Weirdest places ever slept....the end?

Writing up the odd places I've slept one of the themes I didn't realize was there was being cheap (okay, maybe I knew that one was there) and the other is not enough planning. So we like to play it by ear or the planner of the pair didn't have time or whatever? No big deal, sometimes. This story, however, was planned but still surprised us.

We were on our way to a cruise for a significant anniversary...but that's another story. The thing is it left out out of Stockholm, Sweden where we had never been. We decided to go in a couple nights early so there would be no worries about missing the boat, literally, and we could take in the sites of a city we'd never visited. 

Turns out when you go north in Europe the prices increase as you go. At least from our southern European living perspective. The hotels were crazy expensive. So we turned to a b and b site. My impression from the brief description was that it was in the center of the city (bonus) and was a spa (bonus). And the price came down from never mind money to 'well, I guess it's only a couple nights' kind of money.

We booked it. Flew in. Did I mention the 10 day cruise? So imagine the suitcase size when you are dragging that many changes of clothes with you. I know travel light etc. But the cruise...

So we have carry on backpacks plus hip high roller bags. We manage the train to our stop with limited anger and sweat. We arrive at night in the party central area of Stockholm. We walk and walk and walk. We CANNOT find this place. Of course tensions are rising so what is not fun already is turning ugly quickly. 

Finally we agree one will stay with the luggage and one will go find the destination. We've called the proprietor several times who seems to be in a bar with his blokes and yells various things and says just let him know when we are at the door and he will pop over and let us in.

Somewhere around 11pm we find it. It's the upstairs of another business in a nondescript building. The spa of the internet is the "Human Being Center" on arrival. This tickles us because it's not bad English but the connotation has some sci-fi aspect to it.

So our buddy comes over and lets us in. Turns out the spa is based on the fact that he and his partner have a front room converted for yoga classes and the room we are sleeping in also has a massage table. The spa bath is down the hall and we all share it. 

It is an amazing huge bathroom nicely re-done. Beautiful. A tub for two and separate shower, washing machine, two sinks. It's enormous. Did I mention it is down the hall and shared? Not uncommon but for over $100 I was thinking I'd have a bathroom so I wasn't really prepared.

Before our new proprietor leaves he explains about the honor system on the raw food shelf. If we want breakfast we buy it and eat it out of the healthy packages that the raw food comes in. So my entire definition of  b and b has altered substantially suddenly -- that second b may not necessarily be breakfast. 

We got ready for bed and were just coming back to our room when he came home with his girl and asked if they could have dibs on the double tub or were we going to use it? Uh, no. No one was dirty or anything. But it's just the idea that it'd almost be like 4 in the tub if we got in later. Just couldn't do it.

The apartment was Scandinavian white, the bed squished up against the wall was comfortable and the massage table made a handy place to sort your clothes out. It was just not your regular stay somewhere. We were in the center of the city and had a nice time exploring and a delightful place down the block had a delish breakfast of all kinds of non-vegan stuff (it was a beautiful cafe like a magazine). We had a great time. We paid  what for us is a LOT for the Human Being experience but it was cheaper than the "real" hotels.

We can never go back to Stockholm because of a problem with the train system where they catch tourists without proper tickets and give them enormous unmerciful fines. We appealed and got no response nor did we pay the 300€ per person fine so we can never go back, well at least to be on the safe side. Fugitives again, but I digress.

One of my philosophies on trips where you go to see things is that the hotel is only for sleeping so it doesn't have to be high end as long as it's clean. I will not blog about the two hotels I've stayed in that caused me to go to the car and get a scarf to cover the pillow. As I'm getting older, I'm beginning to appreciate the idea of a trip to relax rather than see the entire region. In this case, I'm going to become a connoisseur of the nice hotel for the relaxing side of that equation. Some day. Or maybe when my budget catches up to me.

Weirdest places ever slept....part 5 Chambres

When we are young, we are brave about cheap travel. Or we were anyway. Or we didn't know anything else. 

I'd never left the country when we committed to a two year over seas volunteer gig. As most volunteer things go, funds were tight but we weren't going to sit in apartment in Belgium without looking around.

We discovered that people in France advertise a sort of off the books place to stay by putting signs on the side of the road that said, "Chambre" -- room.

