a little breakfast, eat a big lunch in the afternoon (around the time of the famous siesta), and have a small dinner late at night. Around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, Laura would still be calling it the morning; it’s morning till lunch. She would also say “7 in the afternoon,” which makes sense in the summer when the days are so long. It would get dark around 10.

On Monday, we went walking around the central part of town. Seville is a big city, but it feels suburban most everywhere. I wanted to check out the local El Corte Ingles since I didn’t get to visit their flagship store in Madrid. It was a department store, but they also have a travel agency and other crazy stuff. In a similar vein, we checked out Fnac, which is an electronics store that also sells movies, music, and books. They should have something like that in the States if they don’t already. I would probably live there.

For lunch, we went to one of Laura’s favorite restaurants. It’s kind of a small place, but there’s a bar and some tables. In one corner, there are some large steps, like bleachers, where people can sit and eat. We had some sandwiches. One of mine was a potato omelet sandwich. A potato omelet is called a tortilla de patatas, and it’s a traditional dish in Spain. I’ve also found out that they have lots of words for sandwiches.

Later, as it was getting dark, we went to the Parque Maria Luisa and the adjacent Plaza de España. My camera’s new memory card decided to crap out right then, and I didn’t have my spare on me, but the lighting was bad anyway. The Plaza is really grandiose, and its grandiosity was evident even though part of it was being renovated. There are lots of benches, each one representing an important city in Spain and showing an illustration about it.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant near Laura’s house. Actually, it was apparently a drinking establishment that happened to have a large selection of food and outdoor seating. We each got a couple of tapas, or small plates of food. They’re great for trying new things. I can’t tell you what I ordered, but it was pretty delicious.

My new memory card had been working intermittently, so on Tuesday, we went back to Fnac to look for a new one. Since they didn’t have the right one at a similar capacity, I decided to use my old one, and we went to the Cathedral.

It’s one of the larger or largest such buildings in the world and, as is the way of these things, looks even larger when you’re inside. Laura explained to me the religious significance of a lot of the things because Spain has some unique traditions. And check out that organ!

One of Christopher Columbus’s sons is buried in the Cathedral. Columbus himself may or may not also be entombed in Seville; there’s a rival grave in the Dominican Republic. Interesting!

At the church, we climbed the Giralda, the highest tower in Seville.

Most of it was built by the Muslims, who had the foresight to make it wheelchair-accessible. Actually, they built the tower with a series of ramps so they could ride their horses up to the top. The Christians added the top part, with a few stairs, later.

Laura says there’s an unwritten rule in Seville that no building should be higher than the Giralda. From it, you can see the whole city.

Next, we went to the Reales Alcazares, built as a royal palace in the Islamic style. The place is pretty open and airy, with lots of gardens that I was, of course, too tired to fully check out. We got to see royal bedchambers with magnificent Islamic designs. They looked like the other chambers because they were empty, but it was still neat.

We went home for lunch, and Laura’s mom made paella with chicken and seafood. After I got some work done (I still have my job while I’m on vacation), we went to a classical concert. The ensemble was pretty small, and the people there wanted a donation of €10, so we went somewhere else. Sorry, Oxfam.

In Seville’s Macarena neighborhood, there’s a small church that’s magnificently decked out. I believe it’s called Our Lady of Hope of Macarena. We got there too late to go inside, so we had dinner. I had a cold soup called salmorejo, which is like gazpacho but with a stronger taste. I liked it.

On Wednesday, my last day in Seville, we started by going out of town to the ruins of the Roman city of Italica. It’s located in another town, and there are restaurants and stuff across the street.

Even though it was very hot, we spent about an hour going around to the ruins of the arena and some various streets and buildings. A lot of them had fantastic mosaics, like this one showing some gods and goddesses:

There was a statue of the Roman Emperor Trajan overlooking the site. He and Hadrian were born there. I’ve heard of them!

