runner in the dark, YO

two entries for the price of one? i mean, it is the cz rpb.

having jettisoned prague, for smaller venues, our taxi plopped us off an hour and a half south, in the town of tabor. this town is crazy! i have been here for only about 6 hours. we managed to sneak in a little shooting, and then the sun set and was time to check into our hotel. somehow we manged to stuff all 14 of our bags into our clients car. all david could comment on was "is this a honda?!" while the tripod case and i were busy in the backseat having more than just a casual spoon.

tabor is amazing. we are situated in the old section, and i am a total sucker for twisting and turning cobblestone streets and old facades. what can i say? we actually finished work early enough that i was able to get run in before work. i love running, and i especially love running in foriegn countries when the odds of getting lost are good. i thank my friend brad paris for this. (http://bradparis.com/cozine-lorber/ said wedding several posts earlier)

have i mentioned that tabor is in southern bohemia, and surrounded by a bohemian forest? (also near the birthplace of budweiser) perfect. i head down to reception, and ask about a good 10-15k run i can do. something out of town, and into the countryside, the woods, what have you. i havent run in a bit and i am totally chomping at the bit. the ladies look at me, talk amongst themselves, hand me a map and say, "here" pointing to the crooked little river running cross town. then they laugh and roll their swivel chairs back to hotmail or where ever they came from.

awesome i think.

witches, warlocks and maybe even damzels in distress? (little did i know, the damzel in distress would be me. ha.) i am totally amped and ready to go. i literally run out the door and head down the winding hill, turning right here, yes yes, this must be correct. oh yes, there is the dead elm, i think, hanging a left. dusk has set in, the air is cool and crisp and i can hear the river, not far now. not far now at all. down a gravel road my brooks take me and i am off! a single lane road into the woods, rolling hills. forest forest forest. this was definitely bordering as one of the best runs ever on one of these trips. i think the only thing that could have possibly made it better would have been to find n. at the end of the trail, with my bike, princess.

the thing that i love about running in the dark, through foriegn weird new places, is that in a strange way, it puts my mind at ease and i feel totally free. as i progressed along the road, it started to become less road and more forest. bohemian forest. alas, i reached a bend in the road and headed down towards the river. i came to a little foot bridge that went across the river and i headed out on it, and i had what an alcholic might refer to as "a moment of clarity", do i have my references straight?

i reached the middle of the bridge and everything felt surreal and completely present. i felt i could continue across the bridge and dissapear into the woods and this plane of reality, and out of this consciousness. it felt natural and so tempting. its happened a few other times, in china on top of a mountain, in oman in the desert...and now in bohemia, in the dark woods.

it felt like a life choice, an important philosophical life choice.
i chose to turn back.

thats when the forest decided to turn on me. by this time it was pitch black and i think some of the awe of the woods had worn off and had been replaced by a dark shifting, not quite quiet forest. trees swayed differently than i remembered. as i ran i heard the sounds of small animals scuttling off to the side as i passed. then the sounds got larger and the shadows got teeth. soon, the sounds of breaking twigs, were replaced by the sounds of breaking branches and for a full thirty seconds or so, something was running along side me and i am sure it was smiling its wicked smile, up there, along the hillside, just past the darknes.

it went like this.

it.
me.
river.

my choices were few. i ran faster and squealled ever so slightly (damsel damsel).

pulse rose, sweat poured, corner rounded, more shadows, more noises, another corner rounded, gravel turning to pavement and i finally saw the soft yellow glow of a lone street lamp. my pace slowed. my breathing eased. i thought back to the ladies in the hotel lobby who recommened this run, and the way they laughed, and how they offered to give me the number to the hotel "just in case". and what exactly am i supoosed to do with that number? call it with my aura? perhaps burn the piece of paper were i to become lost, in the middle of the forest, in order to keep warm?
this run turned out to be a nike add that met the movie teen wolf, that met bjork, who happened to be listening to queen, on her headphones.


hope you are all well.
-amadeo, the bohemian rhapsody

CZ RPB ME ASAP

well, here i am in the czech rpb. spent the last day in prague, and from what i saw, i really liked. it totally helped that we stayed at a pimp hotel.

http://www.andelshotel.com/

i am a hotel junkie, as some of you may know.

also, as you may have ascertained from my alternate, stateside blog, i have a soft spot for the graffitis. illegal street art, otherewise known as, "amadeo dont get to touch that spray paint again."

