The South of France

It is so typical of my parents to, when told that I have bought a one-way ticket to London, make it all about them and decide to rent a villa in Tuscany for the whole family to stay in. They are always doing things like this. So on the 27th of September, 2009, I flew out of YVR to London (and received extra leg room at no extra cost), slept in Gatwick for an hour and flew to Pisa, arriving fresh-faced and ready for a week-long B-Family Tuscan Extravaganza. The French Riviera (a region in my geographical imagination spanning from Pisa to Barcelona) was spent in typical family fashion: we ate a lot of cured pork products, argued about which wines to buy and how to properly cook polenta, saw Roman ruins, and my dad sat and read the same issue of the Guardian over the course of one week. Afterwards, we went to France.

So, Provence: wine, fresh produce, blah blah blah, Lavender Museum, blah blah blah, corkscrew museum, blah, Joan of Arc(?), pain au chocolate, and Carrefour. Trust me, it’s beautiful and the people are awesome, but there is nothing I can tell you about this place that you can’t get from Google Image, or from asking any American college student who did an exchange in Lyon, or Rome, or Barcelona. Just assume my experience was exactly the same. Perhaps a list of my Facebook status updates will fill in the gaps:

September 27, 2009: Rory has the day off tomorrow. For a year
October 2, 2009: Rory is trapped in the mountains of Tuscany with no Internet and only his parents' credit card.
October 6, 2009: Rory à Provence, jaloux? And has a whole slough of generic, filled-out and stamped post cards requiring addresses.
October 9, 2009: Rory est gros à cause de foie gras. Jaloux?
October 12, 2009: Rory. Stay tuned for a "Rattails of France" facebook album.
October 19, 2009: Rory is in Spain, and had no idea Spanish was actually spoken outside of Mexico/California.

So, you guessed it, after Provence I took the TGV as far as Montpellier, and then hitchhiked my way to Spain, improving my French considerably in the course of one day. This was the more French I had ever been exposed to at any time in my life. Despite constant bombardment by bilingual packaging laws and the “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” segment of Sesame Street growing up, I knew zero French until I decided, on a whim in May 2009 and much to the annoyance of my coworkers, to finally conquer the Everest that is the French tongue. So, on October 16, I hitchhiked with a combination of eight different people, ranging from 1980s hatchbacks to brand-new, climate-controlled Renaults, the last of which dropped me off in downtown Barcelona at the start of Las Ramblas. For those wondering if I spent the entire time in BCN partying and “gettin’ crunk” in the cluub, you better believe it: every night I had one or two glasses from a tetrapack of wine, and then watched an episode of 30 Rock (and…Desperate Housewives, but really only one or two episodes), and then went to sleep.

With all due respect to Western Europe, nothing exciting happened until I arrived in Bratislava on Halloween. After sitting on a sweaty bus from Central Barcelona to the airport at Girona (a bus ride which cost more than my ticket to B-Slav, I’ll have you know), I arrived in Bratislava in freezing cold weather. My first thought was, “What sort of faulty synapse led me to think this was a good idea?” but when I saw the overabundance of fur-clad locals piling into a sturdy, utilitarian socialist Hungarian-built bus from the 1970s, I knew that yes, this is exactly where I wanted to be at 23. This is so my life. If you’re so interested, read on.

Les Aventures Rorientales

I am in Moldova, and the you know what they say about the best way to live it up in the beautiful city of Chisinau: sit in the basement of your hostel and condense 7 months of travel into a blog to make things all the more manageable for you and your friends, which is far less intrusive and attention-demanding than a mass e-mail. It's so true! It's actually April, 2010, but I had to find a way to change the date. You know frustrating backdating paperwork can be. So if you're curious to find out how I got to Moldova, you can continue reading. Otherwise, it's really not that interesting. I'll shall christen this inaugural posting with the start of an email from November 5, 2009:


Before you even bother with this, here are some key points to note before continuing:
1. To understand the context of every e-mail I will send, and everything you will hear, please refer to entry # 120 on www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. In fact, please read #s 19, 20, 47, and 115. I mean, let's face it: I spent the past 5 years reading Marx, Said and Smith. Someone had to do it. I deserve this. Furthermore, after reading these entries, you basically no longer need to read any e-mail I send because everything that will happen to me is covered in those 5 entries.
2. My biggest fears are, in order: having my organs stolen; losing my iPod; losing my camera; being stabbed by a Roma; and not checking to see if there is enough toilet paper until it is too late. In retrospect, if one of these happens, I can assure you that all four will happen at the same time, so if any of you have an eye on one of my plump kidneys, you will probably be able to buy it in Moldova (Afterthoughts: I feel as though now you have to read on because if I am in Moldova now, it's very possibly I'm kidney-shopping).
3. Let's just address the elephant in the room: the world was designed for middle class native English-speakers. When people can't speak English, I'm naturally frustrated and offended. This always ends well.
4. You can unsubscribe at any time.

So, get involved! (Or heed my warnings. Whichever works.)