Semana Santa 2008 - Arrival

In 2008, I went to Cordoba to visit my sister and see Holy Week in a city in Spain.

I arrived to Madrid, then took a train to Cordoba, arriving late on Wednesday, in time to check into our hostel and go to sleep in our interior room with two beds.

Everyday Adventures: Halloween 2003

For Halloween 2003, I drove to Madison from Ann Arbor. I accidentally left a pair of knee-high boots back in my apartment and only remembered once I was a half hour hour away, so I doubled back to get them. In Chicago, I went to Boystown on the advice of a friend at Michigan, parked in a garage, and assembled my Drag Queen Costume. I put my purchases in my car, but wore my wig and boots to walk around and photograph costumes.

Remember Jessica Simpson and Chicken of the Sea?

One of the costumes of 2003 was that one guy that got mauled by his White Tiger. Quality varied.

This was the year that everyone in California was running for Governor.

Someone dressed as me!

My night did not end there, since my end destination was Madison, but this was back when Daylight Savings Time ended in mid-October, so it was dark by 6pm. The friend that I was staying with was not back from her adventures to a theme park north of Chicago, so I walked State Street in my wig and boots and saw more exciting costumes after finding a white wig on the ground. There are no photos of those costumes, but the white wig is in the center of this photo. My sister used it for the official State Street Halloween, the next night.

Semester in Africa: Flight to the States

I took the train into town, hit up an internet cafe and learned the differences between German and English keyboards. I also got some food from a McDonalds. 

I walked around town and went to places. I got apple flavored Mentos and bought a pen with my name on it.

There were other German things too, and at one point, as I waited to cross the street, I was shocked to find that the cars were stopping for me. It was very different from what life was like in Cape Town.

Frankfurt Opera House

A church

Two photos put together to get the full view of downtown.

After getting a little lost and finding my way back to the train station, I went back to the airport and boarded my flight to Newark. After a few more hours, I was in Newark on the 4th of July. I went outside to get on my van to my hostel and wanted to turn around and go back right away from the humidity. After the ride, I checked in to my tiny, windowless room at The Big Apple Hostel - oh, no, there was a window that opened to a giant shaft. I may have napped before I went out again, but then I was out.

I told some police that I needed to find an ATM, and they gave me a hard time because of my choice of words, but eventually directed me to an ATM. When I got there, I discovered that these ATMs did not require that you give your card up to the machine. Instead, you just had to swipe the card. Genius, I thought, after 5 months of living in a country full of warnings against using ATMs lest you lose all your money due to fraud because of "the machine eating your card."

I also called my parents from a payphone and talked to them for probably an hour before heading down to see the fireworks. Time Square was bustling with activity, then the sun set and it was time for fireworks.

Then we all walked back from the water, filling entire streets and going and stopping with the traffic lights.

As I walked back to the hostel, I got a couple of photos of the Empire State Building.

I eventually got to bed in that hot, stuffy hostel room, perhaps thinking about what the building must have been like as a stuffy tenement, before the law required windows, which is why the shaft was put in.