the graf here in prague is definitely several notches up from the stuff i was seeing in bulgaria. i mean still, i gotta give it up to the bulgarian taggers, but they have a little way to go. the stuff here in prague is super euro (duh) and on a big scale. lots of silver and black pieces, which i love. its no dusseldorf or rome, but its good all the same. i had the pleasure of seeing a few nyers up in prague, which was dope. i love seeing nyers getting up in foriegn cities. to think that these kids actually travel, and get out of nyc. i also saw an older twist tag by the charles bridge. that warmed my heart and my made my night!

well, back to photogrphy, right? from the airport, we hit the ground running again, here in prague. we shot all day in the old town, the castle and up in the observation tower. holy shit was it windy! small children were becoming airborn left and right. as we headed to lunch, the beautiful weather we had, turned rainy and so we headed to the pilser urquell pub for lunch.

i hate to say it, but my rouse as a vegetarian is up. i ordered the goulash. it was made with beer. i had to. david and i polished off a few more pints of beer ( i just love when he decides its time to drink) and we were pretty drunk. we staggered back to the andels hotel for a half hour of sober up time. i was supposed to be showering and pinching myself, or something, but i spent the entire time rtiding the elevator, trying to get access to the eulsive VIP 5th floor. why you ask?

just the best coffee machine, ever. so just imagine me, drunk, in a boutique type hotel, riding the elevator up and down, like a homeless person on the #5 train. finally some rook went up to 5 and i played it cool. real cool. trust me. and filled up as many cafe au lait' s as my lactose intolerant self could handle, and a couple espressos. piled it all onto a tray (a fucking tray amadeo?) and went back down to the 3rd floor. i loaded up my fridge so i would have the iced out coffees when i got back from the night shoot, and also in the morning the next day.

let me just say, when i returned that night, housekeeping had cleaned me out! i couldnt believe it. i was so mad. i was also heavily intoxicated again, so i decided i should brush my teef before i went down to the lobby to complain, but it would be like like complaining that the housekeeping staff done stole your weed. i mean, i had illicitly attained the coffee in the first place. sigh.

so after the whole coffee thing, we were back out on the streets of prague! tripod out cameras blazing. MOTOR DRIVE ON HIGH. we found a quiet locale and flicked the charles bridge making sure to hit all the f stops and different lenses. i mean, i do need something to do on this trip. we must look professional or something (yes i had my red winter hat on) bc soon a gaggle of tourists had set up next to us, flashes popping, stabilizing their digi cams on tables, railings, backs of loved ones, just trying to get that shot. trust me, we got it first, we got it best. it was time to roll.

david decided he wanted to flick some ttp. true tourist photography. the pedestrians, shopstalls, and performers on the charles bridge, so we headed on over. all i can say is, kafka would effing roll over in his grave. i was totally disgusted. the only thing that would have made the bridge crossing more complete, would have been to see kafka and louis armstrong dancing cheek to cheek, arm in arm to "what a wonderful world" as the flutes pounded it out in the background. sigh.

!amadeo!

inSOMnia in SEAttle

at least thats how my client was describing this movie she had seen recently. this was, of course, after we had started drinking with the elementary school teachers, but before we listened to freddy mercury solo album, on repeat for a couple hours on the van trip today. our client picked up said disc from a roadside bulgarian gas station. its really my fault tho, i had to pee, so we pulled over.

now, i have learned my lesson, and will simply ignore any future urges to urinate while traveling in a motor vehicle in BULGARIA for fear of the consequences, or perhaps when everyone is distracted by another donkey pulling a cart, i can pee real quick into a bottle. NO MORE FREDDY M. NO MORE.

but again, i am getting ahead of myself. first things first,

happy bday wishes to my statesside fixed gear fandango, teh chombs.

