Breather

Dear Evan,

Here are some other things I forgot to mention about the trip:

On Saturday before going out to the parties, Paula and I went to a "World Press '09" exhibition which has a collection of press photos from the year. There are 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for the photographers who captured the best pictures of important events. It was much better than I would expect it to be. One of my favorites was a picture of eyes, each of a very different animal, to show how varied eyes are depending on the environment and habits of the animal. My other favorite was a before and after photo of boxers on the night of a fight. It's enticingly disturbing how drastically different their faces looked.

Paula taught me how to yodel. I guess that's common in Austria.

Paula knows "The Puppy Song" by Harry Nilsson! No one ever knows about him! We sang the part, "Dreams are nothing more than wishes and a wish is just a dream" together a lot.

One of the first things Paula said to me was that he had always thought my dad was going to become the next Dan Brown!

Yesterday I got back from the airport then pretty much struggled over Greek homework, practiced some piano, realized I should have learned a Charlie Parker song for my piano lesson the next day, had dinner with everyone except Cody cause he was still in the UK, did a little bit more Greek, got fed up with it and watched most of "Risky Business".

Today, I had 40 minutes before my piano lesson after my Greek class ended so I learned "Confirmation", one of my favorite Charlie Parker tunes. I played it in my lesson and he said he liked what I did with it. I was pleased about that haha! After my lesson I had three hours until my History of Music Class and instead of goofing off like most other weeks I told myself to crack down on practicing. I practiced the Toubeleki and the Req for my Mediterranean ensemble, warmed up my voice the way my teacher taught me and then worked on a funny song for Whit that I might finish if I find the time and the motivation. When I got home, I watched some more of Risky Business before dinner. At dinner, Cody talked about his crazy experiences around the UK. He went to Dublin and London as far as I know.

I recorded a piano part for Zoe's Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound piece that she is going to enter into the "Women's Musician Network" competition. She recorded her part first and I gotta say, listening to her play the flute was thrilling. The best parts were the quick gasps of air she took between notes. I've never stood so near a flute player before and it was cool. I told her I might want to write a flute piece sometime and that I might want her to play for me in the future.

I studied a lot of Greek tonight because most of today's class was too ahead of me and I felt uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that when it was time for us to take a break in the middle of the class, I bolted out, ran down the stairs and took a breather outside. I was sick of it. So about two hours ago I wrote out all the past and future conjugations for about 20 verbs then I studied one of the pages in the book that she suggested to look over. Our final test is next Monday. We have two more classes before that. I'm determined to get a better score on the final than I did on my midterm (I got a B).

Y.

Finally

Paula and I went out to two parties.

1st Party -

It was a French Skii party. There were skiis leaning on the door frames and some guests even went as far as wearing skii boots. A French guy went up to me and said he was from a place I had never heard of. I told him my name and said I was from Minnesota. He then explained to me he was joking and that the place he said he was from was a famous Skii resort in France. I said, "Oh, haha ok," but before I could think of a skii resort in Minnesota, he said, "You could say you're from a famous skiing city in the U.S. Like Aspen." So I said, "Yeah, Aspen. That's where I'm from," but he just turned away from me. Ok...

After that I had trouble getting into conversations cause everybody was, well, speaking French. Paula speaks a little French cause she spent some months there for school. She left a crowd of people she was talking to and came over to me. She said, "You gotta follow me around and get to know people that way instead of standing alone." I said ok but we ended up talking just to each other for the rest of the time was stayed at the party. Then I confessed. I brought up childhood and the opportunity presented itself. I told her about the time I sat by her on the risers (which was actually before a recorder concert I think) and that I remembered she was wearing a red dress. I confessed about the note I wrote about her after that night; I told her about how I wrote about her red hair and thought she was pretty. Paula thought the story was cute. After telling her that I liked her, she said she knew from the start. I laughed. Then she reminded me of a letter Michael sent to her. At the bottom of the letter was, "P.S. Stoddy likes you too." I actually think I remember being there, writing it with him. I'm sure we did. Then Paula confessed that she and Michael were sort of an item, in the elementary school sense ("He likes me, I like him. And he gives me heart erasers."). I was a little bummed cause she didn't say she ever liked me that way but I was relieved that after all those years, she finally heard it from me. She said that Michael brought her a red, heart shaped eraser once and then turned red and ran away. That made me miss Michael.

