If Beverly Hills, 90210 had taken place in Prague. . .

This one is dedicated to Miranda Hansen

So I'm finally ready to start blogging about the adventures my mom and I had in Europe. Sorry for the delay, but work got crazy and I had other stuff that was a bit more pressing.

While in Vienna, my mom and I took the opportunity to visit some Heurigen, Viennese wine gardens. Now, I'd like to start off by saying there is definitely a reason that Viennese wine has not made a big splash on the international wine market: it's not particularly good. It seems to be mostly really sour white wine, and apparently has been likened to the experience of drinking straight vinegar. I didn't personally think it was that bad, but I could see why you would.

(Note: I should make a distinction between Viennese wine and Austrian wine. As a country, I'd say the Austrians have a pretty good handle on wine making, particularly their dry white, Vetliner. That's a really good wine. The knowledge just didn't make the trip into the big city, apparently.)

Anyway, we went to the Heurigen, ate some unidentifiable meat products from the buffet and drank some vinegar wine, where I happily served myself a good solid "two fingers" of wine with dinner.

Argentina: variations on a theme

So here's the difference between Sejal's work friends and my work friends when it comes to planning vacations.

Sejal's work friends are suggesting that we go to the wine country of Argentina and check out some vineyards.

My work friends are suggesting I go to Bolivia (because there are more people organized into unions than anywhere else in the world) and check out one of the factories that's been taken over by workers and made into a collective.

And on a different note, Brianne bought her ticket for Buenos Aires this morning. Anyone else interested?

I'm officially bouncing off walls. . . .

because I'm going to ARGENTINA in November!!! And better yet, I'm going with my very good friend from school, Sejal, who embraces the awkward better than anyone I know, even me. And, on a whim, I jokingly told our friend Brianne (who is currently working on a political campaign and will thus be unemployed come November 7th) that she should come, too. And I think she's going to! Woohoo!

And now that I've used up my 2006 supply of exclamation points, I'll get back to work.

Axtlan Taqueria: where everybody knows your name. . . .

Or in this case, your meat preference.

So I don't eat out that often, certainly much less than most of my co-workers. And I would say of the times that I do go out to eat, I go to the taqueria down the street--Axtlan Taqueria--maybe once every 3 or 4 weeks.

Apparently, however, in the year that I've been working at EBASE, I've gone there enough that I've become a familiar face, and a familiar order.

This became clear yesterday when I walked in and began contemplating my order.

I said, "Hi, I'd like the--"

"Axtlan plate with Carnitas, right?" the guy behind the counter finished for me. He had already begun chopping up the meat as he spoke.

I have to admit: I was a little taken aback. That was, in fact, what I was going to order. I had briefly flirted with ordering something else. Maybe chili verde in a burrito. But their carnitas is just so good, and the Axtlan plate is perfect when you're hungry.

I can't decide if I'm horrified at my own predictability, or happy to have become enough of a rgeular that they know what I want. It's probably a little bit of both.

Priceless

Finally back from vacation in Vienna/Prague/Salzburg, etc--with lots of stories and pictures to share. I am, however, running on more than 24 hours without sleep, and must overcome nasty nasty jetlag before the catch-up blogging can begin. But in the meantime, here's a little something to laugh about:

Traditional Czech dinner in a restaurant on the Old Town Square in Prague: 350 Czech crowns.

Famously strong Turkish coffee after dinner: 30 Czech crowns.

Watching a random tourist suddenly decide to strip down and interpretive dance in the square until the police arrested her: priceless.

(I really tried to take pictures of this, but unfortunately the crowd around her got too thick, and it was way too dark for the pictures to turn out well. So you'll just have to take my word for it--or the word of the hundreds of other locals and tourists who witnessed it as well!)

Yummy

In keeping with the grand old tradition that says that Labor people never actually get Labor Day off, most of my coworkers and I worked yesterday. Part of the day's work involved manning a table at the Central Labor Council's annual Labor Day barbecue. The cooking at the Labor Day barbecue is always done by the Local Firefighter's union, and I have to say: the collective hotness of the firemen was definitely the highlight of my day. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who knew me in college.

Here is a picture of some of the firemen (although it totally does not do their hotness justice). And as a funny side note: the reason the firemen were posing like this is because they were having their picture taken with Phil Angelides, Democratic candidate for governor. Brooke--who took this picture and clearly has her priorities straight--cropped Phil out of the picture so we could just focus on the firemen. Thank you Brooke!

