12 July 2005 ---JOURNAL ENTRY THIRTY-EIGHT---
Another 3 months between updates, I guess I'm still a busy kitty, eh? It's 4:10pm on Tuesday, July 12, 2005. Normally I'm at work up in the Black Forest but the semester ended a few days ago and now I'm at home, chilling out, watching National Treasure and working on a slow but definitive clean up of my life.
Assiyeah is back! We survived five months apart and now we're trying to survive living together again, haha...But we did pretty well, speaking often on the phone (12 freakin' cents/minute for 5 months, ouch!), emailing and of course seeing each other on holiday. We went to London, Sevilla, Marbella, Malaga, Oslo, Bergen, and Cork in that time period so it's not like we didn't see each other at all during that time.
Norway was great. I was able to sell only 4 books but traded over 50 for coffee, sandwiches, rides, places to sleep and of course beer. The country was even more expensive than I had imagined! I ate in a restaurant one time in the two weeks and it was in a cheap chinese restaurant. A plate of food and a beer cost me 20euro! The last night I traded a book for a beer and then learned that the beer cost 8euro, by far the most expensive drink I've ever had! And the girls had their clothes on, this was no strip club! I was able to speak quite a bit of Norwegian, impressed some people and saw the most beautiful place on earth. I visited Oslo, Bergen, Alesund, Andalsnes, Trondheim, Narvik as well as a Karesuvanto, Finland and Kiruna, Sweden. My 31st birthday was spent in Finland, a country I hadn't even planned on going to originally.
I visited Assiyeah June 10-13 last minute, having bought the plane tickets 3 days before leaving, and then two weeks later we went to Cork, Ireland, my 25th country! We had a blast and we enjoyed hearing the Irish-English accent, quite the adventure understanding them!
There are a few things in the works for me. First off, Christy Lunceford, a friend from highschool is visiting this weekend and I'm really excited about it. She will be the ninth person to visit me, the first eight being Terry and Nancy Brown of course, then KC, Chris and Russ, then Corrie, then Zach and then Mooney, who was here 6 months ago already. On Thursday it will be exactly 2.5 years since I moved to Europe. It's hard to believe all of the things that I've been able to accomplish since then, the things I have seen, the life I've been able to create here, with work, friends, love and lifestyle in general. As you can tell, I'm quite proud of my life, not in a self-righteous way but more in a enjoying the flow of the story of the protagonist who is someone else kind of way.
I've got a couple of book ideas in the works. One called "A Humorous Guide to Leaving the Country" and another called "Selling to the Norwegians" but I'm not sure which will happen first, I'm just hoping to get one done by the end of the year. I also will have another exhibition this fall entitled "American Summer" as I hope to catch many good images of LA, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, DC, Philly, New York, Boston, and Portland next month. And speaking of America, Assiyeah are off to the California in two and a half months! All right, I'm glad I got a chance to update you a bit, much love to you all, I hope everything is treating you all right and we'll be in touch! Adios!