----

well, i have been shooting a ton of photos for myself. finally! case in point. the shiroka luka folk art music school. we photo-ed these school kids giving traditional bulgarian folk like performances. wicked wild yo. wicked. david kept squeeeking out -
"50"
"no 25"
"200mm, damnit man, the zoom, boy, the ZOOM, i need to be closer!"

all the while, to me, he simply sounded like like a little mouse, or perhaps, a dog whose tail i had just stepped on. i am totally engrossed in my own work, capturing my own pictures (even though, yes, techinically, i am working for him and he is paying for EVERYTHING). the click whirbuzz of traditional costumes and looking down through a camera twice my age is totally engrossing.

i have discovered that if i dont immediately hand him the lens he wants, he often changes his mind to a different lens or simply he forgets he even asked. i often employ this new found tactic to buy a few more frames of my own photography, for my own work. of course, like any great imperial nation, he has quickly developed his own fantastical counter tactics, which pretty much consist of walking in front of whatever it is that i am trying to photograph, and just standing there until i get back to work.

LIKE any good novellete though, the photoshoot at the shiroka luka folk art music school simply wasnt complete with the juxtaposition of traditional bulgie outfits and dualing nyc photographers. it needed something to just, well, put it over the fucking edge, you know? enter the teachers lounge. please.

david and i were led into the teachers lounge, for what we thought was a go at some portraiture of envious teachers who were just tired of these cute little shit kids ALWAYS getting the spotlight. boy, was i wrong. wrong wrong wrong. little cookie, take note. did i mention it was about, what 10 inthe am?

inside the teachers lounge, bottles of discarded vodka and cokes littered a childs table and simply screamed (at least to me) "welcome to bulgaria, welcome to the party, fellas" it was dimitri day! who new? the table, about, oh, a foot off the ground (did i mention it was a childs table, built for children?!) was surrounded by several bleary eyed bulgarian middle school teachers as well as some of the "older" students, all of whom were smoking marlboro reds. only the best.

dimitri day, as i was to learn, over several vodka coke toasts, *is that even a drink* is one of many national name day holidays, that is gov't sponsored here is the bulg. i mean, i just cant make this shit up! basically, if your name is dimitri, or you know/work/have slept with one of the d*i*m's then you have an official excuse to get drunk for what, 2-3 days straight and celebrate what it means to be dimitri. so, no matter what you do as a vocation. you still have to work, mind you, but now you now have a govt issued vaild stamped excuse for any sort of ineptitude you might display, or revisionist history you might teach in the workplace during this time.

my question is simple. people, when is amadeo day?

from there, after our driver had sobered up, some, we continued on our journey to circumnavigate the fucking globe. i mean, bulgaria. this meant, hopping in the van, pumping freddy merc. and putting the pedal to the medal and flashing the brights as we passed donkeys hauling carts like there was no tomorrow. the goal? the black sea. along the way however, we got sidetracked at some old bulgarian castle that we just had to photograph. it was at this point, i turned in a child, and this trip became some sort of messed up family vacation. after lugging camera gear through a field, visiting a church, we finally arrived at this massive mound of dirt with some rocks stuck in it with a plack at the top next to a bulgarian flag.

i threw a minor tantrum and refused to climb the hill/castle thing. our client however, feeling a surge of national pride sprinted up to the top. david thought about it and said, "well, i think i might need to take a landscape from up there." the vodka cokes had worn off and i needed to pee behind a bush. being the lackadasical assistant i had been up to this point, i decided that in the interest of obtaining, perhaps, a night off, i should carry this bloody bag of german/japanese mechanical torture devices up to the top of this here hill/castle. i followed david up the hill. after some near misses where david nearly tumbled his way back down, we were at the top! oh sweet mary what a view, as i sat with my head in my hands cursing and spitting on the ground.

david said "nope, no landscape up here let go see the black sea!" at which point i jumped to attention and handed him a camera (with lens, film and batteries! way to go amadeo, high 5!). he tried to give it back to me, which of course, just wasnt going to happen. i gave him a look that says "i just carried this bag up this hill/castle thing bc you might take a picture, so you best might take that picture." luckliy i had practied it in my bathroom mirror, no less than 10 times before i left on this trip, just in case. i knew i could pull it off. sure enough.

he flicked a couple frames, requested a different lens, flicked a couple more frames and then like a disfunctinal but happy bulgarian family we piled back into our minivan and headed out to the black sea.