We set off on a weekend trip. The destination I believe was Mont St Michel. We'd heard of it's amazing beauty and set out in a rental car from Brussels. If you haven't put it on your list, it's definitely something to see. An island with a Monastery on top preserved in all its medieval-ness. The water gets very far out at low tide and people can be fooled that it is not coming back. When the tide comes in, it is at a crazy fast speed and people have been caught in a bad way. Seems like we heard tell of ghosts and such.

So we tootled down the French coast. We stopped  in Le Havre a site mentioned in the Henry V play of Shakespeare, after a real life battle event. We enjoyed the coastal towns where Brittany and Normandy change hands on the sea. We spent the afternoon in Deauville and chose a country road with the debate of where to say on everyone's lips. We saw one of these hand scrawled "chambre" signs in rough cardboard. We were far from anything at this point and turned down the small dirt track.

We arrived at a delightful real life farm. Something from a PBS television show with a big dirt patio in front of a wood shingled farm house. A lady took us upstairs showed us several rooms all very homey and country farm but somehow French. Not fancy at all but they had a certain rustic charm. They weren't prepared to do a meal for us but pointed us down the road to a little cafe-bar.

At that little bar, there was no English and they thought we were a great circus act sent to entertain them as I imagine we were. I had the most memorable steak of my life that night. We'd saved on the room and splurged on the food but even so we were in the country and it was comparatively cheap. (Always eat local when you can.)

So far nothing weird, right? You are correct. We went further down the coast to Mont St Michel and as is a common factor in our stories, we didn't know somewhere there was a holiday or event or something. So we could not stay on the Mont. Too bad because it was beautiful but also no vacancies. We set out across the country nearby with our new found confidence in chambres. We found a sign. This time it was just a modern walk up house. We'd already left our friends in the desperate search for rooms elsewhere, so of course we took what they offered. A paneled spare bedroom at the top of the not cherished house decorated a la 1975, crochet blanket included. The salle de bain was in a nook downstairs off the kitchen where the dining table sat.

While we made these arrangements in stumbling French with the lady proprietor and her cigarette, a couple of surly young men (teens?) were playing a video game or watching television in the dark salon behind her. No big deal we all have our own rooms right. We later realized how far this room arrangement was to the toilet and that for our convenience they had put a chemical camp toilet in the corner of our paneled bedroom. Not curtained off, just sitting there.

When we'd come in quite late from the explorations of the dimly lit stone ambiance of Mont St Michel, those men, guys, dudes, were still in the livingroom and didn't acknowledge us coming in. Weird.

A few hours later I awoke, with a need to go to the loo. I'd not been counting on strange housing arrangements and hadn't brought a robe. The urge was great, the need to get back to sleep intense. The odd dudes lurking in the salon flashed in my mind's eye. I gave in to the chemical toilet.

The odd plastic echo sound however woke my significant other who couldn't figure out what the sound was. So he turned on a flashlight and shown it around the room much to the audible horror of both of us. I can still hear my best friend laughing as I tell this story.

Coming down to do ablutions in the morning a table full of even more surly young men perched in the kitchen eating cereal -- silently. Quite a contrast to the sunny farm kitchen and bowls of chocolate and croissants that we'd had at the last chambre. It was my significant other's turn to make people wonder what the sounds near by might be as he'd waited to use the real toilet.

Okay one more chambre on another trip: Not sure where we'd been but it was just the two of us and we were on our way back to Brussels but still in France. We followed a chambre sign on small road. It was a farm perhaps not charming but a reasonable looking place. We talked to the man the price was good. I don't remember if we'd agreed already to stay or if we were taking a look. The man in the wellington plastic boots marched us away from the farm and down a field path. Our own bungalow perhaps?

As we walked I explained to him in my budding French, we are Americans from Kansas City. He said to me, "Well I don't speak American." Yes, he used the French word for American, not English. He was weathered and hard beaten and a smoker with a rough voice. He'd understood me though so big bonus. Pat on the back dor my French. So I said, we live in Belgium. Farmer said, "And I don't speak Belge." Negating the French speaking population with a swat of his hand. Alright-y then.

The "bungalow" turned out to by one of those tiny trailers (caravans) the size of car, anchored in a field. It was not redecorated other than it had clean linens. It smelled as if it had been moldering in the field a good many years for unsuspecting tired tourists to come along.

Another theme in our stories - well, we were tired (or it was late) and we didn't know where else to go...so we slept in the yellow stinky trailer aka "chambre."

