had some good catching up with people i haven't chatted with in a long time. ate dinner at yummy sostanzza trattoria with steve...and then meg took me out for a delicious tapas dinner as a belated bday present...finally took alex out rollerblading along alki beach today...and then hung out with gary for a few drinks.

did a hell of a lot of cleaning up of the old apartment. i hate cleaning refridgerators.

made a spontaneous purchase earlier today...was bummed that i didn't really have anything to do for labor day weekend, so i bought a ticket to san francisco to see my friend willie. found a pretty good deal too...so i'm leaving tomorrow at 5pm. whoa, need to pack. also bought ticket to L.A. for later in month to visit gung-gung...

no more julia...it was so great seeing her. last sunday, we took a random trip down to olympia to have lunch at her friend brian's restaurant, la voyeur...my first time being down in the capital city...cute. it'll probably be about a year before i see her again. afterwards, jocelyn and i drove all over the place determined to find a banana republic store...surely, there must be one in the capital. after our lame attempt, we drove back to seattle and shopped downtown.
i've finally moved into my new apartment and spent the first night there tuesday night....oh, i love it so much. plus, my neighbors are great: peter, brett, kate. i got so much moved over...all i have left at the old place is some food, my mirror and 2 coats essentially. i can't wait to get all settled into it. first things i put together: bed, entertainment center. you can see what my priorities are.

saw maceo parker with eugene and scott on thursday...too bad it was raining initially...kinda spoiled all the fun.

a friend's father suddenly died yesterday...she's my age and her father's about the same age as my father. what a shock that must be...you're not even supposed to consider thinking about your parents leaving you at this time...i don't know what I'd do if either of my parents suddenly left me...I'd be a wreck of course...but I'd just be shocked most of all. [shudder] i don't want to think about it.

I finally have keys to my new apartment--how exciting! I got them this morning and already put my shower curtain up and brought over my plates and bowls. Need to get rugs because this place has hardwood floors. Got on a roll last night with packing things in boxes..stayed up til 1:30am doing so.
Julia and Jocelyn dropped by last night..it was so good seeing Julia...I miss her a lot! And I've got to meet up with Fred soon..well, I'll be hanging with him tomorrow to look at apartments in Cap. Hill.
and my Aussie friend just got laid off from work and has to find a new job soon or return to Australia....how sad. It's unlikely that he'll stay here in Seattle.
Also just settled into my new cubicle at work...decided to settle into this one more than my previous and put up my postcards and pictures...much more homey. It's strange, though, being on this floor amongst all the accountants. I'm sure they think us web devs are loud and obnoxious. ha ha.

back in the states now...wish i had more time over in europe...i miss it so much.

friday: woke up early and had breakfast in the city. then visited the old jewish cemetery, which is the oldest one in europe, dating back to the 15th century i believe. it's a small space and is essentially layers and layers of graves. today, the tombstones that exist have been brought up from each layer over the hundreds of years. i then took a bus (for only 68 Kc!) out to the town of Terezin (about an hour away), which was a former Jewish Ghetto during the war. It's a town of about 5,000...and at one point, conditions were so bad that they squeezed as many as 58,000 Jews in there. It kind of spooked me out that people still live there...which makes sense...but it's strange knowing the history of it and all the pain and suffering that went on. Like many other towns, Terezin was pretty much a public relations hoax on the part of the Nazis, twice fooling the International Red Cross into thinking that it was a Jewish refuge. More disturbing was the Lesser Fortress, or the prison that existed down the street from the town. That's no longer in use and it was completely creepy to walk through the former prison cells and isolation chambers.

Got back into the city that evening and celebrated my birthday by having an exquisite French dinner at a place called Saint-Jacques. There was this violin and piano duo...these 2 guys who were just hilarious. They did everything from Vivaldi to Elvis. Then went out to a club on the Charles River where we hung out with a group of guys from London in Prague for a stag party..lots and lots of fun. I love how international it was...meeting people from everywhere. Fabulous birthday.

on Saturday, I finally met up with Sara and saw her perform, which I haven't seen in years. Coincidentally, she was performing at the same place as Peter and Klara's wedding reception, the Lichtenstein Palace. Her parents were also in the city so I got to chat with them also. And later that day, Wil and I began our long drive back to Germany. At one point, he even let me drive because he was so tired---how crazy that was, especially not knowing all the various road signs in Europe...but it was in the middle of the night with fewer cars on the road. Still, it was insane considering the speed of all the cars. Sunday morning, I flew back...it was a long and exhausting flight...kind of annoying, but I made it back all right. Logan Airport was a nightmare. The Luthansa flight arrived 2 hours later, which made me miss my United connection to Seattle. Because we were coming into the U.S., I had to take out my suitcase for customs...but because I had missed my connection ,I couldn't re-check it back in, even though my bag was technically checked in through Seattle. So then I had to drag it all the way to the United terminal and wait in line with everyone..not just transferring passengers..but everyone. I did that for one hour...to find out that they need to rebook me on American just get back to Seattle that day...so then I had to carry my suitcase to another terminal (the entire airport is under construction...so I had to walk along the street...you can't get anywhere except by walking outside)...and I waited in line again at American where I finally checked my bags in and got my boarding pass.

Back at work, team is moving to another floor. Waiting for the movers right now---oh! they just arrived! now I can go out to lunch...I'm taking my team out to Dixie's Bar-B-Q where they serve their famous "The Man" sauce, which is ridiculously spicy.

