I realize that a post about my international students is long overdue, but this simply has to come first. Thankfully, it is mildly related.
"Meine Kinder" and the "Crazy Finnish Guys" recently took a weekend trip to Vegas. When I picked them up at the Nashville Airport, they were giggly little boys rambling on about inside jokes of maintenance man exhibitionism and Santa Claus.
Apparently, it's a Finnish legend dating back to a popular 1920's radio show that Father Christmas lives on top of Korvatunturi peak in Savukoski, where he can eavesdrop on all of the Finnish children to make sure they aren't being bratty little bastards.
I guess in a fit of that "what happens in Vegas..." kind of drunkenness one of my Fins made a Korvatunturi reference, and it soon became integrated into our everyday jokes. In yet another drunken fit a week or so later, on my birthday, I made some snide comment about Santa. I was commanded to write Santa a formal apology within the next twenty-four hours and then deliver it to the Finnish guys for review. This is the result.
------------------------
Dearest Santa Claus,
Remember me? I came to see you at the Rivergate Mall in Nashville, Tennessee in the United States back in 1992. I asked you for World Peace, and you never delivered. What the fuck is up with that? This letter was intended to be an apology, so let me begin by saying I am sorry that I have several bones to pick with you. Here lays the list the bullet holes.
Firstly, I do not believe that some magical, bearded wanderer who can absolve all of my sins was born two thousand years ago in a stable in the Middle East in the dead of winter, and therefore I don’t need a fat, jolly, old fogey with a bad case of rosacea to fly from Korvatunturi, Finland, and sneak around my house late at night on the aforementioned savior’s alleged birthday. Not to mention, I think the radical fundamentalist Christians are a little pissed about you stealing Jesus’ thunder every year. I do, however, admire your humble and inspiring sense of giving. In fact, I would probably like you more if you performed this selfless act on another holiday, perhaps New Years Eve. Since you insist on performing your deeds on a holiday that I don’t celebrate, you have become useless to me.
Also, have you ever stopped to ponder repercussions of your actions? I realize that your heart may have originally been in the right place, but your traditions have resulted in greed, materialism, over-consumption, and devastating amounts of pollution and landfill waste worldwide. I suppose that I cannot blame you for all of this. I mean, it’s not like you invited the corporate sphere to bastardize and corrupt what was once an innocent act of caring… or did you? I feel I can never trust you, Santa. You are one relentless mother fucker. I am unable to escape you. You have completely infiltrated the psyche of my society, so even if I did want to escape your grasp, and I do, I would be unable to do so at the risk of offending or disappointing friends and family who wouldn’t understand my adamant lack of gift-giving. It’s not that I’m stingy. They’ll still get something for their birthdays, and maybe even New Years, if that whole concept ever takes off. Geez.
My only hope is that your reaction to my opinions will not result in my banishment from Korvatunturi. From what I’ve heard, it is the place to be.
Sincerely,
Kassi Elizabeth Thomas
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Gypsy Rose, pt. 1
As I haven't been utilizing this blog to its fullest potential, I thought it would would be silly to start another. So I'll be posting the setlists to my radio show, Gypsy Rose, here as well. Since it's a world music show, focusing on the music of Eastern Europe, it seems appropriate to incorporate it into this quasi-travel blog. And maybe I'll find the time to hash out some of the thoughts bouncing around my skull as well.
---
Tuesday, 9/7/10
Gypsy Rose, 1
Csokolom - "Amari Szi, Amari" (slow version)
Fanfare Ciocarlia feat. Esma Redzepova - "Ibrahim"
Leningrad - "Mama, Nalivay!"
DeVotchka - "Head Honcho"
Beirut - "The Gulag Orkestar"
Kal - "Oh Ma Cherie"
Zdob Shi Zdub - "Na Rechke, Na Rechke"
Gogol Bordello - "Illumination"
Perkalaba - "Boogay"
Shukar Collective - "Gipsy Blooz"
Romano Drom - "Deta Devla"
---
Tuesday, 9/7/10
Gypsy Rose, 1
Csokolom - "Amari Szi, Amari" (slow version)
Fanfare Ciocarlia feat. Esma Redzepova - "Ibrahim"
Leningrad - "Mama, Nalivay!"
DeVotchka - "Head Honcho"
Beirut - "The Gulag Orkestar"
Kal - "Oh Ma Cherie"
Zdob Shi Zdub - "Na Rechke, Na Rechke"
Gogol Bordello - "Illumination"
Perkalaba - "Boogay"
Shukar Collective - "Gipsy Blooz"
Romano Drom - "Deta Devla"
Sunday, August 8, 2010
We put our bare feet upon the red rock soil...
In an attempt to organize the mass of files on my computer, I stumbled upon this blog that I'd typed in a word document last summer, while Kelsey and I were globe-trotting in our 2009 European Misadventure. We would often write things down and never get around to posting them, though I'm glad we spent every second trying to soak it all in rather than freaking out about finding internet all the time (we only did that some of the time). This post claims to be abridged but is actually pretty verbose. I blame all of the Jewish screenwriters I've been exposed to for my love of wordiness. Anyhow, here's a little blast from the past:
--
Now that we’ve essentially reached our halfway point, let’s catch up in a rather abridged fashion. Shall we?