Weirdest places ever slept, part 4, God's house

As part of our day job related fund raising, we travel to all kinds of places and hotels. Sometimes when it is in our nonprofit world, we stay with friends or the locals offer to put us up. This is great as it saves money as we raise it. Several churches have had space to host us and we've always been grateful, but it's also some of the strangest sleeping quarters I've experienced.

I don't know if any of you have ever been in a huge building alone as a kid or an adult. As a kid I remember we'd play hide and seek in the basement of the church I grew up in while the adults ate finger food and drank punch upstairs somewhere. It always seemed like you'd get spooked and run like you'd never run in your life down a dark hallway. Also my dad used to rent "computer time"  in a big office building in downtown KC. I'd be the only person on the 10th floor poking in people's desks and such. Then I'd go even further down to the bathroom and get spooked and run like mad back to the computer room that was completely sealed and sound proof. My dad wouldn't have heard me yelling or running or anything the way it was set up. It was great fun.  I give you this as way as background to the places with dark hallways that might effect odd places I slept as an adult.

The first time we slept in a guest room inside a church it was in a smaller community, but the church could probably seat a couple hundred people. We had a compulsion to walk around and see everything just so we knew where we were at and how the land lay. My significant other sneaked into the sanctuary and tapped on the cymbals while I was in another part of the church getting a drink or something and tried to say it wasn't him. The church folks had thoughtfully put a lock on the door of the room.

One nice thing about a lock is that you are in a huge building alone and it's nice not to feel vulnerable. Two is that folks arrive at all kinds of early hours for church services and you'd like to not introduce yourself in your skivvies.

So another time, another religious institution, the guest room was actually a large lounge with six sofas that made into beds. So you just picked one and opened up. While it was a big space (besides being in a big building) it very distinctly wasn't a single bedroom. We dressed in the attached bathroom.

Well, putting it mildly I'm not an early riser. The early risers in this rural farm community were getting coffee going behind a folding curtain that attached to our room. My significant other got in the shower and gave me a moment to awake. I started worrying this big room was a Sunday School area and I should get moving. I traded the sofa room for the bathroom only to hear pounding on the door of our area. I was about to turn on the shower when my man opened the door and said that I needed to hurry they were going to have to turn off the water.  The snow storm had frozen and broken pipes which were filling the heating system with water. Uhm, okay, no pressure.

When I came out to join in the donuts and early morning church rituals, you could hear the water pounding in the heating vents like tribal drums. Really weird sound.

Okay, so another room another state. This time attached to the men's bathroom as this was the only bathroom that had a shower. My spouse taught me that it is inappropriate to balance one's makeup bag on the handle of a urinal, but honestly you just work with whatever space you have and there wasn't any. We stayed in this arrangement for eight weeks. It was in a urban spill from a very large city. The kitchen was in the basement which meant walking through the sanctuary (in the dark) and down some stairs and hallways to the kitchen for hot water or microwaves etc. So I had to psych myself up for the journey (see the paragraph of childhood basement running above!).

It was fine and we didn't mind. These are just the little challenges you don't think of unless you stay a place as unusual as the back of thousands of square feet of public use space. After a few days, someone from the pastoral family mentioned that we needed to double check the side door by the sanctuary (not the one we used in the back dark parking lot!) because it didn't always latch and sometimes homeless people came inside to get warm. No big deal but it was best to check. Yeah. Note to self check the doors and the dark hallways on the way to the far away kitchen.

So then my significant one had to leave for another meeting and I got to stay there completely alone for two weeks. It was fine. Really. So maybe yes, I ran a couple times thru dark hallways, but I was grateful for somewhere to stay. It probably helped the intensity of my prayers!

Weirdest Places Slept, part 3, Place of the Dead

We spent a big chunk of life only going to visit people we knew when we went on vacation, grandparents, college roommates, that sort of cheap and comfortable vacation where you see your people.

When we started traveling for work reasons, we went a lot of places that hadn't been on the agenda financially or as major destinations. We had some meetings in New Jersey, New York,  and other east coast locals so we drove from the midwest. We didn't used to plan for hotels and on these trips a lot of people host us so we were just winging it.