--hope you are all well, and still reading this.

best, amadeo

worst assistant EVER

deep into our first day of shooting already, in bulgaria, and i am throwing my hands in the air and readily admitting that i am the worst photo assistant, ever. what! could have brought this on? well, perhaps it would be mid shoot, david turning around, handing me the camera, and saying, "hey, there is no film in this!!" well DUH!

but i am jumping the gun.

we caught a flight out of newark to charles de (do?)(duh?) gaule. whatever. making it through security was a breeze. "i would like request a handcheck of these 300 some rolls of film" "no problem sir" replied the TSA dude who looked like he just stepped out of a jay z video, even though he had on all the same clothing as everyone else. not sure how he did it. must have been the hair.

everything was fine until he confiscated my toothpaste. he must have caught me giving him some good old new york city attitude or something. i swear i was all smiles anytime he looked at me. i was also wearing all black with a t shirt that clearly states "sultanate of oman".

let me tell you, trying to find toothpaste in newark airport is harder than finding a parking spot in the EV. in the end, i got the last tube of aquafresh after having to take the air tram 3 times. i fucking hate aquafresh.

anyways.

the flight was good, i slept, and i needed it after attending a wild wedding on sunday night, of my friends michael and deborah! nona and i rode our bikes there (and back, barely). pimp.

so yeh, david and i arrived in bulgaria safe and sound, some 8 hours after the toothpaste incident. on the way from the airport (mid afternoon) the photoshoot was already in full swing with david screaming at the driver to "stop the car STOP THE CAR!!!!" as he saw a scene he wanted to photograph. something about nice light. my broke tired grumpy ass could not even get the right batteries in the camera, let alone, film. nothing like stepping off the plane and starting to shoot, immediately!

eventually after some bonafied bulgarian clouds cut david's light short, we were back in the car and on our way to corporate central. i was still a mess, but then i discovered the espresso machine in the kitchen, and promptly drained it, for all it was worth. i then started feeling better.

the shoot was going fine, but a bit boring. i thought to myself, well i guesss bulgaria wont be anything like the bulgarian bar down on canal and broadway. THAT place was a party. so we finished up the corporate shoot, and headed to downtown sofia, and things started to look up.

favorite thing i have had said to me in the 10 hours i have been here
"amadeo, dont walk in the middle of the road, this is bulgaria!"

this was said to me by our fearless and energetic client, anni. she was fairly adimant about it. she has also referred to herself as my bulgarian mother, on more than one occasion. strange.

but of course, silly amadeo didnt listen. well, i wasnt exactly in the middle of the road when i got hit, rather softly, by a car. where was i? oh, i was on the sidewalk. THE FUCKING SIDEWALK, PEOPLE. its where people park their cars in bulgaria. this driver and i made eye contact. i swear in no way, did i intonate, "hey, hit me with your car, you fuck." so here i am ON THE SIDEWALK carrying no less than 50 pounds of camera gear, and this car car just lurches at me, hitting the camera bag first, and then me, a little. i am not even sure the driver hit the brakes, i think I actually stopped the car with my leg. a swift hood denting slap and a little special amadeo-nyc girlesque screaming put an end to the dispute, but raised the terror level to yellow, or orange, in the eyes of my client. thats when she starting referring to herself as my bulgarian mother.

its all good.

the rest of the day was fantastic. sofia is a truly amazing city to walk around. we leave here tomorrow morning, so, i will have to come back and visit. at about 8 tomorrow, we start our circumnavigation of bulgaria, leaving no small village untouched. we have several huts , hostels and hotels and thousands of km's in front of us, but stragnely enough, i am looking forward to it. i am sure there will be lots of great stories.

tonight, we went with our client, her husband and a bunch of their friends, to this local pub. i guzzled down several beers and had a nice fried trout. the bulgarians are a friendly open bunch (for vegetarians that smoke and drink). especially when they start drinking rakia, which i can only guess is the bulgie version of sozhu. i refused to touch the stuff.






well, i am gonna go finish up some work and get up in the morning for a run. i would upload some pics from today, but i forgot my cable. i will pick one up tomorrow.

