23 and a half hours from my friend's doorstep in chicago to the hostel. two trains, three planes, two more trains and a gondola. i always have to keep my eyes closed on gondolas; riding on them with the rock face and the slight swaying back and forth just scares the bejeezus out of me.

23 and a half hours during which i made a couple of especially stupid decisions. however, i am going to blame them on:

an english man. i am riding the subway to the airport in chicago and it is the last stop. i am pretty much totally asleep, but i see a british passport on the ground where somebody had just gotten up and left. i grab it and dash out of the train. the gentleman is in a buisness suit and obviously not traveling for himself.

sir! sir! i say. he has headphones in. i jab his suit-sleeve with the passport and he turns around.
is this yours? i ask, holding it up.

his face, which had been tired and drawn and almost reptilian-cold suddenly opened into a totally human-soulful set of complex emotions which managed to combine the extremes of both horror and gratitude.

wow, he said, thank you, wow, wow.

i am going to imputously blame the following set of stupid decisions on the jitters i got following the dropped passport.

STUPID DECISIONS

1. yogurt in my backpack. for later. and then i forgot to take it out of the backpack, and didnt remember about it until pulling the backpack off the conveyer belt in zurich and finding it having exploded over everything in that pocket. well done, me. stinky yogurt pocket.

2. leaving my water bottle in the side of my backpack after i had checked it. i had gotten the bottle at the dollar store, and had an extra one in the pack, so it wasnt so much of a problem to have it confinscated. the problem was when i decided to purchuase bottled water at the airport. it opened in my bag, deposited it's contents, and as i was sitting in the food court with a 7 dollar salad and not-crying about how neither of my cameras were turning on, two kindly southern women told me: put your cameras in a bowl of rice when you get home. it'll suck the moisture right out.

but i'm not going home for two months, i babbled at them.

nevertheless, once i got to the hostel i bought a bag of rice and put my cameras in them. my slr turns on now, but it cant access the memory card or show an image. i think it might still be taking images, though. the point and shoot is still shot.

i refuse to get upset about it until after a week or so of sitting in rice they still dont work.
there is a guest here who is a professional photographer for a magazine. i asked him what the best thing to do with a camera in this situation.

did you try to turn it on right away? he asked.
yeah. (stupid decision no3)
well, thats about the worst possible thing you can do, he said. if it doesnt turn on in like, 48 hours, then thats the end.

shitshitshit.



when i arrived at the hostel, the woman at the front asked if i was emily-who-will-help-with-the-washing.

probably, i said.

as it turns out, my employ is: putting several loads of sheets in the washers, hanging them up to dry, and then folding them in the evening once they are dry. it takes about two hours. i can also sweep. in return i get a bed and sandwiches and pizza and beer and coffee and the whole rest of the day to hike and/or lie in bed and read.

man. i am okay with this.