BEHOLD, BUTTER!

DETAIL RESEARCH: SOUTH AFRICA

Before spending over $1200 for flights into and out of South Africa & Pals, I'm doing more research.

Need to be sure I don't get caught up in 'something sucktastic'.  Again.

South African cities that look like they don't suck for pricing:

Durban - plenty of stuff, around 8 eur for dorm bed on up.
Port Elizabeth - good
Kimberly - not listed in h/h
Upington - not listed in h/h
Cape Town - fine
Pretoria - so so - not a lot to see there but there are a couple places and it seems close to NERO South Africa.

Note - avoid Johannesburg, South Africa - does NOT look nice at all in the description on wikitravel.



LONG TERM RENTAL TRICKS:  HOTEL

At some point, attempt to discretely tip the cleaning staff.

"Money?  Either he is a very good guest or attempting to lure us both into his room."

If you think by giving it to the main desk it will somehow magically find its way into the pockets of the cleaning staff, I'm going to label you a tad bit idealistic.  Besides, if you do that, it misses all of the psychological advantages to directly gifting it.

The amount does not need to be a lot, a couple bucks will do.  The initial tip may be the only time you give it to them.

For those who don't know how to tip, you do it before the service.  How people in the USA got into the habit of tipping afterward is a mystery of the clueless.  Seriously - try it out some time.  You know about what your bill will be.  When the waiter/waitress/robot/mutant/other greets you say "Hey, I know our bill is going to be about $40.  "I'm just going to give you your $8 (or whatever) now instead of later.  Thanks for what I'm sure will be a satisfactory evening."  I've known a lot of people who have worked in the horrible food service industry and I don't think any of them would throw the money back in your face and say "To hell with that, I don't want it till after the meal!"  They will take it and know they're not going to be (as they say in the USA) 'stiffed'.   But Logan, how will you know you will get service worth tipping?  Try this method and see if the general level of your service doesn't increase a bit.  Oh but what if it comes out to 18% instead of 20%?  It's a tip - not required - not written in any rule book.  Just give them what you want at the start with that explanation and things will go smoothly.

Getting back to the house cleaners, near the beginning of your stay you should identify who actually does the cleaning.  Out of sight of the front desk, slip them a couple bucks.  If the front desk finds out, they may demand the money from the unfortunates.  Really, this does happen in some places.  Don't ask the front desk about it, never mention it.

Here's the odd thing.  In the countries I stay ('developing') this really doesn't get you any better service.  Weird, I know.  What it does buy you is just a bit of 'good will'.

This good will can pay off in unexpected, unasked for dividends later.

And they will remember you.  How many people do you think actually take the time to acknowledge them - much less tip them?

Probably just you.

So for under $3-$5, totally worth it if you are staying two weeks or longer.  If you go away and come back, do they remember you?  Hell yes they do.

This also works with pretty much anyone who isn't the manager.  After a couple days in the hotel, figure out who you interact with regularly and try to make their lives a bit more cheery.  It's cheap and it makes you feel better.  Aside from the money part.  But better overall.



HOSPITAL STORIES

While I was at the hospital, a screaming kid was brought in.  He had a good 7 cm open wound in the middle of his forehead.  As with all head wounds, it bled like a bitch.

After the kid got patched up, I was talking with an older female member of his family.  "I hope he's OK.  After he gets his scar he can always tell the other kids at school he is Harry Potter."

After she realized who Harry Potter was, she, the rest of the family and the kid cheered up considerably.  It seemed to be very good news for the dazed kid.

I didn't tell him he'd have to fight Voldemort later.

I'd decided to go in to the hospital earlier to have a check on my foot to make sure nothing was broken in there.  Limping around sucks, plus I wasn't able to run.  Not that I would classify myself as a world class sprinter but in 'my line of work' being able to sprint about three meters to the other side of the street can often determine whether 'life' continues to be on my agenda.

For seeing the doctor it was seven denar and another twenty three for the xrays.  Thirty denar is a bit under seventeen US dollars.  Not sure how much it would have cost to pull up to the emergency room and get in and out service within an hour but guessing it would be more.

Nothing was broken.  Better safe than sorry.

Sadly, the doctor got a look at my legs and freaked out a bit.  She is convinced that every time my edema hits (imagine your legs swelling up a bit) then I'm going to have this rather nasty skin rash/disease/pox.  She told me I'd need penicillin every two weeks for the rest of my life.  I started laughing and said I couldn't keep track of two weeks.  Heck, I was lucky to take my medicine daily.

She also wants me to take some days off my foot and just rest.  Again, this doesn't work out because if I don't walk around for a couple hours every day the body wide arthritis torments the shit out of me.  I assured her aside from my 'constitutionals' I'd spend the rest of the time on my fat ass.