In the middle of New York somewhere far from civilization, we found ourselves too far to go back and too far to go on as the wee hours began to make us sleepy. We finally took the next exit because we saw a sign for the "White Horse Inn." Taking a dark exit far from everything we'd seen for some time, we drove another 10 miles or so into the woods and discovered the White Horse Inn was a pancake - dinner place and they were locking up. We really needed to stop for the night so we asked if there was anything near by, a bed and breakfast perhaps?

An older fellow pointed us to a campground just a few miles down the road (still further into the deep dark woods and away from the highway) and they had a hotel on the grounds. Perfect.

It was dark and late, we could have missed it but somehow saw the turn. No lights or anything, it was one of those old methodist camp ground type things with the little victorian cottages surrounding a main green. (This sort of thing though this is not the one.)

We parked in front of  a white clapboard two story hotel, relieved and tired and wondering where we were. We'd passed no towns of any sort.

My significant other checked us in while I stood by the luggage at the bottom of the stairs looking at a painting. Not an experienced artist, but well meaning. I looked at the caption and it said, 'painted by Mary SoandSo in a trance.' Trance? I looked around further and there was a quilt done in a trance.

When my honey came up with the keys, we sort of put some things together he saw at the front desk and what I was seeing and realized we'd just checked into a camp for people who like to talk to dead people. Mediums, spiritualists, and such. Uh oh.

It was so late, we were tired and now paid up so we just went to our room, even though this would not have been a place we would pick out of website to stay. Let's just say it's not our spiritual cup of tea.

It was a lovely old room with wood floors and metal bed. You know how those old eastern board places don't have a/c? Well, this was one of them. We had the lights off in a few minutes since we were beat. My man was gleefully speculating if the curtains were blowing in the summer breeze or ...? I fell asleep. He told some family members who were completely terrified for us that we'd stayed there.

It was a lovely old camp ground but as we drove away each little cottage had a sign for a psychic or a medium or something. It struck me as a vaguely sinister environment with a quaint veneer over the top. A little arsenic and old lace.

Taking a different tact on the same trip later, we stayed in a hotel near the highway that had a hot tub the size of a car in one half of the BEDROOM space. Ick. And when I turned on the TV to porn,  we were really skeeved out. I think I slept on top of my scarf. Let's say, this may when we began to realize we needed to plan a little more carefully.

Weirdest Place Ever Slept ,Part 1, Animal Heads

We aren't always in control of where we stay when we are on a nonprofit fund raising mission which makes for fascinating travel. We drive to an address in a small town or a city and see what we find. We don't mind this at all and are quite grateful for a free bed.

So in one small town in a place far, far away from most places you've heard of and won't be named so as not to hurt feelings, we spent an evening sharing our "work" vision. The people hosting us said over pizza, "The local motel is horrible we wouldn't put our worst enemies there, so we put you in the local bed and breakfast."

At this point, my mind said, oh how wonderful. This will be so nice. It's been ages since we were at a b and b. Must be something quaint in a little town like this. Their next sentence stopped me in my tracks so to speak.

"It used to be the old folks home."

Uh, huh. So off we went three or four blocks in this tiny place to the old folks come cum bed and breakfast. We were giggling all the way. So do you check in but you can never leave?

Turns out bed and breakfast was more of a literal term than a descriptive one. It had become a hunting lodge of sorts as this part of the countryside draws hunters. So the public eating area and living room were covered in the heads of various taxidermy-ified animals.

The "living room" had quite a selection of recliners and just a couple side table lamps. Giving it a dimly lit shadowy atmosphere. A television flickered blue in the corner. Two elderly gentlemen  lurked in the recliners in the darkness, along with a lot of animal heads. They didn't look at us or acknowledge our entry.

I whispered, "Do you suppose they were 'grandfathered in'? The last residents?"
My significant other in classic form said, "I don't see anyone."

So a lady, not in uniform, gave us keys and sent us off. The living-eating room space remodel hadn't made it to the rest of the place. It still had railings on the walls so you could make it to your room and shiny squeeky clean linoleum floors. Thankfully no strange odors.

The hospital bed had been replaced by a double bed with quilts and flower sheets. Other than that it was the original room, but spotlessly clean. It had it's own private bath which was terrific and needed. Complete with loads of support bars and seats all over so you wouldn't fall. Not sure I've ever had such a safe shower.

Someone asked later,  Weren't you creeped out? Did you think of ghosts?

We really didn't but we laughed and thought up a lot of funny stories to go with our surroundings. It's one of those moments where you know it's going to be a good story even as you're experiencing it!

