Why my trip to Romania blew

I can think of so, so many reasons why my trip to Romania blew hard and why no one should follow in my footsteps and take a group tour there. So I have decided to type out as many reasons as I can think of. This list will grow as I think of things.

1. The hotel was an hour and a half bus ride away from the airport. When you have been traveling for almost 24 hrs, this bus ride is just horrid.
2. You have no control over your fellow tour members. They may just be awful (we had a few horrible ones in our group).
3. There must be some trick to the hotel showers cause ours kept flooding the bathroom floor...this occurred in a few different hotels.
4. Most mornings our wake up calls were between 7:30 am and 8:30 am. It is not a relaxing vacation when you have to be up at 7:30 am so you can hurry up and get on a bus.
5. Once you are awake, you must hurry so you can shower and eat breakfast at the hotel. It is pertinent that you eat breakfast at the hotel as you never know where your next meal will be coming from or when you will be able to eat again.
6. The tour bus will take you on journeys through the countryside. This sounds nice but these bus rides last for endless hours. One day we were on the bus for over 8 hrs total.
7. Our tour guide really, really enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Though knowledgeable, he was quite pompous about it and often quite patronizing.
8. Most of Romania is just like Borat's version of Kazakhstan. No, I'm not making a joke.
9. Did I mention the fellow tour members? There is a reason that Americans have a bad reputation as loud, obnoxious and xenophobic. Chances are, you'll be travelling with these sorts of people on your group tour.
10. When we finally got to eat lunch, often we were deposited unceremoniously at gas stations and told to grab something to eat on the bus.
11. Oh, the "Dracula Tour" left out a lot of that boring vampire stuff. We were promised vampires, Twilight, True Blood, etc. and not much of this was even mentioned. We got one cool themed hotel and one themed restaurant. No other attractions were vampire related.
12. The rest of the tour was occasionally related to Vlad the Impaler. We were expected to know a great deal of his history already. If you were not terribly familiar with Vlad Tepes, you were pretty much screwed. Basic questions were scoffed at.
13. In one town, they had a few museums. Not really museums, just a couple of rooms with some historical artifacts. In one room, there were some weapons. Instead of talking about the artifacts, the tour guide talked for a good 20 minutes about the Vikings invading Russia. I pretended to be claustrophobic and left because I was so utterly bored.
14. In Romania, they love raw bacon. They served it at a few different restaurants. This may not necessarily be a drawback to all, but probably to some.
15. If you are a vegetarian, be warned: it is assumed that pretty much all you eat is cheese. I was served appetizers of cheese followed by entrees consisting solely of cheese. It was not really an identifiable cheese. I think it was a cousin to feta cheese, perhaps, but I'm not sure.
16. Did I mention the fellow travelers? Well, they also take endless pictures of everything in sight. We had a pair that took pictures of the bus, getting off and on the bus, the gas stations, the gas station attendants, the bathrooms, etc. They also composed still life pictures of the things that they bought at gas stations and around town. They stopped tours in order for other tour members to take photos of them doing things like disembarking from the bus. They also really liked group photos, which I abhor. I don't want photographic evidence that I spent time with some of these folks. Many probably thought that I was a snotty bitch, and you can probably understand why. I didn't mind that people didn't care for me, this meant that the ones that I didn't care for stayed away from me and didn't try to talk to the bitchy girl.
17. Shopping was lame. It was mostly like a big dollar store. Everything was made in China, handmade goods were almost impossible to come by.
18. Oh, the fellow travelers! They will get impossibly drunk and bang on adjacent hotel room doors at 3 am. They will hold loud conversations in the hallway. They might even have loud drunken fights in the room next to you. They might also have loud drunken sex in the room next door. It's all wonderfully fun and relaxing at 3 am.
19. Back to the meal thing: you never know when you will eat dinner each night and you have no control over this. Remember to stock up on snacks at the gas station as you may be eating your dinner as late as 9, 10, or even 11pm at night.
20. At the themed restaurant, you get to meet an aging actor playing Dracula. He may not bite you, but he just might drool on you. Dirty old goat.

That's quite enough for now. I may add to this list if I have the time and wherewithal. Next I will post the follow-up e-mail that I received from Tours of Terror following the ordeal.

A wasted life

I spent about 6 years of my life wasted, then had a life-changing experience and now I've spent 6 years and 9 months sober. 6 years and 9 months seems like a long time, but it often feels like 6 weeks, or even 6 days. I find that sometimes I feel like I've got this thing beat, but mostly it just beats me and breaks my spirit and makes me feel like I cannot be a part of anything real anymore.

Gogol Bordello played Friday night. The band was as raucous as ever - the concert was more wild and dangerous than any metal show I've ever attended. The air stank of sweat, but mostly it reeked of beer. I wanted that so badly- on my left, a bar, behind me the exit door. Someone actually threw a beer cup at Matt and it was making me lose my mind. I stayed for as long as I could, and I bailed fast when I couldn't take it anymore.

This is a damnable thing, it is. Because of this I missed seeing one of my dear friends and I feel terrible. Plus, I cried most of the way home and probably made my poor husband feel like crap, too.