She was not pleased.

Of course, the hospital stocked nothing in the way of medicine so I was sent out to a pharmacy.  The doctors didn't think the mention all of the nearby pharmacies shut down from noon till three.

Why do they shut down?  Fuck you, that's why.

Yeah.

With the single-mindedness of an MMO quester and five pharmacies later I'd only found one actually open and  no they didn't carry penicillin.  They tried to send me to a pharmacy that was closed but I was on to their evil tricks.

Tomorrow I will go get the shot in my ass.  The penicillin.  Only that.  You dirty wretches.

Of course, the doctor did slip in some other medicine that actually cost more than the appointment with x-rays so I'll eat through that for the next ten days and see if anything happens other than being out twenty or thirty bucks.



BEHOLD, BUTTER!

Normally, I am not one of those desperate sad people ("I am eating at McDonald's, yum yum!") who talk about their individual meals.

However, this one was so bad - yet good - and very indicative of Tunisian food.

The German speaking waiter convinced me against my better judgement to eat a meal at the hotel.  There are a couple reasons I don't eat at the hotel and the inflated cost is one.

"Only 10 dinars!"  That's under $6 and within my tight ass budget.  ("We're getting ready for the big push!"  Note for this to be an effective quote, you have to have seen the ancient movie "Lawrence of Arabia".)

He brought me out some ignorable bread but oddly, two small packets of butter.

It's been months since I've eaten any butter.  Really.

Four packets of butter, 6 pieces of indifferent bread, one cooked chicken that was warm in the extremities and icy inside making me wonder what the fuck they did to it (not eaten) and some soggy greasy fries later I was done eating.

The little packets of butter were seriously the best part of the whole fucking meal.



TUNISIAN TOOTHPASTE

Never have I, in the heat of passion decided to flip some lucky girl over for a rim job.  Hence, I've never 'eaten ass'.

But Tunisian toothpaste tastes how I've always thought ass might.



TABLETOP RPG IDEA

Oddly, this came to me in a dream.  Thought I would set it down in case anyone else wanted to use it and possibly to remind myself later.  And for the copyright!  Lo, the copyright!  It's all mine.  Send me money.

Anyway, back when I was running tabletop gaming, they had the Dreamlands (Call of Cthulhu RPG).  They had always bothered me a bit because a dream doesn't work quite like that.

Unknown to me, my subconscious had been working on the problem.

The GM makes a deck of cards, writing on blank three by fives.  The cards will include such things as gear, setting, NPC's names, etc.  These cards can be as detailed or general as they wish.  You could even have one which says 'setting' or something more detailed such as 'forest grove' or mega detailed such as 'red quarter of Karnath'.

Each sitting player gets three cards.  The GM deals out three cards (more if they are feeling frisky) and builds his scene with those elements within.

For example:  The GM is doing a fairly standard scene involving an angry troll and the players wanting to cross his bridge.  On both sides of the bridge are thick forest and in the distance the objective of the players, the Dungeon of Doom.  The cards the GM has picked are 'birds', 'horse', 'ballista'.  The GM could describe a horse firing birds with it's ballista, or have the birds turn out to actually be small flying ballista.  The bridge is in the shape of a horse.  This brings in the dreamlike elements.

If the GM brings something up (not the players, nor the players tricking the GM into it) the players can make a card of the thing or place and add it to the current cards in the GM's 'pot'.  In addition, the players can attempt to add one of their own cards to the pot.

Eventually, the GM will announce a scene change.  Each player has the option of either taking a card out of the middle to become one of their three (discard extras) or asking the GM to 'keep that element in'.

Example:  The players had been making friends with the troll and one of the players wrote 'Hruk the bridge troll' on a card and placed it in the GM's pot during the scene on the bridge.  When the GM announced "You guys find yourself in front of the Dungeon of Doom", one of the players announced he wishes to keep the card of 'Hruk the bridge troll'.

Now, the GM could choose to make Hurk flee back to his bridge, join the party, become enraged and attack the party or do something else odd.

By adding in these cards, dream like elements can be added to the game.  The players have a little bit of control (as do some of the more skilled dreamers of real life) but by sticking together (always a problem in RPG's) they can exert more control over the dream.

HISTORY OF LOGAN, VOLUME 2

ONCE UPON A TIME....  Part 2

For those just tuning in, this is a recounting through the cobwebs of memory of my first trip through part of the world back when Europe looked more like this:

At the time when stuff like this was still around

Everything in here is true as far as my wacked out mind can remember.  I've told and retold parts of these stories often and hopefully they haven't grown in the retelling.  If they have, well, I hope you find it entertaining.


After getting my painful inoculations and enough gear to live out in the woods perpetually I was ready to depart with one friend and one acquaintance.