-be good
amadeo

in case you missed the last couple years...

the last couple years, i have spent a good portion of my year traveling as a photo assistant for this guy (the one with the camera). the countries have been many, and the stories have ranged from the mundane to the completely obsurd and surreal. the photos, the beer and the company have always been the same.

so far the country list stands as
1) ukraine
2) hungary
3) china
4) chile
5) brazil
6) panama
7) qatar
8) paris, france
9) cameroon
10) n. ireland
11) spain
12) kazakhstan
13) argentina
14) us (hawaii! and a bunch of other boring places)
15) venezuela
16) el salvador
17) oman
18) sri lanka

again, i find myself on the brink of traveling. this time, its a few weeks in europe, and then south america, central america and perhaps india. if you want to relive some past memories with me, or simply play catch up so you are ready for lost: season 3, here are some past letters and photos. enjoy.
------------
kazakhstan/spain/n. ireland
travels from the true kazak

just wanted to say hello ! i just stepped off the plane here in kazakhstan and its about 3 in the morning so i have no idea what this place is like yet. apparently we are going to be buying carpets soon, that is what david tells me. we are styaing in an old russian military hotel, which is pretty cool (the cute kazak receptionist helps) and there is all this 2 way glass in the halls and stuff, kinda creepy, kind neat. its like the shining meets communism.

the flight here was nice, david and i had a mini row all to ourselves which made the flight much more accomodating. i have discovered that partly, my fear of flying is really based on sitting in close proximity to strangers, and possibly having to step over them to urinate or get my ipod. i did ok with that stuff in college, but i guess i have matured. or not.

anyways, spain was cool, except that the town i was in was like newark, but on the ocean. the food was completely amazing. best seafood ever! i went for a run one day out to this beach that i saw on my drive into work everyday, and then went swimming, laid down next to this topless english girl who didnt appreciate my precense on an almost deserted beach. dried off in the sun, had a beer and ran back to the hotel. it was a high light of a rather dreary working trip.

northern ireland was cool, except for the violence when i was there, which was pretty close to where i was staying. i remememeber asking the front desk if it was safe to go for a run and they said sure, no prob. only after i was out, i started to get surrounded by riot police and black smoke from hijacked cars that were set ablaze. but i kept going, like a true runner?! right? well, at least until the military helicopter started following me. i can imagine them saying in some swarmy intoxicated accent "who is the bloke running" "lets try out our new highpowered rifle and take out his ankles" "no, no, i think he is american, he is wearing a lance armstrong bracelet, better just take him out and blame it on the protestants"

so yeah.

anyways, i am pretty exctied to be in kazakhstan, and we are going to be traveling a fair amount while here, so get your carpet orders in early. i am doing everything in my power to convince david that we dont need to go to afganistan, that one stan is enough. in his "guidebook" it has all these pretty pictures in it. of course, the damn thing was published before the war. oh well.

kazaka-deo
-----
argentina
the argentine

well, flight delayed 3 hours and watching seabisquick 8 times, i finally arrived safe and sound in
argentina. i actually managed to sleep most of the 10 hour flight and david and i scored an empty row on the airplane. we almost had a very lg. argentinian want to squeeze in between us, but the tango lessons werent supposed to start until we landed, so i gave him a mean hairy eyeball and he moved on. then ofcourse there was the argument over why i put my ¨big baggage¨above someoe else´s seat. i let david handle that!

anyways, i am finishing up my first day here and i am in a much better place than i was when i
left. we got off the plane and started working IMMEDIATELY. that was ok though, we went out of buenos aires to this farm and saw some horse racing. then we ate lunch which started with
empenadas and salad and ended with like, 3 steaks. it was insane!

i then had my first taste of matte. we shared a communal gord and sat and chatted with some people on the farm for about and hour, sipping matte. it was excellent. i just got back from a run, and we are getting ready to go out to a tango club. i hope its not a repeat of the last time david was dancing, in kazakhstan. i keep my fingers crossed no one gets knocked on the floor!

argentinians are really sweet people, so far. and i have learned a lot. i learned that the spanish
named argentina for its copius amounts of silver (latin for silver) but they named it eroneously
as they never found the kind of silver they took from the incan empire. also, buenos aires is
named from an italian city, that discovered a painting of a saint from a shipwreck which became
known as buenaire (GOOD WINDS) and when sailors came to argentina, they named the port of trinity, bueno ayre which over time was made plural and the gaellic spelling was dropped. teasing about the last part. anywasy, not sure if i got that completely correct, but you get the drift, its cool here.

