i won't grow up. i won't lose that sense of wonder, i won't bow down to expectations or obligations, i won't learn true responsibility or compromise or sacrifice... i just won't. there's a lot of honor in those things, if honor's your thing. but i guess i'm not so sophisticated or mature, and i don't think i ever will be. i can already tell it'll make me a bit of a failure in some people's eyes. eventually, you'll see. but i'm not aching for that kind of success. i just wanna live. as much as i possibly can, and be happy.

open your eyes... do you think annie dillard could have written pilgrim at tinker creek had she waited ten more years? have you read the little prince? childhood was the only glimmer of light in ivan ilych's entire life! i'm gonna keep holding on. i'm going to keep avoiding real jobs and saying ridiculous, nonsensical things and being a bit of a silly being and everyone's going to keep outgrowing me but i'll just make friends with the neighborhood kids or something. i'll corrupt everyone else's kids.

seems like kids these days have life and responsibility just kinda thrust upon them and they have to grow up fast and find a way to deal. but they don't seem to mind because everyone's itching to get there, to throw back a few, to start making the big bucks, to get in on the gadgets and have their own this or that... kids doing things kids shouldn't be doing, dealing with things they shouldn't have to worry about... kids having kids. does hitting 20 mean you're not a kid anymore? don't kid yourself. (pun!) i think there's a critical moment in a person's life when they decide they don't wanna be a kid anymore, and then they're not. but i'm not sure you can ever go back after you've hit that point. so why hurry?

i may not ever birth children of my own but i'll steal em instead and raise them laughing and dancing, teach them to love life and befriend spiders, let em have a puppy or two no matter how much havoc they'll cause, and we'll sing and scream and run like we were meant to. we'll jump in puddles and play in the mud and make enormous messes and eat dessert before dinner, we'll spend entire days playing hide and seek and freeze tag, we'll make up all kinds of ridiculous stories and sleep under lopsided forts in the living room and fingerpaint all over the walls and blow off everything for weeklong beach trips. and then they'll know all the important things like how to jig and how fast they can run and how to make things grow and they won't have any bad dreams only ones in which they're flying.

i have too many opinions. or they're too strong. i'm starting to feel as if there isn't a place for me as i am in the real world and something's gotta give. either i've got to change or i've got to change the world. and i'm not convinced it's me that needs the changing.

mother i lost it, all the fear of the lord i was given.

oh man, don't people ever get tired of sayin' "one day"? keep figuring over and over i should be just doin' what it is i wanna be doin' and dontcha know it's a relief to be a nobody. you know hindu philosophy is based on doing what you want without holding back because you'll realize in the end that it's all empty anyway. why then, would you do anything that's empty to begin with when there's everything else you someday coulda shoulda done. there comes a time when one asks even of shakespeare, even of beethoven, is this all? so maybe we shouldn't be stuck in dr. seuss. i might be content forever living in a tent, sleeping in a hammock, stack o' books in the corner, and pretty view outside, maybe. we'll see. dropped all that jazz because life's too short to do anything useless. that's why you gotta have your dance parties and one day we'll all be infinite.

cynda and ian got me a ticket to the iron & wine concert for my bday. i'm pretty sure my life is complete. or will be on december 2nd anyway. (you ever hear the live at bonnaroo album? ...it makes you believe in great things.)

(mother, don't worry.)

i ain't no monkey but i know what i like.

today i was told by a bus driver that beaverton was the new fareless square, gave a high five to some guy in a fuzzy turtle costume, got falling elm leaves stuck in my hair, was asked for money to fund some "alcoholic relief" for a group of streetkids, saw an elvis impersonator singing under the "pod" outside powell's, met the same guy at the farmer's market who gave us a tour of his organic farm down in the corvallis area just yesterday, and witnessed a dude with a green mohawk pull a folding chair out of nowhere and make himself comfortable in the packed streetcar. where else but in downtown portland, right?

it's lovely, it's home, it's not the same.

and if you wanna be free, be free.

stickin' it to the man.

