I spent last week with my family, in Utah and New Mexico, mostly. (Although I guess we were briefly in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada…)

It was really good to see my sister, who I only see rarely. It was nice to get to disconnect, especially in the mornings. Somehow, I feel less of a desire to be connected to the rest of the world in the morning, but my awareness of the fact that I’m “missing out” on the internet, on what my friends are doing, on what’s happening in the world, always ends up coming back. This was the first vacation I’ve taken since I became the owner of a smart phone.

Okay, so I originally meant to talk about the vacation itself, but I’m maybe more interested in writing about this: the ways that having constant and easy access to the internet, via a small mobile device that fits in your pocket, really changes the way you wait for things. Over the past month or so, I find myself eagerly awaiting messages from my friends in a way that I think was never really part of my life before. When I’m focused on something, I’m still focused—but it’s become so much easier to un-focus, to be consistently distracted. It’s part of why I thought for a long while that I didn’t want to get a phone with internet—I’m all at once happy to have this unprecedented access to the world and frightened by how much time I can spend plugged into a computer.

During the vacation, I would estimate that I only spent a couple of hours on my phone. Checking email, reading some blog posts, responding to some messages. I read quite a lot. My family and I conversed quite a lot. Yet somehow I felt like I was wasting my time with the phone, like it was keeping me from something in the moment.

Regardless, a few photographs.

This post is the last of several posts recapping my travels in July. You can read all of them in the traveling subsection of this blog.

Gubbio, from one of the main squares. The image is badly stitched together from two; I felt lazy and didn’t do a great job. It’s not so obvious in small form, though, I don’t think. Okay, yeah it is.

Thursday, 22 July. Civitella Rainieri, Umbria, Italy.
At 17:30, Jacob and I headed over to the castle proper. We saw two performances. First, a composer (Kathy) played a piece she had just been working on, accompanied by an Icelandic woman (Hildur) on the cello and a Chinese man (Wu Wei) on the Sheng (a peculiar reed instrument). Her performance was quite cool, although I didn’t as much enjoy the two recorded pieces she played after. Actually, I did — but sitting and listening to recorded music is not nearly as fun as watching someone play it. To be fair, they were condensed version of installation pieces — not something she could’ve performed.

After, there was a piece by Wu Wei and a sculptor, whose name I’ve forgotten, showing interactions between his music and her golden sculptures. Rather haunting. At dinner, during the dessert of amazing apricot mousse, Jacob and I found out that Hildur, the cellist, is from the band Mùm, that we both really rather like. She’s also a Fellow here at Civitella. Weird. And then, after dinner, Hildur put on a private performance for those of us who could come — in the dark, lit only by candles. Maybe 15 or 20 of us sitting in armchairs, watching her play with her cello and some looping equipment. It was really brilliant work.

A few days later I was back in Madrid. And that was it.

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

the view from the window of Maud’s house at dusk

Tuesday, 20 July. Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France.
I woke at 10, and had breakfast with Maud and [her daughter] Lucy: toast and a jam Maud’s friend had made, with amazing similarly home-made honey. Lucy and I did a crossword, and then once [Maud's son] James was up the four of us left. On the way out, they gave me the gate test: which gate of the two to the city is older? I passed.

We drove out to a castle (well, châtelet) about half an hour away, that had been in ruins for many years but has also, for like 30 years, been under reconstruction projects. It was right outside of a small town called Malain. The site was empty, but for one of the people involved in the project; we got to explore on our own. Maud’s been here many times over the past years, and her kids know it as well; most of the roof has been re-built, and they’re working on the garden, on the walls, and so forth.

At some point in medieval times, the castle was inherited by two sisters, who for whatever crazy reason decided it was a good idea to build a wall down the center, dividing the castle between them. So the castle has these odd remains of a wall, on top of everything else. It’s built into the cliff face, leaning into the rock. Quite a defendable location.

We lunched there, on ham-and-cheese sandwhiches and peaches. And then took off.

face drawn on the stone in Semur, France

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

The Centre Georges Pompidou, which I never actually went to. I have no good photos from Paris

Saturday, 17 July. Paris.
After breakfast, I left [couchsurfer Marc-Antoine's flat] and went to the amazing bakery of Pierre Hermé, where I bought 16 macarons. Well worth it. Now, you should perhaps look up the word “macaron” — not to be confused with macaroon — because they are amazing and suddenly really popular, not even just in France. Pierre Hermé does strange flavors — strawberry-wasabi; pistacchio-cherry; strawberry-balsamic vinegar. Even flavors I wouldn’t normally like (see: rose) are good. I got 1 of each flavor they had out that day, plus two doubles. And then went back to Marc-Antoine’s, where two other couchsurfers had arrived, who were spending that night with him; a girl named Ayani and one named Kaylee. The four of us had lunch — Marc-Antoine made us risotto. I shared some fo the macarons. And then I went to my hostel.

[...]

Mitch [an Aussie who I'd met at the hostel] met me at the metro Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand at 20:30, and we walked to Marc-Antoine’s with the white wine I had bought. Dinner party! Eight of us. Marc-Antoine cooked; the rest of us brought the wine. Dinner was: pumpkin/squash soup, with a dollop of cream and pesto. A white fish, with a heavy nut-based pesto, cream sauce, and a spinach-mushroom side. Duck with mashed potatoes, baked, and served with a sweet-and-sour orange sauce, and fresh ratatouille. Dessert was pan-cooked peaches with good (‘though not home-made) vanilla ice cream. Yes.