-----
venezuela
well, caracas

i now have a new saying which is, caracas, carajo. for those of you who speak spanish, you will appreciate it, for those of you who dont, it really doesnt matter, i think after this email, you will catch my drift...

this trip has been the most dissapointing and frustrating of all trips, AND i kinda speak the language. the people here only see and take responsibility for what is directly before them, and have no foresight and no memory. i worked with people who made the same mistake, maybe 5 times in one day without any thought to correct it for the next time.

at first i thought they just hated americans, and they might, but people here are just slow, retarded, stupid, you choose the word. this whole trip has been a chain reaction of poor planning by our client that has put the job, and our well being in safety. i am happy to be flying out of the country tomorrow morning. the people here (at least those i encountered) are just incompetent and ridiculous. this is a country where they take the miss international pageant, for sport and dictators, for social change.

i spose, perhaps, among the many remarkable incidents that occurred, the one that stands out in my mind the most was the failure by our client to purchase our plane tickets for internal travel, so we had to scramble to rent a van/driver who then drove us 14 hours through the night to our next shoot. i had to stay awake the entire night bc our driver literally kept falling asleep at the wheel and veering into traffic. i counted at least 5 times. i would have asked him to pull the car over, but the shoulder was littered with cars that had pulled over, and the suffered the fate of being rear ended at 60 kmh/hr bc no one uses their lights. people here really can not drive. our driver was an out of work engineer. i would hate to see what he EVER engineered. i would have driven, except, that would not have gone over very well at the frequent military checkpoints, so i was told. i should have been more dubious when our driver showed up in a cast.

anyways its 6 am and 14 hours later, we arrive safe and sound only to find out that the hotel was booked for the wrong day. at this point, so much other shit had happened, it didnt really matter. i went to the hotel lobby bathroom, stripped down and took a shower in their sink! and then proceeded to go to work for what, the next 15 hours? sure. finally, got to our next hotel, drank 3 beers and promptly feel asleep for a good 6 hours. it was perhaps the most excellent 6 hours of sleep i have ever had, aside from my short stint in juvie.

well, there are more tales, but i need roomservice, some more beer and paperwork for my new venezuelan wife.

viva caracas!

-----
el salvador

well, elsalvador has been a real treat. everything has gone smoothly and tonight the client is taking us out to a super bueno dinner. as well, her 2 lovely assistants will be joining us, and i think they mentioned earlier that they wanted to take me out to a bar afterwards. ahhhh, the night is young.

i think the highlight of my trip and what really got my heart racing was the (possibly) poisonous spider i found in my bedroom last night. we traveled up north into the mountains and stayed in these (kinda) log cabins. everything was great, and i was even enjoying the hammock and a cerveza, when i went inside to get my book and i spotted a spider the size of my hand (if i was a small person, possibly 16-24 months, or rather midget like). i am sure i made my parents proud when i shrieked like a little girl. i then quickly went and got the "security" gaurd (arana grande in mi cuarto!, ayudame)(the gaurd was rather blase about the whole thing) who then killed it with a small broom. afterwards, he told me that this particular spider probably wasnt venemous, but its cousin, who is a little bigger, is deadly. well, primo or no, lets say my sleep that night was restless and filled with suenos de aranas.

we went up north to visit this small pueblo which was the center of the guerilla resistance of the civil war in el salvador. this country has a brutal and amazing history, that i knew nothing about. the (most recent) civil war ended in the early 90's and the resistance (which managed a cease fire brokered by the UN) lost many thousands of people (many of whom were female soldiers).

we climbed to the top of this mountain which is where their communications were hidden, and where they received supplies. it was a surreal experience. the light and the view was amazing, but you were surrounded by utter silence at what literally happened right where you were standing.

the people in this country are so nice and funny (a good sense of humour) its just amazing. especially after such crap in venezuela.

the photos we have taken on this trip have mainly been for the client, but we have managed to see some great landscapes, and visit a good number of towns. and in one of which, we met michael douglas's house boy (self proclaimed) of 5 years. he repeated his address on central park west and all his favorite spots in ny. and he just couldnt say enough nice things about michael douglas. he followed us for a bit and then we lost him in the chorizo factory.

ahh, the chorizo factory. sweet sweet chorizo.