Message me and I'll see if I can find if it's still in business if you want to go have the experience!  Have you ever stayed anywhere unusual?

Odd sleeping arrangements will be a series in the blog for a bit. Enjoy.

Weirdest Places Ever Slept - Part 2

We've traveled for both personal and business reasons, profit and nonprofit. I'd say the majority more in the nonprofit lifestyle!

Haunted is easy, right? TV shows and spooks everywhere. We always joke about if Europe had those haunted Ghost shows they'd just walk down any random street with a camera and say ooo, I feel a cold spot since there've been people living, killing and dying in these towns for a long time.

In Hannibal, Missouri, the home of Mark Twain, we went for a Bed and Breakfast weekend. I think I got this free/discount as part of buying five boxes of Stash Tea. We get to this place and this little gruff man informs us he's watching it for the real owners. He's rough around the edges and maybe a little further.

He shows us around the victorian place, very cute, done nicely. Informs us we'll be staying in the seven bedroom mansion alone tonight since he doesn't live in, but he'll be back to make us pancakes in the morning. Turns out he's a former cop and is doing someone a favor.

On the way out, he says you're not afraid of ghosts, right? And he shows us a couple photos with fuzzy blobs in the stair well.  We look on in contemplation as we were supposed to do and he said a few folks had encountered it, but we'd be fine.

You gotta know, as a mystery writer, and a guy that likes to watch ghost shows on TV, we were absolutely thrilled. In a haunted Victorian Mansion of our own for the evening! And of course we acted like we were 12. We climbed all over the house looking at everything. In a dark corner where we couldn't find a light switch on the top floor was a door to the attic. Locked!!! Creepy, that's where they keep the ghost, I guess.

We settled down in the library (yes!) watched PBS mystery. Then my significant other much to my delight played Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on a small organ in the parlor(!) on a foot pump organ that of course had a delightfully rough sounds. My friend refers to this song as "Scary Frights" when she wants my man to play it. (Here's a posh version of it if you are curious.)

We slept well despite all the talk of ghosts, but my guy did say he heard things in the night -- maybe for my benefit since I slept like the dead and didn't notice. We explored Hannibal which besides having the haunts of Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn and the real life Twain is a delightful town with it's own oddities and delights to explore and find. You gotta go to the cave too if you go -- I don't remember the story exactly but it's got one of those someone got stuck in here spooky ones.

Reads of 2015

I  read a variety of genres last year and more audio books. I kept track of library borrows as well as audio. I find it interesting to see my own habits change and evolve with technology. I also read more sort of top books, probably thanks to library access and Audible credits. I felt like I read more, but the list says not so. I did draft a book in writing as well as move house last year, traveled more for work...so my hands weren't idle when they weren't in a book. Favorite reads on your list from 2015? 

Books 2015

1. The Hike The Missing Link to Transformational Leadership Copyright © Danise DiStasi Nonfiction business allegory ***

2. Is everyone hanging out without me?, Mindy Kaling, humor memoir, ****, audio

3. El salon  de ambar, germany, spain, portugal  in Spanish! **** matilde asensi

4. The weed that strings the hangman's bag, UK, post WW II, Alan Bradley, **** audio

5. The Joy Diet, martha Beck,nonfiction, started in 2014;this one is a process not just a book. *****

6. Gone Girl, gillian flynn, Missouri, hard to rate since I knew so much hype. Well written. Didn't like the end which colors your overall feel. 

7. For Women only, shaunti feldhahn, nonfiction, paper book, started in 2014

8. Murder in the afternoon, Frances Brody. UK after WW1, **** audio

9. Gung-Ho, leadership story, ****, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, audio

10. Cut and Run, carla neggers, holland and new york, *,  it was like a rough draft, needed editing, names spelled erratically, repetitive. 

11. Amy Pohler, yes, please, autobiography, *** audio, never quite finished even though I liked it. 

12. The  Antelope in the living room, Melanie Shankle, memoir humor, ***, library 

13. The Racketeer, John Grisham, ***, ebook, library

14. Dad is fat, Jim Gaffigan, memoir,*** audio

15. Dying to meet you, Patricia Scott, uk, fiction**

16. Rules of Prey, John Sandford, Minneapolis/St Paul, fiction, ebook, ***

17. The One You Love, Paul Pilkington, London, uk, fiction *** e book

18. The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss, nonfiction

19. The Husband's Secrets, Liane  moriarty, Fiction audio, Australia, ***

20. The shawshank redemption, stephen king, audiobook, rough language  ****

21. Dear Theo, Irving Stone and Gene stone, audiobook,  letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo ****, this was really long but I enjoyed it. Incredible look inside his life.