One week ago I reluctantly left Vejer. My homestay mom packed me a snack for my bus ride and my teacher, Alejandro, gave me two mix cds. The ride to Cadiz was spent holding back tears because I know I won’t have a chance to return to Vejer soon enough.
Upon arriving in Cadiz, wandering around trying to find the bus stop for my ride to Madrid, my mom called me to tell me that Kelsey’s flight from Philly to Madrid had been cancelled due to storms on the east coast, which would delay her trip about 24 hours.
And I thought it was always sunny in Philidelphia.
After cursing God and all things holy for about 10 minutes (read: 2 hours) because it seemed that, yet again, I was being ass raped by air travel and because I wanted so bad to just go back to Vejer for that extra day though I knew I couldn’t, I decided to suck it up and board my bus to Madrid. The ride was long and monotonous, with roads bumpier than Kentucky. The only thing that kept me sane on this sleepless night was Ale’s chill flamenco mix. In Madrid I wandered around, found a hostel, saw a few sights, read some poetry in a park, and enjoyed three things I hadn’t had in two weeks: a private bathroom (I’d been sharing with 5 people), dependable wi-fi, and air conditioning. The next morning I took the metro to the airport to meet up with Kelso and our adventure began.
We were running a whole day behind, so we decided to try to book an overnight train from Barcelona to Milan, skipping the south of France in order to catch up. The bad news was that train was full, so we had to re-route on an overnight to Geneva, Switzerland and cut out Italy all together. We were both bummed, but there’s always next time.
After a few hours in Madrid we hopped our first train to Barcelona. We stayed in the first hostel we saw when we got out of the train station because we didn’t want to carry our shit. Luckily, it turned out to be pretty nice. After that we took a stroll down La Rambla to see the luster from the city lights on the coast at sunset, and then, after a few wrong turns down dark alleys in an attempt to find a place suggested to us by our buddy Waldo, decided to turn in for the night. But not before a tiny debacle concerning leave-in conditioner and Duff beer.
I’d like to take this moment to express how much I hate Catalan. Just get over yourself and pick a language - French or Spanish. Quit acting like you’re so damn special, Catalonia. Don’t tease me with the prospect of understanding only 50% of the population.
The next day we went straight to the beach first thing to let the Mediterranean waves kiss our feet. We could have sat in the sand all day, but instead we bought a reggae CD from some buskers from Chile and Paraguay, and shared some sangria at a sidewalk café near the coast where we could watch the palms blow and talk for a few hours.
Whoops, we lingered too long. It was almost time for the train to Geneva and we still hadn’t seen any Gaudi, so we took the metro to La Sagrada Familia, picked up our luggage from the hostel, and after being sent in the wrong direction by a well-meaning ice cream salesman, ran until we got to our train.
The train was so booked when we made our reservation that Kelsey and I had to be separated, but I was fortunate enough to be placed in a sleeper cabin with a chick from California who had also been separated from her companion, and he just so happened to be on the same train car as Kelso! So they switched places, and all was well. After catching some shit about switching places from the grumpy train attendant, we embarked on a nine hour journey with two amazing ladies from New Zealand. Kath and Jen are both fifty-somethings who left their husbands and grandchildren to go train hopping through Europe for a month on EuRail. They gave us Swiss chocolates and told us stories of their journeys. They were utterly hilarious to the point that I could never dream of translating it to blog form.
So that puts us in Geneva, where they don’t use Euros, public bathrooms cost money, and swans have snooty French accents in my mind. We cleaned up as best as we could at a bathroom in the train station, wandered through the streets, drank from the fountains of youth, climbed to the top of the North tower in the St. Pierre Cathedral, fed ducks and swans peanut butter crackers in Lake Geneva, and took a million pictures of things that weren’t anything important, but just looked cool. After just a few hours of this, we hopped yet another train to the smaller town of Fribourg, known as “Western Switzerland’s hidden treasure.” And oh boy, it is.
My friend Roger picked us up at the train station in his brother’s fancy-shmancy Mercedez Benz and sped through the Swiss country-side to his home in the village of Giffers...
--
Apparently this is when our prepaid internet access at the cafe ran out, our train arrived at its destination, or I just grew weary of typing and decided to look out the window at the premium countryside.
BUT WHAT HAPPENS IN GIFFERS?!?
Roger, the overly gracious host, feeds us - A LOT. His brother with a revoked license drives five people in a tiny convertible with one window missing down winding roads in the middle of a storm to a castle. We drink hot chocolate. We sleep, and we skip town. It's abridged, people. Abridged.
It's more than a year late, and the stories have all been told and re-told in hookah bars and awkward situations since then, but I couldn't really stand to have this document sit in a rarely accessed folder on my desktop unopened any longer. I apologize for being a bad blogger.