Then something broke my heart. She said when she came back to visit two years later, Michael never got to see her. I vaguely remembered that. After she left, Michael apparently called her and asked her why she never told him she was coming back. That changed my idea of bragging about seeing Paula. Instead, I'm going to email Michael and apologize for never telling him about Paula coming to visit. I could have easily called him but I know I was jealous so I'm sure that caused me to "forget" to tell him. I brought up to Paula the possibility that Michael was mad at me for a while because of this. Anyway, she lifted her glass and said, "To our past." It was a good sewing up moment.

2nd party -

We got there and the cops had just been there because of a noise complaint. The host of the party kicked everyone out. Paula and I then met a guy waiting for a cab and he hit on Paula after she offered for the three of us to share a cab. He asked us to go to a party with him. Coincidentally, Paula ended up knowing the host of that party too and she recognized most of the people at it as the friends of her younger brother. That was strange.

We got back and had cereal together. Throughout the trip, Paula and I shared a lot of interesting conversations about religion, civil rights and politics but most of all, joked around a lot. It ended up being very fun. I'm so glad I went to Vienna.

Vienna Bobanna Feefanna

YESTERDAY

-Yesterday I took a tour with Paula in this big mansion, "Schonbrunn" and I stood in the room where Mozart played his first concert. WOWZA. The rooms were filled with chandeliers, golden decorations and paintings of those who lived in the masion.

-I went to the MOMUK museum which is a modern art museum. It was incredibly weird. There was an exhibition on gender studies and I saw some crazy art pieces. There were tons of videos, one of them featuring two clothed women humping each other without barely ever touching and another video where a woman said, "Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful" over and over again while violently combing her hair with a comb and a brush.

-I met Paula and her engaged friends. I liked them. But...the guy said he thinks gay people can't have the same quality of love as straight people. And that's of course a load of buuuuuuullSHIT.

-I went out to a bar where we saw a Hungarian band play. I hung out with Paula and met some of her other friends. The first friend I met walked with us to the bar and he was really cool. We hung out more than I hung out with Paula by the end of the night and he bought me a drink. Then during the last band that played, a good looking girl from the audience got up and danced. She was great. The guy that came with Paula and me to the bar said to me about the last song, "I really like this...but it's NOT about of the girl." Hahaha it struck me funny. I started answering, "It IS about-" then I stopped cause I realized maybe my opinion was better left unsaid.

Before I talk about what I did today, I remembered something that happened on the train coming to Vienna from the airport on Wednesday. I was sitting, minding my own business when I heard people kissing behind me. I thought it was funny that I happened to be back to back with lovers, separated only by my seat. Then one of them talked. It was the girl. I didn't understand it because it was in German. Then the other one talked. Another girl? Yep, I was an inch away from lesbians making out during the entire train ride.

TODAY

-I went ice-skating with Paula and her younger brother Filippo! And I tried orange punch. They went back on the ice rink as I was finishing up my punch. I took some pictures of them when they passed by. I was taking forever to drink it so I decided to sacrifice the last ten sips for more skating time since we had to leave soon for lunch. When I went back on the ice, I noticed a girl ahead of me, waving her hips as she skated and to be honest, my eyes were fixed on her. I started to skate past her, turing my head and focusing my eyes to see if I was attracted to her face, which would make me feel even better about her ass. Then suddenly I heard my name being called by Paula and Filippo: "Stoddy!" I was caught! I quickly turned and said, "Hey!" louder than I anticipated, scared that they might have noticed me checking out the girl. They asked me, "Were you looking for us?" They must have seen me turning my head, assuming I was scoping out the skating crowd and trying to find them. I'm sad to say I told a little white lie at the heat of the moment. "Yeah, there you are!" I answered. I laughed at myself.

-I had lunch with Paula's parents and grandmother and ate an Austrian meatloaf dish that was decent. I like Wienerschnitzel better. For dessert, I had a dish with pancakes cut up into pieces, surrounding some kind of cream. It was also pretty good. I said it reminded me of a dessert version of shellfish because the pancake acted as a shell around the mooshier insides.

-Tonight I'm going to a French party and then a German party with Paula. She was invited to both by two different friends.

AAAAAAAAAH!

I just lost my whole blog entry cause the damn ethernet cable came out of my computer again. Paula's cable doesn't snap in correctly in the computer. This entry will not be as long. Tomorrow I'll touch on more.

1. Got lost today more than I wanted to. Even couldn't remember which apartment Paula lived in. Luckily there is only one apartment on the first floor. There's only one other door and it's a psychotherapist's office. At least I think so.

