making moves.

The wrong way: the right way.
The Wright way: the left way.
[only in the UK, folks.]

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I'm sitting in a tepid common room with my fiction book resting, reading-side-down, on my left knee like a bag of ice. I can't read just now, I just need the familiarity. It's drizzling outside. And all of the memories of the past two weeks are causing my mind to buzz in and out.

If you've ever traveled, have you noticed how meeting different kinds of people, and I don't mean "different" by clothing style or color pallete, will change your outlook on your own life? This is what I've been thinking about.

GERMANY [,images of].

Sometimes I hang out with graffiti artists. They taught me to make a mark wherever I go. The rest of this trip is dedicated to that idea. You abort a bit of yourself along the way, and leave it to do what it will. Something else is always engaged in its place, and you already have it within you.

[my initials carved into a tree deep in the Schwarzwald]

I was coming back from walking around the enormous park in Stuttgart and saw the walls flooded with scenes made out of drippy spraypaint. Something my horrid memory decided to hold onto.

What is Stuttgart, Germany like? Stuttgart is Chrome.

There are buildings of reflection and glass EVERYWHERE.
Art.
Streets slowly nod the morning down without the intention of returning to lock eyes for long. Building skins complain I can't be like their models.
Fashionable, plastic, unmoving unmovable. So I retreat to shadows.
This one breathes that something understands. Their models snog behind an illusion of privacy. Their models are made of stronger stuff. Their models look through the reflective membrane towards me and see their own flaws, their collective idea of themselves never enough to translate into what I'm feeling. They love often. They love hard. What do I want?

We went to the Museum in the heart of Stuttgart, which at the time held an expose on Rudolf Steiner's works.
It helped catalyze my guilt of ignoring my musicality
Since I arrived in Rome back in January, I found it especially hard to keep up any of my musical interests. My excuses included an abundance of schoolwork, fear of criticism, lack of instruments, and the idea that maybe it was a part of my life I had "grown out of." Now that I've assured myself that the latter is more than ridiculous, I've been trying more than ever to let that part of me breathe. It's my little weed: an unavoidable, stubborn little thing, refusing to be ripped out by any excuse I try to poison it with.

Art.
Her hair was black, the walls white, the piano and shadows which conducted themselves from wordless instructions were a mixture of these perfect movements. Her body is moving to sounds she has made hundreds of times before as she sits. The dress highlights her bones, peaks in her skin which are lit gold by the silk where it hangs. No one needs to listen, watching her create music makes you hear the music, someone says.

I don't know the pieces she played, but she played them well. I've never been to a piano recital in a museum. As we walked through and experienced the different spaces of the building, her music echoed and changed pitch depending on how far away and how many walls came between us. A good introduction to a museum that held a great collection of all types of art by many great artists, only a few who I've heard of.

who wouldn't recognize Albers' "homage to the square?" I didn't know it was here!

Glass envelopes are such a PANE for their building's HVAC systems. Hasn't that become CLEAR to modern architects yet?

The chocolate around the shopping street is amazing. The fraulein would bring out a fresh batch of around six different blends every morning, and we each took turns to buy a daily bar. My turn came after Andrew flew back to Rome to see his family, so Corin and I shared. It tasted better between three.

Chocolate kept me alive during this break. I discovered my new favorite brand, Milka, which is made by Kraft and has the same type of packaging as many of their "cheese products," something my PETA newsletters scold me about.
Brands to avoid: Kraft, Nestle. Brands available internationally: Kraft, Nestle. Brands which are cheap. And therefore, in this state-of-mind, good.

Walking the streets of Stuttgart was just plain fun. My favorite part by far was Theo, the street performer. There's nothing more odd than a German comedian. I have no idea what he was saying.

SCOTLAND [,images of].

I've never tested myself like this before, to the point where the bones in my legs woke me up in the wee hours from pain in a hostel in Edinburgh. It was the lasting effect of hiking in the Black Forest of Germany.

Edinburgh was cold. Rain, snow, wind, & no way to keep my coat closed for the malfunctioning zipper and lack of buttons. Getting the bed closest to the window in the hostel wasn't something we should have raced for, either. The condensation from the exhilation of 14 humans kept my bed cold, moist, and smelling like rot. My tolerance level has boosted about 40 per cent, if I thought it wasn't maxed out, already.

I don't mean to complain. I enjoyed 'roughing it' in Edinburgh. The fact that I was there in the first place cast a positive lens over almost everything that happened.

I made a few friends at that hostel, none of whom have "homes," but who travel all over the UK looking for work and a place to sleep. We shared a lot of laughs over a reality TV show called "Coach Trip," prawns, the habits of people we had to share the room with, Cadbury chocolate, ghost stories of Edinburgh, the "magic" button on the television remote, and other random things. We taught each other a lot of slang terms and about our different lifestyles.

