I think God maybe doesn't like me traveling out of the country.

The trip back from Venice started out well enough. My computer would have woken everyone up at 4:20 AM (not chosen for the drug jokes, no) to the high-octane opening chords of "One Week", except that (inexplicably) everyone besides Zoë inexplicably woke up around 4:18. The last ( Read more... )

Venice is everything you've ever heard.

Well, sort of. For instance, if you hear Venice and imagine a city of broad piazzas and narrow alleyways, you've got the right idea. But if you then go on to envision yourself walking through the alleys and suddenly stopping, seeing men in black robes, bearing knives that gleam in the moonlight and even now ( Read more... )

The streets surrounding Verona are designed as traps. And like all proper traps, they have two components: the hook, and the bait.

The hook is immediately obvious: the roadways snake about each other like an orgy of worms, what little guidance the street signs provide being further marred by the fact that the font is so small, you need to slow down ( Read more... )

If you've never been to a Rennfest (or a Rennfaire, for those of you who complain at the term), the town of Cesky Krumlov is probably as good a place to go to a first one as any other.

Because if Prague, architecturally, is a celebration of the Rennisance era, a place of ornate buildings and public artwork and cobbled roads for carriages to go down ( Read more... )

Prague has... history.

Well, if that isn't the most obvious thing I can say about Prague, I'm giving my Obvious Statement Engine a real workout. But the thing I meant to say is true. You walk around Prague, and you feel like this is a place which knows where it's been. The city's architecture itself tells a story, of sorts: generally, it tends ( Read more... )

Writing up the last two days of the trip didn't take long, compared to the first three. I'm not sure if the days actually got more boring, or if I'm just getting tired of this line of inquiry. I think it was the former; I just didn't do that much in Shanghai. I know some people went out drinking; I guess I just wasn't in the mood.

April 24th, Day ( Read more... )

OK. Let's see if we can finish this trip up!

April 24th, Day 10: After a breakfast in which (as that of the day before) yogurt muesli (which I seem to remember eating a lot back in the fourth grade. Back then, for some reason, I called it "Mueslix" rather than the traditional American mispronunciation, "Granola") played a prominent part, we climbed ( Read more... )

OK. I know I said I'd have this to you yesterday. Well, I lied. Sorry about that. In my defense... well, I think "Jet Lagged" is an excuse I can keep using for a few more days!

April 22th, Day 8: Checking out of the Lhasa Hotel at about nine, we climbed back onto the bus and soon found ourselves in yet another plane, headed towards Guilin. Which, I ( Read more... )

As an opening note: After this, I still need to review seven books, and give a bunch of Lessons from China. Just, for my own remebering.

So. As I briefly mentioned the day before we left, the last two weeks of the Beijing abroad program are spent... well, not in Beijing. More specifically?

Well, let's just go down the list:

April 14th, Day 0: We ( Read more... )

OK. So, when last we left our erstwhile hero, he was lying on the floor of a cold, cramped rented room in the ancient Chinese city of Pingyao.

No. This isn't another write up of a D+D game.
Yes, at the moment, I am your erstwhile hero. If you don't think I'm an especially heroic-type person, well, join the club. We're trying to get a deal on T- ( Read more... )