portland, oregon, u.s.a. (the one thing that stays mine.)

so... portland rocks the socks off every other place in the world, and that's all i have to say about that.

europe was great. europe is great. it's amazing and there's more to see than anyone ever could. i've got a boatload of postcards, quite a cache of photos, and some memories i wouldn't trade for anything. you see a little bit more of the world and you kind of start to understand that everything's not black and white, good or bad, pretty or ugly. people are the same everywhere, a lot of things are universal, and borders are only lines on maps and maybe in some cases fences placed there by people who thought they had the authority. most of the things i learned though, i wasn't really expecting to and they weren't really specific to any place or time.

it was a wonderful experience in being a tourist. i toured cities and saw the sights and rode trains and consulted maps and stayed in hostels and spoke in foreign languages and people-watched (and i didn't get mugged and cynda didn't get run over by a moped - success!) ...and i had a lot of fun doing it and it was beautiful and it was truly awesome, but now that all is said and done, i'm not sure i'd do it again. i don't think i'd go back to europe again as a tourist. maybe next time as a pilgrim or a cyclist or a student or a worker or an inhabitant, maybe. if i'm going anywhere as a blatant tourist, it'll be a road trip across america. (do you realize what an incredible land we live in right here in the u.s. of a?) it's gonna happen.

i love being home, sleeping in my own bed, being able to see friends... i hate having to say goodbye to people. or not saying goodbye, sometimes it's better that way but sometimes it's even worse.

i was listening to some u2 (yes, u2) that brought back the summer after senior year. do you remember that? it was probably the best summer i ever had and maybe ever will have, who knows? i'd like to think it just gets better, even if we see so much less of each other, even if people leave and may not come back, even if we all decide somewhere else could be home at least for a little while, even if we do get older. just as long as we pray that we don't lose our memories as we age, and we'll all float on.

oh man, we're always in such a hurry to start something new or to go off to someplace or to finish the semester or, you know, to grow up... and then we end up missing our childhood or that crazy high school era or our carefree college days. it doesn't make much sense to live that way. and that's the way it goes, i always feel like i've got plenty of time to do the things i want to do and talk to the people i want to talk to, but somehow all that time slips away and nothing ever gets done. it's a dangerous mindset to get into, thinking you have all the time in the world, because that's not living life to the fullest. people tend to live as if they're never going to die and then they end up dying without ever having lived.

i heard it once put that the greatest sin of all is regret. there are so many things i would have regretted not doing if i hadn't done them and so many things i would never have done if i hadn't thought i'd regret them later. i've gotten crap from people for some of them and there will always be people who have problems with the things i or anyone else for that matter do or believe. hell, i've given people crap when i shouldn't have, but what do i know? i really don't know anything about anyone other than me and i don't have the answers and i'm not always right. humility's one of the hardest things to learn, i think.

hey, just don't live for anyone else and don't do anything you don't wanna and don't let 'em walk all over you just because they can. and when all else fails, just do it so you won't regret it later.

(what're you hoping for?)

wien, österreich.

so vienna definitely takes the cake.



the palaces are a little more regal, the bike lanes are a little wider, the people a little friendlier, the architecture a little more impressive... vienna's got the oldest zoo and the oldest ferris wheel in the world. the zoo was really cool, we saw some very, uh, interesting things.


stayed up all night the first night, then walked about the city at six in the morning... everything was so quiet, it was real nice. checked out some parks, napped under some trees, hit up an amusement park and a couple of palaces, a few restaurants, a botanical garden, a couple of churches, a zoo, various metro lines, a revolving cafe up on a tower (with an amazing view of the city) and the longest nap ever once we finally got to our beds. good thing, too, because we had a night train and a second class sleeper car is no party.


i'm definitely gonna have to go into sculpture you know, so i can sculpt myself a nice ol' fountain like the huge one we saw at the palace belvedere. except mine'll have a roll out water slide and it will be too cool for school. you'll see.



one of the coolest things was going to this museum centered on the work of hundertwasser, an artist with a very cool philosophy who undertook a good amount of architectural projects... houses with rolling, hilly floors or built into the ground with grass roofs, trees growing out of windows... interesting guy, very creative. he was a big environmentalist.