22. Walking with God thru pain and suffering, timothy Keller, nonfiction, ***

23. King of Lies, John Hart, North Carolina, audiobook, fast read, ****, library 

24. The Kind Worth Killing, Peter Swansen, Boston New England, ebook, library ****

25. Gray Mountain, John Grisham, Appalacian Virginia and DC, NYC, audio, library ***

26. Last Man Standing, David Baldacci, DC virginia, audio book. ***

27. Paranoia, joseph Finder, Seattle? , *** audio

28. Suspect, Robert Crais, LA, ***

29. 80/20 principle, the secret to achieving more with less, richard koLch, nonfiction.****

30. The Girl on the Train, Uk, Paula Hawkins, audio****

31. Beyond Belief: jenna miscaivage hill, scientology, nonfiction ***, audio, very interesting 

32. Mr. penumbra's 24 hour bookstore, Robin Sloan, san francisco, audio. ****, present tense. 

33. Evelina, historical fiction, UK,  Fanny Burney, pub date 1778, ***

34. The Handmaid's Tale, alternate future USAish, top 100 books list, audio, ****

35. Deliver us from Evil, italy, Roberto Constantini, ***.5, didn't love the main character or it could have been 4 stars, plus second half had some typos probably from the translation. Library 

36. the Stranger, Harlan Corben, NJ, ****, library ebook

37. the Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton, Australia, Cornwall, mixed time periods, **** audiobook

Audio books and character clash

My blog readers will recall I mostly read fiction. I have in recent years disciplined myself to read more nonfiction, so I'll often read a nonfiction and a fiction book at the same time. I have almost never read two fiction books at the same time.

My brother last year got me onto audiobooks after a long time of not listening. I don't know why I quit doing audio books. It might have been the move overseas and no free ones hanging around at the library.

So my first audiobook in about 10 years was Steve Martin's Born Standing Up which he reads himself. I think I've listened to 13 audio books in less than a year. Clearly I'm back on the bankwagon. I found a way to check them out from my home library in Overland Park, KS even though I'm in Spain which is a huge boon, but also accidentally signed up for an audible account so you get your "free books" for having an account. This is actually you buying books because you pay for an account. At  first I randomly picked things but after a while I realized that I need to get the most financially out of the credits they give you.

I had wanted to read ebook or audio a biographical look at the letters of Van Gogh (a much more intellectual endeavor than normal!) This book in any form was expensive. I realized I could get it with one of my "free credits" and so I went audio. A very good read if you are interested in art, creativity, Vincent or the time period in the art world. Dear Theo by Irving and Gene Stone.

I usually do one audio book which the first few months on this new kick were all autobiograhical or nonfiction mostly. Somehow a couple weeks ago, accidentally, I started a fiction ebook from the library and I started an audio fiction book also from the library at the same time. It was not a conscious decision it just happened. I was struggling figuring out what I wanted to read at the moment. I'd started a book that while well written I had to put down --  the fishing theme was not engaging me.

So both of the new borrowed books were very compelling plots, both had main male protagonists. So I read about 10 chapters of the ebook and then got a massive migraine that drug on for days. I love audio books for this. I can put the volume where it doesn't trouble my head and I can keep my eyes closed. It also distracts me from the pain, so it's a great way to pass a couple hours lying down that aren't going to be sleep anyway. I'd started the audio book while cooking so I was a little ways into it at the same time as the ebook.

I burned thru King of Lies by John Hart on the audiobook quickly because one-it was a compelling good "read" and two-the migraine had me on the floor in front of the portable a/c unit for several evenings in a row. Enjoyed it. 

Migraine was gone and the audiobook over, so I went back to the ebook. The Kind Worth Killing, Peter Swanson. A very compelling plot, very. But I found myself attributing the motivations of the main character from the King of Lies audio book to this protagonist. I'd say to myself, "But he won't follow thru because this guy is so paralyzed by life…"  and then I'd realize it was the other book I was thinking of.

