Thomas the Teratoma

Thomas the teratoma was a tumor with tons of types of tissues, like teeth, intestines, tendons, tongue and tear ducts too.
Thomas was always growing, gaining weight and size. So large did Thomas grow that had to be excised.
But Thomas liked his home, he had held on firm and tight. Unfortunately for Thomas a scalpel wields much more might. 

Thomas's grasp was cut, severed with a knife, and thus his life was ended, ended with a knife.
And although Thomas lay there, in a metal dish, luckily for Thomas, granted was his last wish.
Because inside our patient, there remained a little cell. With a hardy membrane and some DNA from hell.

Mobile upload!

Mobile Upload Album, Paris to Florence

Venice, feeling better for some reason

Update? Kinda

So, Barcelona sucked but Im getting over all the paranoia and shit slowly by slowly. Madrid was great, sucked I couldnt find a couch to surf on and had to do airbnb again. Toilet paper is not always a guarantee with airbnb, be warned. The family owned a second apartment in their building and they rented out all 4 bedrooms in it. There was a Japanese guy living in one of those rooms, just moved in and will be living there while he studies in Madrid for a year or semester. They were nice but I should have just booked a hostel, I know for next time. Madrid was much better though, friendlier, less touristy but still had the touristy areas with all the promoters and pan handlers/buskers. Lots of creepy statues of people and people in costumes to take pictures with. For the right price, of course. Pooh bear needs more than just honey, he needs cash. I spent a lot of time with locals from couchsurfing, went to tapas bars, a jazz bar, amazing chocolate store, the center plaza, a super old churro and chocolate restaurant, the ´"good one" that my mom went to decades ago. But it has become such a tourist place. The walls are full of pictures, the service is just streamlined so you sit down, eat and leave, not very warm or personal but hey its a business and it shouldnt take thirty minutes to eat some churros, they get cold and gross super quick. One of the nights I ended up having to walk back an hour to my place because the trains stopped running while we were still out. Kinda forced me to deal with the whole, scared of being alone at night thing. I also used my spanish a lot, 4 years of high school was worth it. I also left a day early so I could surf for a night with someone from Lisboa, Portugal.


The train left at 9pm and was supposed to arrive at 7am in Lisboa but it arrived closer to 1. There were 2 bunk beds in this little room and a cafeteria car. For dinner, 2 beers and 2 (essentially) tiny donuts. Met some Americans and had "dinner" with them on the train. I finally get to the station and luckily there is wifi, so I talk to my host and she cant leave work early so I wait at the station, its raining and im not gonna walk around with my backpack. A bit later I go to meet her and we talk for a good few hours, go out to this really cool vegetarian place for dinner, do some walking, go to a bar and basically do a photoshoot of my penguin. Awesome night. Simultaneously, my uncle had bought me a replacement camera and needed an address to ship it to so he booked me a hotel for a few days so he could send it (no luck with couchsurfing in Lisboa, my host was leaving for Copenhagen the next day so I left madrid a day early to meet her; the social aspect of couchsurfing really trumps everything else about traveling.) So I´m at the hotel now, luckily they have computers for the guests to use downstairs. Lisboa is a really nice city, right by a river, streets and sidewalks are mostly just tiled, so very slippery with hills everywhere. Its also kinda dirty, not a lot of work from the sanitation department or local equivalent. Went to a couchsurfing vegan dinner thing last night, met a bunch of people, hung out for a while after dinner and hanging out with more CS people today. Rome is next, should have my camera today or tomorrow but no lens yet... Maybe I can get one shipped to me while Im in Rome and I can start taking pictures again. We shall see. Also the weather here is so weird, rain storms one hour, sunshine the next, just bad timing I´m told.

(Good) Shit Happens (Too)

Laptops and other things are replaceable. Sentimental things are semi-replaceable; while I may not have my dad's swiss army knife anymore I can get the same exact model and it will still serve as a reminder, sentimentality can be transferred, somewhat. I can't really replace the old moleskines but at least I have the one I started this past summer. I just have to keep on writing and hope for a continous flow of good material.

So that was all crap and what not but like the title says, good shit happens too. So let me get to that good shit. The next day I spent over 5 hours with a local from couchsurfing. Vegetarian restaurant for lunch, lots of walking and sightseeing and of course a cup of coffee. It was a really fun time and we got along so well. Couchsurfing really is amazing, even just for meeting cool locals or other travelers. I get home around 7 and check all my internet crap, try and figure out what else needs to be done... I got an email from my mother about how my dad was part of a union when he was working in some hospitals and how the union contacted her telling her she was entitled to his life policy payout, which she would split between me and my sister. The timing of this was beyond coincidental. 10 years later and he's still giving me stuff. The next thing was about my bubbe (grandmother). A while ago she was calling her parkinsons meds poison. Since then my uncle has lowered her dose and today its at half dose and she is having no problems. This does not happen, you dont get better from Parkinsons. Third thing. Later that night I was hungry and started cooking dinner, I play some music off my phone and the first song to come on, out of about 3000 songs, Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Too many coincidences. On the plus side, tomorrow I get to pick up the rest of my film from Prague to Paris. Yay not losing +100 pictures!!!!! Is karma a thing? Maybe the universe is sentient? Ideas anyone? Oh, I also got an emergency passport today so the most important thing (debateable) is taken care of.


PS This wrong place wrong time thing happened because I overslept and missed the first train in the morning and the next one wasn't until much later. So don't oversleep? Moral of the story?

Delay in Posts/Bienvenido a Barcelona

So I got robbed in Barcelona so no more computer so probably no more blogging unless I get more frequent access to a computer, the hotel I´m in now has two for customers. So Amsterdam, Paris, and Lyon might be missing for a while.




I'm walking to the train station so I can get to my place here. Some guy points out what he says is shit on my big green backpack and i touch it and realize its just paint. I keep walking then he gives me a tissue to wipe it off. I was carrying my yellow backpack on my front the whole time. Then he gives me more tissues and herds me over to the bench where i put down my yellow bag. He helps me clean it aka distracts me while someone takes it and runs (I dont see them) he points out in one direction but I see nothing yellow or anybody running. I keep asking him where they went and he just points in one direction. I ask him to help but he says he cant and he has to go. I knew it was a fishy situation so I had a deathgrip on my phone the whole time but I let my guard down on my yellow backpack with my laptop, camera, lens, old moleskines, swiss army knife, passport, drivers license and student id, papers and books (no more would you rather, sorry rebecca), external hard drive. But im only upset about losing the moleskines, knife, passport and camera strap. All the physical things can be bought a new and even though the lenses were dad's when I get new ones I'll still think of him just from using any nikon fe2. Also, the 4 rolls of film I had finished were luckily in my green backpack as was my eurail pass, credit cards, phone and retainer. So I only lost the pictures from Lyon. Finally, at least they didnt shank me. Shanking sucks. Also I may not have any presents to give people right now.

Pics of Prague to Paris (and Lyon)

So many pictures