2. Saw museums today. Seeing Klimt's "The Kiss" in person was better than I thought. Stunning.

3. Ate at Tex Mex with Paula. That was my Thanksgiving lunch.

4. My Thanksgiving dinner was at a restaurant near the concert hall where later saw a Haydn concert. At the restaurant, I had Weiner Schnitzel which was delectable. It's like chicken fingers but more tender, like fish.

5. I thought the concert was at 7:30 but it was at 7:00! So I was late and had to wait outside the auditorium for 40 minutes with some other outcasts until the first big applause happened.

6. The first thing I did today was get tickets at the same concert hall for the show later, and go to a church/museum where I got to go to the top. There was an astonishingly elaborate baroque design on the main wall of the church of little baby angles in a cloud with golden rods of sunlight everywhere.

7. The second museum I went to today was the best. There was this one point where I was looking at a painting and I heard two people scream at the top of their lungs, a woman and a man. Then I heard an evil monster-like sound come from the same room and looked over. The lights were flickering. I almost hoped there was a dragon. Or at least a fake one. I walked into the room and there was a sign saying, "Yell as loud as you can, now!" So after I yelled for the first time, nothing happened and couple laughed at me. Another guy yelled and somehow it triggered something, making the lights flicker again. Then this loud noise dominated the room that sounded like king kong breathing in your ear and with every evil breath of this invisible creature, the lights flickered on and off! It was like the room was alive! I yelled after him even louder and the room did the same thing. I had no idea why this was happening in such a garish museum with old paintings and sculptures.

Vienna

1. I arrived in Vienna. I met Paula. She's still a cutey pie, with her red hair and nice smile. The signature aspect of her face are her dimples. So I asked her how she was doing. We talked, ignoring the fact that we hadn't seen each other in ten years for a little bit, then mentioned it and things eased up a little. I joked with her about how in this case, it's not like, "So...how was your weekend? It's more like, how was your ten years?" We went to her apartment, put stuff down and then walked to a traditional Austrian place to eat. I had this pasta dish with slices of ham, parsley (I think) and really good cheese. Oh my god!!! SO GOOD.

2. We went back to her apartment (which I'm staying in) then went for a long walk with her mom and dad's two small dogs, saw two Christmas markets, the parliament, the emperor's abode and lots of other pretty buildings. When we stopped at his very gaudy coffee shop, with a ceiling that looked like a warped spider web, the dogs were so riled up that Paula kept stopping to reprimand them in German. It shocked me each time, juxtaposing with our jokes and polite conversation.

3. After stopping at the apartment again, we went out to get supplies for a balsamic vinaigrette salad. The best ingredient we put in it was feta cheese with bacon wrapped around them, cooked in a pan of honey and walnuts. KILL ME it was delicious. I had to do one of those stop, close my eyes and process beauty faces. She thought I didn't like it at first haha.

4. I saw Filippo, Paula's younger brother by two years, that I haven't seen in 12 or 13 years! So crazy. A friend of Paula's also came over. Her name is Helena. She is definitely cute. Dimples as well! We hung out. I showed them "Refresh Button" from my album and the youtube video of "Hot Dam Got a Woman". Filippo and Paula said they both have the old version of "Refresh Button" on their iPods. The three of them kept talking in German and I was so lost for a while. Paula kept filling me in but then they watched this comedy clip and it struck me so funny looking at this guy speaking in gibberish (to me), waving his hands and using his fingers as a puppet, lowering his voice, squeaking and getting everyone to laugh. I couldn't believe people understood it haha.

5. Paula walked Helena home and came back to help set up my bed. I'm lying on the fold out couch right now. Tomorrow I'm waking up at 7:30, having breakfast with Paula, then we're going to town and she's going to study for a while until lunchtime. I will walk around for that period of time, going to museums and things like that. I'm VERY much looking forward to that. We're meeting up again for lunch and then coming back. After she goes to work at five, I'm gonna go out and see a concert, probably a Haydn concert at a place that is supposed to be the most beautiful concert hall. That will be nice.

I like Vienna a lot. It's clean and happenin'.

Until tomorrow. I think tomorrow I'll feel more comfortable. I'm still getting used to the whole idea that I never really knew Paula well and now, ten years later, I'm staying in her city, her fold out couch, meeting her friends and this time being the foreigner. For me, travel is always hard at the beginning. But I think I'm starting to get the hang of new thing after new thing by realizing that so many of those "things", wherever I go, are similar to "things" I already know or have seen before.