Laura and I were both really hot and tired, so we went to a restaurant across the street from the Roman ruins. I had garlic chicken and some tinto de verano, which is apparently red wine with fruit juice added. It tasted refreshing and not very alcoholic. (Yeah that’s how you get schwasted before you know it, by mixing drinks. Feh.)

After that, we returned to the church in Macarena. Behind the altar is a statue of the Virgin Mary, magnificently decked out.

The place reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…

I went to bed relatively early in preparation for a long day. My stay with Laura was a lot of fun, and I thought it was cool that I was the first person from our school to visit her at her home in Spain. She also taught me a lot about the culture of Seville. At every turn, she had an opportunity to explain to me something about the local religious festivities such as those during Holy Week. Religion and traditions mean a lot to the people there.

On Thursday, I woke up just in time to catch the taxi that was waiting outside at 5:30 in the morning. Since Andy wasn’t there, I had to make do with what little Spanish I had. If any of my Spanish teachers are dead, they’d have been rolling over in their graves.

I made it to the station and caught my train back to Madrid, where Andy would be flying in after going home for his grandfather’s funeral. We had decided to meet at Chamartin station, but since our trains were entering and leaving the city at Atocha, I had told him that we should meet there. I sat near the ticket desk, where I told him to meet me, but a pig made me leave even though I wasn’t harming anybody.

The situation was complicated. Andy was supposed to go back to Manolo’s place, where we had stayed the previous week. Andy had left a lot of his stuff there, and he needed to get it. I thought I would try calling Manolo at work, but my credit card got stuck in the payphone, and I had to ask a random guy who didn’t speak English to help me get it out. When I did call, I got an answering machine, and then I didn’t have enough change to call his home number.

I thought that I could try to meet Andy where we had originally decided, but I was afraid to go there in case he went to where I was at the same time. I didn’t think he didn’t have his cell phone with him, so I couldn’t call him. But I tried. Well, I tried to try. For the first time in three weeks, I turned on my cell phone. I was supposed to have an international roaming plan for use in case of emergency, but instead I had no signal.

Next, I tried hunting down some Wi-Fi in the likely event that he had sent me an e-mail. Of course, there was nothing usable in the station, and I even went outside the station looking for a cafe or other establishment that would have Wi-Fi. No dice.

Our train for Barcelona was going to be leaving soon, so I headed back to the station, thinking that if I could count on him being in a certain place at a certain time, it would be there and then. I went down to the train and found our seats. He wasn’t there. As the train was about to leave, I got off to see if he was anywhere on the platform. He wasn’t, so I decided to carry out my next plan.

My next plan was to try harder to find Wi-Fi. I stopped at some benches on the sidewalks outside the station looking for an unsecured network, but with no luck. I was sitting outside a hotel trying to get their Wi-Fi when I heard a familiar voice.

It was Dan, who was traveling with Mark on a concurrent leg of our trip. I knew that they were in Madrid, but I had no idea that we’d run into each other on the street, especially when I needed help the most. Everyone, including Dan’s new friends from his hostel, was surprised by the coincidence.

We went to Mark and Dan’s hostel, where I promptly jumped on the Wi-Fi. Andy had sent me numerous e-mails telling me where he was and where he would go next. I e-mailed Andy and called his dad to say that Andy should meet me at the hostel, which was close to our train station. Next, I opened the lunch that Laura’s mom had packed for me: a ham sandwich, a sort of bread with bits of chocolate in it, a cup of yogurt, and a banana. I ate it all except the banana, which didn’t really survive the hectic journey.

I caught up a bit with Dan and Mark, who was very surprised to see me hanging out at his hostel. After waiting at the computer for a while and doing nothing in particular, Andy finally e-mailed to say he would be on his way. Dan and Mark left for Barcelona, and then Andy arrived, tired and sweaty.

He told me his side of the story, and I have to say that it was much worse than mine. It involved meeting where we originally said we would, catching lots of trains, sending lots of e-mails to someone who never replied, and making it to the platform a few minutes after the train to Barcelona had left. He had just gone on his way to Manolo’s when I e-mailed him, so he had to go all the way out of town and back. But we were together and safe.