Adventures in Hiking

This post is actually from last weekend, but I couldn't find the cord to download the photos onto my computer and thus it had to wait until now to be posted. Last Saturday, Josh and I, in desperate need of some nature, went for a hike in Tilden Regional Park. I had found a hike I wanted to do and wrote out the directions. However, within 3 minutes of starting out (and that's actually not an exaggeration) we had messed up the directions and got lost.

The upside of getting lost is that we stumbled upon San Pablo Reservoir (after scrambling down a really steep hill that may or may not have been private property. Ooops.), where we had ourselves a fabulous little picnic and rented a kayak for some afternoon paddling. The only downside is that we then had to scramble back up the really steep hill before we treated ourselves with much needed slurpies from the nearest 7-11. Overall, a damn good Saturday in the East Bay. (The rhyming, by the way, is totally intentional.)

Josh and Claire (Disclaimer: Josh wants to point out that everytime he has been photographically represented on my blog, it has been misleading. He does not generally sport the mountain man facial hair seen here. Nor does he usually sport the too-tight purple tank top we saw him in at the beginning of the summer.)

Oh, que mess!

So I mentioned in my blog post from yesterday that I am sad, tired, confused, overwhelmed and furstrated. All of those things are still true. Except for tired. 11 hours of sleep and at least I'm no longer tired. I just wish I could scratch those other adjectives off the list as easily.

My life is a royal mess at the moment. And I don't really know what to do about it. I have so many decisions that I have to make, and I have absolutely no idea where or how to start.

I'm leaving my job on October 20th. That much is certain. But other than that? I need to decide what I'm doing and where I'm doing it after that. Do I want to keep organizing? I love organizing. Should I go back to working at my old job with the union? Should I take them up on this short-term job in Hawaii? I also hate organizing. I love and hate organizing. So that's helpful.

Am I serious about this going to law school business? Where? When? What happens if I don't take the LSAT until December and I fuck it up? Can I even register for the December LSAT since I don't know where the hell I'm going to be? If I'm serious about law school does it really make sense to move now--with the all the expenses of moving and the fact that I'd be giving up my California state residency? And if I am serious about law school then what the hell am I going to do between now and then?

And what if it's not law school and it's not organizing? What do I want to do? And where? I do not do not DO NOT want to be in California any longer. I have no friends here anymore, no relationship, no prospects, no job. I'm tired of the lefter than thous. I'm tired of everything being so expensive. Apparently, I am still tired after all.

FABULOUS!

I just had a drunk coversation with my Dutch friend, Sophie. By which I mean that she was drunk and I was . . . .tired? Sad? Confused and overwhelmed and frustrated? Yes to all of those, but more on that later. Mostly I was just entertained, because it is not often that I get to talk to Sophie when she is drunk (or really at all, given the time difference).

Sophie pointed out that she doesn't feel she has gotten equal representation on my blog. This is mostly because she doesn't have a blog I can link to, and because she's not here to do crazy stuff with (but I know there would be no end to the crazy stuff if she were here), but it's a fair point, nonetheless.

So I decided that I would dedicate the blog entry to talking about why Sophie is fabulous. Here are 5 reasons that Sophie is fabulous and fantastic and many other good things, too:

5) Give her a bottle of windex and she can kill ants with the best of them.
4) She's better at rallying the troops for big, social fun than anyone else I know
3) She's a fantastic wingwoman. But she really should tone down the match-making. :-)
2) She has this great "leg-humping" dance she does when she's excited and trying to embarass me that I find very endearing (and yes, embarassing, too).
1) Her relentless insistence that I move to Holland, get a job as a union organizer, marry a tall Dutch man (because she tells me they're all tall) and eat a lot of bread and cheese. Because even though it's not going to happen, I appreciate that she continues to push for it.

Oh, and one last reason Sophie is fabulous: her opinions on gender roles in professional soccer.

Only at Berkeley

I was out at UC Berkeley's club sign-up day yesterday, trying to recruit potential activtists for a union organizing campaign we're supporting at work. Here's the thing that makes UC Berkeley's club sign-up day different from anywhere else I've ever been or heard of:

There were protesters.

Yup. People with picket signs, protesting club sign-up day. Or more specifically, protesting the amount of paper being wasted by all the flyers clubs were giving out at club sign-up day. And these protesters were serious--they were screaming at people not to take the flyers, and demanding that people recycle them when they were done reading them.

I'm all for recycling, reducing waste, and protests, but seriously kids? If you are concerned about the environment, seems like you could have thought a little harder and dug a little deeper to find an environmental campaign with a bit more impact than what's going to be accomplished by heckling a bunch of freshman out of accepting a flyer about joining the newspaper staff.

I'm just saying.