Y.

Paula

The following segment is something I wrote earlier today, at around 4:30 or so on a scrap of notebook paper:

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I'm jotting my feelings down cause I just can't stand to wait. I'm so excited. Can't hold it. Guess where I am right now? All my readers (I have a LOT of readers, like two to four or something) will be, or might be slightly disappointed in me. I am in PIZZA HUT AND BABYLON by DAVID GRAY just came on. That makes it even better. But anyway, I'm getting a medium pan pizza with extra cheese (SALIVA!), pepperoni, onions and chile (jalepenos!). I'm so damn excited. I know I'm in Greece + I should be excited by a Greek monument or something but who gives a damn. I'm happy. My readers will like this: It will be a taste of home. What I meant by "Saliva" was that I wanted to drool thinking about extra cheese.

Oh and I got a sprite too! Realize I did not order Coke or Pepsi. No, most of my caffein from now on is coming from tea. That way I won't have soda as much. It's ok sometimes but while I'm here, it's just tea and non-caff. soda from time to time.

Tomorrow I'm meeting Paula at the University metro stop in VIENNA at around 1. I will be staying in her apartment which is in the same complex as her parents' place I guess. She'll be staying up with her parents. I'm thrilled to see her and honestly, I'm at pizza hut partly cause I was so excited + kind of nervous about meeting her. It's been ten years! It's funny I'm most worried about - wait, a woman just teased me! She brought my sprite while holding a dif. person's pizza! FAKE PLAY! - I'm most worried about pronouncing her name. I've been practicing it: "Paoula, Paaoula, no PAoula." I"m sure it'll be fine. There has to be a reason why she was pretty much my first crush ever. Well, she + Amy Deeg. God, I still remember that day when I wouldn't trade seats with someone else in children's choir (music class with Danielson) so I could sit next to Paula. She was wearing a red dress I believe. I remember that beig my first real experience with a little bit of lust. I had experienced crushes before but this had a tinge of "want" in it. To a kid, "lust" really is just wanting to kiss someone. I remember this one time at her house we were jumping on mattresses, I think on the floor + I was hoping by some miracle occurrence that we would run into each other at the lips + "accidentally" kiss. Haha, so cute.

Then I remember her leaving. The last thing I remember is reaching in the cupboard to the left of the fridge, playing with the loads of Tupperware for some reason w/ her. Then her dad came + I watched her being driven away up our driveway while I stood on our Minnesota lawn, mourningly.

MY PIZZA SHOULD BE HERE SOON! The party is SOON to start!!! :))).

Back to Paula, I remember my dad dropping me off at her house once (across Pat Lake which was so crazy!) and I "accidentally" fell out of the car + into the snow. For some reason I thought that was cute, you know "clumsy for you" kind of deal. My dad thought I made a mystake + helped me up quickly, haha.

Then later, in the snow, playing, Paula asked me, "Do you think Michael likes me?" - HEARTBREAK. I old the truth, "Yes," and pretended nothing hurt. And boy did it hurt.

Michael, time to get you back! Nothing against you. You'll always be a huge part of my life but this weekend, I WILL BE IN VIENNA WITH NO OTHER THAN PAULA THUN!

I WIN!

The pizza got her but it had the wrong toppings! Another fake play!

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End of segment

Keep in mind, on the notebook paper, "I WIN!" was underlined four times. So the pizza was good. It tasted a little smokey but it was tasty. The crust was the best part like always. Ahhh pan pizza. I gave in. I was going to wait til Maine to have pizza hut - won't stop me from wanting it again ha!