Next, we had to go to Manolo’s for real this time, so we contacted him, and he had his wife put Andy’s bag outside the door. It took us forever to get there, and finally one of the residents let us into the building. We made it back to Atocha just in time to get tickets for the 19:30 to Barcelona. I collapsed as we ran into the train.

We arrived in Barcelona and managed to find our next Pasporta Servo host pretty easily. We got to the neighborhood just before midnight. The narrow streets were completely silent. We finally found the place, but the door was locked. We had his phone number but no phone. Just a minute later, he pulled up in his car with the young woman he lives with. They showed us into their unfinished yet stylish apartment, where they treated us to food and drinks and we chatted in Esperanto. Then I went to bed. I was very tired.

Today, I woke up Andy at 6 PM (in his defense, he had been jetlagged), and we made ourselves sandwiches. Since the water here tastes kind of funny, we helped ourselves to the alcohol. Steinburg Clasica is a pretty good beer, and at 4.8% alcohol by volume, it’s basically a pre-mixed drink. (omg jordan is turing into an alcoholic) I guess we won’t do much today, but hopefully we’ll see some interesting sights in Barcelona tomorrow.

Following the green star

The Pasporta Servo (Passport Service) is a hospitality network for Esperanto speakers. Since my friend Andy and I are about to embark on a two-month trip to Europe, and because we’re Esperantists, we thought we should take advantage of this great resource. There’s just one problem: this year’s edition of the address book hasn’t been published yet. Normally it’s published early in the year, but since they’re making an online version of what was previously only a book, things got complicated, apparently.

Andy and I just posted a request for hosts on the lernu.net forums, and we’ve already gotten a response from a young guy near Paris who we can probably stay with for at least a few nights. Also, I decided to buy last year’s edition of the Pasporta Servo, which Esperanto-USA was still offering for sale. I don’t think using it will be a big problem; this year’s version can’t be very different. While I was buying Esperanto-related stuff, I also bought a little Esperanto flag and some buttons so other Esperantists can identify us. Seeing that flag just makes me so happy. I’m looking forward to staying with and befriending a lot of nice people.

To call friends and family at home or future friends in Europe at low, low rates, I set out to install the Internet telephony program Ekiga on our Eee PC. It wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be, though. The EeeUser wiki has a whole big page about adding software repositories, but none of the ones listed on that page had Ekiga, so they were pretty useless. What to do, what to do?

I had read somewhere that the customized version of Xandros that runs on the Eee PC is based on Debian Etch, so I decided to add the Etch repositories to see what would happen. If my system got hosed, I could just reboot and restore everything to the factory configuration. So I added the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib

The EeeUser wiki page wasn’t entirely useless. It taught me about the importance of pinning, which gives different priority levels to different repositories. I edited /etc/apt/preferences to give the standard Eee PC repositories a higher pin priority than the default 500:

Package: *
Pin: origin update.eeepc.asus.com
Pin-Priority: 950

Then I went to Synaptic to install Ekiga, but I kept getting an error message about being unable to parse /var/lib/dpkg/status. I tried some fixes as suggested on the wiki, but the problem persisted. I even restored the original settings, but to no avail. So I just tried using apt-get on the command line, and that worked. Apparently I also could have just scrolled down to Ekiga in Synaptic. The message apparently only comes up if I install a package after entering a search keyword.

Anyway, Ekiga seems to be working fine except for lag problems on my end and sound quality problems on other people’s end. The latter, I hope, can be fixed by adjusting the equalization of the microphone, i.e., giving it more treble and less bass. But I can’t seem to find a utility to do that. More research is needed. In the meantime, I have set Ekiga to start automatically, so friends and family who want to call me should be able to whenever the computer is on.

Self-explanatory: japanesebirdcookingspaghetti.com.

Dork Yearbook is a collection of dorky photos of dorks when they were dorky children. I’m glad I wasn’t that dorky as a little kid. (Via waxy.org)