-----
oman
ya ha bibi
ya ha bibi

well all in all, it really isnt that hard to watch 6 movies in 12 hours. i managed it on my flight over here, to oman, in case you have already forgotten. we flew emirates (sp?) air. david and i got great seats (almost like business class) and they had a great entertainment system. granted, 2 of the movies i watched were of the cartoon variety. but still.

well, everything went well, until we actually landed in muscat after our connection in dubai, uae. apparently emirates forgot to load everyone's luggage on the plane. yeh. that was kinda funny. so we waited inline with the 70 + other angry passengers, and filed our report on their antiquated computer system, in the airport which uses ones and zeros and then a pigeon shows up and takes a big crap on your shoulder. yeh. and the pictures in the "match your missing luggage" were last updated when khadafi was a still a young tike (i know he is from a different country, but still). they totally didnt have my blinged out patagonia steeze. at all.

oh well, it all turned out ok. i wore the same clothes for like what, 4 days? who among us hasnt done that (or at least wanted to!) before? so, bags delivered and david is now a happier camper.

anyways! oman is a pretty cool country (btw, its one letter short of woman, my kinda country! hey ladies or should i say adies!). way cooler than qatar, which was all sand, and boring as heck and sand can be. oman has scenery, mountains and less endentured servants then qatar! actually the people here are quite friendly and are very patient as david "practices" his arabic.

so far, we have pretty much limited ourselves to the radison and the powerplant. yesterday tho, we did go to a mosque for noon time prayer. man, i have totally forgotten what it is like to be the outsider that everyone looks at. so what if i keep my shoes on!

i feel completely safe in this country (so far!). the news over here is so much different than in the states. people here are pretty laid back. it also happens to be a tourist hotspot for the eu. this is the only other place i have met more irish drunks, than mona's pub on a thursday night

tomorrow we are shooting at the power plant again in the afternoon but in the morning we are heading to a camel market. who wants a camel! should be cool and a good photo op for this american energy company. i am not quite sure what happens at a camel market. all i know is that there are 2 sides, camels for racing and camels for food. interesting.

turns out we are going to be staying a day longer on this trip. we are jumping a direct flight to sri lanka, on srilanka air, in order to not give emarites another go at loosing our luggage. (peace to the tamil tigers)

i will be getting back on the 20th now, and not the 19th...

hope all of you are well, and i will write in a few days after our forray into the omani country side.

a sneek peek into the next email

amadeo learns to ride "camel" style

amadeo learns how to correctly eat without utencils. apparently you just ball up the rice and lamb and fish off ofthe same plate that everyone else is reaching to. then you squeeeze it real hard in your hand and quickly pop it in your mouth. (note to omani's, jsut bc you have to take off your shoes and walk onto the straw mat to eat in the restraunt, doesnt make it ANY more sanitary. just an observation)



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oman part deux
arabic coffee, not for me

you know, a week deep in oman and i realize that if i was gonna be an ex-pat, i would have to bring a suitcase filled solely with coffee. (and a little espresson maker) cardimine flavored things are just NOT for me.

well, i am almost done with my trip here in oman, and then its off to srilanka where we have been reassured that the tigers wont be blowing anything up, that is near us. its actually a religious holiday right now, so that probably helps things, being that the tamils are muslim.

well, the last few days we traveled all over oman. we saw every little piece of culture possible. some highlights? well lets see. our guide (and might i add, abduhla was simply moonlighting as a guide. he is normally a gaurd to the emir of this country! pretty cool. my request to see his gun did not make him laugh. perhaps something got lost in translation) took us first to an oasis. if you have never been to an oasis, they are wicked cool. sand sand sand WHOA BIG GREEN LUSH PALM TREES! we hiked in to this crevace in a mountain side, that just got more and more green and beautiful. it also marked the first instance that i saw graffiti. on alot of the mountain side, along the stream and between the palm trees were various scratchings of offensive natures. it cracked me up. this trip into the oasis also marked the first time i saw other white people (tourists). lots of them, and they were dressed so badly. i mean, it was like, "hey honey (in heavy british accent) lets jolly o head over to that omans. i think i will wear this bed spread i found in the rubbish bin." its is totally offensive. and the people are just kinda silly (stupid). so much so, that i thought i might add my own little graffiti just to scare them "osama was here"

i decided not to.

after the oasis, we did the exact opposite and headed out into the desert. yet again (for people who rememeebr the last story from qatar) our guide felt the need to nearly kill us again by racing through the sand dunes at outrageous speeds. we had a few near misses and than ended up sliding down a 80 foot sand dune. good lord abraham!

a funny side note: the cars have a built in alarm here, where if you go faster than 120 km per hour, it goes off. nothing worse than racing through the desert and having your head hit the roof of the car in rhythm to that alarm!