--
Now that we’ve essentially reached our halfway point, let’s catch up in a rather abridged fashion. Shall we?
One week ago I reluctantly left Vejer. My homestay mom packed me a snack for my bus ride and my teacher, Alejandro, gave me two mix cds. The ride to Cadiz was spent holding back tears because I know I won’t have a chance to return to Vejer soon enough.
Upon arriving in Cadiz, wandering around trying to find the bus stop for my ride to Madrid, my mom called me to tell me that Kelsey’s flight from Philly to Madrid had been cancelled due to storms on the east coast, which would delay her trip about 24 hours.
And I thought it was always sunny in Philidelphia.
After cursing God and all things holy for about 10 minutes (read: 2 hours) because it seemed that, yet again, I was being ass raped by air travel and because I wanted so bad to just go back to Vejer for that extra day though I knew I couldn’t, I decided to suck it up and board my bus to Madrid. The ride was long and monotonous, with roads bumpier than Kentucky. The only thing that kept me sane on this sleepless night was Ale’s chill flamenco mix. In Madrid I wandered around, found a hostel, saw a few sights, read some poetry in a park, and enjoyed three things I hadn’t had in two weeks: a private bathroom (I’d been sharing with 5 people), dependable wi-fi, and air conditioning. The next morning I took the metro to the airport to meet up with Kelso and our adventure began.
We were running a whole day behind, so we decided to try to book an overnight train from Barcelona to Milan, skipping the south of France in order to catch up. The bad news was that train was full, so we had to re-route on an overnight to Geneva, Switzerland and cut out Italy all together. We were both bummed, but there’s always next time.
After a few hours in Madrid we hopped our first train to Barcelona. We stayed in the first hostel we saw when we got out of the train station because we didn’t want to carry our shit. Luckily, it turned out to be pretty nice. After that we took a stroll down La Rambla to see the luster from the city lights on the coast at sunset, and then, after a few wrong turns down dark alleys in an attempt to find a place suggested to us by our buddy Waldo, decided to turn in for the night. But not before a tiny debacle concerning leave-in conditioner and Duff beer.
I’d like to take this moment to express how much I hate Catalan. Just get over yourself and pick a language - French or Spanish. Quit acting like you’re so damn special, Catalonia. Don’t tease me with the prospect of understanding only 50% of the population.
The next day we went straight to the beach first thing to let the Mediterranean waves kiss our feet. We could have sat in the sand all day, but instead we bought a reggae CD from some buskers from Chile and Paraguay, and shared some sangria at a sidewalk café near the coast where we could watch the palms blow and talk for a few hours.
Whoops, we lingered too long. It was almost time for the train to Geneva and we still hadn’t seen any Gaudi, so we took the metro to La Sagrada Familia, picked up our luggage from the hostel, and after being sent in the wrong direction by a well-meaning ice cream salesman, ran until we got to our train.
The train was so booked when we made our reservation that Kelsey and I had to be separated, but I was fortunate enough to be placed in a sleeper cabin with a chick from California who had also been separated from her companion, and he just so happened to be on the same train car as Kelso! So they switched places, and all was well. After catching some shit about switching places from the grumpy train attendant, we embarked on a nine hour journey with two amazing ladies from New Zealand. Kath and Jen are both fifty-somethings who left their husbands and grandchildren to go train hopping through Europe for a month on EuRail. They gave us Swiss chocolates and told us stories of their journeys. They were utterly hilarious to the point that I could never dream of translating it to blog form.
So that puts us in Geneva, where they don’t use Euros, public bathrooms cost money, and swans have snooty French accents in my mind. We cleaned up as best as we could at a bathroom in the train station, wandered through the streets, drank from the fountains of youth, climbed to the top of the North tower in the St. Pierre Cathedral, fed ducks and swans peanut butter crackers in Lake Geneva, and took a million pictures of things that weren’t anything important, but just looked cool. After just a few hours of this, we hopped yet another train to the smaller town of Fribourg, known as “Western Switzerland’s hidden treasure.” And oh boy, it is.
My friend Roger picked us up at the train station in his brother’s fancy-shmancy Mercedez Benz and sped through the Swiss country-side to his home in the village of Giffers...
--
Apparently this is when our prepaid internet access at the cafe ran out, our train arrived at its destination, or I just grew weary of typing and decided to look out the window at the premium countryside.
BUT WHAT HAPPENS IN GIFFERS?!?
Roger, the overly gracious host, feeds us - A LOT. His brother with a revoked license drives five people in a tiny convertible with one window missing down winding roads in the middle of a storm to a castle. We drink hot chocolate. We sleep, and we skip town. It's abridged, people. Abridged.
It's more than a year late, and the stories have all been told and re-told in hookah bars and awkward situations since then, but I couldn't really stand to have this document sit in a rarely accessed folder on my desktop unopened any longer. I apologize for being a bad blogger.
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