Being the jetsetter I've become, I have seen a lot of different types of people, and have never been able to quite fit in by looks. Having such a mixed heritage doesn't help, either. I'm too light for Italy, too white for Turkey, too dark for Germany, but it seems that I've found my place in Scotland. The moisture in the air curled my hair, similar to the gals there that let theirs go natural, and my skin color matched the porcelain features of the people on the streets. Even proportionately, The Scots have the same body-type as my brother and I, and they dress very similarly [minus the kilts, of course]. Needless to say I was thrilled at this, and found the men in Scotland very attractive.

A funny thing about the UK is that they ALL DRIVE ON THE LEFT. I almost had a heartattack after trying to cross the street a few times, and never quite got used to knowing which way to look first. Now that I'm back in Italy where they drive on the right-hand side like normal people, my skill at crossing the street like a New Yorker has become extinct.

Edinburgh was a bit more structured of a visit, in that we went on a few tours while we were there. The first was a tour of Mary King's Close, a famous close in the Old Town named after one of the most well-known [a.k.a. wealthiest at the time] inhabitants living on the close.

Architecturally, the structure of the entire place is impressive. If you lived in Edinburgh in the 1600s, you lived in a building that could've reached 7 stories high, with a 2 foot wide street separating your neighbor's building called a "close." Since these enormous buildings were made with the sole goal of maxing out living space by building up, plumbing was ignored. Each family had to make use of "the bucket:" a small bucket in the corner of the room for all their nasty business. The two times of day they could be emptied was at 7am, and 10pm. The streets were sloped, so the concept of getting the waste out existed but wasn't successful. While strolling the close, you could be ankle-deep in peoples' "muck."

I guess at that point, you would be sloshing rather than strolling.

At the time the Royal Exchange was built on top of it, they ordered an evacuation of the area. After a partial demolition, the rubble and existing foundations of the old buildings sustained their use. Legends and myths were born out of this, centering around Plague victims being left and walled up underneath, and ghosts wandering the area.

We went down to the parts of the close that were preserved, realizing that these were sites of the Black Death, and numerous kinds of diseases branching from it. It was incredible. An entire city existing under a government building?

We also went on a free tour that afternoon, although we ditched halfway through because of the weather. We saw the gravesite of John Knox, which is parking spot 23 behind St. Giles Cathedral. They mark it with an unetched gold slab. I don't think the Scots cared for the guy.

Wondering about the origins of the word "shit-faced?" I wasn't, but it was explained that clean water was scarce, so during the day, the Scots didn't drink much. They would work all day and go to the pub at night to drink whiskey in order to avoid dehydration. The pub's closing time was 10pm [remember the "bucket" emptying time?] which is when the guys would stumble out of the pub and venture home through the closes in the pitch black night. Warning calls of "GIRD YUR LOU!" could be heard, and if you were one of the unfortunate, when you looked up, you might've been nailed in the face with the contents of the bucket. Shit-faced. Brilliant.

I also went on a ghost tour that night. One of the stops was the cemetery, and our guide told us a myriad of legends and stories while we stood inside a ransacked mausoleum. The medical school and the desperate resurrection-men were brought up, people who did ridiculous things to dead bodies just to make some money.

We visited sites of witch-burnings, and learned about three types of faeries: The half-a-man, who you topple over by pushing him or poking him with a stick, the kelpie, who drags you into the water and eats all of you but your liver, and the red-cap gnome, who has blades for fingers, and tears your stomach open while you're still alive [I was thinking of Jurassic Park I, when Alan differentiates turke

ys from velociraptors].

To get away, you must recite a verse from the bible. We were given the verse

"Jesus wept." Just in case we got in trouble when we invaded their territory that night. The views from the heights we climbed were gorgeous, making the ice-rain and wind not completely unbearable.

We visited the "National Disgrace" of Scotland, and afterward, were treated to a pint at a local pub called the Bank Hotel. They were playing live music which entranced me. Probably because the guy was playing Mr. Brightside, something that always makes me think of my brother.

When visiting, remember to reload your Starbucks card! There are about 8 of them in Edinburgh. The cups are bigger, too, which means more coffee for your quid. Also, get potatoes for lunch. Scots are enthusiastic about them, going so far as to make whole shops dedicated to the perfection of the potato. They call them "jackets," or baked potatoes with some kind of filling spooned on top.
Scotland is extremely vegan and vegetarian-friendly [always a plus for me]. If you're adventurous, they also offer some vegetarian haggis, which I've been told tastes exactly like traditional haggis. I, however, have no idea what they put in it, so that's all your call.