The friend was Roy.  He was of half Egyptian and half other (no idea) descent.  I'd met him while attending some philosophy classes in the college on base.  He was a smart guy and spoke three languages I knew of - Arabic, English and German.  If he spoke more, he never mentioned it.  We did a lot of table top gaming together and hung out.

I remember he had messy black hair, round glasses and was very excited and passionate about everything.  He often wildly gesticulated and leaned forward when he talked, a feature I later came to associate with Egyptians.

There is a small scar on the back of my right hand from one of his celebrations of Ramadan.  During those days, I knew little of the holiday.  What I did know is that during the day time, Roy would become progressively more insane from lack of food and water.  When dusk neared, he would prepare a large meal so that when the clock showed him the sun had gone down, he could gorge himself.  I'd made the mistake of trying to filch a piece of food before gorging time, hence the scar.  He was quick.  Roy was the leader of the group.  He'd traveled at some point in the past and did all of the route planning.  In fact, I don't remember ever making any sort of decision - just paying my share for tickets, food and so on.

Hunter I knew less well other than when he wanted to he could be very funny.  He was also a gamer (table top RPG's) but not as serious as Roy.  Hunter had shoulder length hair and a long face and made a lot of women sigh when they saw him.   Other than doing some gaming with him, I really didn't know him that well.  When you travel with someone you don't know well, you could get someone amazing to travel with (like Pete H. who I traveled with for a month when I first started my current voyage) or someone like Hunter who you'd later plot to kill.

It was with these two people we would set off into what was pretty much 'the unknown'.  Remember that the wall had just come down and there were not a lot of reports as to what was happening over there nor even what existed.  This was at the time before guide books.  Well before the internet existed in any kind of useful form.  There were no smart phones for people to bury themselves into and ignore what was going on around them.  If you were bored, your two choices were either talking to someone else or reading a paper back book you'd lugged with you.

There are a lot of stupid lazy young people.  I was one of them.  It can even be argued that I've grown into a stupid lazy adult.  Because I was stupid and lazy at the time, thoughts of writing down things so they could be preserved didn't even enter my mind.  As a result, my memories are more like snapshots.  These days, I encourage any young people I come across to write things down.  Whether they choose to make them available to others or not is up to them.  You don't write them down for now but to savor or review later in life perhaps after decades.  The excuse that often comes up is they'd rather live in the moment than detract from it, pausing to write things down.  Short sighted.  The moment can be experienced more than once!

The lack of notes is distressing.

Our starting point was Munich.  Rather than taking a train or something, it was to be mostly hitchhiking.

Even today, hitchhiking in Europe is not uncommon.  Young people do it to get around.  Contrast with America where even in the 1980's it was not only seen as dangerous but often illegal.

Of the rides the three of us with our over packed packs received in Germany, only two do I recall.

One was a nun in a subcompact.  She obviously wanted to be charitable and dare I say Christian and give us a ride.  We somehow managed to stuff ourselves and packs into the go kart sized car without lube.  Nuns are unlikely to carry such.  It was also the shortest ride we received.  I think she just took us down a hill and that was her destination.

The second which stands out was a pretty eighteen year old girl driving a large van.  Imagine that if you will.  A pretty girl driving a large empty van happy to stop for three disreputable looking backpackers on the side of the road.  There are so many ways in which this could go wrong.  Some may point out that it is also an interesting beginning for a porno movie.  In our case, we put our best German speaker up in the passenger seat (Roy) to chat with her while Hunter and I fell asleep in the back.

This was in the days before every German learned English.  In those days if you didn't try to at least slaughter their language they wouldn't reveal schooling at Harvard and their English was better than yours.

The other memory I have involves a bit of illegal camping in West Germany.  We may have still been in Bavaria at the time and lugging our anvil packs.  We decided to hide out in a bit of forest and do some illegal camping.  Were there legal places to camp?  Probably.  Did we have a clue where they were?  Who knows.  We just decided to camp in the woods.

Since I'd spent years in the military, my job was to make sure we weren't found.  Camouflage is all about breaking up the straight lines and blending in to natural surroundings.  Years of sitting behind various desks (with an occasional moonlight chase thrown in for spice) qualified me to do some camouflage work on the tents.  I did the best I could but later training shows we'd have probably been more hidden and less comfortable in debris shelters.


We may have been there for a couple days before the gig was up.  While we were walking down the road sans packs carrying groceries to our hidden camp the forester drove by and scowled at us.  The scowl may have been from snapping his head around to glare at us.  We knew he'd be seeking us.  After delving once again into the forest and adding a few more touches to the camouflage a small yellow helicopter flew around looking for us.  Even at the fairly low altitude it flew we were pretty confident he couldn't find us.

He did.

