Talking heads

I went out for drinks with 3 guys last night. Johnny--Northern Ireland, Peter--Holland and Chris--Australia. It's a sausage fest in the hostal now. I'm the only girl. So at the bar, Chris tells me that he doesn't completely hate me. What a wonderful lead-in line, right? One night Meg, Mok & I were drinking with Chris and he got offended by something I said, then by something Mok said and left in a huff. Minor meltdown, we asked him to chill out and hang but his pride or something was affected. So apparently, he's held it against me for the past 5 days, and over drinks decides to tell me that I need to just chill. That it's cool if I'm a spaz with tons of energy but that I shouldn't take it out on other people. Eww. I responded that we were all having a blast, enjoying life, that I was enjoying my vacation and that if he had a problem, he should have brought it up before then so we could resolve it and leave it behind. And the more I think about it, the more it makes me want to tell him to piss off. It makes me really not want to care one bit what people think. And then he tells me that, on first impression, I fit the usual American stereo-type, which is only one word in his opinion--arrogant. Great.

The night prior I had to stand up for the US, explain that the politics and people of a country are separate things and, really, it's just getting old repeating these types of thoughts. Don't people see in their own countries how different politicians are from the public? And still, we all want the same things across the world, love, acceptance, a good future, things that really matter. So those who come with an agenda can just skip talking to me. I'm over it. Peter too said he had absolutely no interest in traveling to the United States. So I asked him which of the 50 it was that had turned him off so much or if it was all 50. Was it the Blue Ridge mountains, skiing Jackson Hole, the Hawaiian islands, the Grand Canyon, or Seattle's music scene that turned him off to the whole country? He didn't know how to respond. Apparently, it's quite popular to say, ¨I have no interest in traveling to the US¨ among some Europeans. I guess I just found it ignorant. Or even more so absurd. So I told him, ¨Cool, man. We're just different. There's nowhere in the world I wouldn't like to visit.¨ Granted, I'd probably avoid the Middle East at present, just out of fear for my life. But generally speaking, I think travel is about keeping an open mind. Hell, life is about keeping an open mind. And it's getting harder and harder to do so. I'm struggling and it's making me frustrated and angry. I got to get a move on. The cool thing is that all I had to do was take these stairs up one floor and it'd be done. But don't people get it? Aren't there people out there who do? Please, someone say yes!

And I had another dream about my head. I was on some circus apparatus, spinning in crazy circles and it was so fun. Until I cracked my skull on a curb. Yep, I really got to get a move on.