International Bum

I arrived at the train station Naren told me to go to… after taking the wrong train first. Out of all the friends that have gotten there successfully, of course I am the one to get a little lost. However I ingeniously got some Euros by buying a girl a croissant at the café and getting the 3 Euros in cash. Capitol One No Foreign Transaction Fee, this is a free plug for you.

Anywhoo, on the metro to the correct destination, end up talking to a group of high school kids on the metro and talk about music and stuff, they like reggae, I tell them the Wyclef concert was one of the most amazing concerts I’ve been to, not only did he pull out some reggae, but soul, r&b, alternative rock, hip hop, little electronica, you name it, he covered it. Asked them about food and whatnot, but there isn’t much special food to the area, they were just like Amsterdam is known for weed? food? nah. Naren says it’s because the Dutch have been trading for so long they have just international mix of things. Maybe I’ll get Naren to delve into this later.

Meet up with naren, and tell him the GALAVANTION TOUR has started. Almost walk on horse poop on the way to naren’s dorm but I’ll let naren write the poop rants, that’ll be quite hilarious.

Sunday night end up just passing out while Naren and Vinay study for their test tomorrow.

Sunday morning.. wake up once at 8am when naren wakes up for his exam. He leaves at 1030am for the Univeristy, and I proceed to play around on my computer, pass out at 11am, and wake up again at 2 or so. By the time I worked up the nerve to leave the room and go pee, I walk up to the door and its opening….

Shiva: “Oh, hi!, I was just about to leave the room for the day!”
Naren: Where are you going?
Shiva: Oh, just to go pee

Bum around the rest of the night, there is a pasta party at 7 apparently. Mosy over to the pasta party and meet the people of the “Guesthouse”, the term for this international dorm.
Naren: “Names can be deceiving, Guesthouse sounds nice, but in reality it’s a shithole.”

Of course I rolled up to the pasta party in my pajamas, fulfilling my role of international bum. Met my first dutch guy Mattjas (dutch version of Matthew) . I’m hopefully going to get him to translate these dutch yoga web sites, so I can figure out which yoga studio to go to here. Also ended up talking to this German guy Mattias about cars, beer, and convinced him to do yoga with me. Nicknamed a girl Princess, because.. well now I forget why. Ate some pretty good pasta, care of Eugenio Maccarone, reminds me of Fabio’s pasta parties. Pasta party quieted down and this greek guy Xenophon wanted to check what’s going on upstairs.. Hrm, I’m down for an adventure.

Apparently it’s someone’s birthday out on the balcony/lounge so I dive in and give the birthday girl a hug. It’s this French girl, Morgan’s 21st and she’s not hammered. Something is terribly wrong. On further pondering, I find out I am silly, and have to adjust for the international setting. Drinking in France is legal at 16, and she’s been drinking since 15. At some point I have a multicolored paper flower wreath around my neck and I am acting a fool as usual. I teach one of the guys Quentin the Oompa Loompa song and we make a little dance by bobbing up and down. Yes I am still in my pajamas. It is also this guy Manu’s birthday that is like half British half Italian naren says, so they roll a huge splif (which is tobacco and weed) and celebrate.


I’ve kind of nicknamed part of the upstairs the French Quarter. French people are kind of hard to talk to. Unless you corner them. According to Morgan, there aren’t good crepes in Paris, only in Bretagne. She is from apparently a small town there and there’s a joke about her town, what is the closest big city? New York. I proceeded to ask her if there were cows and if she had fun with the cows there. Next, I started the inquisition on my quest to find amazing food in each city, and when firing off questions about Paris, Morgan said there was good Chinese food there. Hrmm… I can’t go to Paris and tell my friends I ate Chinese food. I’m going to eat crepes anywhoo, and get some advice from Dave and Laura. ahh excited to see CF!

TMI details that I obviously will share is that I finally pooped after 2 days (need to invest in some fiber one), showered and got out of pajamas finally. Still haven’t left the “Guesthouse”. It’s far too kind to me; the bathroom smells like India at times.