So everything was chaotic after I finished eating. Before I start, pre-pizza hut I walked to Syntagma from the school's stop, Penipistimio to look around and possibly eat somewhere. Then I remembered Sadayah telling me about a Pizza Hut in Penepistimio. So I got a cup of tea at Syntagma and walked back to Penepistimio. After eating there, I left the place and realized I left my sweatshirt in Pizza Hut (which looked different by the way - lots of green vegetables and wicker baskets painted on the wall for some odd reason) so I went back and my waitress had kept it for me. That was good. I started my walk home, passed a throng of protesters at Penepistimio and the usual street salesmen selling clothing, purses, scarves, electronics and my favorite, dancing stuffed animal toys and remote control cars that always get in the way, driving right in front of you while you're trying to maneuver your way through the crowd. And keep in mind, these salesmen always have straight faces on. There's always one standing by this weird gangly coyote stuffed animal that just swings its head back and forth, crazily dancing and the guy looks up at you pleadingly in a business manner. Cracks me up. Today, there was something new among the salesmen and flyer hander-outers. There was a woman handing out free promotional yogurt and plastic forks. I said no. Reaching Syntagma again, I remembered, "OH, didn't get my passport from Maria," and since I need my passport to travel, that really wouldn't be good. She had my passport because she needed to take it in to extend my visa. So I started freaking out cause I knew she probably left for the day and I wasn't sure if she kept the passports in her office. While running back to the school from Syntagma which is about a ten minute trek, I realized I also had not gotten my laundry from the laundry place and I was afraid it was closed. So here I was, running through the crazy stuffed animal dancer salesmen, dodging another remote control car that can flip upside down and drive again, wondering if I would have to go to Vienna without clothes. The woman offered me yogurt again. I just ran by her. Finally arriving at the school, I asked the guy who works next to Maria if she was there. He said she left about an hour before. I told him I needed my passport and he asked me if I could come in the morning. They open at 10. My flight is at 10:15. Yeah, not gonna work. I told him that and he reached around her desk and took my passport from the drawer she kept it in. Allowed? I don't know. But thank you sir!

Next step. I ran to the laundry place and luckily they were still open. It was around 6 now. I said Kalispera and walked out. I was so relieved it was all solved and looked over to see a little convenient store. "Ok," I thought and got a small can of Amstel beer. Walking home with my backpack, big wheeley travel pack filled with clothes and my can of beer, I was almost calm again. I had to text Cody and some others to make sure that it was ok I took the passport. Mia said she didn't know if Cody got his passport (I thought if he got his back from Maria, that would mean she was done with them), Courtney said, "I believe he did," but that wasn't good enough for me to finally be relaxed. Arriving at Syntagma, this time a little closer to home, I heard my phone do it's text jingle. It said I had two messages. One of them was from Cody, "Yes sir." YES, he got the passport. I was all set. The other text was in Greek. It was from Vodaphone. That reminded me. "Oh YEAH, I need to put minutes on my phone cause Paula might need to contact me tomorrow. Ok, that means I have to walk back to Penepistimio again or find a Vodaphone anywhere on the way!" But I didn't find one on the way. Once again, I passed the yogurt lady, the crazy stuffed animal guy, the annoying remote control flipper lights-up-its-wheels car and had to shimmy my way through the crowd once more. I got to the store and everything was solved. I added the minutes and I was finally done. This time I was not going to walk home and decided to take the metro. So for the LAST time I squeezed through the Penepistimio crowd, by the stuffed animal santa riding a reindeer, the crazy dancer, purses, scarves, remote control car that drove right in front of me this time (I swear I wanted to smash it like a bug) and the normal, business "what's so weird about me" faces of salesmen. Then the yogurt lady. This time I said yes. I took the double yogurt thingy from her. I like to think that the whole point of it all was for the yogurt. To do the right thing and accept it! Haha. It's on my bed and I'm afraid it's filled with poison. But that comes from hearing when I was a kid that people on halloween put razors in candy.

I won't even get into how the metro was filled with people today. Well, it always is, no matter when you use it.

Insane day. Tomorrow will be a completely different animal.

Blogland Revisited!

Dear Scone,

I had to wake up earlier today than on usual Mondays. Not that bad (9:00 haha). The other 7 and I had to meet Maria (one of the head secretaries of the boss at Nakas) to go to the visa office. We are all staying here 10 days longer than is required in a visiting visa so we had to extend it. Maria took care of it though so I we all just had to sit there for an hour or so, waiting. I wrote, thought and did some hilmwork (homework). After that, I practiced the flute and piano piece that Zoe wrote for our Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound class. Our teacher (the guy who loves the movie "La Vita e Bella" or "Life is Beautiful" and who is always funny and hyper) suddenly got the idea on one class that he wanted to record all of our odd meter songs that we wrote for the class. My song is "Poor Stuttering Jones" in 7/8.