"the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind. but the straight line has become an absolute tyranny. the straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is the line which does not exist in nature... any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist knowhow and yet, at the same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. an aesthetic void, desert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power. even creativity is prefabricated. we have become impotent. we are no longer able to create. that is our real illiteracy." (i dug the guy.)

praha, česká republika.

prague! it’s gorgeous. (seriously magda, how many cities are you going to describe in the same way? i have an extensive vocabulary, for sure.)

okay, so the cool thing about prague is that it’s all so old school. it’s probably only actually the part that we’ve been in, but this city has way more of that quaint european charm… not so much that’s modern, but it’s great. the streets are almost all cobblestone! (quite a bumpy ride on a bike, let me tell you.) and the river that cuts through the city isn’t wimpy, either.

but at the same time, the amount of tourists here is overwhelming. yeah, it’s summer and yeah, i know i’m one of ‘em, but it’s like they all congregate in these little streets and then you can barely get through, but a couple of blocks farther, and it’s unbelievably quiet. this time i mastered the art of weaving through pedestrians on a bicycle. like a madwoman.

prague is very... european. charming churches and an uber-cool 15^th century astronomical clock and a castle on a hill and beautiful bridges... the st. charles bridge is probably the most well-known, because it’s closed to everything but pedestrians and that’s where all the local artists set up their stands, with everything from jewelry and photographs and crafts and paintings… and there’s always different musicians out doing their thing as passersby toss change in their upturned hat. my favorites were these four guys on an accordian, a bongo, a guitar, and a bagpipe-type thing. they were damn good. that’s gonna be us one day raising money for some wild road trips, yeah? (dude, bagpipes!)

berlin, deutschland. (the night starts here).

i think i fell in love with berlin. honestly, there were so many other cities in germany i felt like i would rather go to, but it ended up being berlin, and i’m so glad it did.

the city is beautiful. there’s the perfect mix of the old with the new and everything seems so large but at the same time, it’s all so accessible.

maybe the thing that really won me over was how easily we were able to maneuver around a huge, foreign city on a couple of rented cruisers with nothing but one of those free maps that advertise some tour for tourists or something. berlin is honestly the most bike-friendly city i have ever been in, and if you ever visit, rent a bike for the day and see where it takes you, because you can see so much more and it was seriously so much fun, i absolutely loved it. i mastered the art of taking photos from a moving bicycle.

also, public transportation in berlin is downright amazing. even at two in the morning.

and there were so many cool things to see. the berliner dom, which is the big german cathedral, the remnants of the wall and checkpoint charlie, and so many lovely parks off of the river… oh, and i saw two ludwigs, although one was in a sarcophagus and the other was a statue.

anyway, i loved it. it’s the kind of city i could see myself living in. i wish i had a hundred lives.

(the pleasure part, the aftershock, the moment that it takes to fall apart, the time we have, the task at hand, the love it takes to destroy a man, the ectasy of being free, that big black cloud over you and me, and after that the upwards fall and were we angels after all?)

wieliczka, polska. (today my heart swings.)

it’s sweltering here. a couple of days ago it hit forty degrees celcius. that’s really great weather for train traveling when there’s no air conditioning, you know. but on monday on our last day in krakow we went to this town called wieliczka where they have a giant salt mine hundreds of meters under the ground, where it’s nice and cool… it’s a pretty awesome place.

as you go through the mine, the walls and floors and everything are salt, and there are sculptures of all kinds of things that were also made from giant hunks of salt (dwarves and gnomes and dragons and famous people like copernicus and goethe and pope john paul ii). there are a couple of chapels and an entire church completely engraved from salt… that was the coolest part by far. they actually hold masses in there and it’s gorgeous… the sculptures and engravings all around the room are amazing. there were also some really pretty underground lakes and we got to see how they used to mine the salt hundreds of years ago when it was worth more than gold.

it was pretty chill. (ha, a pun!) i kept telling natalia to lick the walls but she wouldn’t do it.

we’re staying at my dad’s brother's house near warsaw now. he’s away somewhere so we’re chilling with my aunt and cousins for a little bit… it’s great because they’re pretty laid back. and they have a crazy dog. my laptop sucks and has problems connecting to the internet, but we’ve finally got steady access to it here, so i get to catch up.