(I’m not even getting into the great crêperie Reshma and I went to a few days later, but it was nonetheless amazing.)

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

in the Swedish forest preserve of Kullaberg: me, Carly, Hana, Megan

Thursday, 15 July. Kullaberg & Lund, Sweden.
We [which is to say, Hana Peters, my host, and Carly and Megan, all Haverfordians] ended up leaving at after-11. Walked to the train station; took the train to Helsingborg, and then a bus through another small town to Mölle, where there’s a nature preserve called Kullaberg. Public transit’s expensive! Easily more than $10. Ate sandwiches on the train that we bought from a café near the train station; tasty. We walked briefly around Höganäs, the small town between Helsingborg and Mölle, before catching the bus. Kind of boring small town. From Mölle, we did a short hike out to the lighthouse. Very pretty, and a nice rocky coastline. Saw some cows, and lots of cow shit. Fun hike. There’s this art thing on the other side of the peninsula, apparently, but we didn’t get to see it although I would’ve liked to. We all would’ve, I think. In any case, we caught the 18:00 bus directly back to Helsingborg, where we found an expensive Italian restaurant for dinner.

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

The Copenhagen stock exchange

Tuesday, 13 July. Copenhagen.
Woke after 10; got my laundry from the attic where I’d hung it to dry; showered. Had coffee and toast with Nikolaj [my couchsurfing host]; some good rye bread. We sat around for a while, since it had begun to rain, but after a while I headed out anyway, with my rain jacket and sneakers and waterproof bag.

Walked northwest into Nørresbro; took Nørrebrogade and went into the Assistens Cemetery. Really lovely; in some ways I liked it more than the cemetery in Prague. Saw Niels Bohr’s grave, and those of Søren Kierkegarde and Hans Christian Andersen. While there, the rain stopped.

a Danish coat of arms, on the Dronning Louises Bro (Queen Louise’s Bridge) into Nørresbro — not exactly sure whose or what it signifies

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

St. John Under the Cliff monastery, near Srbsko, Czech Republic

Saturday, 10 July. Prague.
Woke an hour later than I would’ve liked — at a bit past 09:00 — and dressed, breakfasted, and left. Caught the 10:09 train to Karlštejn, and saw the castle there — it’s about 40 minutes away. I didn’t go into the castle, though, although I was kind of curious — I just started off on my hike, recommended to me by this Czech girl named Lucie who I met in Madrid. I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult a hike, and would be well-marked; I was right. It was pretty, too, although hot even in the shade. I’m sure there are prettier hikes, and it was pretty easy as these things go, but it was nice to be out in the hills and the forest. Also, I’m pretty sure I was the only native English speaker out there. The hike went from Karlštejn to Svatý Jan Pod Skalov (St. John Under the Cliff) Monastery, where there’s a chapel and, below it, Ivan the Hermitt’s creepy caves, with relics and a crypt, and a light that didn’t work, meaning that when I walked under to the crypt, I (a) got wet since it was after all a cave, and (b) was in the dark for a moment until I got around the bend. (Another picture.) That was somewhere between 8 and 12 km from the castle. From there, another 5-8 km to Srbsko, where I ate at a super-touristy restaurant that still only had Czechs, and then caught the train back to Prague. It’s kind of fun to be surrounded by Czechs, eh? Scary, too. I don’t know if the language is really so hard as people claim it is, but it’s just so foreign to me.

In Srbsko, at the train station, this Slovak guy saw me playing with my camera and started talking to me in his broken English. Nice guy, but very odd; I think he was stoned. He wanted me to come with him, and told me he had marijuana. Before, he asked to see my camera, and with some misgivings I let him look at it; he used it to take several pictures of me and told me he was a photographer. He was with two friends; all of them had awful teeth. They got off after only a few stops.

I’m writing this from atop Petrin Hill, where Tereza dreams that Tomaš has sent her to die in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Which, I should add, is one of the reasons I came to Prague. It’s beautiful up here, although there are many people. None of them have guns.

This post is a continuation of several previous posts, recapping my travels of the past month.

Three Australians I met in Prague — some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in a hostel

Thursday, 08 July. Prague.
After dinner, I went to the hostel, showered, and walked to the clock tower in the center of Prague where I decided that, yes, I would go on their goddamn organized pub crawl, as stupid as I think that might be. It was fun, to my surprise — not because of the bars, which were pretty awful, or because the people were great, which in general they were not, but rather just because I did end up meeting two groups of people whom I really liked. First, I met these French kids: Olivier, who I mostly spoke to, since his father was Spanish and we could speak Spanish; Pauline, who spoke excellent English and was fun, and their two other friends. All of them were 20, friends from Paris, on vacation in Prague for a week. Honestly, I think they liked me because I tried to speak to them in my shitty French and because everyone else was much worse than I am. I liked them for sort of the same reason — it was nice to hang out with someone who was neither American nor Australian (the sheer numbers of Aussies is astounding). I wish my French were better. Like I mentioned, I talked with Oli most of the time, until the point where he went and tried to get with some American girl who he had trouble speaking to. (Kept telling me “I don’t understand ANYTHING. What is she saying?”) But clearly some things don’t change too much.

At which point I befriended these three Brits, whose names escape me. They were nice guys; I really thought two of them were a couple for most of the night but ended up concluding that I was probably wrong. We ended up walking back together from the bar, getting a bit lost and crossing the train tracks (not quite legally) of the main train station, ending up in some abandoned train yard, and so forth. But then figuring it out, so no mishap.