I miss looking forward to weekends for excitement and relaxation and I miss proper parties. At this point, I don't think that sobriety is ever going to get any easier. It's always going to be day by day, and often minute to minute. I shouldn't be posting this, it's far more personal than I usually like to get on this blog. However, sometimes a confessional is somewhat healing, even if it's just me feeling a bit sorry for myself and having a semi-public pity party.

I promise that either later today or tomorrow I will begin posting about Romania, particularly the aftermath of the experience.

Must be crazy

Everyone told me that the movie Watchmen was long, boring and horrible. I heard negative comment after negative comment. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to see it.
Last evening I watched the director's cut, running at about 3 hrs and 15 minutes. Usually I prefer movies that run about 90 minutes. I don't know why I was compelled to watch it.
I am not familiar with the graphic novel at all, and I knew very little about the plot.
I really quite liked it. Not perfect, perhaps overly ambitious, but still entertaining, dark, densely layered, and engaging. I suppose I can see where many would be turned off, but I liked it nonetheless.

The dark is rising

Once upon a time, my favorite band in the whole wide world was Sparklehorse. I saw them in early '96 when the opened for Cracker at the old Boathouse in Norfolk. I heard Mark Linkous sing "Homecoming Queen" and I was done, forever in love with that music. I have since seen Sparklehorse at least 5 more times, including opening for the Flaming Lips and even once at Shepherds Bush Empire. The music still inspires feelings and memories that are at once bittersweet, painful and comforting.

However, I was a bit bummed about the last album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain. As a fan and avid collector, it was a disappointment to find that 1/3 of the album contained previously released material. Nevertheless, it was lovely music, but not like the first 3 records. Of course, timing is everything and perhaps the timing was just a bit off for me.

I have not forgotten about my beloved Sparklehorse. In fact, I was very excited when the cover of "Jack's Obsession" was included on the Nightmare Revisited tribute album. Made me wonder what Mr. Linkous might be up to these days. I would have never imagined just what kind of mischief he's been up to.

On the last album, Linkous hooked up with Danger Mouse to work on a few tracks. They evidently hit it off and decided to work on a new record. They enlisted a bunch of their musician buddies including Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, The Cardigan's Nina Persson and many more. Best of all, Danger Mouse called up David Lynch.

David Lynch, perhaps the finest surrealist filmmaker of our time, created a book of images as well as music for the album. This may very well be my Dream Team.

Of course, record labels can be pissy bitches. EMI is having some dispute with the artists and the album might not ever see a proper release. In the meantime, the artists have made the entire album (and individual tracks) available for download here at NPR. It's glorious, it truly is stunning and it's classically Sparklehorse in many places. I rather wish that Linkous sang most of the tracks as I love his voice for some reason, but I'm happy nonetheless.

So you can't have a record, but you can buy the book. David Lynch's deluxe book of photos created for the project is still available through Amazon.com here. It was evidently limited to 5000 copies so snap yours up before it's too late.

Jiminy Christmas!

My trip to Romania was so very harrowing (I witnessed car accidents, the near-arrest of our tour guide, people eating raw bacon & dried larvae or some kind, and so much more) that I was considering cancelling my trip to the DragonCon in Atlanta over Labor Day. When I got home, I found a little magazine waiting for me telling me all about the great actors and delightful toys that will be there. I immediately changed my mind and decided I would go to the DragonCon. Today I visited the website and the deal was sealed.

Terry Gilliam will be there.

I have adored Gilliam since I was about 13 years old when my dad finally made me watch The Holy Grail. Since then I have been an avid fan. I even loved Tideland, loved it lots and lots. I can't believe it, I can't wait!

Hallelujah

Never in my life have I been so happy to return home from a vacation. Never before have I sufficiently appreciated all the glorious aspects of my boring, mundane, brilliant existence. It took a week stuck in Romania on the group tour from hell to help me to fully appreciate all the good things that I have in my life. I am a creature of habit and a woman of solitude, and I am glad for it. However, I have some experience now and I have learned a few important lessons about the world and myself.

I henceforth swear off group tours.
I also need never visit Romania again.
If I ever set foot on another bus, it will be too soon.
In Romania, vegetarianism means that you eat nothing but cheese.
I don't want to eat cheese again, at least not as a main course meal.

I have many, many stories to share, the post would be endless if I even tried to start telling stories. Instead I just send my hellos. I am endlessly and eternally grateful for being home safe and sound with my dog and cats and lovely insane job and meals that don't consist solely of cheese.

Departure

The day has arrived. Our flight to meet up with the tour leaves in about 2 hours. I should be excited but I'd rather just stay home. I'm exhausted. I worked Mon, Tues & part of Wednesday despite the fact that I was supposed to be on vacation all week.

The worst part is always leaving the dog. I have been crying for hours about this, and I'll probably cry off and on until I pick him up next week. At least he'll be with his grandmother & grandfather where he will be well looked after.

Oh well, what's done is done. Money has been exchanged and commitments have been made, so Transylvania, here we come. I promise updates regarding the trip upon my return.