My piano lesson was cool. He taught me some more cool progressions. Each lesson is anything I want it to be. It just helps to come with questions or an idea of what I want him to show me. Most of the time I think of these questions on the spot haha. But it felt good to show him a song I just wrote "You Always Can Count on a Song" that had two things in it that he had shown me; in the bridge, I use chords that come from basically splitting the octave into three equal major thirds (Bb -> Gb -> D -> Bb) which sounds fantastic for the song, and I also used a phrygian 5 chord instead of a normal one. The notes from bottom to top are F (bass), Gb, Bb, C, Eb, F.

I always have time on Mondays between my piano lesson and Music History 2 class. So I walked towards Syntagma, talked to Ricky on the way (he was heading home) and he noticed I had a chocolate donut in my hand which he thought was funny cause he always sees me with different sweet things, then headed straight to "Public", the video game/book store place. I went to other floors for a little this time. I thought that I saw a sign for music books. The sign said, "Biblia Paithia" which I though might mean kid books but I thought, "Oh that means play cause kids play and that must translate to music playing" so I went up there to look for a Sondheim music book I wanted cause I want to sing "All I Ask of You" for my voice lesson. It reminds me of Luke too. He sang it last 4th of July when I was at Jaimie's family party. His voice sounded so incredible under Jaimie's while I played badminton with Althea and fireworks flew up from behind the hill and into the sky. That was a gooood moment. I hugged Luke after that and told him "thank you" for giving me such an amazing moment. Something like that. But anyway, I got up to the 4th floor and it was a children's floor. Just kid's toys and books.

So I went back down, searched around the bookstore for a while and then went down to the GAME ZONE! Best name ever. There's this escalator that goes through this black archway with that title written above it and mario is greeting you at the top along with some other characters, all lit up with bright, close to neon colors. Mario stands out for me. Every time I say "Ahhhh best place ever." There's even a tunnel lined with pictures of different video games like you enter an ancient video game castle. And in different rooms are all sorts of games you can try on different systems. There are also fun hands on things you can try like today there was a racing car in the Wii room that you could sit in. I sat in it, put my hands on the steering wheel and pointed the controller, which was stuck in the steering wheel to the screen. And it didn't work. Only some of the buttons worked. Then it ran out of batteries. Haha. So I went over to another machine and chose to play a Wolverine game. I don't know, looked fun. He's my favorite X-men character. It ended up just being a demo video. I walked away muttering, "I don't wanna watch a dumb video game movie. I wanna play the damn thing." Hahaha. I wasn't upset, just frustrated. It is ALWAYS a disappointment for gamers all over the world when he encounters a dud (a video in place of an actual interactive demo - Dumb (f)Uck Demo)

After the video game store, which was worth it even though there was a dud cause it's always worth it to be in that castle, I walked back to the school, had my History of Music lesson. I, for some reason, was fighting to even start THINKING about falling asleep. Usually in class you get the nods but this class is ONE on ONE. Just the teacher and me so I couldn't even flinch an eye. So I had to press my eyes open solely with my mind and think to myself, "You even close them for a second and nod your head a CENTIMETER, you are DEAD," so I made it. My head just got a little hot and I daydreamed a couple times. Besides that the class was good! I only missed some small things.

I wrote a song for you today ("you" as in Scone - remember, this letter is addressed to him)! Well, it's actually supposed to be a song "written" by you. I was getting so loud singing as you that our neighbors knocked. Well, they knocked one time when my head was simply against the wall and I laughed once at a movie I was watching. I didn't know my laugh was THAT loud. But since they knocked tonight, I had to go in the bathroom on the floor halfway between the first and the zero floor which is never occupied by anyone at night (or any other time that I've tried) and record in there!

HAPPY D-DAY SCONE!

I love you. You are so much a part of me it's insane.

Stoddy.

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Back on Saturday, I remember that I sat by the fountain which is in a square right near my hotel. That's the "other Momus", meaning that's the other place I like to sit and write. I wanted to add that cause I wasn't sure if I ever mentioned that area before. The high reaching fountain that turns off and on from time to time for no reason (on them it turned off right at the moment that a little kid touched the side of it so he tried to turn it on again right after - it was hilarious) in the square that Cody, Ricky and I hang out in, either on the benches with cheap beers (we don't sit on actual outside restaurant chairs cause we'd have to buy something from the restaurant) or go in the bar called "Sutsu" which is our most frequented place. The first bar we ever went to was "Palacio", which is owned by a moderately overweight Greek man that was expecting a baby "any day now" when we talked to him last. We'll see him again I'm sure and we'll hear all about the baby. I haven't gone in his place for about a month and a half.

That paragraph was confusing with all its parenthesis.