To this day, I've no idea how it happened.  The day after the helicopter search he just appeared in the woods a large muscular barrel chested guy wearing a feathered cap and leiderhosen.  The leiderhosen are why I'm thinking this must have taken place in Bavaria.  Northern Germans would rather be caught without pants than in leiderhosen.

This red faced bull of a man just materialized from the woods carrying an absurdly large heavy tool - perhaps a tree snipper over one shoulder.  I remember thinking that a swing of that could probably crush my skull.

To our surprise, he was rather cool about our encroachment into his woods.

"I am responsible for these woods."  He told us in German.  Pointing, he said "But I am not responsible for those woods."

Rather than move our campsite we decided to just press on and head into East Germany.

Leiderhosen.

Eventually, we arrived at the imposing East German border.

Although I was trying to play it cool, I'm sure I was very nervous.  Probably was worried they'd start shouting "Du bist ein Spion!" (You are a spy!) and haul me off never to be seen again.   Just like today, it was very easy to be 'disappeared'.  At that time the guys doing it were the infamous East German Stasi.  They combined all of the best (worst) qualities of a ruthless Russian controlled secret police with the same German efficiency and attention to detail you get with the people who designed and crafted Porsche.

Those ass clenching moments at the border have slipped from my memories and my only other memory of East Germany is the 'tourist hotel'.

At that time, there was only one place we were allowed to stay.  The hotel for 'westerners'.  

When we first arrived, dirty and disheveled the disgusted old lady barked at us to leave our shoes near the door.  We were provided with fluffy slippers.  These were to be worn at all times within the shiny wooden floored building.

After the obligatory mountain of paper work, we were required to leave our passports with the front desk.   During those days you always had to leave the passport with the hotel.  I'm not sure what would happen if you were stopped in the streets and asked for your papers by the police - or the secret police.  I presume that although they knew you of course had to leave your passport with the hotel it would be a gravely illegal crime not to carry it on you at all times - punishable by a hefty fine and some time in a squalid prison full of burly men who think you have a pretty mouth.  For whatever reason leaving passports with the hotel is no longer done.  The only times I my current trip I've had to surrender my passport for an extended period of time were for sea voyages.  I presume they keep them not only to get them processed faster but to keep track of who all was lost while at sea.

We swished our way up to the room.  Not a lot of details remain in my mind other than by prearrangement we talked only either of banal things such as how much we liked East Germany or the weather while we all searched for listening devices.

We found five.

That was one of the things I've always liked about the USSR.  Heavy handed and not very competent.  Had these been hidden professionally, we wouldn't have found them without either electronics or ripping up the walls.  Having a 'bug' behind wall paper makes it really hard to find - even with the 1980's tech we had at the time.  Or the 1960's tech the Soviets had bothered to employ within this room.  Still, you can never tell who is listening.  Obviously, we left them all in place and were sure to have a conversation which would be a great read from a transcript.

In the morning, we had one of the finest breakfasts I've had to this day.  It was a stout German breakfast with the addition of fruits, breads and real honey.  That was the first time experiencing honey with the comb.  Which is much different than not only the honey sold in the stores in the USA but Honeycomb.

While in the DDR [Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German), the German Democratic Republic (English)] I was amazed.  Unlike pristine West Germany, Eastern Germany was a mess like river beds filled with trash and old tires.  There didn't seem to be any emission controls on vehicles so the air was so thick you had to hack a hole in it to breath.  Ugly, gray and depressing.  Stores with long lines and nothing on the shelves.

After they reunified, it took hundreds of billions of dollars (maybe has high as 850 billion) to fix up East Germany to get it closer to the level of West Germany though many people say it's not there yet.  (Note, as of 2013 Berlin looks great.)  That gives you some idea of just how fucked up the DDR had become from the end of World War 2 till the early 1990's.  Approximately 41 years of communism to completely trash the place.

When someone tells me about communism I can say I've seen the result.  It looks good on paper but the reality is something even vodka can't fix.

In the next exciting issue we move out of the DDR and onward.



LOGANISMS

I was talking to the owner of the hostel and told her I was sick of visiting countries of little people.

"Just once, I want to go to a country of huge, fat people that make me look anorexic.  I want to walk into a clothing shop with my head held high and ask for a shirt, size medium!"

She told me Samoa was very expensive.

I told her in America they have support groups for anorexics.  "I've always wanted to go to one and look very depressed and say 'I just feel fat'.  Possibly while eating donuts."

She said "You can cry too.  In Ecuador they have only support groups for alcoholics and drug users."

"What - to get more alcohol and drugs?  Sounds fine."



OH TIMMY

"When I was a kid I always wanted to grow up and become a train conductor or a gynecologist. I suppose thats because I really like tunnels."  - Tim