well, we were supposed to sleep out in the desert with some bedouins. i was ready to get my camel on! but we showed up at the "bedouin" place and discovered scores of ghastly toursits donning their native bedspreads! oh the horror. 20k deepinto the desert and david gets second thoughts about staying at this place which was a total tourist trap, although i think david and i were the only ones who felt trapped! everyone else seemed to be doing jolly good. so here david is, mulling it over with our guide, in his best arabic, when some little snot nosed shit almost runs them over in a 4 wheeler all terrain vehicle. and then his brother, and his other brother. bloody brits.

that kinda sealed it for david. apparently, you could either go for a camel ride, or a atv ride. (i personally would have done the camel, of course) so we left and drove to the next city on our stop, got in late and crashed out.

in the morning we went to an outside prayer lot at 7 am. read, a parkinglot like structure, with lots of prayer rugs and thousands of muslims, praying and giving thanks that god spared abrahams son, isaac and abraham was allowed to sacrifice an animal instead. more on that later. so here we are, shoes off, running around slipping between prayers, taking pictures. it was pretty wild! quite an experience. i managed to take a few photos myself, and i hope i got some good stuff.

after that we drove up to a small mountain village and whose water is completely fed by these crazy underground systems of aquaducts! we went up to this village, to photograph families slaughtering cows (as a symbol of sacrifice for god, bc he spared isaac, its all there, in this little book) i have never seen, in my life, a 9 year old girl skin a cow so quickly! it was amazing. the whole family gets in on it.

after that we hiked around on parts of the aquaducts that were exposed, and i was thouroughly convinced that i will never drink water again, in this country, ever. they had killed so many cows, that the blood, as it ran off, had turned the water a brackish red. it was like a horror movie!

well, thats all for now, oman is pretty interesting. now i am ready for sri lanka!
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sri lanka

wow. sri lanka is really great. it seems like a country that i could spend some time in, on my own. it has nothing to do with the fact that we are staying in a hilton, and i am secretly in love with paris. nothing.

we have spent the last several days traveling all overthe country, sans the north east, where all the violence (and good surfing) happens. on one road i saw elephants, giant and miniature monkeys, a mongoose (rikki tikki tavi, like whoa), a porcupine (i have no idea how to speel that) and several other unidentifiable animals.

ourdriver is a really sweet sri lankan whose name is kingsley. we pressed him on his name but he stood strong, that is his sri lankan name. kingsley also happens to be an insanely aggressive driver in an insanely small van made in korea. bad match. the roads here are crazy. they are not wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other so eveytime you pass an oncoming car, there is a lot of honking and swerving that happens. ususally the "larger" of the cars wins, but kingsley hung in there with his little korean mean machine. so, combine the small road with lazy dogs napping in the sun in the middle of the roads, bicyclists who dont look before doing ANYTHING and these little 3 wheeled cabs that move through traffic like a snake moves through rocks. its insane. then there are the cows. they just stand there. better off as a hamburger, thats what i say. and then after all that there mightjust be an elephant on around the curve. seriously. those guys always get the right of way. always.

i jsut got back from a run along the ocean here in colombo. i ran past lots of military guys with big guns. what really sucks about this is, they look at me, and then as i run past they turn there bodies to follow me and smile and wave. now, i amsure you are saying, well, what sucks about that? well, they happen to have these big machine guns strapped over there shoulders, hand on the trigger so basically for a good portion of my run, i had guns targeted on me. yeh. oh, and did i mention are the cobra guys? yeh, all these guys playing the flute for the cobras. makes running past them kinda scary!

lets see, what else. i have been to a lot of really amazing buddhist sites. we went to one that was on top of this mountain that looks like a giant mushromo in the middle of nowhere. it was crazy climbing up that with 60 plus pounds of photogear on my back. but on top it was amazing. it really looked like all the ruins i went to in mexico as a kid. this morning we went and saw all these buddhas and cave paintings on top of another mountain. quite spectacular. and at all these sites there are tons of monkeys running around. my favorite thing to yell (although not very appropriate at a buddhist ancient city) is "MONKEY FIGHT MONKEY FIGHT" bc they hiss and fight and tackle each other all the time. its super cute.

i have been able to take a lot of my own photos, so i am pretty psyched about that. this trip is getting kinda long tho, and i am really looking to being back in the city, and seeing all of you.