I'm not sure what it says aout my mind that I interchanged these, but a major plot twist took place in the ebook that has eliminated that little problem. I found it very interesting to see how the audio and ebook mixed with the characters in my mind. I imagine it won't stop me listening and reading willy-nilly but I might think twice next time or chose wildly different themes.

Culture Choque

Most the time living in Europe is a great. It's not being on vacation every day but you have random moments that are delightful or have a wow-factor because it's just not the place you grew up.

But there are moments where you lose your sanity -- because this is not a vacation. It is life and things have to happen and get done.

Recent moments of culture shock:

Frankfurt airport being so intense about following the rules, they couldn't help me make my flight even though my name was being called on the speakers. (Yes, I missed my flight)

A hotel toilet mounted so high on the wall in Holland, I could not touch the floor. You laugh, but it's not funny in the middle of the night. Okay, maybe it is funny.

Only coins can be used to do the on street parking in the center of my city here in Spain. There's a credit card area on the machine but no slot actually set up. No coins, no parking, no one cares if you are in a hurry. Thus, everyone double parks with their flashers. Being a good Midwesterner,  I have avoided it, but it is in serious consideration now.

It's okay to tell a customer that it will be ready Tuesday afternoon. Customer fights aforementioned parking situation, gives up goes to parking garage much further away, walks to shop only to discover the items aren't ready after all. This is okay and should not be cause for complaint.

Health analysis includes urinalysis. The urine must be collected first thing in the morning, not later in the day. You must go to a farmacia (not the place that takes the blood or the urine) and buy a special cup yourself. Should you arrive past 10 am, the cup cannot be delivered and you must go to the pharmacy and purchase another and try to arrive by 10 am again (despite the parking situation in the area). Please note, I did not pour the rejected urine on the front step though I was very frustrated. I go to this clinic to avoid the one where they took blood from my neck, but that's another story.

This is just the last few weeks. Most the time you take it in stride and shrug but every once in awhile it all stacks up just right and you lose your mind. I suppose it's like arriving at Disneyland and seeing the lines and price of the food after saving all year. It may be fun at times, but there's some major obstacles that you will not be able to avoid dealing with. You are going to pay.

Admiring the art and not the artist

We go to museums. It's one of the primary things travel guides talk to us about seeing when we visit other places. We went to a special art exposition in Madrid and it really juiced up my creativity, but it got me thinking about art and artists.

Museums are a major tourist attraction, right? A suave night out?  How about an art gallery premier or a special art show? We laud art but mostly we laud old art.

I've been plagued with some writer's block on my work-in-progress novel due to some kinks in the plot twists, so I was contemplating the challenge of being and artist and working in obscurity.

No one cheers you on when you drag yourself daily to a blank canvas or a blank page.  Reviewers often don't give you any attaboys even after the work is done.

In fact, people sometimes see you as eccentric, odd, a dreamer or maybe creative if they're being generous. No one thinks of you as rich. Mostly because you're not. No one thinks of you as a potential gold mine. Mostly because chances are you're not going to be.

As a young person who wanted to write novels, I had the implied and sometimes direct comment/advice, "Yes, but what will you DO? How will you make money?" Sadly, it has been true that I needed another profession besides novel writing to make a living. Fortunately, it has always related to writing and I've enjoyed it.

The truth is that no one looks at a young person who says they want to be a poet, an artist, or a writer and simply says, good. Not even me, truth be told. I'm full of personal advice like everyone.

Society is full of a je ne sais quoi regarding artists - not the art itself.  A faint disdain of the wholehearted pursuit of an artistic endeavor as a life exists. The implication is, "It's okay for a hobby but you know you have to have a real job."

Likely the real job is true, but does anyone decide to study business and the people respond, "Just don't try to go into business yourself, that's unrealistic and statistically likely to fail."

So on the one hand, people are encouraged to go to museums and art shows by society, but the not spoken reality is that we don't really respect the artists that might be the next Van Gogh or Andy Warhol in the making. I hope it's changing but I'm not sure.

In the late 1800s, the new art movement was happening that was derided by the press and the creators were mostly paupers: impressionism, my favorite. Then later cubists etc. etc. It just doesn't pay (pun intended) to be an artist.  Emotionally or financially. Most those artists who go on to be featured in museums seem to have died in poverty and sometimes obscurity.

It just struck me recently as fascinating why we both worship at the museums of art and look down on the present day artists or scoff at their efforts despite what history tells us on the walls of the famous museums today. Am I wrong?