(how are things on the west coast?)

dunajec river, slovenská republika. (it's okay to run, we expect you back.)

our cracovian hosts took us rafting on the dunajec river that makes up some of the border between poland and slovakia. there are really nice national parks on both sides, and mountain and cliffs and forests and all that good stuff. our boat had polish mountain men and nuns and a small singing boy on it and it was a great ride and a perfect day (maybe a little warm) and a gorgeous place.

the drive there and back was breathtaking. even though i’ve been to poland before, touring it like this is pretty cool… poland’s a beautiful country. rolling hills out here in this part of the country, i dig ‘em. and the mountain range in the distance… also quite impressive. and the sunset on the way back… uh, yeah. so like, the pictures don’t nearly do it any justice and i know i sure as hell don’t but um, it’s pretty chill. i could spend forever on the top of one of those hills, you couldn’t imagine the views.

(dreaming of a new land where the rivers wind through the villages and the people breathe so easily.)

kraków, polska.

oh boy. krakow. it’s the most beautiful city. i don’t even know where to start. the cathedrals, the rynek, the castle, the river, the university… it’s all pretty amazing. krakow has so many legends and so much history attached to it. unlike warsaw, the war spared the city for the most part, and a lot of the architecture is much like it always was.

the cathedrals, good lord, the cathedrals and the churches here are really something else. it’s not enough that they’re on every other block, but they’re amazing. the royal krakow cathedral is the oldest and most historically significant, housing the tombs of poland’s kings and queens and giant bells that can be heard throughout the whole city when rung (on special occasions such as the new year or the death of the pope). it’s up on wawel hill with the castle and it sure has some history. then there’s the basylika mariacka right on the rynek… oh man, i got dizzy standing in front of it, it’s so big. a trumpeter plays on the hour every hour from the top of the tower, and you can just see a little speck that is his trumpet in the window. the inside of the cathedral is gorgeous, there are incredibly old and intricate wooden carvings on the walls, the alter, everywhere… it’s so hard to describe the place, but it’s enough to make anyone awestruck. and there are so many beautiful churches, i couldn’t even begin to describe them.

the castle was really cool, and we got to see so many old pieces of artwork and architecture and carpentry and sculpture and weaponry… you name it. the museums are of course impressive and there’s no shortage of things to do in this city. the rynek or town square is probably the nicest in all of poland and it’s always the busiest part of the city, but the university district and the jewish district are refreshingly free of tourists. everything’s worth seeing.

we’re staying with a friend of my dad’s who has a nursery of his own. he has two daughters, but the one that’s our age is off on a sailing trip or something, so we didn’t get to meet her. it’s a really nice place, he’s got an amazing garden and quite a view, and with all the trees it smells like home. we’d never even met this guy or his family before but they took us in on short notice and bequeathed to us their guest house so we’ve been living in luxury for a while. on top of that, he bought us a boatload of gluten-free food and like a week’s worth of groceries (you have no idea… we spent our last night there gorging. “natalia, you can’t have any more ice cream until you eat more cake!”) and then he completely funded a tour of the city with his younger daughter and a ridiculously nice polish girl who works for him. and he picked us up from the train station and took us to restaurants and drove us around and wouldn’t let us pay for a thing. and of course we don’t eat enough so he has to feed us every chance he gets and bring us fresh bread and milk in the mornings. and then he didn’t want us to leave and tried very hard to convince us to stay for at least a couple more days. he’s telling me about how many great ski trips we’ll go on when i come back in the winter because of course i have to come back and visit them then. and that is polish hospitality for you.