Oh, and Fred's back in town now--wahoo! Like, permanently...what a strange thought....and it's Gary's birthday..must call him...and Julia's coming to town!!!!

So much to talk about...I'm in Prague now. The drive here was beautiful, though I slept through most of it. I apparently missed a dinner on Tuesday night that I was invited to, that Peter didn't tell me about...sadly, there was even a place setting with my name at a table at the restaurant...oh well. Prague is such a beautiful city...I'm so in love with it. The architecture here is so awe-inspiring...gothic, baroque, art noveau, etc.. and the weather has been fantastic...not too hot, not too cool..just perfect in the upper 70's, lower 80's. There are a ridiculous number of old old cathedrals around here..the cobblestone streets only add to the charm of this city. And yes, everything is very cheap. For example, to use the internet is about 25Kc/15 minutes...which is probably about 75 cents.

The whole wedding was beautiful...Klara was dressed in a non-traditional white sequin top with a large emerald green gown...looking quite stunning. And Peter was looking all dapper and handsome in his tuxedo. Both families were incredibly sweet and it was such a joy to see the blend of the two cultures. At some point after the wedding reception, Klara was "kidnapped" to some bar for Peter to find her...apparently, a Czech tradition. Poor Peter wandered around for 2.5 hours looking for her..and they still had to drive 2 hours to where they planned on spending their wedding night. Today, a large part of the wedding guests gathered together to travel down to southern Bohemia to visit 2 castles and take a nice boat ride down the Vltava River...just romantic and beautiful. I can't even describe how breathtaking this place is. They even put together a grand meal in the courtyard of a restaurant near the Orlick Castle in the evening..everything was perfect...Klara's family is much too generous.

I can now only hope to find my friend Sara who is also here in Prague for a chamber music festival..we've only been communicating via email...I hope we meet up soon.

what a jam packed day. for starters, i could barely sleep last night, adjusting to the 9-hour difference...waking up suddenly at 3:30am. later on, jumped on the 9am train up to Bielefeld to visit Tanyel...what a great train ride. i love riding the train in europe..despite the kinda icky, rainy day it was, it was so beautiful to ride along the Rheine and pass through places like Cologne and Bonn. I freaked out briefly while changing trains in Mainze as my next train was 20 minutes late...but I wasn't sure of that..and I ran around the place asking people "sprechen zie English?!" with a "neine!" in return most of the time....I finally arrived in northern Germany about 5 hours later to the greeting of Tanyel, whom I haven't seen in FOUR years, now that I think about it. It's amazing...I never thought I'd ever have this opportunity to see him again, in his own country. We went back to his apartment where he cooked me a fantastic meal of duck salad, an eggplant dish and home-made tiramisu...and then we took a nice walk around the city, going up to some fort to get a nice view of the town....a short but pleasant and worthwhile visit. He pointed out old parts of the city that weren't destroyed by WWII...sadly, most of the city center area was destroyed so the architecture there is all very new. It amazes me still how a war that seems so distant in the past and known only to me by history books continues to reverberate in all of Germany. Tanyel mentioned to me how it is only now, with our generation, that the Germans can say that they are German to foreigners without feeling any shame or guilt. I wish we had had more time to just sit down in his living room, sipping wine and enjoying each other's company and conversation....so after all that, took a 7pm train back to Idar-Oberstein...where I got back close to midnight...and now I have to prepare for the long drive over to Prague tomorrow...can't wait. It should be a beautiful drive.

I'm in Idar-Oberstein, Germany right now. oy...I haven't written here in awhile. quick summary before moving onto europe...

fun fun leo party last weekend where all sorts of friends from all sorts of social circles appeared at todd and olke's house. i took lots of pictures but haven't uploaded them yet online..you'll see it soon. took jon out for dinner for his bday at a yummy place on queen anne called sapphire on wednesday...and on friday, headed to george, wa at the gorge to see the area:one concert where moby, outkast, new order, paul oakenfold, timo maas, rhinocerese, the orb and the roots performed/dj'd. went with gary and had an amazing amazing time. saw eugene and party briefly but lost them.

and on saturday, i got on a plane for a long 15-hour journey over to frankfurt where Wil picked me up and took me back to here where he's stationed at the Baumholder U.S. Army Base. what a surreal world this is...not only being in a foreign country but also seeing a military base in another country. There's a whole community here so that one can feel like they're still in the U.S. I couldn't believe how cheap all the food items were in the grocery store...all subsidized by the government. he lives in this amazing apartment in the country that's huge...and the army pays for it. so this is where our tax money goes... Idar-Oberstein is a small conglomeration of several little towns just a little bit west of Frankfurt...quite peaceful actually. I love the view from his balcony, overlooking a bunch of hills with some houses nestled within. Tomorrow, I going to take a really last minute random trip up to Bielefeld where my friend Tanyel is studying law. I met Tanyel the summer of 1997 at summer school and that was the last time I saw him. I'm not going to have that much time with him...only about 5 hours...but it'll be worth it. I would've ended up just sitting in Wil's apartment watching TV or sleeping anyway...might as well make use of that time by....oh...traveling all the way to northern Germany for a day. And then on Tuesday is the long haul road trip (6 hours) to go to Prague, which is my primary reason for coming here in the first place---to attend Peter and Klara's wedding on Wednesday. Quite exciting.