Last night I went out with Yuri and Ludi again. I’m going to have to make up a name for the pair of them. The i-twins or something, I dunno. Anyway, at Yuri’s suggestion we went to get pizza. Ludi asked for a bit more (olive) oil to put on hers. Now, let me just say that I really do try very hard not to be a stereotypical American. We frequently have conversations about how things are different in [ France \/ Japan \/ the US ] but that’s not to say that they’re right, just different. You know! Being respectful of others, tolerant and kind. But man, olive oil on pizza? I … I just couldn’t fathom the concept. I told them that it was probably close to an abomination, though I didn’t have a copy of the Constitution with me so I couldn’t be 100% positive. Anyway, the waitress was snotty and responded to Ludi’s request with, “We have hot [spicy, not temperature] oil.” Ludi specified that she was just looking for plain olive oil and the waitress said, “There’s already been oil used in the preparation. Why do you want more?” Fine, fine, no oil. Yuri requested the spicy oil, though, and when it arrived I broke down and tried it and of course it was good, I mean the pizza wasn’t very American anyway, it was all European<\/I> (*nose in air*) so mixing it up a little with spicy oil instead of red pepper flakes made sense.<\/p>\n
If there isn’t an Amendment yet about the whole oil thing I’m going to have to write to my elected officials.<\/p>\n
We stayed out late, way too late, doing absolutely nothing because someone (I won’t mention who but it wasn’t me) was being all poor and didn’t want to pay for a bus ride downtown and drinks at a club, which was fine with me, that’s not my scene, man, unless they’ve developed a club where all you do is fiddle with your camera while drinking red wine and playing blackjack and listening to music at a reasonable volume while talking to your friends.<\/p>\n
Hold on, I gotta go make a note about a business venture when I return to the states.<\/p>\n
As a result of this intense and excessive non-partying I thought I was going to sleep in today, but no, I got up nice and early. Wellllll okay so it wasn’t early, but it sure wasn’t eight hours later. I decided for the seventeenth Saturday in a row that I was going to go out and find Granddad’s house. Hey, side note! I don’t think of him as Granddad, I think of him as Tom, but if I tell you I went to look for Tom’s house I’m sure it would bring up some strange questions. Anyway, I also needed to go to the airport because my return flight is still<\/I> messed up, and my travel agent said that everything should be good but he can’t reissue the ticket from the States so I needed to go have them do it here in Yerp. Well, the British Airways office said that they’re pretty sure everything’s kosher but the US Airways office in London was closed so they couldn’t call them to confirm the US Airways leg of the trip, so now I have to go BACK to the airport on a non-weekend day.<\/p>\n
They call those ‘weekdays’ don’t they? I suppose that’s a bit less cumbersome than non-weekend days.<\/p>\n
But this ain’t no big deal, there’s a train straight to the airport, and it’s not like my time is in high demand. Nobody’s calling me every day saying, “OH CRAP KEVIN I JUST REALIZED WE HAVEN’T HUNG OUT TODAY MAN GET OVER HERE WE GOT SOME SERIOUS PARTYING TO DO” which, if you were not aware, is how I spend every single day in Cookeville. I’m very popular.<\/p>\n
Granddad’s old place is just past the airport so I was once again trying to figure out the best way to get there. While playing with Google Maps I got to a zoom level that didn’t show as many streets but did<\/I> show neighborhood names, and right there just south of his house was Los Alamos, which I recognize as a train stop. So hooray! I could get off of the train there, in that little no-horse town, and just walk to his place. In the hot sun. And it’s only … well, I didn’t measure the distance because I didn’t want to get depressed. It was hot today. That’s all I’m saying.<\/p>\n
I asked the Sra. if this one particular road on the map would be walkable, as it was rather large and had a number instead of a name. She assured me that while it was a big street it would have stop lights and whatnot, and would probably be okay to walk on.<\/p>\n
Well, kind of, not really, no, not at all. Traffic was moving fast and there sure wasn’t a sidewalk, but I gave it a valiant effort. After walking for a ways I realized I was going to have to dodge traffic in two directions and jump a concrete barrier in the middle, so I turned around, walked back to Los Alamos, and got a damn taxi.<\/p>\n
On the way to his house, via the aforementioned taxi, I saw how the return trip wouldn’t be quite so bad since I’d be on the other side of this highway and could use this one street to – you know, it’s not worth describing, you’re not able to see it. The point is that I could walk back to the train. When we pulled up to the house I paid him, got out, and he sat there. It was touching. I guess he wanted to make sure my key would work in the lock or that I was able to get the gate open or something. I didn’t feel like explaining my Creepy American Stalker story so I just stood there for a few seconds until he finally drove off.<\/p>\n
And stood there I did, for a while, just looking. It’s partly obscured by a wall, so I couldn’t see much of the house itself. I could see the neighborhood, the abandoned and dilapidated house across the street, could get a general sense of the whole area. It felt interesting, but it didn’t feel strong. A vague curiosity at most.<\/p>\n
Two girls a little younger than me walked up as I was standing on the other side of the street staring at the house – their house, as it turned out. I explained my situation, they told me they just started renting there a few months ago. The owners (who apparently live there as well, I’m not sure) bought the place four years ago, so there’s no direct connection between the owners and Granddad. They implied that the owners weren’t home, and I felt that a big strange American shouldn’t ask two younger female renters if he could just “have a look around the place” so I contented myself with the few minutes of conversation and then wandered off.<\/p>\n
So then I just stomped all over the place near the house, saw a fantastic run-down building<\/A> which was being guarded by two hot and obviously worn-out horses, saw a bunch of other houses, saw a ton of snails beating the heat by crawing underneath brick overhangs, saw and smelled a bunch of jasmine, and then braved the highway to walk back to Los Alamos. It wasn’t pleasant but I did survive without getting hit by anything other than a WALL OF PURE HEAT emanating from the asphalt. On the way back to the train I saw lime after lime after lime<\/A>. They’re everywhere. It’s like a lime conspiracy.<\/p>\n